China-backed payment processor to accelerate global expansion

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's state-backed electronic payment services giant, China UnionPay, launched an international arm tasked with speeding its expansion overseas, heating up competition with rivals such as Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc .

The move underscores UnionPay's growing global ambitions, and follows a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that China discriminates against foreign card companies by favoring UnionPay in the home market.

UnionPay, China's dominant payment card supplier, is looking to expand the number of shops and outlets overseas that will accept its cards and also grow the number of partner banks issuing UnionPay-branded cards. The move would increase its business, assist inbound and outbound travelers and is also aimed at promoting the use of the yuan as a global currency.

"UnionPay's internationalism provides convenience to Chinese residents and companies going overseas. Also it provides a new payment option for overseas residents and companies," Liu Shiyu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said at the opening ceremony of UnionPay's unit.

Over 70 million Chinese traveled overseas in 2011, up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to government data.

UnionPay has already formed partnerships with groups such as HSBC Holdings Plc and National Australia Bank Ltd to promote its cards in other countries.

The tie-ups have intensified competition in the international market between UnionPay and global players such as Visa and MasterCard, who have been lobbying China to open its domestic bank card market to foreigners.

The WTO ruled in July that UnionPay had a monopoly on yuan payment cards issued and used in China, but rejected a U.S. claim that the firm was an "across-the-board monopoly supplier" for all transactions denominated in yuan.

China said it wouldn't appeal the decision and promised to push forward with reform and opening up in the electronic payments market.

Since its first overseas expansion in 2004, UnionPay has moved into 135 countries and regions, partnering with 8 million overseas merchants, and has issued 15 million UnionPay-branded cards in about 30 countries and regions.

The newly established unit, UnionPay International Co, already counts 60 domestic and foreign banks as its members.

(Editing by Richard Pullin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-backed-payment-processor-accelerate-global-expansion-111935312--sector.html

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A Blood Test That Screens For Cancer

Yerba mate, green tea, and black tea are all highly anti-cancer. Mate is actually awesome for this; steamed green tea is pretty close; black tea less so, but it has its own strengths over the others. It's worth having a pot of Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast Tea in the morning, and a pot of green tea (gunpowder, any of the various $15-$200 Sencha greens, etc) in the afternoon.

Meanwhile people cry about HFCS, which is an abomination but relatively harmless; look at all the wheat we eat, and our response is to eat whole grains because they're less bad. People figure this out and go Atkins, instead of just eating less than 3000 calories from wheat every day. Over-salted, fumigated crap gets pureed, strained, cooked, then mixed with benzoates and sorbates and parabeens for us to eat or rub onto our skin. All that's bad, but removing it all won't really help if you keep eating crap--like tons of wheat, tons of rice, tons of greasy fatty shit, all things that are good for you but not so god damn much with so little else--and keep sitting on your ass all the time.

Those toxic chemicals will go away if you bike to work every day. Live 5 miles from work? That's 10 miles a day. Suck down potassium and magnesium and sodium out of a CamelBak, chomping on Clif bars if you need it, and shove a greasy full English down your throat in the morning cooked in a ton of lard. Hell, use the canned sorbated bullshit, your body will just shove it out your lymph system while you burn through all that crap.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/JD8wshr16X0/story01.htm

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Traffic cops of the immune system

Friday, November 30, 2012

Now, scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have looked into the origin of Tregs and uncovered a central role played by the protein IkBNS. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers hope to manipulate Tregs in order to either inhibit or activate the immune system. Biochemist Prof. Ingo Schmitz and his team have now published their findings in the scientific journal Immunity.

The immune system is a complex network of different types of cells and chemical messengers. The regulatory cells and other immune cells exist together in a delicate balance. Any disturbance of this balance could have serious consequences: If there are too many Tregs, the immune system might be "thwarted" and little would stand in the way of infections or tumors spreading throughout the body. By contrast, if there are too few Tregs, other immune cells could get out of control and attack the body's own tissues: autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or the chronic inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis may be a consequence. Tregs also play an important role following an organ transplant as they decide whether the body will accept or reject the donor organ.

