Syria army quits base on strategic Aleppo road

























BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital.


But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.





















The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday government troops had retreated from a post northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the town and surrounding areas “completely outside the control of regime forces”.


It was not immediately possible to verify the reported army withdrawal. Authorities restrict journalists’ access in Syria and state media made no reference to Saraqeb.


The pullout followed coordinated rebel attacks on Thursday against three military posts around Saraqeb, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Aleppo, in which 28 soldiers were killed.


Several were shown in video footage being shot after they had surrendered.


“The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants. And therefore, at this point it looks very likely that this is a war crime, another one,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.


“Unfortunately this could be just the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the shabbiha (pro-government militia),” he said.


Video footage of the killings showed rebels berating the captured men, calling them “Assad’s dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.


Rights groups and the United Nations say rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have committed war crimes during the 19-month-old conflict. It began with protests against Assad and has spiraled into a civil war which has killed 32,000 people and threatens to drag in regional powers.


The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighboring Turkey. Shi’ite Iran remains the strongest regional supporter of Assad, who is from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.


STRATEGIC BLOW


Saraqeb lies at the meeting point of Syria’s main north-south highway, linking Aleppo with Damascus, and another road connecting Aleppo to the Mediterranean port of Latakia.


With areas of rural Aleppo and border crossings to Turkey already under rebel control, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further cut off from Assad’s Damascus powerbase.


Any convoys using the highways from Damascus or the Mediterranean city of Latakia would be vulnerable to rebel attack. This would force the army to use smaller rural roads or send supplies on a dangerous route from Al-Raqqa in the east, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman.


In response to the rebels’ territorial gains, Assad has stepped up air strikes against opposition strongholds, launching some of the heaviest raids so far against working class suburbs east of Damascus over the last week.


The bloodshed has continued unabated despite an attempted ceasefire, proposed by join U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark last month’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.


In the latest in a string of fruitless international initiatives, China called on Thursday for a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body – an idea which opposition leaders hope to flesh out at a meeting in Qatar next week.


Veteran opposition leader Riad Seif has proposed a structure bringing together the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other rebel forces alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.


His plan, called the Syrian National Initiative, calls for four bodies to be established: the Initiative Body, including political groups, local councils, national figures and rebel forces; a Supreme Military Council; a Judicial Committee and a transitional government made up of technocrats.


The initiative has the support of Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for an overhaul of the opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the troubled Syrian National Council.


The SNC has failed to win recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and Clinton said it was time to bring in “those on the front lines fighting and dying”.


(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jon Boyle)


World News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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4 reasons Wreck-It Ralph is the best video game movie ever

























Disney‘s new animated film draws rave reviews for appealing to old-school and new-school gamers alike


Critics have awarded a high score to Wreck-It Ralph, the new animated Disney movie that hits theaters today. The film tells the story of a fictional, Donkey Kong-esque arcade game villain (voiced by John C. Reilly) who decides, after 30 years, that he’d like to become a video game hero. (Watch a trailer below.) The film’s strong reviews make it an outlier among movies based on video games, which have typically drawn less-than-stellar reviews. What makes Wreck-It Ralph the best video game movie in history? Here, four theories:





















1. Wreck-It‘s director knows video game history
Director Rich Moore has finally delivered “a computer-animated movie that makes sense, because its protagonists all exist on motherboards,” says Rene Rodriguez at The Miami Herald. Wreck-It Ralph offers surprisingly savvy commentary on the advances in video game technology, making jokes about the differences between decades-old games like Nintendo’s Donkey Kong and modern games like the Xbox 360′s Call of Duty franchise. Clever details abound, from the way older, unpopular characters “hang around like vagrants, begging for food” to a scene in which “an old 8-bit character stares in awe at a modern, high-def warrior in all its glossy, shiny detail.”


SEE ALSO: Cloud Atlas: 6 fascinating behind-the-scenes facts


2. The movie is full of cameos by video game characters
Much like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which legendarily paired Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, Wreck-It Ralph is packed with licensed cameos from actual video game characters, including Q*Bert, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Tapper. In another early scene, Ralph, along with a host of other familiar video game villains, gather at the home of the Pac-Man ghosts in a “Bad-Anon” support group, says Peter Debruge at Variety. The movie began with “the bright idea of paying tribute to retro games,” and its constant vintage-game influences ensure that hardcore gamers won’t be disappointed.


3. It incorporates familiar video game rules
The cameos are clever, says Charlie McCollum at the San Jose Mercury News, but Wreck-It Ralph‘s sharpest tribute to video game history is its careful adherence to video game rules. The film’s arcade games are connected through what its characters call “Game Central Station” — and what we would call a power strip — “with surge protectors acting as security guards.” And just like in real video games, characters that die in their own games can be infinitely revived — but if they die in another video game, they die for good. By twisting and tweaking the real-life rules of video games to suit its story, Wreck-It Ralph tips its hat its arcade roots.


SEE ALSO: Alex Cross: Can Tyler Perry make the leap to drama?


4. The story is compelling
The video game touches are inspired, says Betsy Sharkey at The Los Angeles Times, but “it’s not just the joystick junkie in me that admires Wreck-It Ralph.” The film’s “major asset is its humanity,” with Ralph standing out as a sympathetic, instantly loveable character. By combining Disney’s old-school commitment to storytelling with a new-school setting and characters, Wreck-It Ralph is “a fresh 21st-century breeze” for the legendary animation studio.


Consensus: Wreck-It Ralph is a sharp, joyful romp through video-game history sure to delight old-school and new-school gamers alike.


