Irish rally for government action on abortion

DUBLIN (Reuters) – At least 5,000 people marched to the offices of Ireland‘s socially conservative prime minister on Saturday to call for clearer guidelines on abortion following the death of a woman denied a termination.

It was the largest of a wave of protests across Ireland in recent days in response to the death of 31-year old Indian woman Savita Halappanavar who died of septicaemia following a miscarriage 17 weeks into her pregnancy.

The Irish health authority (HSE) has launched an inquiry into the death, which has reopened a decades-long debate over whether the government should legislate to explicitly allow abortion when the health of a mother is at risk.

Activists in the overwhelmingly Catholic country, which has some of the world’s most restrictive laws on abortion, say the refusal by doctors to terminate the pregnancy earlier may have contributed to Halappanavar‘s death.

“A vibrant, healthy woman starting her family life has died needlessly … because of the failure of successive governments to deal with this issue,” independent member of parliament Clare Daly told the crowd, which responded with chants of “shame.”

Irish law does not specify exactly when the threat to the life or health of the mother is high enough to justify a termination, leaving doctors to decide. Critics say this means doctors’ personal beliefs can play a role.

Despite a dramatic waning of the influence of the Catholic Church, which dominated politics in Ireland until the 1980s, successive governments have been loath to legislate on an issue they fear could alienate conservative voters.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose ruling Fine Gael party made an election pledge not to introduce new laws allowing abortion, on Friday said he would not be rushed into a decision on the issue.

Halappanavar was admitted to hospital in severe pain on October 21 and asked for a termination after doctors told her the baby would not survive, according to her husband Praveen.

The foetus was surgically removed when its heartbeat stopped days later, but her family believes the delay contributed to the blood poisoning that killed Halappanavar on October 28.

“I just feel outrage,” said Mary Sheehan, a midwife in her 50s, who took part in the march with a sign that read “Vatican Republic killed Savita. “I want the message to out her parents that the Irish people are demanding change.”

The crowd also targeted the government’s junior coalition partner, the Labour Party, which is more socially liberal, for not doing more to force change on the issue, chanting “shame on Labour.”

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Jason Webb)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

To Get Rich in China Is Not So Glorious

In the course of a U.S. presidential campaign, the American public is bombarded with surveys asking voters to rank the relative importance of various issues, and whether they think the country is overall on the right track. Not so in China, where another leadership transition has just concluded, with the 18th Party Congress choosing Xi Jinping to succeed Hu Jintao as party secretary now and, in March, as president of China.

But a handful of recent studies do give some insight into public sentiment in the world’s second-largest economy on the eve of its once-in-a-decade leadership transition. The upshot: More wealth buys more cars and handbags, but not necessarily happiness—and white-collar workers in China’s fast-changing economy are the most likely in the world to say they’re more stressed out this year than last. Overall life satisfaction has declined since 1990.

“Sometimes I feel like I am driving down an expressway, speeding from one place to another, but I forgot the reason and I do not know the final destination,” says Rebecca Jiang, a 29-year-old civil servant. The petite woman, sipping a fruit smoothie at a teahouse, in many ways seems to be living the modern Chinese dream: Jiang moved from her hometown in Anhui province to Beijing for college in 2002; she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from respected universities, scored well on the highly competitive civil-servant exam, and in June got married. Yet these achievements have not erased the gnawing feeling that she is racing just to stay in place: “I do not have the time or energy to enjoy the scenery. Maybe it is about my personal goals: I am so busy I do not know what I really like, who I want to be. I am just traveling around. I am speeding even.”

Money is one source of stress. Home prices have quadrupled in a decade in Beijing, but salaries haven’t risen so fast. “My parents and my husband’s parents had to spend all their savings to buy us an apartment,” says Jiang. It’s out near the Sixth Ring Road—the capital’s outermost perimeter—and is a 90-minute to three-hour drive into central Beijing, depending on traffic. They bought it secondhand and paid 2 million RMB, or about $ 317,000.

She and her husband, who works for a multinational company, are keeping up with the rising costs and complexities of life in the crowded megacity—but just barely, she says. “We are too tired to talk in the evenings. We just go to bed, so we can get up early and do it again.” As for her job: “It is not so good as I thought it would be. Sometimes I have to work like a robot. You have to do what you are told to do, not what you think you should do.”

Recently the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences conducted a survey asking residents of China’s capital whether their quality of life had greatly improved, slightly improved, remained the same, or declined over the period 2005 to 2011. One-fifth of respondents said it had improved slightly, but two-fifths said it had declined. (Only 1 percent said life had improved greatly.)

“The fast changes in China as well as the uncertainties about the future create great psychological pressures,” says Peking University sociologist Xia Xueluan. “Happiness does not merely depend on wealth.” He adds: “For migrant workers, their major pressure is to keep up with costs of living, while for the urban white-collar workers, their major pressure is competition: extreme competition for promotion and recognition.”

Regus, a U.K.-based office-space company, this year polled white-collar workers around the globe and asked whether respondents agreed with the statement “My stress levels have risen in the past year.” The country with the highest proportion of “yes” respondents was China, by a significant margin: 75 percent. (No. 2 was Germany, at 58 percent.) Seventy-three percent of respondents in China said their job was a major source of stress.

In October, the Pew Global Attitudes Project released its survey results for China. Half of respondents said that corrupt officials were now a “very big problem” and 48 percent said the gap between rich and poor was. (In 2008, the responses to the same questions were, respectively, 39 percent and 41 percent.) Among Pew’s most arresting findings was identifying a widespread belief that China’s system creates not only inequality of wealth, but also inequality of opportunity. Nearly 8 in 10 respondents agreed with this statement: The “rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.”

“This country has a very unbalanced income structure, and for young working people it’s getting tougher and tougher to make a living” in the leading cities, says Han Cheng, a researcher with an international NGO in Beijing. As he sees it, the country’s meritocratic promise is waning: “Before, everyone was equally poor and unprivileged. But now there is a privileged class, and for people in that class, there are so many ways for them to receive benefits from their family.”