But what it is exactly that makes immature immune cells choose the "police officer career" had eluded scientists. Schmitz and his team from the HZI, the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, the Charit? Universit?tsmedizin Berlin, the Harvard Medical School Boston, the TWINCORE in Hanover, the Eberhard Karls University T?bingen and the Heinrich Heine University D?sseldorf were now able to demonstrate that the transcription factor IkBNS contributes considerably to Treg development. The molecule promotes formation of the protein Foxp3, the Tregs' central feature. IkBNS influences the large NFkB family of transcription factors. These signaling molecules trigger a number of different inflammatory responses elicited by the immune system. "It was therefore all the more surprising for us when we identified IkBNS' central role in Treg maturation. Essentially, these are cells capable of constraining inflammation ? even though IkBNS in no way influences the function of regulatory T cells," explains Dr. Marc Schuster, one of Schmitz' colleagues at HZI and the article's first author. The researchers tested their hypothesis regarding IkBNS' central role in Treg development in mice that are missing this factor. Since cells that lack IkBNS do not "become cops," the immune system's effector cells are undamped and could trigger chronic inflammation of the intestine.

The results have confirmed that further research on IkBNS is of interest from a medical perspective as well. On the one hand, it allows predicting diseases: If IkBNS is fraught with errors, this could trigger autoimmune disorders. On the other hand, one potential therapeutic goal might be "to manipulate IkBNS in such a way that we can control the number of Tregs," explains Schmitz, who, in addition to his HZI research, also has a chair at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. "IkBNS stabilization could benefit autoimmune disease therapy. As far as infections or tumors are concerned, we would need to inhibit IkBNS to decrease the number of regulatory T cells. Of course, all that is still in the very distant future." But because IkBNS also plays an important role in effector cell activation, an intervention might have unforeseen consequences. "This is a challenge you face with many different therapeutic targets," adds Schmitz.

###

Marc Schuster, Rainer Glauben, Carlos Plaza-Sirvent, Lisa Schreiber, Michaela Annemann, Stefan Floess, Anja A. Khl, Linda K. Clayton, Tim Sparwasser, Klaus Schulze-Osthoff, Klaus Pfeffer, Jochen Huehn, Britta Siegmund, Ingo Schmitz The atypical NFkB inhibitor IkBNS mediates regulatory T cell development by regulating Foxp3 induction Immunity, 2012

Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research: http://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/en

Thanks to Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125600/Traffic_cops_of_the_immune_system

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Court fines Cyprus over 'missing' dead soldier

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Andriani Palma says she feels cheated for every one of the 22 years she wasn't told her husband was killed during fighting in the summer of 1974 that split tiny Cyprus along ethnic lines.

Living with the hope that Charalambos Palmas might one day return to her and her children, she lived in a kind of suspended animation, unwilling to remarry and move on with her life.

"They denied me my youth, the joys of being young, they denied me everything," Andriani, who is now 65, said. "There was prejudice in those times. I couldn't take the kids places, because they didn't have a father ...We've lived a mockery all those years."

But on Thursday a court offered her some sense of justice by ordering the Cypriot government to pay ?324,000 ($417,668) in damages to her and two daughters, Kalliopi and Christina, for denying them the right to know for two decades.

"After so much struggle, I feel vindicated," she says. "It's hardly the money, but the moral satisfaction."

Army authorities buried then 28-year-old reservist Palmas along with some 30 other Greek Cypriot soldiers in a mass grave marked "unknown" at Lakatamia cemetery on Nicosia's outskirts shortly after the fighting stopped. The soldiers were killed in heavy fighting as invading Turkish troops advanced in the northern Nicosia suburb of Ayios Pavlos.

Turkey invaded after a coup by supporters of union with Greece. The war split the island into a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north where Turkey maintains 35,000 troops, and an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south.

In its ruling, the court said the state failed to carry out a timely probe into Palmas' fate, even if it had evidence indicating that he was dead.

The court said it awarded punitive damages on top of general damages to underscore how seriously the human rights of the soldier's family were breached.

"Sufficient evidence has been presented which demonstrates that the republic evaded its obligation to inform relatives in a proper and timely fashion and so violated their right to the truth, condemning the plaintiffs to such hardship that it bordered on inhumane treatment," the court said in its ruling. "The republic's behavior toward the plaintiffs from 1974 until now was, at the very least, insulting."