SEE ALSO: Disney takes over Star Wars: 5 theories about the franchise’s long-term future


SEE ALSO: Who should direct Star Wars: Episode VII?


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Non-Stick Surface On Med Devices Could Keep Bacteria At Bay

























Click here to listen to this podcast


Nasty bacteria cling to the surfaces of countertops. They also stick to medical devices—like catheters—that are placed inside the human body, where they can become a dangerous source of infection.





















Individually, bacteria are fairly easily killed. But if they multiply on a surface, they eventually form a biofilm—a tightly organized bacterial community that can fight off antibiotics and the body’s immune system.


Now, researchers have come up with a way to give those nasty bugs the “slip”— a non-stick surface that stops the biofilm from forming. The material hasn’t been tested in humans yet. But in the lab, catheters coated with the non-stick surface stayed almost completely free of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The findings were presented at the October, 2012, AVS International symposium in Tampa, which covers materials, interfaces and processing. [Andrew Hook et al, Combinatorial Discovery of Materials That Resist Bacterial Adhesion]


By denying bacteria a grip on medical devices without resorting to antibiotics, the researchers also hope to help doctors get a grip on antibiotic resistance—one of medicine’s stickiest problems.


—Gretchen Cuda Kroen


[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]


Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Oil prices fall on strong dollar


























Continue reading the main story





















Oil prices have fallen after the dollar strengthened and the US government allowed foreign tankers to deliver additional supplies in the wake of super storm Sandy.


Brent crude fell $ 2.44 to $ 105.73 a barrel. US light crude lost $ 2.23 to $ 84.86, its lowest since July.


The dollar strengthened against the pound and the euro after better-than-expected jobs figures.


A stronger dollar makes oil more expensive to overseas buyers.


Figures released earlier on Friday showed the US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was much more than had been expected.


‘Storm damage’


Output from East Coast refineries has been hit by Sandy, forcing the government to waive restrictions, enshrined in the Jones Act, on foreign ships delivering oil from US ports.


“The administration’s highest priority is ensuring the health and safety of those impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and this waiver will remove a potential obstacle to bringing additional fuel to the storm-damaged region,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.


Oil analyst Gene McGillian at Tradition Energy said: “I think economic uncertainty and next week’s elections are weighing on oil prices.


“You also have the statement that the Jones Act is going to be waived for a week, suggesting some supplies are going to return.”


BBC News – Business



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New Jersey’s own Springsteen and Bon Jovi sing for Sandy victims

























NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi joined Staten Island-born Christina Aguilera and others on Friday in a televised benefit concert for victims of Sandy, the storm that killed more than 100 and devastated parts of the U.S. Northeast.


The commercial-free one-hour telecast, “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together,” included appearances by Sting, Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon, Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Bacon and Danny DeVito.





















The host was “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer, who said, “We haven’t seen a storm like this in 100 years.”


The fundraiser, shown on NBC, opened with Aguilera saying: “I was born in Staten Island. Four days ago, Hurricane Sandy came through and devastated it.” The New York City borough accounted for about half the city’s 41 deaths from the storm.


Aguilera, a judge on the television singing competition “The Voice,” vowed that “we will do whatever we can to help, we will not leave anyone behind,” then performed “You Are What You Are (Beautiful).”


Next up was Bon Jovi, who was seen in footage filmed this week after he rushed back from a British promotional tour to visit his hometown of Sayreville, New Jersey, to console residents and view the devastation.


Bon Jovi sang “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.”


Fey, an actress and comedian, implored viewers to donate at 1-800-HELPNOW and spread the message for donations via social media such as Twitter.


Donors can also text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $ 10 contribution. All proceeds were earmarked for the American Red Cross to benefit victims of Sandy and rebuilding efforts.


The show was sprinkled with news footage of destruction in New York City and along the New Jersey coast, such as the ruins of the amusement pier familiar to viewers of “Jersey Shore.”


Long Island-raised Joel performed an early song about devastation full of references to New York: “Miami 2017,” often known as “Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway.” Joel tweaked the lyrics to incorporate areas especially hard hit by Sandy.


Sting chose “Message in a Bottle,” with its familiar refrain “Sending out an SOS.”


Tyler, with Aerosmith, performed “Dream On” and teamed up with Fallon for “On the Boardwalk,” backed up by Joel and Springsteen.


Blige sang “The Living Proof,” and the telecast ended with Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.”


“God bless New York, God bless the Jersey Shore,” Springsteen said as the band struck the final chords.


The telethon was also aired on NBC Universal networks Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA, as well as HBO, and was live-streamed on NBC.com and simulcast on Springsteen’s E Street Radio on SiriusXM.


On Thursday, Walt Disney Co announced a $ 2 million donation for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, while Disney/ABC Television Group designated Monday as a “Day of Giving” when viewers of network and syndicated programming would be encouraged to help.


Entertainment giant Viacom Inc announced a $ 1 million donation to the Mayor’s Fund NYC and local organizations.


(Editing by Gary Hill and Peter Cooney)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

























BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.


Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.





















The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo


In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.


A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.


The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.


A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.


The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.


More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.


CHECKPOINT ATTACKS


The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.


The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.


“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.


Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.


The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.


One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.


Reuters could not independently verify the footage.


The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.


Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.


U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.


Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.


China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.


“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.


He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.


(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)


World News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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RIP Marty — the Inspiration for Nyan Cat

























Marty, the cat which inspired the 8-bit rainbow meme Nyan Cat, passed away Thursday, leaving a heavy heart in the Internet world.


The cat was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), a fatal, incurable disease. Marty’s owner, and Nyan Cat creator, Chris Torres adopted Marty in 2010 — along with another cat, Buster, who died of FIP soon afterwards.





