Richard A. Easterlin, an economist at the University of Southern California, in April published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on “life satisfaction” in China over the past two decades. Even as incomes have risen for all socioeconomic groups, he found that the percentage of people reporting their life satisfaction was “good or very good” had declined markedly from 1990 to 2007 for those of low and moderate incomes, while ticking slightly upward for China’s richest.

“One may reasonably ask, how it is possible for life satisfaction not to improve in the face of such a marked advance in per capita GDP from a very low initial level?” Easterlin wrote. “In answer it is pertinent to note the growing evidence of the importance of relative income comparisons and material aspirations in China, which tend to negate the effect of rising income.” In other words, money alone doesn’t bring happiness—having more money than your neighbor might.

Comparing her life to her cousin in her small hometown, Jiang expresses mixed feelings. Her cousin lives just a five-minute walk from her office, works fewer hours, and has a larger apartment for less money. “Sometimes I wonder why I stay in Beijing,” she reflects. But then, after a moment, she points out that if she has a child, living in China’s capital will “give him the chance to start life on a much bigger stage.” Of course, she quickly adds that she isn’t sure she wants a child—“it’s very expensive and takes a lot of energy; public kindergarten slots are hard to get and private ones are very costly. I’m expected to have a child, but I’m just not sure.”

Larson is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.

Businessweek.com — Top News

Read More..

Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the “Iron Dome” defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister – and struck a police headquarters.

Along the Tel Aviv beachfront, volleyball games came to an abrupt halt and people crouched as sirens sounded. Two interceptor rockets streaked into the sky. A flash and an explosion followed as Iron Dome, deployed only hours earlier near the city, destroyed the incoming projectile in mid-air.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia’s foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Officials in Gaza said 43 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh’s office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister’s office and pledged: “We will declare victory from here.”

Hamas‘s armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday’s rocket attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

“Well that wasn’t such a big deal,” said one woman, who had watched the interception while clinging for protection to the trunk of a baby palm tree on a traffic island.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Among those killed in airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding on motorcycles.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, along with appeals to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

RESERVIST CALL-UP

At a late night session on Friday, Israeli cabinet ministers decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said, in a signal Israel was edging closer to an invasion.

Around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan … it will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

“Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river,” Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he surveyed the wreckage from a bomb-blast site in central Gaza.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s manoeuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

“DE-ESCALATION”

Netanyahu spoke late on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama for the second time since the offensive began, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“(Netanyahu) expressed his deep appreciation for the U.S. position that Israel has a right to defend itself and thanked him for American aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries,” the statement added.

The two leaders have had a testy relationship and have been at odds over how to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

A White House official said on Saturday Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss how the two countries could help bring an end to the Gaza conflict.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Washington “wants the same thing as the Israelis want”, an end to rocket attacks from Gaza. He said the United States is emphasizing diplomacy and “de-escalation”.

In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had spoken to Netanyahu and Egypt’s Mursi, stressing to the Israeli leader that Israel had a right to self-defense and that a ceasefire must be agreed as soon as possible to avoid more bloodshed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

The Israeli military said 492 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the operation began. Iron Dome intercepted another 245.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some families in Gaza have abandoned their homes – some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets – and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton in Tel Aviv, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Crispian Balmer)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Apple, Samsung allowed to add products in U.S. patent lawsuit

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge allowed Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to pursue claims the iPhone5 infringes its patents on Thursday, while also allowing Apple Inc to add claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III and the Jelly Bean operating system violate its patents.

The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California, was the latest development in a continuing legal war by Apple against manufacturers like Samsung whose products use Google Inc’s Android software.

Representatives for both Apple and Samsung declined comment.

The case is one of two patent infringement lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court in San Jose by Apple against Samsung. An earlier lawsuit by Apple that related to different patents resulted in a $ 1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung on August 24.

Apple filed the second lawsuit in February, alleging that various Samsung smartphone and tablet products including the Galaxy Nexus infringed eight of its patents.

Samsung denied infringement and filed a cross-complaint alleging that Apple’s iPhone and iPad infringed eight of its patents.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh issued a preliminary injunction against pretrial sales of the Nexus in June. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the sales ban on October 11.

Following the debut of the iPhone on September 21, Samsung sought to add it as an Apple product that infringed its patents. Apple moved likewise to add the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung Galaxy S III and the Jelly Bean operating system in connection with the Galaxy Nexus.

In his ruling Thursday, Grewal said Samsung acted with “reasonable diligence” in asking the court to allow it to add the iPhone 5 to the case.

Apple did not oppose adding the iPhone5. Nevertheless, Grewal warned Apple to “think twice before opposing similar amendments reflecting other newly released products — e.g. the iPad 4 and iPad mini — that Samsung may propose in the near future.”

The case is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al., U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 12-cv-00630.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Stephen Colbert joins US presidents at wax museum

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stephen Colbert is taking his place among the presidents at the Madame Tussauds wax museum in Washington and will be featured in a new media gallery.

Colbert visited the museum Friday to unveil a wax figure created to represent him. The museum says Colbert donated his own clothes to dress the figure in a suit, tie, cuff links and lapel pin. Colbert wore an identical outfit.

The new figure will be the centerpiece of a new media gallery with a replica of “The Colbert Report” set where guests can sit next to Colbert’s figure behind his fake news desk.

Designers from Madame Tussauds went to Colbert’s New York studio in June to take more than 250 measurements and photographs of the Comedy Central star to create the wax figure.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Should doctors add a birth control “vital sign”?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – An effort to develop a birth control “vital sign” measure gets doctors to document women’s use of contraception, but it doesn’t make them any more likely to include family planning counseling during visits, according to a new study.

The proposed “vital sign” consists of questions about contraception and pregnancy.

“We were hoping that this would be a prompt for much more provision of counseling by clinicians and what we saw was it only minimally affected the type of counseling that women were given,” said Dr. Eleanor Schwarz, the lead author of the study and the director of the Women’s Health Services Research Unit at the University of Pittsburgh.