Palmas' lawyer Achilleas Demetriades said it's the first time that a Cypriot court has awarded punitive damages in a missing persons case.

Attorney General Petros Clerides said the state is "seriously considering" appealing the ruling.

Cypriot authorities only confirmed to Andriani Palmas her husband's death in 1996, two years after she started receiving bits of information about his real fate. It was three years later that his remains were returned and after Andriani in a fit of despair went to the cemetery to dig her husband up on her own.

Andriani's oldest daughter Kalliopi, who was only 5 in 1974 said a photograph of her mother, sister and their children standing next to her father's remains is the only family portrait that they have.

Kalliopi said the stigma of growing up without a father figured prominently in her childhood. But that was eclipsed by the bitter awareness of having grown up in the offices of the very same officials who kept the truth from her, even as her family took part in countless missing persons demonstrations clutching a photograph of her dad.

"What annoyed me was that my father wasn't just another faceless missing person, he had a name, he was somebody," she said.

About 1,500 Greek Cypriots and 500 Turkish Cypriots were officially listed as missing in intercommunal fighting in the early 1960s and the Turkish invasion.

An exhumation and identification program by the U.N.-led Committee on Missing Persons has returned the identified remains of 264 Greek Cypriots and 66 Turkish Cypriots to their families since it began in 2006.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-fines-cyprus-over-missing-dead-soldier-195541905.html

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Syria using landmines, cluster bombs on civilians, activists claim

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria has strewn landmines along its borders with Lebanon and Turkey, making it the only country worldwide to use the weapons this year, and is increasingly dropping cluster munitions on civilian areas, campaigners said on Thursday.

Nearly two dozen Syrians, many of them children, are known to have been killed or maimed by Soviet-made mines in border crossing areas so far this year, but the true number of casualties is probably higher, they said.

Another 10 children playing outdoors died in a government air strike that dropped cluster bombs on a rebel-held village near Damascus this week, they said.

"This year we have identified only one government that has used anti-personnel mines and that is Syria. We have information that the laying of mines has continued in Syria, with reports up to October this year that mines are being used," Mark Hiznay, editor of the Landmine Monitor 2012 report, told a briefing.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which publishes the report, documented the most recent mine explosion last month in the village of Kharbit al Jouz, near the border with Turkey. Three civilians were injured, including two who lost their legs.

"This was basically a military position that was abandoned by the Syrian military one day and overnight they had laid about 150 to 200 landmines to delay whoever was pursuing them. And eventually the villagers started finding them the hard way as they were going about their business across the paths," Hiznay said.

Syrian rebels are not known to have used landmines in the 20-month conflict aimed at toppling President Bashar al-Assad, but are setting off roadside bombs and other deadly devices, according to the Nobel prize-winning ICBL.

"We have seen instances where the insurgents are using improvised explosive devices but that all we have seen are ones that have been command-detonated, which is of a different character than an anti-personnel mine which is victim-activated," Hiznay said.

Officials from 160 countries that have joined the Mine Ban Treaty meet in Geneva next week to review progress in halting production, destroying stockpiles and clearing mines after wars.

MADE IN THE USSR

Russia has been a major ally and arms supplier to Syria but there was no indication of a recent transfer of mines to Assad's forces, said Hiznay, a senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, which contributed to the report with four other groups.

"The ones we have seen going into ground were produced in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, based on the markings that we have seen on the mines," he said.

Human Rights Watch has also documented the use of cluster munitions by Syrian forces, including on an olive oil factory.

"These are indiscriminate, murderous weapons, they are using them for one reason and that is to attack the civilian population," Hiznay told reporters.

Myanmar, long on its list of governments using antipersonnel mines, has been dropped this year as there has been no proven use by state forces, although armed groups have been found to being planting them there in 2012.

"The situation in Myanmar is evolving right now with the transition that's going on there. Our ability to collect almost real-time information is somewhat limited," Hiznay said.

Only four countries - India, Myanmar, Pakistan and South Korea - are known to be actively producing mines, ICBL said.