[More from Mashable: This Is What Social Media Looks Like in the Sandy Blackout Zone [PIC]]


Torres tweeted that Marty began acting strange last week, so he immediately took him to the vet.


“Even with the medical treatment he received he still deteriorated quickly. I’ve been force feeding him and keeping him warm for three days,” wrote Torres.


[More from Mashable: Ghostbuster Backflips Over Cop, Gets Arrested [VIDEO]]


Nyan Cat celebrated its first birthday in April, and has outlasted the lifespan of most Internet memes. The 8-bit rainbow Pop Tart cat continues to entertain the masses with its adorably infectious song — and will no doubt continue to be played, in Marty’s honor, for a long time to come.


1. Tiny Marty in the Tree


Images used with permission by Chris Torres


Click here to view this gallery.


Image used with permission by Chris Torres


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Floods render NYC hospitals powerless

























NEW YORK (AP) — There are few places in the U.S. where hospitals have put as much thought and money into disaster planning as New York. And yet two of the city’s busiest, most important medical centers failed a fundamental test of readiness during Superstorm Sandy this week: They lost power.


Their backup generators failed, or proved inadequate. Nearly 1,000 patients had to be evacuated.





















The closures led to dramatic scenes of doctors carrying patients down dark stairwells, nurses operating respirators by hand, and a bucket brigade of National Guard troops hauling fuel to rooftop generators in a vain attempt to keep the electricity on.


Both hospitals, NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center, were still trying to figure out exactly what led to the power failures Thursday, but the culprit appeared to be the most common type of flood damage there is: water in the basement.


While both hospitals put their generators on high floors where they could be protected in a flood, other critical components of the backup power system, such as fuel pumps and tanks, remained in basements just a block from the East River.


Both hospitals had fortified that equipment against floods within the past few years, but the water — which rushed with tremendous force — found a way in.


“This reveals to me that we have to be much more imaginative and detail-oriented in our planning to make sure hospitals are as resilient as they need to be,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.


The problem of unreliable backup electricity at hospitals is nothing new.


Over the first six months of the year, 23 percent of the hospitals inspected by the Joint Commission, a health care facility accreditation group, were found to be out of compliance with standards for backup power and lighting, according to a spokesman.


Power failures crippled New Orleans hospitals after Hurricane Katrina. The backup generator failed at a hospital in Stafford Springs, Conn., after the remnants of Hurricane Irene blew through the state in 2011. Hospitals in Houston were crippled when Tropical Storm Allison flooded their basements and knocked out electrical equipment in 2001.


When the Northeast was hit with a crippling blackout in 2003, the backup power at several of New York City’s hospitals failed or performed poorly. Generators malfunctioned or overheated. Fuel ran out too quickly. Even where the backup systems worked, they provided electricity to only some parts of the hospital and left others in the dark.


Afterward, a mayoral task force recommended upgrading testing standards for generators and requiring backup plans for blood banks and health care facilities that provide dialysis treatment.


Alan Aviles, president of New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates Bellevue, said that after a scare last summer when Hurricane Irene threatened to cause flooding, Bellevue put its basement-level fuel pumps in flood-resistant chambers.


It still isn’t clear whether water breached those defenses, but when an estimated 17 million gallons of water rushed through loading docks and into the hospital’s 1-million-square-foot basement, the fuel feed to the generators stopped working. The floodwaters also knocked out the hospital’s elevators.


For two days, National Guardsmen carried fuel to the generators, but conditions inside the hospital for patients and staff deteriorated anyway. The generators were designed to supply only 30 percent of the usual electrical load at the hospital, leaving a lot of equipment and labs hobbled. The hospital also lost all water pressure on Tuesday. Nearly 700 patients had been evacuated by Thursday afternoon.


“The precautions we had taken to date had served us well,” Aviles said. “But Mother Nature can always up the stakes.”


NYU Langone Medical Center had also tried to armor itself against floods.


All seven of the generators providing backup power to the parts of the hospital involved in patient care are only a few years old and are on higher floors. The fuel tank is in a watertight vault. New fuel pumps were installed just this year in a pump house upgraded to withstand a high flood, said the hospital’s vice president of facilities operation, Richard Cohen.


“The medical center invested quite a bit of money to upgrade the facility,” he said.


The pump house remained “bone dry,” Cohen said. But water shoved aside plastic and plywood defenses and infiltrated the fuel vault, where sensors detected the potentially damaging liquid and shut the generators down. “The force of the surge that came in was unbelievable. It dislodged our additional protection and caused a breach of the vault as well,” Cohen said.


The power at NYU went out in a flash, leaving the staff scrambling to evacuate 300 patients with no notice.


Dr. Robert Berg, an obstetrician, said that when he lost power in his apartment, he went to the hospital to charge his cellphone and was stunned to find it in chaos.


“It didn’t really occur to me that the hospital was going to be in trouble,” he said. Even after finding the lobby dark, “I thought, ‘We’ll have power upstairs. We’re an operating room.’”


He wound up carrying two patients down flights of stairs on a “med sled.”


“There was a Category 1 outside and a Category 4 inside,” he said. “I can’t say that they were very well prepared for it.”


That has left only one hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, functioning in the southern third of Manhattan. It is also on backup power, but brought in two huge new generators Thursday, just in case.


Aviles said Bellevue might be out of commission for at least two more weeks. NYU Langone’s generators are operating again, but the hospital is waiting for Consolidated Edison to restore its power before it starts taking patients again. That could happen in a matter of days.


Flooding may pose less of a danger to the hospital’s power supply in the future. Construction is under way on a new power plant, at a cost of more than $ 200 million, that will run on natural gas and supply all the hospital’s power needs.