“We got better documentation (by doctors), but we can’t say that women were better informed,” she added.

Unlike blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs, use of birth control is not often addressed during doctor visits, Schwarz said, but it should be for women of childbearing age.

According to Schwarz’s study, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, six percent of pregnancies are exposed to prescription medications that can cause a birth defect, because a large proportion of pregnancies are unplanned and birth control counseling rarely happens during physician visits.

For a year and a half, the patients of all 53 doctors in the study filled out standard intake forms. If the patient said she would like to become pregnant or wouldn’t mind becoming pregnant, or if she said that she didn’t want to become pregnant but isn’t using birth control, the system flagged her form with a note to the doctor that said in bold text: “Consider chance of pregnancy when prescribing.”

For a second year and a half, the patients of 26 doctors answered the pregnancy and birth control questions, while the patients of the other 27 doctors continued to fill out the regular form.

The study included about 5,300 office visits made by 2,300 women of childbearing age.

Doctors in the contraceptive vital sign group were much more likely to write down their patients’ birth control method during the second half of the study when women answered the pregnancy and contraception questions than when their patients used the standard form.

During the first half of the study, these doctors documented birth control only 23 percent of the time, compared to 78 percent of the time in the second half of the study when their patients filled out the revised intake form.

Doctors whose patients did not provide the birth control vital sign information during both time periods had no change in their documenting practices – about 28 percent of visits contained information on the patient’s birth control.

Despite this improvement in documentation by the doctors who received a contraceptive vital sign, there were no changes in the amount of counseling that their patients received.

Even patients who were taking medications with a birth defect warning received no more family planning advice during the time when they answered the pregnancy and birth control questions than when they filled in the standard form.

“Simply providing this information to primary care physicians doesn’t seem to make a dramatic change in the rates of their provision of this counseling,” Schwarz told Reuters Health.

“Some of that may be because they have other competing clinical responsibilities and they only have so much time in a given visit and they don’t have a way to bill for providing contraceptive counseling,” she suggested.

PART OF AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Dr. Melissa Fritsche, a physician at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center in South Carolina, said that’s especially true for patients who are taking medications that carry a birth defect risk.

“They often have more complex health histories and physicians often have a time crunch in terms of the number of things they can deal with in a visit,” she said.

The U.S. Affordable Care Act makes women with health insurance eligible to receive birth control and contraceptive counseling without any additional co-pays.

Although the vital sign system Schwarz developed was a good first step in getting doctors to pay attention to birth control and to write it down, Fritsche said it will be important to explore a variety of ways to get physicians to prioritize contraceptive counseling.

“I think improving and providing more education to primary care providers about contraceptive options would be also an excellent step,” she told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/PWJoWY Annals of Family Medicine, November/December 2012.

Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Israel moves on reservists after rockets target cities

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.

The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel‘s Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt‘s prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the enclave and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

Israel’s armed forces announced that a highway leading to the Gaza Strip and two roads bordering the enclave would be off-limits to civilian traffic until further notice.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior cabinet ministers in Tel Aviv after the rockets struck to decide on widening the Gaza campaign.

Political sources said ministers were asked to approve the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, in what could be preparation for a possible ground operation.

No decision was immediately announced and some commentators speculated in the Israeli media the move could be psychological warfare against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. A quota of 30,000 reservists had been set earlier.

Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.

Israeli police said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Jerusalem area, outside the city, on Friday.

It was the first Palestinian rocket since 1970 to reach the vicinity of the holy city, which Israel claims as its capital, and was likely to spur an escalation in its three-day old air war against militants in Gaza.

Rockets nearly hit Tel Aviv on Thursday for the first time since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fired them during the 1991 Gulf War. An air raid siren rang out on Friday when the commercial centre was targeted again. Motorists crouched next to cars, many with their hands protecting their heads, while pedestrians scurried for cover in building stairwells.

The Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strikes have so far caused no casualties or damage, but could be political poison for Netanyahu, a conservative favored to win re-election in January on the strength of his ability to guarantee security.

“The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza,” Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities.

Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid and they should bring their body bags.”

Officials in Gaza said 28 Palestinians had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive with the declared aim of stemming surges of rocket strikes that have disrupted life in southern Israeli towns.

The Palestinian dead include 12 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday. A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas’s commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

SOLIDARITY VISIT

A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil’s visit never took hold. Israel said 66 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip hit its territory on Friday and a further 99 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israel denied Palestinian assertions that its aircraft struck while Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel Radio’s military affairs correspondent said the army’s Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders.

It is the biggest test yet for Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year’s protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister’s visit was intended to further.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt’s mediators told Reuters Kandil’s visit “was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve”.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

Tunisia’s foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday “to provide all political support for Gaza” the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas’s supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an “observer state” rather than a mere “entity” at the United Nations later this month.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

News Summary: UK court overturns Facebook demotion

PUNISHED: Britain‘s High Court ruled Friday that a man had been unfairly stripped of a management position and demoted for saying in a Facebook post that he was opposed to gay marriage.

COURT RULING: The court said the Trafford Housing Trust breached Adrian Smith‘s contract and a judge added that Smith had not done anything wrong. Smith had written on Facebook that gay weddings in churches would be “an equality too far.”

EVOLVING LAW: In Britain, same-sex couples can form civil partnerships that carry the same legal rights marriages do. The government plans to introduce legislation allowing civil marriages as well.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Scott Dadich Named Top Editor at Wired

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Scott Dadich has been named editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, it was announced Friday by Condé Nast editorial director Tom Wallace.

The appointment marks a homecoming for Dadich, who served as Wired’s creative director from 2006 to 2010. He replaces Chris Anderson as the publication’s top editor.

Since 2010, Dadich has served as vice president, editorial platforms and design at Conde Nast. In this role, he oversaw the creative efforts to bring Condé Nast’s storied brand portfolio to emerging digital channels.