China, Russia and the United States have stayed outside the so-called Ottawa pact and reserved the right to produce mines, although the Obama administration is reviewing its position.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-using-mines-cluster-bombs-civilians-campaigners-144407461.html

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Two tickets share record $588 million Powerball win

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Winning tickets bought in Arizona and Missouri matched numbers drawn for a record Powerball lottery jackpot of $588 million, the Multi-State Lottery Association said.

Holders of the two winning tickets in the Wednesday night draw will share an estimated $385 million after tax if they opt to take it as a lump sum. Alternatively, the $588 million can be paid out to them as annuities over three decades, the association said.

The drawing took place at 10:59 p.m. EST, with winning numbers 5 16 22 23 29, and a Powerball of 6. The Association did not say if the ticket holders had come forward yet to claim their vast cash prizes.

Powerball spokeswomen in Arizona and Missouri did not immediately respond to emails seeking further details on the winners.

The popular lottery - which is played in 42 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands - had not had a winner for two months. After no one won the top prize in Saturday's drawing, the pot had grown by about $263 million to $578.5 million amid a rush to buy tickets.

The previous Powerball top prize of $365 million was won in 2006 by ConAgra slaughterhouse workers in Nebraska. The largest-ever U.S. lottery jackpot, the $656 million Mega Millions drawing, was shared by three winning tickets last March.

Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery, where Powerball is based, said lottery officials had received calls and emails from people around the world asking if they can buy a ticket. They cannot.

There have been nearly 300 jackpot winners over the past 20 years, taking home payouts of over $11.6 billion.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Idaho, Teresa Carson in Oregon,; Keith Coffman in Colorado,; Paul Ingram in Tucson, Jonathan Kaminsky in Washington state, Dave Warner in Philadelphia and Nick Carey in Illinois; Writing by Peter Rudegeair and Tim Gaynor; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/numbers-drawn-record-580-million-powerball-jackpot-043234757.html

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Now, police detain Palghar boy over Facebook post against Raj Thackeray

They say once bitten twice shy, but this adage clearly does not hold true for the Palghar police.

After facing much flak over the arrests of two girls, they have now detained a 19-year-old boy for posting an "abusive" Facebook status against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, based on a complaint by workers of MNS. Cops said they are questioning the boy to verify if he had indeed posted the status himself or if someone else hacked into his ID.

Police officers said that they are being cautious about their approach in the fresh complaint for status messages on a social networking site, as they do not want to go to the same extreme like in the case of Shaheen Dhada, the 21-year-old girl who was arrested along with her friend for questioning the shutdown of the city over the death of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

The 19-year-old was detained after a complaint was filed by Kundan Sankhe, president of Thane rural unit of the MNS, alleging that the boy had made "abusive" comments about Raj Thackeray. The boy was brought to the police station by a mob of MNS supporters.

Meanwhile, Palghar remained on tenterhooks throughout Wednesday over the bandh called by the Shiv Sena in support of the policemen suspended for arresting the two girls last week. People chose to stay indoors and schools and colleges remained closed.

The state had deployed 500 police officers and had the Rapid Action Force on standby to avert any crisis situation.

Source: http://indiatoday.feedsportal.com/c/33614/f/589699/s/260f61fc/l/0Lindiatoday0Bintoday0Bin0Cstory0Cnow0Epolice0Edetain0Eboy0Eover0Eobjectionable0Efacebook0Ecomment0Eagainst0Eraj0Ethackeray0C10C2351210Bhtml/story01.htm

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Boat Transportation | Sports n Recreation Info Center

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Source: http://sports-recreation-info.blogspot.com/2012/11/boat-transportation.html

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Editorial: Challenging obesity | CJOnline.com

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Source: http://cjonline.com/opinion/2012-11-28/editorial-challenging-obesity

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New Orleans Levee Upkeep Presents Big Bill To Prepare For Hurricanes

Long Island Residents, Many Still Without Power, Continue To Clean Up After Superstorm Sandy

LONG BEACH, NY - NOVEMBER 09: A man walks past a destroyed section of the boardwalk at the base of Lincoln Boulevard as Long Islanders continue their clean up efforts in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy on November 9, 2012 in Long Beach, New York. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said that the economic loss and damage to homes and business caused by Sandy could total $33 billion in New York, according to published reports. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Storm-Damaged Communities On East Coast Hit By Nor'Easter