“It’s a tremendous facility, with a lot of hardening built into it,” Cohen said.


___


AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Asian shares, dollar rise after positive data lifts risk appetite

























TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares advanced to their highest in nearly two weeks with risk appetite returning on signs that a trend of global recovery is stabilizing, particularly in the United States and China.


Positive U.S. private sector employment and consumer confidence reports drove the dollar higher, while the yen retreated as demand for safe-haven assets weakened.





















Ahead of a U.S. nonfarm payrolls due at 08:30 am EDT, a key market event, U.S. stock futures were down 0.1 percent, suggesting a cautious Wall Street start.


European shares were also seen subdued, with financial spreadbetters expecting London’s FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, Paris’s CAC-40 <.FCHI> and Frankfurt’s DAX <.GDAXI> to open little changed. <.L> <.EU> <.N>


The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> climbed 0.7 percent to its highest since October 23, and was set for a weekly increase of 1.3 percent.


Factory activity picked up moderately in China, which has spawned global growth in recent years, and business surveys showed other big Asian economies were slowly recovering as well, while there were mixed signals about the health of U.S. manufacturing.


Resources-reliant Australian shares <.AXJO> closed up 0.1 percent, as caution before the U.S. jobs data trimmed earlier rallies rooted in improving U.S. and Chinese economic conditions. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar earlier rose to a five-week high of $ 1.0420.


“Downside risks are lessening,” said Toru Yamamoto, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities.


Thanks to the developments in the U.S. and China, he added, global conditions appear to be getting better, and that “points to a nuanced improvement in sentiment.”


Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng Index <.HSI> outperformed Asian peers with a 1.4 percent jump to a 15-month high, buoyed by strength in Chinese financials and growth-sensitive sectors.


“We could see more gains from here because funds will need to chase performance as the year draws to a close,” said Alan Lam, Greater China equity analyst. “H-shares are going to lead the move up, since they are still lagging on the year.”


The Hong Kong Monetary Authority stepped into the currency market during New York’s Thursday trading hours to combat the local currency’s persistent move to the strong end of its trading range. Hong Kong’s de facto central bank is seeking to counter ample funds unleashed by global quantitative easing chasing stocks, property and other assets in the former British colony.


More capital inflows into Hong Kong are expected and could be a source for further strength for a year-end rally after the party congress that starts next week might alleviate some political uncertainty in China.


Japan’s Nikkei average <.N225> ended 1.2 percent up at a one-week high as a weaker yen underpinned demand for shares. <.T>


The dollar inched up 0.2 percent against the yen to 80.29, nearing a four-month high of 80.38 hit last week.


U.S. employers likely added 125,000 jobs in October and the jobless rate likely ticked up to 7.9 percent from September’s 7.8 percent.


Payrolls processor ADP reported on Thursday that U.S. companies added jobs in October at the fastest pace in eight months while new claims for jobless benefits fell last week.


<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


U.S. jobless claims: http://link.reuters.com/quh73t


China PMI and output: http://link.reuters.com/qaz63t


2012 asset returns: http://link.reuters.com/muc46s


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>


US ELECTIONS NEXT FOCUS


Positive economic news could affect the outcome of the November 6 elections while easing pressure for more monetary easing, pushing up Treasury yields and lifting the dollar.


“Market impact from the U.S. jobs data may in the end be offset by the outcome of the presidential election,” said Daiwa’s Yamamoto.


A rise in equities in the wake of a solid jobs report may be countered if President Barack Obama wins, as his re-election will be perceived as negative for equities, while weakness in stocks due to soft data could be recovered if Republican Mitt Romney wins, as markets see him as stock-friendly, Yamamoto said.


Morgan Stanley, in a research note, said “Asian economic indicators are consistent with a risk-on strategy, but we remain risk selective.”


“The outcome of the U.S. presidential election is a close call, leaving markets concerned about whether the newly elected president will have the political capability to deal with the fiscal cliff,” undermining the recent economic rebound, it said.


After the U.S. election, Congress must deal with that “fiscal cliff” – up to $ 600 billion in expiring tax cuts and spending reductions that are set to kick in next year – which threatens to hurt the U.S. economy.


The euro remained in the recent $ 1.28-$ 1.32 range, but dipped below $ 1.29 as spot gold slipped 0.4 percent to $ 1,707.74 an ounce after a fall below key support levels accelerated selling in bullion amid wariness before the U.S. payrolls data.


Reports on manufacturing activity in major euro zone countries, due on Friday, are expected to show continued economic contraction.


U.S. crude fell 0.4 percent to $ 86.71 a barrel and Brent was down 0.2 percent to $ 107.96.


Asian credit markets recovered, tightening the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by 4 basis points.


(Additional reporting by Clement Tan in Hong Kong; Editing by Richard Borsuk)


Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Judge allows R&B singer Chris Brown to do European tour

























LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – R&B singer Chris Brown was given the go-ahead to carry out his European tour after a Los Angeles judge said on Thursday that the entertainer was “in compliance” with probation imposed for his 2009 assault on former girlfriend Rihanna.


Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg had the authority to jail the “Kiss Kiss” singer if she had found that Brown had not kept up with the terms of his probation, which includes community service and an already-completed domestic violence program.





















Brown, 23, is half way through his five-year probation sentence after pleading guilty to assaulting his fellow R&B star Rihanna on the eve of the 2009 Grammy awards.


Brown’s European tour begins on November 14 in Copenhagen and will finish in Paris on December 7. He will perform in Germany and Norway, among other countries.


The singer’s next progress hearing was set for January 17.