“Scott has been at the forefront of the company’s digital innovation for the past three years, developing the design for a digital magazine that has become an industry standard,” Wallace said. “His return to Wired, where he served as creative director and won three National Magazine Awards for Design, will ensure that it continues its pace-setting growth.”

While Dadich was creative director at Wired, the magazine received three consecutive National Magazine Awards for Design. He is the only creative director ever to win both the National Magazine Award for Design and the Society of Publication Designers Magazine of the Year Award for three consecutive years (2008-2010).

“I’m excited to return to Wired, which has had such a tremendous impact on my life and my career,” Dadich said. “I’m honored to have the chance to build on the legacy of innovation that Louis and Jane started some 20 years ago. And I am grateful to my friend and colleague Chris and the incredible Wired staff. I look forward to finding new opportunities to delight and surprise the Wired community, both with the stories we tell and in the ways in which we tell them.”

Prior to Wired, he was the creative director of Texas Monthly, which was nominated for 14 National Magazine Awards during his tenure and won for General Excellence in 2003.

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

“Exposure” to U.S. may raise immigrants’ obesity risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new study finds that the longer immigrants from Mexico, and their U.S.-born offspring, spend in the United States, the greater their odds of becoming obese.

Compared to similar individuals living in Mexico, researchers found the grandchildren of immigrants to the U.S. from Mexico were three times more likely to be obese adults.

“We just couldn’t believe the fact that we found roughly a threefold increase from the one extreme… to the people on the other side,” said the study’s lead author Karen R. Florez, an associate social scientist at the non-profit research institute Rand Corporation, in Santa Monica, California.

Past research has found that immigrants to the U.S. are typically healthier in many ways than people in their ethnic groups who were born in the U.S.

In February, one study found that Hispanics born abroad had a much lower risk of stroke than their counterparts who were either born or spent most of their lives in the U.S. (see Reuters Health story of March 7, 2012.)

Florez and her fellow researchers said it’s also been established that U.S.-born Mexican Americans have greater odds of being obese than their family members who originally migrated from Mexico.

But the team wanted to extend that comparison to people who are still living in Mexico, in an attempt to tease apart and identify factors in the U.S. environment, or in the fact of being a migrant, that might influence obesity risk.

For the study, the researchers used one database from Mexico and another from the U.S. with information on 3,244 people’s body mass index (BMI), a measurement of weight in relation to height.

In adults, a healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 25. Anything above a BMI of 30 is considered obese.

Each person in the study population was separated into groups depending on how long they had been “exposed” to the U.S., if at all.

For example, one group consisted of those who lived in Mexico and had no family in the U.S.; at the other extreme were U.S.-born Mexican Americans whose grandparents were the first to immigrate.

The researchers found that among those whose grandparents first immigrated to the U.S., about 32 percent of men and 36 percent of women were obese.

That’s nearly double the proportion of men (17 percent) and women (14 percent) living in Mexico without any ties to the U.S. who were obese.

Overall, with a few exceptions, the results showed a trend of increasing obesity as “exposure” to the U.S. grew.

Kiarri Kershaw, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, points out, however, that while a larger percentage of the grandchildren were obese than their immigrant grandparents, the study did not say how long the grandparents had lived in the U.S.

Still, it is unique and valuable that the researchers included comparisons to people still living in Mexico, said Kershaw, who was not involved in the study, even though the findings are consistent with what is already known.

As for why a larger percentage of people may be obese the longer they or their families have been in the U.S., Florez and her colleagues write that one theory centers on the so-called food environment.

For example, the team notes in its brief report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, that a 12-ounce Coca-Cola in the U.S. has 240 calories with 65 grams of sugar, compared to the same drink in Mexico with 150 calories and 39 grams of sugar.

Kershaw said there could be other reasons too.

“I think it’s complicated. It could be the food environment; it could be stress with acculturation or the loss of support networks when a person moves to a new country. I don’t think that’s clear,” she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/ZLXGeV Archives of Internal Medicine, online November 12, 2012.

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Xbox Live Celebrates 10 Years of Connecting Gamers

Thursday marks the tenth anniversary of Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming platform for the Xbox and the Xbox 360.

[More from Mashable: Steve Ballmer Hints at Microsoft Building More Hardware]

For the last decade, Xbox Live has offered both a marketplace and online play space for gamers. It started in 2002 on Microsoft‘s original Xbox console; Xbox spokeperson Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson, said it launched with games like Ghost Recon, MechAssault and NFL Fever.

Now Xbox Live serves as a complete entertainment package for the Xbox 360. Players can still compete online and connect with others, but can also access all kinds of other services through their Xbox 360 as the console moves to position itself as a living room centerpiece. Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, HBO Go, ESPN and NBA Live, as well as on-demand movies from Zune. During this year’s election, Xbox Live offered full access to the debates and election coverage, thanks to a partnership with NBC.

[More from Mashable: New ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Trailer Takes Game Violence to the Next Level [VIDEO]]

There are about 30 million Xbox Live subscribers, each with their own unique gamertag. Xbox Live was instrumental in the widespread adoption of achievements on games, which players unlocked for completing different in-game challenges. According to Hyrb’s Twitter account, gamers have unlocked 14.5 billion achievements in the past decade.

Xbox Live is the only online network on consoles that charges its users, at $ 60 a pop for a 12-month subscription.

To celebrate today’s anniversary, some long-time Xbox Live subscribers are receiving special edition Xbox 360s, according to Hyrb’s Twitter feed. Hyrb is also giving out one-year subscriptions to Xbox Live on his Twitter all day Thursday.

Do you have fond memories of playing Xbox Live in the past decade? Please share them with us in the comments.

1. Triforce Lamp

Know a Zelda fan in need of some power, wisdom and courage? This beautiful wood and acrylic lamp can be hung or shelved. The pixelated carvings on each side warm the room with dappled light. Price: $ 95.00

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy Rodrigo Denúbila, Flickr.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Psy, Drake, Gotye join American Music Awards birthday bash

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The American Music Awards rings in its 40th year on Sunday, with top nominees like Rihanna and Nicki Minaj battling for the top trophies and Stevie Wonder leading a tribute to the show’s late founder, Dick Clark.