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 08: Alex Vila, 2, carries a box of cereal after visiting an aid station for people affected by Superstorm Sandy on November 8, 2012 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Household supplies and groceries were distributed to Red Hook neighborhood residents by Catholic Charities at the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary church. Meanwhile a nor'easter storm plunged temperatures to below freezing, bringing more misery to many Red Hook residents still without power, heat nor running water in their public housing apartments. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY

Boats and docks damaged by Hurricane Sandy are seen at the Mansion Marinia on the shores of the Great Kills community November 7, 2012 on Staten Island, New York. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday announced a limited evacuation of some neighborhoods ahead of harsh weather barreling toward a city still recovering from superstorm Sandy. The national weather service forecast heavy rain and likely snow on Wednesday and Thursday, accompanied by gale force winds gusting as high as 43 mph (69 kmh). Though barely half the strength of Sandy, the autumn storm will lash already damaged buildings and bring lower temperatures for tens of thousands of people still struggling without electricity. Bloomberg told a news conference that parks and beaches would close. The worst-hit patches of waterfront neighborhoods, including Rockaways in the Queens borough, and in Staten Island, were being asked to evacuate again. AFP PHOTO/Paul J. Richards (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Storm-Damaged Communities On East Coast Hit By Nor'Easter

LONG BRANCH, NJ - NOVEMBER 08: Debris from Superstorm Sandy is seen on a beach November 8, 2012 in Long Branch, New Jersey. Meanwhile a nor'easter storm plunged temperatures to below freezing, bringing more misery to many residents throughout New York and New Jersey still without power. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

Long Island Residents, Many Still Without Power, Continue To Clean Up After Superstorm Sandy

OCEANSIDE, NY - NOVEMBER 09: (L-R) James Vouloukos and William Ferris sort through donated clothes at a site maintained by the Town of Hempstead in cooperation with FEMA at Oceanside Park during in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy on November 9, 2012 in Oceanside, New York. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said that the economic loss and damage to homes and businesses caused by Sandy could total $33 billion in New York, according to published reports. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Funeral Held in Brooklyn For Two Young Brothers Killed During Superstorm Sandy

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 09: New York sanitation department workers watch as a hearse arrives with a casket carrying the bodies of two brothers killed during Superstorm Sandy for a funeral at the St. Rose of Lima Catholic church on November 9, 2012 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Brandon Moore, 2, and Connor Moore, 4, were swept away from the arms of their mother Glenda Moore as she fled Superstorm Sandy floodwaters in New York's Staten Island borough to seek safety with family in Brooklyn. She is married to New York Sanitation worker Damian Moore, and dozens of workers and officials from the sanitation department attended the funeral ceremony. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Long Island Residents, Many Still Without Power, Continue To Clean Up After Superstorm Sandy

ISLAND PARK, NY - NOVEMBER 09: (L-R) Residents Paul and Donald Zezulinski and their dog 'Plywood' of Island Park show their appreciation to first responders during their clean up efforts in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy on November 9, 2012 in Island Park, New York. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said that the economic loss and damage to homes and business caused by Sandy could total $33 billion in New York, according to published reports. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 file photo, people stand next to a house collapsed from Superstorm Sandy in East Haven, Conn. While Connecticut was spared the destruction seen in New York and New Jersey, many communities along the shoreline, including some of the wealthiest towns in America, were struggling with one of the most severe storms in generations. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

Meg Dolan holds her dog "Nellie" during Sunday mass at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Breezy Point, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, in New York. With overnight temperatures sinking into the 30s and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses still without electricity six days after Sandy howled through, people piled on layers of clothes, and New York City officials handed out blankets and urged victims to go to overnight shelters or daytime warming centers. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

A representative of the Salvation Army walks past homes destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in Breezy Point, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, in New York. The beachfront neighborhood heavy populated by firefighters and police officers was devastated during the storm when a fire pushed by Sandy's raging winds destroyed 100 or more homes and buildings. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Ginny Flanagan, right, and her sister go through photographs and mementos that were recovered from Flanagan's flooded bungalow in Breezy Point, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, in New York. The beachfront enclave heavy populated by firefighters and police officers was devastated during the storm when a fire pushed by Sandy's raging winds destroyed 100 or more homes and buildings. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY-MARATHON