Brown and Rihanna have reconciled in recent months. Brown Tweeted a photograph of himself at Rihanna’s Halloween party in West Hollywood on Wednesday, dressed in Arab robes and brandishing a fake assault rifle.


(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Paul Simao)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

























MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.


The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.





















“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.


The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.


With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.


Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.


But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.


An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.


And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.


Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.


“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”


Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.


“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.


The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.


But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.


While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.


Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.


“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”


Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.


The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.


“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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A look at RIM’s much-delayed BlackBerry 10

























BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says it’s now testing its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones with 50 wireless carriers around the world. RIM calls it a key step.


RIM previously announced delays to its upcoming BlackBerry 10 system, which the company considers crucial to its future. It’s expected in the first quarter of next year, rather than late this year. The delay means the phones will miss the holiday shopping season and come months after the expected launch of a new iPhone. The delay could make it even harder for RIM to regain market share lost to Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google’s Android operating software.





















Here’s a look at developments surrounding the BlackBerry 10 in recent months:


Oct. 18, 2011: RIM unveils a new operating system, combining existing BlackBerry elements with RIM’s previously announced QNX operating system for phones and tablet computers. RIM gives few details and offers no timetable, though analysts have come to expect it in early 2012.


Dec. 6: RIM says “BlackBerry 10″ will be the new name for its next-generation system after the company loses a trademark ruling on its previous name, BBX.


Dec. 15: RIM says new phones running BlackBerry 10 won’t be out until late 2012. The company says the phones will need a highly integrated chipset that won’t be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect the new phones to ship late in the year.


May 1: RIM unveils a newly designed smartphone prototype powered by BlackBerry 10. The prototype BlackBerry has a touch screen, but no physical keyboard like most BlackBerry models. No update is given on the new system’s launch date.


May 2: Company stresses that while the prototype has no physical keyboard, RIM will continue to make some models with one.


June 21: Company says the first BlackBerry device running BlackBerry 10 will not have a physical keyboard, only a touch-screen one. Ones with hard keyboards will eventually be made, but the company declines to say when.


June 28: RIM says it’s delaying the launch of BlackBerry 10 yet again, to the first quarter of next year. CEO Thorsten Heins says RIM’s top priority is a successful launch of the new BlackBerrys. He adds, “I will not deliver a product to the market that is not ready to meet the needs of our customers. There will be no compromise on this issue.”


July 10: At its annual shareholders meeting, Heins asks disgruntled investors for patience as it develops BlackBerry 10. He says the product’s quality is more important than rushing out the software, and he argues that some telecom carriers prefer a 2013 launch because next-generation wireless networks will be more widely operational by then.


Aug. 23: RIM says it has begun showing its new BlackBerry smartphones to wireless carriers around the world, but it remains “months and months” away from starting to sell them. The company says feedback from those carriers has been positive, and it will begin to discuss product launches and other business aspects with the carriers soon.


Sept. 25: Heins promises to restore the BlackBerry phone’s stature as a trailblazing device even as many investors fret about its potential demise. Heins speaks at a conference for mobile applications developers to rally support for BlackBerry 10.


Wednesday: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says its BlackBerry 10 smartphones are now being tested by 50 wireless carriers around the world. The company calls it a key step.


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Ivermectin hair lotion found effective against lice

























NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A single 10-minute hair application of a drug used in oral form since the 1980s to control river blindness and other parasitic diseases eliminated head lice in nearly three of four children in a new study.


The lotion contains ivermectin and is sold under the brand name Sklice by Sanofi Pasteur, which paid for the study. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration used the results to approve topical ivermectin lotion in February.





















“The advantage of it is, it’s a one-application, one-shot treatment,” lead author Dr. David Pariser of Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk, told Reuters Health.


The treatment “sounds like it has promise in a population itching to get rid of lice,” said Dr. Hannah Chow of Loyola University Health System in Illinois, who was not connected with the study.


“Knowing how difficult it is to completely remove all lice despite due diligence with treatment and nit picking, ivermectin has potential to reduce the spread of lice, thus reducing parental anxiety, missed school and work, and social embarrassment,” she said.


Hundreds of people worldwide suffer from head lice, which feed off blood and lay up to 300 eggs, which are the nits, during a month-long lifespan.


The cost of treating infestations – including the value of lost school days and parents forced to be out of work – is estimated at $ 1 billion a year in the United States. There’s also been concern about resistance to other insecticide treatments.


Using a lotion with 0.5 percent ivermectin, the researchers found that after 14 days it had worked in 73.8 percent of 141 volunteers – most of whom were children younger than 12. In comparison, 17.6 percent of the 148 kids (and a handful of adults) whose hair was treated with a drug-free form of the lotion were louse-free after two weeks.


Lotions were applied to dry hair and then rinsed out after 10 minutes. The immediate success rate, judged the day after the lotion application, was 94.9 percent in the test group and 31.5 percent in the control group.


“It gets the kids back to school and the parents back to work,” said Pariser.


The study, involving children in 11 states, did not compare the ivermectin to any other treatment.


However, in a previous study that did test other drugs as well, Pariser and his colleagues note that ivermectin showed a similar one-day success rate of 92.4 percent while malathion, an insecticide sometimes used to treat lice, cleared 82.4 percent of patients after one day.


“A topical drug formulation is indeed welcome and is expected to have less risk of systemic adverse events,” Dr. Oliver Chosidow of Henri-Mondor Hospital in Creteil, France, and Bruno Giraudeau of University Francois-Rabelais in Tours, France, said in an editorial published with the new study in the New England Journal of Medicine.


But they advised that more-established techniques, such as treatments with permethrin or pyrethrin, or even malathion in cases of resistance, should be tried before using ivermectin.