Variety is the key to this year’s three-hour ceremony from Los Angeles, with performers including Canadian pop star Justin Bieber, 1990s ska-punk band No Doubt, alt-rockers Linkin Park, country-pop darling Taylor Swift, Korean Internet sensation Psy and British-Irish boyband The Wanted.

“The AMAs reflects pop culture, which is all forms of music, all genres, pop, rock, country, hip hop, alternative … all these things that normally don’t together. It’s our job to make it flow,” producer Larry Klein told Reuters.

R&B star Rihanna, 24, and Minaj, 29, tied for the most nominations this year, with four apiece, and will battle each other in the hotly contested female pop-rock category.

Rihanna will also face stiff competition for the top award of the night, the artist of the year accolade, where she will compete with Bieber, Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Drake.

The new artist category is expected to be a tight race between rapper J. Cole, indie-pop band fun., Australian singer Gotye, British boyband One Direction and Canadian popstar Carly Rae Jepsen, who will also be performing on Sunday. The ceremony will be shown live on ABC Television.

Unlike the Grammy Awards, which are decided on by music producers, songwriters and others working in the industry, the American Music Awards are determined by fans.

“It’s the public who watches, who decides, who votes. This is an awards show where the public decides the nominees and winners, so our shows are more about pop culture,” Klein said.

This year sees a new category for the growing electronic dance music market, which Klein said he couldn’t ignore. DJs David Guetta, Skrillex and Calvin Harris will compete for the trophy.

REMEMBERING DICK CLARK

This is the first time Klein will be running the show without the input of influential music and TV producer Dick Clark, who died in April at the age of 82. Clark created the American Music Awards in 1973 as an alternative to the Grammys, and Klein said his absence felt bizarre.

“Last year, he loved the show, he was very happy. He loved LMFAO when they closed the show, it was all a fun party of music, dance music, Dick loved it,” Klein said.

Clark, who also hosted “American Bandstand” and “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” will be remembered on Sunday in a tribute led by Wonder and “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest.

“I wanted to make it classy, elegant and meaningful, with something that truly summoned the relationship that Dick had with so many people,” said Klein, who has been involved in the show since its inception.

Klein said the show will look back on its 40-year history, showcasing some of its most memorable moments. Klein’s personal picks included performances from late singer Michael Jackson, funk-pop star Prince, and Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ rendition in 2009 of “Empire State of Mind.”

“I was very close to Michael Jackson, so every time Michael was on the show, it always made me happy. The Prince number we did was outrageous, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys…it really was epic, it was just extraordinary,” Klein said.

With more than fifteen individual performances, or “mini-shows” scheduled for Sunday, Klein said audiences can expect surprises.

“Live TV is the best, it’s unpredictable. Without a doubt there will be some unpredictable moments, I promise you,” the producer said.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

To Quit Smoking, Go Where the Cigarettes Aren’t

Nov. 15 marks this year’s Great American Smokeout, when organizations across the country encourage smokers to quit the habit. Yahoo asked former smokers to offer to advice to those trying to stop smoking.

FIRST PERSON | If you can find a place where nicotine is unattainable, go there, and stay for at least one month. That is the easiest way to quit smoking. I know this from experience.

When I was still a kid, I was able to quit smoking for more than two years, and it would not have been possible for me to do so had I not found myself in a situation where tobacco was unattainable. Correction: Cigarettes were available but at a cost of $ 5 per cigarette. And that is not a typo. Being a youthful troublemaker, I found myself incarcerated. Hence, the $ 5 per cigarette price.

But after being detained for quite some time, I was able to quit smoking and never go through withdrawal or have “nic-fits” (a.k.a. nicotine tantrums). By now you are saying “Let’s be realistic, I can’t go to jail.” Right. But you can do your best to replicate that type of isolation.

Certain spas and hotels have prohibited smoking. Ditto for cottage rentals. The second time I quit smoking I did so by taking a rather short trip to the Berkshires and rented a house directly on Lake Garfield. The owner would not allow smoking, so I packed up everything I needed and headed out leaving cigarettes behind. The key here is to bring everything that you need on trip like this. Doing so will ensure that you do not purchase cigarettes (or bum one) if you have to head to the store because you forgot something. Once you make it past the first few days you can start to think of yourself as a non-smoker and also start to congratulate yourself daily, or even hourly.

Being away from my regular routine, along with not having cigarettes, I found myself almost entirely remaking my schedule and my daily habits. Also I made sure to do this when it was cold out. This ensures two things: First, when it is cold outside and you are staying in a “non-smoking” house, you are less likely to want to go outside. The second thing it ensures is that it will be extremely affordable; when done in the “off-season.” While this is more expensive than Nicorette (or any other aids for quitting smoking), most do not realize that to actually quit smoking your behavior needs to change. This is why those products are called “aids.”

Feel free to take any one you like with you on your trip, but a change in environment is the best start. Even those that struggle with drugs or alcoholism are told in rehab that they need to change “people, places, and things.” And, naturally, these measures can only help someone quitting smoking.

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Egypt recalls envoy to Israel after Gaza strike

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt has recalled its ambassador to Israel after an Israeli airstrike killed the military commander of Gaza‘s ruling Hamas.

In a statement read on state TV late Wednesday, spokesman Yasser Ali said that President Mohammed Morsi recalled the ambassador and asked the Arab League‘s Secretary General to convene an emergency ministerial meeting in the wake of the Gaza violence.

Morsi also called for an immediate cease fire between Israel and Hamas, an offshoot of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Israel says it struck in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

Hours earlier, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group denounced the Israeli airstrike as a “crime that requires a quick Arab and international response to stem these massacres.”