Runner Jonathan who would have run the ING New York City Marathon, spend the afternoon volunteering by unloading and organizing emergency supplies near Midland Beach as New York recovers from Hurricane Sandy on November 4, 2012 in Staten Island, New York. AFP PHOTO / Mehdi Taamallah (Photo credit should read MEHDI TAAMALLAH/AFP/Getty Images)

A woman with her groceries passes a group of National Guardsmen as they march up 1st Avenue towards the 69th Regiment Armory, Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, in New York. National Guardsmen remain in Manhattan as the city begins to move towards normalcy following Superstorm Sandy earlier in the week. (AP Photo/ John Minchillo)

Patrons on foot carrying gas canisters line up for gasoline at a Hess station in the New Dorp section of the Staten Island borough of New York, Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012. Those on foot reported waits up to 40 minutes while motorists lined up for two hours as Staten Islanders fueled up to run their generators and automobiles in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Eileen AJ Connelly)

Girls hold hands during Sunday mass at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Breezy Point, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, in New York. With overnight temperatures sinking into the 30s and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses still without electricity six days after Sandy howled through, people piled on layers of clothes, and New York City officials handed out blankets and urged victims to go to overnight shelters or daytime warming centers. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Many streets in the Silver Lake section of Belmar, N.J., remain underwater Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, Neighbors and volunteers clean out homes Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, in Belmar, N.J., five days after the storm surge by superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Ben Nukols)

Water from superstorm Sandy is pumped from a flooded basement of an office building near New York's Battery Park, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. The massive storm that started out as Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast and morphed into a huge and problematic system, killing at least 96 people in the United States. The cost of the storm could exceed $18 billion in New York alone. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Cars that were uprighted and submerged by Superstorm Sandy remain at the entrance of a subterranean parking garage in New York's Financial District, as the water is pumped out, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. . The cost of the storm could exceed $18 billion in New York alone. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

National Guard in Lower Manhattan

The National Guard 827th Engineer Company helps hand out MREs to Lower Manhattan residents at the Alfred Smith Playground on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

National Guard in Lower Manhattan

The National Guard 827th Engineer Company helps hand out MREs to Lower Manhattan residents at the Alfred Smith Playground on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Grand Central Terminal, New York City

People walk through Grand Central Terminal as the sun rises during a subdued morning rush on Nov. 1, 2012 in New York City. Some trains are back up and running into Grand Central following shutdowns in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Subway train service in the city is back in a limited capacity, but with much of lower Manhattan still with out power, trains are not running there and busses are replacing them.

Seaside Heights, N.J.

A roller coaster sits in the Atlantic Ocean after the Fun Town pier it sat on was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy on Nov. 1, 2012 in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. With the death toll continuing to rise and millions of homes and businesses without power, the U.S. east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Superstorm Sandy.

National Guard in Lower Manhattan

The National Guard 827th Engineer Company helps hand out MREs to Lower Manhattan residents at the Alfred Smith Playground on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Charging Station Provided By AT&T

Phillip Melly charges the phones of Hurricane Sandy victims at Kimlau Square in Lower Manhattan on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. The generators used were brought in by AT&T to help out the residents of Lower Manhattan in New York City who currently have no power. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Stocking Up On Ice

United City Ice Cube Company workers who refer to themselves as "Icemen" take in a shipment of ice into their 45th and 10th ave. store on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. The workers who asked not to be identified by name said there had been a run on ice purchases due to Hurricane Sandy and they were stocking up in anticipation of more demand in the coming days. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Car Crash Due To Power Outage

The power outage in Lower Manhattan due to Hurricane Sandy has created a gauntlet of dangerous street intersections as can be seen by this car accident at the Houston and Varick Street crossing on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Car Crash Due To Power Outage

The power outage in Lower Manhattan due to Hurricane Sandy has created a gauntlet of dangerous street intersections as can be seen by this car accident at the Houston and Varick Street crossing on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Clean Drinking Water

Pedestrians fill up on water at a drinking station that had been setup at the corner of Centre and Canal Streets in Chinatown on Friday Nov. 2, 2012. The stations use water from fire hydrants and have been erected due to the blackout caused by Hurricane Sandy in Lower Manhattan. (Damon Dahlen, AOL)

Trash Picking In Chinatown

A pedestrian looks through discarded food near a supermarket located at Henry and Market Streets in Chinatown New York on Friday Nov. 2, 2012.