“Ivermectin should be the last choice, whether topical (for still-infested persons) or oral (especially for mass treatment),” they said.


Interviewed by Reuters Health by phone and e-mail, Chow speculated that more than one application of ivermectin lotion might be necessary because the treatment didn’t work in all cases.


“Knowing that new lice could re-hatch in seven to 10 days if ivermectin didn’t completely kill all nymphs, live lice and newly laid nits, I wonder if a second application will be recommended,” she said. “I would still advocate nit picking at this point.”


“If you do this, think about retreating and continue to be very vigilant,” she said.


SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Yor2zt New England Journal of Medicine, online October 31, 2012.


Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Jobs Numbers Will Come Out on Friday, ‘as Scheduled’

























11 a.m., Oct. 31, 2012 — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed to me on Oct. 31 that it will release the monthly jobs report on schedule this Friday. That takes the wind out of the sails of conspiracy theorists, who speculated that the administration might use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to delay a bad jobs number that would hurt President Barack Obama’s chances of reelection. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, channeling his inner Jack Welch, had earlier tweeted: “Labor Dept says may release latest Unemployment figures until after election. Par for course. Why release something might hurt Obama elect?”


I called the BLS a little before 10 a.m. on Wednesday to find out whether the number would or would not be delayed because of Sandy. The receptionist said all calls were being referred to a spokesman at the U.S. Labor Dept., the BLS’s parent agency. When I got an answering machine at that number, I went back to Gary Steinberg, a spokesman for BLS, who—after checking with his boss for several minutes—came on the line and said: “The employment situation will be released, as scheduled, on Friday.”





















The report on the October employment situation could have a huge impact on an extremely tight election because the economy’s continued weakness—and what to do about it—has been the most important issue in the campaign.


Now that the jobs report is definitely coming out, conspiracy theorists will have to pivot to attacking the numbers themselves, as former General Electric (GE) Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch did a month ago.


—Peter  Coy


Businessweek.com — Top News



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George Clooney is distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln

























LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Aunt Rosemary was not George Clooney‘s only famous relative. You can add a certain Civil War American president to the Oscar-winning actor’s family tree.


Politics has apparently run in the activist actor’s blood for centuries, as website Ancestry.com on Thursday revealed that the “Ocean’s 11″ star is distantly related to President Abraham Lincoln.





















According to Ancestry.com, Clooney is the half-first cousin five times removed from Lincoln, the 16th president. The genealogy website breaks down the connection, explaining the “half” means that two of their ancestors were half-siblings – Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks was the half-sister of Clooney’s 4th great-grandmother Mary Ann Sparrow.


Hanks and Sparrow shared the same mother, Lucy Hanks, but had different fathers. Lucy Hanks was Lincoln’s maternal grandmother as well as the 5th great-grandmother of Clooney.


Clooney’s aunt was singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, who died in 2002.


Clooney, long noted for his political activism, is a major Hollywood backer of President Barack Obama. He hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser at his Los Angeles home in March that raised $ 15 million.


Lincoln, a Republican, is considered one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States. He led the country through the Civil War and is credited with the abolition of slavery, which officially became law in 1865 after his assassination.


He is the subject of an upcoming Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, which is to open in the United States next week.


Ancestry.com is offering free access to more than 20,000 documents showcasing Lincoln’s life, his family tree and the most pivotal moments of his presidential career. The details can be found at www.ancestry.com/lincoln.


(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Chris Michaud and Jackie Frank)


Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

























AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces and insurgents.


State television said “terrorists” had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.





















In July, a bomb killed four of Assad‘s aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.


Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.


Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.


Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler’s body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.


The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.


“The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town,” activist Mohammed Kanaan said.


Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad’s ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.


Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.


Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.


“WE’LL FIX IT”


The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.


One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: “Don’t worry dear, we’ll fix it for you.”


Syria’s military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.


U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.


But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.


Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.


The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the “ceasefire”, but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.


“We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all,” said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.


The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria’s conflict was not a civil war but “a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community”.


Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.


He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in “paralysis” for two or three weeks during its presidential election.


(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)


World News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Hurricane Sandy wallops Internet commerce just as hard

























SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – From Fab.com to Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc, e-commerce companies scrambled on Tuesday to get goods to buyers on time after Hurricane Sandy tore a swathe of destruction across the U.S. northeast.


The storm — which severed power to warehouses and offices, ripped up rails and roads and shuttered airports — challenged the notion that Internet retailers might benefit from problems at store chains exposed to the elements.





















Fab.com, a fast-growing design e-commerce start-up based in New York City, handled unusually strong volumes on Monday as people hunkered down at home. Then the problems began.


Fab operates out of two warehouses in hard-hit New Jersey, one self-owned and another run by warehouse company Dotcom Distribution. With both lacking power as of mid-afternoon, no packages were making it out the door on Tuesday.


“The biggest impact to us right now is that our warehouses have no power,” said Jason Goldberg, founder and chief executive of Fab.com. “We’re doing everything humanly possible to send packages as quickly as possible.”


Retailers from New York to Washington are starting to re-open and re-staff in the aftermath of Monday’s destruction. But many of Fab.com’s fellow Internet retailers were still struggling to fill orders, handle customer service and keep websites running ahead of the crucial holiday season.


Those efforts are geared at ensuring buyers do not wait too long for their products — and averting a damaging backlash against their sites and reputation.


Amazon.com warned merchants on Tuesday that use its shipping service, Fulfillment by Amazon, that Sandy might impact the handling of orders. Third-party sellers on its marketplace that handle their own shipping were instructed to contact shoppers directly about their orders.