Relations between Israel and Egypt have deteriorated since longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Verizon says 1.4 million customers back on its fiber optic network

(Reuters) – Verizon Communications said fiber optic services have been restored to more than 1.4 million customers hurt by Hurricane Sandy.

The provider of telephone, Internet and television services said on November 1 that it may take another two weeks to restore telecommunication services for its customers after flooding and power outages knocked out services.

The company said it completed 364,000 repairs across the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions.

Verizon said it will provide credits for landline customers and fix equipment damaged due to the hurricane.

Verizon shares were up at $ 42.39 after the bell on Wednesday. They closed at $ 42.24 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Pallavi Ail in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

BAFTA Shifts Corporate Sponsors for Film Awards

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – You can’t buy awards, but when it comes to the BAFTAs you can certainly sponsor them.

The British Academy of Film and Television is switching up its corporate partners for its annual film awards ceremony. That means it’s out with telecom company Orange, and in with broadband network EE.

The overhaul will require some rechristening of BAFTA‘s hardware. After 15 years with Orange in the title, the ceremony will now be known as the EE British Academy Film Awards. Moreover, its award for best newcomer will now be named the EE Rising Star Award.

The BAFTAs are the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars. EE is a sister company of Orange, so the shakeup is not seismic.

The EE British Academy Film Awards will be broadcast on the BBC on February 10, 2013 and will be hosted by satirist Stephen Fry.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Congress, Obama playing with dynamite, CEOs say of “fiscal cliff”

BOSTON (Reuters) – Corporate America is raising the volume of its plea that the U.S. government avert a year-end “fiscal cliff” that could send the nation back into recession, but chief executives aren’t pushing the panic button just yet.

With a heated election season in the rear-view mirror, executives are calling on the White House and congressional leaders to head off a self-imposed deadline that could bring $ 600 billion in spending cuts and higher taxes early in 2013 if they are unable to reach a deal on cutting the federal budget deficit.

The Business Roundtable on Tuesday kicked off a print, radio and online ad campaign on which it plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars featuring the chiefs of Honeywell International Inc , Xerox Corp and United Parcel Service Inc calling on lawmakers to resolve the issue.

In an opinion piece published on Tuesday evening on the Wall Street Journal’s website, Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein urged the business community and the Obama administration to compromise and reconcile so as not to derail the fragile recovery.

One of the more dramatic warnings of the consequences of allowing the U.S. economy to go over the fiscal cliff came from Honeywell CEO David Cote.

“If the last debt ceiling discussion was playing with fire, this time they’re playing with nitroglycerin,” Cote said in an interview. “If they go off the cliff, I think it would spark a recession that’s a lot bigger than economists think. Some think it would just be a small fire. I think it could turn into a conflagration.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the U.S. economy would contract 0.5 percent in 2013 if the government fails to stop the budget cuts and tax increases – far below the 2 percent growth economists currently forecast.

A failure in Washington to solve the crisis by the year’s end could prompt major companies to curtail investment plans, said Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext , operator of the New York Stock Exchange.

“We simply won’t be investing in the United States. We will be investing elsewhere where we have more certainty of the outcome,” Niederauer said in an interview.

About a dozen top U.S. CEOs, including General Electric Co’s Jeff Immelt, Aetna Inc’s Mark Bertolini, American Express Co’s Ken Chenault and Dow Chemical Co’s Andrew Liveris are scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

The four are members of “Fix the Debt,” an ad-hoc lobbying organization that this week launched an advertising campaign that advocates long-term debt reduction.

UNCERTAINTY FACTOR

Bank of America Corp CEO Brian Moynihan said on Tuesday that worries about the cliff have companies holding off on spending.

“That uncertainty continues to hold back the recovery,” Moynihan said, speaking at an investor conference in New York.

Sandy Cutler, CEO of manufacturer Eaton Corp , shared his concern.

“Until we solve the fiscal issues (in the United States and Europe), you’re not going to get back to normal GDP growth,” Cutler told investors on Tuesday.

CEOs are not alone in this worry. The CBO report warned that failure to reach a deal could push the U.S. unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent, the highest since July 1991. It is currently 7.9 percent.

Obama and the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives have signaled a more conciliatory tone since last week’s election, when Obama soundly defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney, whose party retained a majority in the House.

Wilbur Ross, an investor known for taking stakes in distressed companies, is bracing for higher tax rates in 2013.

“We, like many people, have been trying to utilize gains this year. It does seem that the probability is that rates will go up,” Ross said in an interview with Reuters Insider. “We don’t have a “for sale” sign on anything. But we are mindful that there is a benefit to concluding things this year rather than next.

NO SIGNS OF PANIC

Concerns about the cliff have not prompted customers to cancel orders, though they have added to an overall level of uneasiness that has companies wary of making large capital purchases or hiring significant numbers of new workers.

“We haven’t seen the panicking, like, ‘I’m not going to order something because of the fiscal cliff,’” said Steve Shawley, chief financial officer of heating and cooling systems maker Ingersoll Rand Plc . “Customers are being very judicious with their orders.”

Likewise, JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon last month told investors he did not expect the negotiations to hurt lending in the fourth quarter.

“The fiscal cliff isn’t going to change us,” Dimon said, referring to JPMorgan’s commercial bank, which loans money to businesses. The bank’s investment banking side could be more vulnerable if the debate makes investors jittery, he allowed.

WEAPONS, MEDICINES IN THE CROSS-HAIRS

The defense and healthcare sectors are the most vulnerable to the fiscal cliff, as they face the threat of sequestration — automatic, across-the-board cuts to their funding.

Makers of weapons systems note that they have long been preparing for declining sales as the United States winds down two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The industry has already shed tens of thousands of jobs and closed facilities.

Lockheed Martin Corp’s new president and chief operating officer, Marillyn Hewson, told analysts on Monday her company had been preparing for tighter defense budgets for years, even before the sequestration deal.

“We aren’t going to see a major change,” said Hewson. “We’ve been very proactive as a leadership team in taking actions in recent years to address our cost structure, to look at how we can make our product more affordable.”