Fort Lee, N.J.

People wait in line for fuel at a Shell Oil station on Nov. 1, 2012 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The US death toll from Hurricane Sandy rose to at least 85 as New York reported a major jump in fatalities caused by Monday's storm. Fuel shortages led to long lines of cars at gasoline stations in many states and the country faced a storm bill of tens of billions of dollars.

New York City

Commuters ride the F train Nov. 1, 2012 in New York City. Limited public transit has returned to New York. With the death toll continuing to rise and millions of homes and businesses without power, the U.S. east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Superstorm Sandy.

Toms River, N.J.

A gas station displays a "No Gas" sign on November 1, 2012 in Toms River, New Jersey. With the death toll continuing to rise and millions of homes and businesses without power, the U.S. east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Superstorm Sandy.

Fort Lee, N.J.

Cars wait in line for fuel at a Gulf gas station on Nov.1, 2012 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The US death toll from Hurricane Sandy rose to at least 85 as New York reported a major jump in fatalities caused by Monday's storm. Fuel shortages led to long lines of cars at gasoline stations in many states and the country faced a storm bill of tens of billions of dollars.

Brooklyn, N.Y.

New Yorkers wait in traffic as they head into Manhattan from Brooklyn as the city continues to recover from superstorm Sandy on Nov.1, 2012, in New York, United States. Limited public transit has returned to New York and most major bridges have reopened but will require three occupants in the vehicle to pass. With the death toll currently over 70 and millions of homes and businesses without power, the US east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by superstorm Sandy.

Hoboken, N.J.

Mud and debris liiter a street on Nov.1, 2012 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Hurricane victims continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall along the New Jersey shore, and left parts of the state and the surrounding area flooded and without power.

Washington, D.C.

Firefighters shoot water into a building in the 1200 block of 4th St., NE, near the recently opened Union Market, after responding to a blaze that broke out around 9pm Wednesday night.

Seaside Heights, N.J.

Debris lies on the boardwalk in front of the Casino Pier, which was partially destroyed by Superstorm Sandy on Nov.1, 2012 in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. With the death toll continuing to rise and millions of homes and businesses without power, the U.S. east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Superstorm Sandy.

Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, N.Y.

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer looks over flood waters at the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery tunnel in New York, U.S., on Nov. 1, 2012. The New York region is replacing a rail network built over a century with a patchwork constructed day-by-day to move its 8 million people again as it struggles back to life after Hurricane Sandy.

New York City

Residents charge their cell phones and computers on the East River esplanade in New York, U.S., on Nov. 1, 2012. The New York region is replacing a rail network built over a century with a patchwork constructed day-by-day to move its 8 million people again as it struggles back to life after Hurricane Sandy.

Toms River, N.J.

An American flag flies in front of a home damaged by Hurricane Sandy on Nov. 1, 2012 in Toms River, New Jersey. With the death toll continuing to rise and millions of homes and businesses without power, the U.S. east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by superstorm Sandy.

Lower Manhattan

Water is pumped on to the street in lower Manhattan in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. The New York region is replacing a rail network built over a century with a patchwork constructed day-by-day to move its 8 million people again as it struggles back to life after Hurricane Sandy.

North Bergen, New Jersey

A woman leaves an Exxon gas station which was out of gas on Nov. 1, 2012 in North Bergen, New Jersey. The US death toll from Hurricane Sandy rose to at least 85 as New York reported a major jump in fatalities caused by Monday's storm. Fuel shortages led to long lines of cars at gasoline stations in many states and the country faced a storm bill of tens of billions of dollars.

Manhattan from Hoboken, N.J.

People board the NY Waterways ferry with the Manhattan skyline in the background Nov.1, 2012 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall along the New Jersey shore, left parts of the state and the surrounding area without power including much of lower Manhattan south of 34th Street.