It advised them to temporarily deactivate online listings should they be unable to meet usual shipping standards.


“Because the Internet is an opaque purchasing method, customers don’t always understand where their product is coming from or if they are going to be affected,” said Eric Heller, head of Marketplace Ignition, which helps online retailers sell through websites such as Amazon.com. “We’re encouraging sellers to proactively reach out to buyers that may be affected.”


RECOVERY PLANS


EBay pursued a similar tactic, emailing shoppers who purchased items from merchants that may have been impacted by the storm in recent days, asking for patience. It recommended that affected eBay Store-subscribers put their pages in “vacation mode” to control purchasing and show shoppers that their operation has been temporarily disrupted, a spokeswoman said.


And Gilt Groupe, which runs a popular high-end fashion website, expects delivery times to take one to three days longer than normal, said Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of the company.


Beyond logistics tangles, loss of power and telecommunications have hurt Internet firms that rely on telephone and Web-based customer service in the absence of store staff.


Fab.com’s offices a block from New York’s Hudson River were blacked out and closed until further notice. About a third of employees lacked power as of Tuesday afternoon. A dozen camped out at Goldberg’s home working on recovery plans and preparing the company’s online holiday stores for their Thursday launch.


Gilt’s offices in New York have been difficult to access, so the company has not been able to run its usual photoshoots for a few days, Ryan said.


“We will need to get back in soon or there will not be any new sales up,” he said. “I think we will get back in by Thursday and everything will be OK.”


Others like online eyeglasses start-up Warby Parker, in the SoHo district of New York City, sought temporary solutions to a loss of power and Web access. It found a temporary office that it will start using on Wednesday to handle customer inquiries.


“We’ve been scrambling to get our systems up and running,” said co-founder Dave Gilboa.


(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Edwin Chan and Chris Gallagher)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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How women can identify heart disease



























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Living standards ‘may stagnate’


























Millions of poor and middle-income households may be bypassed by any economic recovery, a think tank says.





















The Resolution Foundation argues that their living standards could stagnate for the next 10 years, ending no higher in 2020 than they were in 2000.


The think tank blames this prospect on the demise of administrative and manufacturing jobs in the UK economy.


It warns that high unemployment will continue to depress wages and calls for state subsidies to boost employment.


“On current trends the outlook for the bottom half of the working population is bleak even once growth returns,” the Foundation says.


“This stagnation of living standards can be averted if action is taken.


“Success in boosting low pay, raising skills, and increasing female employment could see a typical middle income family better off by £1,600 (after inflation) a year by 2020,” the think tank adds.


The UK economy pulled out of recession, again, in the third quarter of this year.


But the economy’s annual output is still no higher than it was at the start of 2007, shortly before the start of the credit crunch, international banking crisis, and the consequent international recession.


‘Too little debate’


Continue reading the main story

Ministers will agree with some of the Commission’s answers, and reject others. But they will likely admit that it highlights some very important questions about the future shape of the economy”



End Quote



UK unemployment rose sharply and since the middle of 2009, the official unemployment rate has been hovering around the 8% level.


As a recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed, the combined effect of the recession – mainly high unemployment, stagnating wages and rising prices – has slashed living standards.


The ONS said that income per head, taking inflation into account, had fallen by more than 13% since the start of 2008.


To stop the benefits of any economic recovery simply being concentrated on the wealthier half of the population, the Resolution Foundation suggests a series of measures to redistribute income and wealth.


These include:


  • more state subsidies for cheap childcare

  • cutting the national insurance contributions paid by workers aged 55 or over

  • ensuring that the government’s forthcoming Universal Credit system is as generous to second earners in a family as it will be to first earners

  • switching child tax credit from parents of older children to those with younger ones

  • reducing council tax bills for cheap properties by increasing the tax on expensive ones

Clive Cowdery, chairman of the Resolution Foundation, said: “There remains far too little debate about whether growth will benefit the broad majority of people.


“This wil not happen automatically but… things can be done to ensure the benefits of economic growth are shared by all.”


BBC News – Business



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Cuba’s 2nd city without power, water after Sandy

























HAVANA (AP) — Residents of Cuba‘s second-largest city of Santiago remained without power or running water Monday, four days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall as the island’s deadliest storm in seven years, ripping rooftops from homes and toppling power lines.


Across the Caribbean, the storm’s death toll rose to 69, including 52 people in Haiti, 11 in Cuba, two in the Bahamas, two in the Dominican Republic, one in Jamaica and one in Puerto Rico.





















Cuban authorities have not yet estimated the economic toll, but the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported there was “severe damage to housing, economic activity, fundamental public services and institutions of education, health and culture.”


Yolanda Tabio, a native of Santiago, said she had never seen anything like it in all her 64 years: Broken hotel and shop windows, trees blown over onto houses, people picking through piles of debris for a scrap of anything to cover their homes. On Sunday, she sought solace in faith.


“The Mass was packed. Everyone crying,” said Tabio, whose house had no electricity, intermittent phone service and only murky water coming out of the tap on Monday. “I think it will take five to ten years to recover. … But we’re alive.”


Sandy came onshore early Thursday just west of Santiago, a city of about 500,000 people in agricultural southeastern Cuba. It is the island’s deadliest storm since 2005′s Hurricane Dennis, a category 5 monster that killed 16 people and did $ 2.4 billion in damage. More than 130,000 homes were damaged by Sandy, including 15,400 that were destroyed, Granma said.


“It really shocked me to see all that has been destroyed and to know that for many people, it’s the effort of a whole lifetime,” said Maria Caridad Lopez, a media relations officer at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Santiago. “And it disappears in just three hours.”