Automatic cuts to the federal budget could reduce federal health spending by $ 21.5 billion in 2013, potentially affecting everything from Medicare to the Food and Drug Administration, according to an analysis by PwC’s Health Research Institute.

Vincent Forlenza, the CEO of Beckton Dickinson & Co , said the labs he supplies have held off on buying new instruments because of the threat of spending cuts.

“If we don’t get to a deal we will have another year of paralysis and putting off research,” Forlenza said. “The impact of uncertainty on the (National Institutes of Health) budget is causing our research customers to put off research.”

(Additional reporting by John McCrank, Nick Zieminski, Caroline Humer, Jed Horowitz, Sharon Begley and Daniel Wilchins in New York, Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington, Debra Sherman in Chicago and Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Patricia Kranz and Steve Orlofsky and Carol Bishopric)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Asia stocks up after successful Greek bond auction

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian stock markets edged higher Wednesday as the threat of an imminent meltdown in debt-swamped Greece receded.

Greece held a sale of short-term treasury bills Tuesday that will help it make a crucial debt repayment at the end of the week. Without the sale, Athens would have found it impossible to repay the €5 billion ($ 6.4 billion) treasury bill maturing on Friday, the day on which Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has said Greece would run out of money.

Analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong called the auction of 4.06 billion euros ($ 5.15 billion) in bills a success and said that it “added to the positive tone” helping to boost stocks.

Japan‘s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.1 percent to 8,670.67. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.6 percent to 21,321.15 and Australia‘s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.2 percent to 4,387.60. South Korea‘s Kospi fell 0.1 percent to 1,887.62.

Benchmarks in Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines also rose. Singapore and Malaysia fell.

Greece has been locked out of the international long-term debt market by exceptionally high interest rates demanded for its bonds since 2010, and has been relying on funds from rescue loans by other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Traders also have to deal with the uncertainty posed in the U.S. by the looming “fiscal cliff,” a set of U.S. government spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect automatically at the beginning of next year unless U.S. leaders reach a compromise before then.

Economists have warned that the U.S. economy could be thrown into a recession if nothing is done. Worries about the fiscal cliff pushed U.S. stocks to one of their worst weekly losses of the year last week.

On Tuesday, the Dow closed down closed down 0.5 percent at 12,756.18. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.4 percent to 1,374.53. The Nasdaq composite index lost 0.7 percent to 2,883.89.

Benchmark oil for December delivery was down 14 cents to $ 85.24 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 19 cents to finish at $ 85.38 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.

The euro rose to $ 1.2715 from $ 1.2705 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 79.48 yen from 79.41 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

___

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

RIM to release new BlackBerrys soon after Jan. 30

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion Ltd. will release its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones “not too long” after a launch event on Jan. 30, a senior executive said Tuesday.

Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said the company is still fine-tuning the new phones.

The new phones are seen as critical to RIM‘s survival as the smartphone pioneer struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones. The new BlackBerry 10 system is designed for the touch screen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. RIM’s current software is still focused on email and messaging and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than iPhone or Android.

On Monday, RIM said details on the BlackBerry 10, including specific availability, will be announced at the event. A touch-screen-only device is expected to be released first followed shortly after by a version with a physical keyboard. Many people still gravitate to BlackBerrys specifically for their physical keyboards, and RIM hasn’t succeeded in the past with touch-only offerings.

Tear said RIM wants to be the No. 1 mobile computing platform, despite the dominance of Apple and Android. He said the Waterloo, Ontario-based company believes it can compete with Silicon Valley because it has access to a lot of talented people and two great universities in the area. He said he’s been involved in two turnarounds before with Sony Ericsson and Ericsson and believes in RIM’s new management.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Tear said. “But everybody is super-focused and super-commited. We’re going to show the world that we are turning this around.”

Steve Zipperstein, RIM’s new chief legal officer, said RIM invented the smartphone and has been the innovator in the mobile space for a long time.

“We’re not going away,” Zipperstein vowed. “We’re going to succeed with BB 10. We’re going to impress our customers. We’re going to fight every day.”

Tear and Zipperstein were hired this past summer by CEO Thorsten Heins, who took over RIM in January after it lost tens of billions of dollars in market value. Heins had vowed to do everything he could to release BlackBerry 10 this year but said in June that the timetable wasn’t realistic. The new BlackBerrys will be released after the holiday shopping season and well after Apple’s September launch of the iPhone 5.

Heins is counting on BlackBerry 10 for a turnaround.

RIM’s platform transition is happening under a new management team and as RIM lays off 5,000 employees as part of a bid to save $ 1 billion this year.

RIM was once Canada‘s most valuable company with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but the stock has plummeted since, from over $ 140 per share to around $ 8. Its decline evokes memories of Nortel, another former Canadian tech giant, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

RIM’s stock fell 41 cents, or 4.7 percent, to close at $ 8.40 Tuesday in New York after rising as high as $ 9.07 the previous day, when RIM announced its Jan. 30 launch date.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Petraeus enlisted for cameo in ‘Call of Duty’ game

LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Petraeus has landed on his feet with a new gig in “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”

The retired Army general who stepped down as CIA director last week amid a scandal surrounding his extramarital affair pops up in the highly anticipated Activision Blizzard Inc. first-person shooter game released Tuesday.

A character with Petraeus’ name and likeness voiced by Jim Meskimen briefly appears as the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025.

The cameo was first reported by the gaming site Kotaku.com.

“Call of Duty” games have often employed virtual renditions of political figures.

“Black Ops II” also features an encounter with Manuel Noriega, a female president resembling current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, an aircraft carrier named the USS Barack Obama and an appearance by retired Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Concussions and stricter rules taking their toll

MIAMI (Reuters) – Three teams begin preparation for games this weekend unsure if their starting quarterback will be cleared to play as the league’s stricter concussion rules start to bite.

The NFL has been concerned about the health implications from concussions and brain injuries and introduced a clearly defined series of steps that teams have to follow when players suffer knocks to the head.

In order to return to action the following week, concussed players have to be cleared by an independent neurologist.

The tougher stance from the NFL came against the backdrop of legal action brought by former players, who suffered what they say were long term effects of concussions, and a Congressional hearing on head injuries in American football.

An illustration of the new rules is none more evident than next Monday’s game between the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers, which could now feature two back-up quarterbacks after both teams lost their starters on Sunday to head injuries.

Jay Cutler of the Bears was forced to exit Sunday’s 13-6 defeat to the Houston Texans at half-time after showing symptoms of concussion following a helmet-to-helmet hit from Houston’s Tim Dobbins.

Cutler came back in after the hit, taking seven more snaps before the Bears said concussion-like symptoms became evident.

Several reports said the NFL had reviewed the Bears’ handling of the situation and agreed they had followed the protocol correctly.

But Bears head coach Lovie Smith said that even without the rules he would not have sent a dizzy Cutler back on the field.

“If a player has a concussion or any injury he’s not going back in the game. It’s as simple as that,” said Smith.

“We’ll never put a guy at risk. No game is that important for us. The players’ health always comes first with us,” added Smith.

Jason Campbell, who completed 11 of 19 passes, putting up 94 yards in tricky, wet conditions, will start if Cutler is not ready.

“It’s tough but that’s why you bring in a veteran like Jason Campbell who has played ball,” smith said.

“In the NFL injuries happen and you have to be ready. Jason is a pro,” he said, adding that the eight-year veteran usually only took a quarter of the snaps in practice.

San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith also went out with concussion during the 24-24 tie with the St. Louis Rams on Sunday after taking a couple of hits.

Smith complained of blurry vision and was replaced by second-year Colin Kaepernick who produced 11 of 17 for 117 yards with 66 rushing yards and a seven yard touchdown run.

“I thought he handled himself pretty well, overall I thought he had a solid performance,” 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh said of Kaepernick.

It is a sign of how seriously teams take the rules and the threat of sanction that both have been at pains to point out while their players recovered to take more snaps, coaching and medical staff followed the rules in bringing a player out once concussion symptoms were identified.

Symptoms included in the NFL‘s rules include a gap in memory, persistent dizziness, headaches and an inability to remember assignments or plays.

Previously the NFL‘s rules stopped a player from returning to action on the same day only if he lost consciousness.

In the third case, Philadelphia Eagles’ Michael Vick suffered what his coach Andy Reid called on Monday a “pretty significant concussion” in the defeat to the Dallas Cowboys and said the player’s memory of what happened was “foggy”.

Vick was told to rest at home after suffering the injury in the second quarter and Reid may well have to turn to back-up Nick Foles for his first start against the Washington Redskins.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

New Greece plan ’32bn euros more’

12 November 2012 Last updated at 17:39 ET

A draft document prepared for eurozone finance ministers suggests that Greece should be given two more years to meet budget goals, but that this will add 32.6bn euros ($ 41.4bn) to its bailout.

Eurozone finance ministers have met in Brussels to discuss new targets for Greece based on the report.

The ministers also delayed a decision on whether to release the latest 31.5bn euro tranche of bailout funds.

They said they would meet again to discuss the issue on 20 November.

Greece has been pushing for the funds after passing a tough budget for 2013 on Sunday.

Greek PM Antonis Samaras has warned that without the new tranche the country will run out of money within days.

But the eurozone ministers said Greece needed to implement a “few remaining” prior actions to allow the process to move forward.

‘Smoother path’

The draft document on the pace of Greek economic reform was prepared by the so-called “troika” – the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

The troika has already pledged 240bn euros in bailout loans to Greece.

The two-year extension would give Greece time to achieve a primary budget surplus – a figure that would not include debt-financing costs.

Continue reading the main story

• Retirement age up from 65 to 67


• A further round of pension cuts, of 5-15%


• Salary cuts, notably for police officers, soldiers, firefighters, professors, judges, justice officials; minimum wage also reduced


• Holiday benefits cut


• 35% cut to severance pay


• Redundancy notice reduced from six to four months

The document says: “Our revised fiscal programme targets the 4.5% of GDP primary surplus target by 2016, two years later than foreseen.

It adds: “The smoother path will help to moderate the impact of fiscal adjustment on the economy.”

The extension would cost an additional 32.6bn euros and comes with “very large” risks, the report says.

Those risks include the uncertain political support for the programme within Greece, the possible negative effect on the economy of the fiscal consolidation and possible court challenges to the measures.

The BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels says the original intention was for debt to be reduced to 120% of GDP by 2020 but that this is no longer feasible and a new target needs to be agreed by everyone.

He says this means more uncertainty, at a time when many Greek citizens believe they have taken all the austerity they can swallow.

Market fund-raising

Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker had earlier expressed optimism about the troika report.

“The basis is positive, because the Greeks have really delivered,” he said.

Greek MPs approved the 2013 budget, which includes further cuts to pensions and wages, in a vote on Sunday night.

More than 10,000 people joined demonstrations outside Greece’s parliament to protest against the cuts.

The passing of the budget was a pre-condition for Athens to be granted the next tranche of 31.5bn euros of EU/IMF loans necessary to stave off bankruptcy.

Greece faces a repayment deadline for 5bn euros of debt on Friday.

However, eurozone ministers had indicated it was unlikely a decision on the disbursement of the tranche would be made at Monday’s meeting.

The funding will have to be approved first by some national parliaments, including Germany’s.

“We all… want to help Greece, but we won’t be put under pressure,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

On Tuesday, Greece will make an urgent bid to raise funds from the financial markets in case it does not get the tranche of bailout money.

The national economy is expected to shrink next year by 4.5% and public debt is likely to rise to 189% of GDP, almost double Greece’s national output.

This year, public debt stood at 175%.

The head of Syriza, a left-wing opposition party, said the budget cuts would leave Greeks unable to afford essential goods this winter.

BBC News – Business

Read More..