Lopez said several churches in the area collapsed and nearly all suffered at least minor damage. That included the Santiago cathedral as well as one of the holiest sites in Cuba, the Sanctuary of the Virgin del Cobre. Sandy’s winds blew out its stained glass windows and damaged its massive doors.


“It’s indescribable,” said Berta Serguera, an 82-year-old retiree whose home withstood the tempest but whose patio and garden did not. “The trees have been shredded as if with a saw. My mango only has a few branches left, and they look like they were shaved.”


On Monday, sound trucks cruised the streets urging people to boil drinking water to prevent infectious disease. Soldiers worked to remove rubble and downed trees from the streets. Authorities set up radios and TVs in public spaces to keep people up to date on relief efforts, distributed chlorine to sterilize water and prioritized electrical service to strategic uses such as hospitals and bakeries.


Enrique Berdion, a 45-year-old doctor who lives in central Santiago, said his small apartment building did not suffer major damage but he had been without electricity, water or gas for days.


“This was something I’ve never seen, something extremely intense, that left Santiago destroyed. Most homes have no roofs. The winds razed the parks, toppled all the trees,” Berdion said by phone. “I think it will take years to recover.”


Raul Castro, who toured Cuba’s hardest-hit regions on Sunday, warned of a long road to recovery.


Granma said the president called on the country to urgently implement “temporary solutions,” and “undoubtedly the definitive solution will take years of work.”


Venezuela sent nearly 650 of tons of aid, including nonperishable food, potable water and heavy machinery both to Cuba and to nearby Haiti, which was not directly in the storm’s path but suffered flash floods across much of the country’s south.


Across the Caribbean, work crews were repairing downed power lines and cracked water pipes and making their way into rural communities marooned by impassable roads. The images were similar from eastern Jamaica to the northern Bahamas: Trees ripped from the ground, buildings swamped by floodwaters and houses missing roofs.


Fixing soggy homes may be a much quicker task than repairing the financial damage, and island governments were still assessing Sandy’s economic impact on farms, housing and infrastructure.


In tourism-dependent countries like Jamaica and the Bahamas, officials said popular resorts sustained only superficial damage, mostly to landscaping.


Haiti, where even minor storms can send water gushing down hills denuded of trees, listed a death toll of 52 as of Monday and officials said it could still rise. Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe has described the storm as a “disaster of major proportions.”


In Jamaica, where Sandy made landfall first on Wednesday as a Category 1 hurricane, people coped with lingering water and power outages with mostly good humor.


“Well, we mostly made it out all right. I thought it was going to be rougher, like it turned out for other places,” laborer Reginald Miller said as he waited for a minibus at a sunbaked Kingston intersection.


In parts of the Bahamas, the ocean surged into coastal buildings and deposited up to six feet of seawater. Sandy was blamed for two deaths on the archipelago off Florida’s east coast, including a British bank executive who fell off his roof while trying to fix a window shutter and an elderly man found dead beneath overturned furniture in his flooded, low-lying home.


___


Associated Press writers Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana, David McFadden in Kingston, Jamaica, and Jeff Todd in Nassau, Bahamas, contributed to this report.


___


Peter Orsi is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Facebook, Twitter abuzz with hurricane chatter

























Whether you call it Frankenstorm, Stormpocalypse or simply Hurricane Sandy, the giant weather system barreling into the East Coast is a favorite topic of conversation on social media from Facebook to Twitter. As people post updates to friends and family, relay emergency information and lighten the mood with humor, it’s clear that discussing natural disasters on social media has become as much a part of the experience as stocking up on bread and batteries.


As of Monday afternoon, the hashtag “Sandy” had 233,000 photos posted on Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing service owned by Facebook. “Hurricanesandy,” meanwhile, had 100,000 photos and “Frankenstorm” had 20,000 and growing.





















As they waited for the storm to hit over the weekend, people posted photos of hurricane-preparedness supplies ranging from canned goods to board games and bottles of wine. Empty grocery store shelves where bread should have been also showed up on Facebook and Instagram.


“There are now 10 pictures per second being posted with the hashtag “Sandy” – most are images of people prepping for the storm and images of scenes outdoors, said Instagram CEO Kevin Systorm in an emailed statement. “I think this demonstrates how Instagram is quickly becoming a useful tool to see the world as it happens – especially for important world events like this.”


By Monday, dispatches about storm preparations gave way to messages of anticipation and real-time updates. Among U.S. users, the terms “Sandy”, “Hurricane Sandy” and “Hurricane” were the most-used terms on Facebook, followed by “stay safe” and “be safe.” In fact, all of the top 10 most-mentioned phrases on Facebook related to the storm in some way among U.S. users, the company said. “Power,” ”cold,” ”my friends” and “prayers” were also in the top 10.


To gauge how much its users are talking about a particular topic, Facebook uses a measurement tool it calls the “talk meter,” which ranks terms around a topic or event on a scale of 1 to 10. Tops that generate the most buzz receive a 10. As of Friday afternoon, Sandy-related chatter was at 7.12, the company said. In comparison, the San Francisco Giants World Series win on Sunday night measured at 6.71 on Facebook.


On Twitter, Frankenstorm, FEMA — for Federal Emergency Management Agency — and New Jersey were among the top trending topics in the United States. Forecasters expected the hurricane’s center to come ashore in southern New Jersey Monday evening.


Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley reminded his more than 53,000 Twitter followers to “ALWAYS BE CHARGING.” Millions of East Coasters could experience electric power and landline telephone outages. As a result, power-hungry smart phones, laptops and tablet computers may become only way to communicate.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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