South Ferry 1 Train Station, New York City

Joseph Leader, Metropolitan Tranportation Authority Vice President and Chief Maintenance Officer, shines a flashlight on standing water inside the South Ferry 1 train station in New York, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in the wake of superstorm Sandy. The floodwaters that poured into New York's deepest subway tunnels may pose the biggest obstacle to the city's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the transit system's 108-year history.

Seaside Heights, N.J.

John Okeefe walks on the beach as a rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, N.J., rests in the ocean on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 after the pier was washed away by superstorm Sandy which made landfall Monday evening.

Grand Central Terminal, New York City

People exit a Metro-North train arriving in Grand Central Terminal during the morning rush on Nov. 1, 2012 in New York City. Some trains are back up and running into Grand Central following shutdowns in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Subway train service in the city is back in a limited capacity, but with much of lower Manhattan still with out power, trains are not running there and busses are replacing them.

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Pedestrians look over a fence at a pile of boats flooded inland at the Varuna Boat Club on Oct. 31, 2012, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses.

Queens, N.Y.

People walk by a destroyed section of the Rockaway boardwalk in the heavily damaged Rockaway section of Queens after the historic boardwalk was washed away during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 31, 2012 in the Queens borough of New York City. With the death toll currently at 55 and millions of homes and businesses without power, the US east coast is attempting to recover from the affects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Hurricane Sandy. JFK airport in New York and Newark airport in New Jersey expect to resume flights on Wednesday morning and the New York Stock Exchange commenced trading after being closed for two days.

Queens, N.Y.

Damage is viewed in the Rockaway neighborhood where the historic boardwalk was washed away during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 31, 2012 in the Queens borough of New York City. With the death toll currently at 55 and millions of homes and businesses without power, the US east coast is attempting to recover from the affects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Hurricane Sandy. JFK airport in New York and Newark airport in New Jersey expect to resume flights on Wednesday morning and the New York Stock Exchange commenced trading after being closed for two days.

Atlantic City, N.J.

A damaged car is shown in the wake of superstorm Sandy, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in Atlantic City, N.J. Sandy was being blamed for at least six deaths across the state plus power outages that at their peak Monday affected 2.7 million residential and commercial customers.

Brooklyn, N.Y.

A worker picks up debris outside of the damaged Tatiana Grill on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, on Oct. 31, 2012, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/new-orleans-levee-upkeep-_n_2200667.html

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Analysis: Confusing hard and soft power in emerging markets

LONDON (Reuters) - Deserting debt-laden, recession-racked North Atlantic and Japan for the fast-growing emerging market world may have been irresistible for some investors but many others still remain timid.

Why? It may be a case of "hard power" versus "soft power".

If investment decisions hinged solely on the former - measured by raw data such as economic output, population size and military spending - then convergence between rich and developing nation blocs is nigh on complete.

Adjusted for currencies' purchasing power, emerging economies on aggregate reached a "watershed" in 2012 and became as large as the rich developed world, estimates hedge fund manager Stephen Jen.

That train has long left the station, of course, and may well be only part way through its odyssey. According to Goldman Sachs, the giant economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China alone are expected to surge from a fifth of global output today to a third by 2020.

Using an index of "hard power" traced back to the early 1800s, with inputs such as iron and steel production, energy use, urban population and per capita military spending, Jen reckons dispersion of hard power between the top economies of the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Russia is at its lowest for 200 years.

But he reckons the world is still some way off equality of "soft power" - classed variously as the ability to influence ideas through culture, education, democracy or diplomacy but also capturing "intangibles" such as social justice, good corporate governance, transparency of law or open markets.

There's no direct gauge of this fuzzier "soft power". But if you take gauges such as Transparency International's "corruption perceptions index" as one possible component, then no major emerging economy comes in the top 20 apart from long-standing financial centers such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Through investment eyes at least, the lags in this sort of "soft" development go some way to explaining why emerging financial markets remain far behind in terms of size, liquidity, depth, transparency and legal protections and why they have so badly underperformed of late despite all the "hard" metrics.

The lion's share of world private investable capital still originates in the western world. A recent study by analysts at TheCityUK showed that more than 70 percent of the almost $80 trillion of pension, insurer and mutual fund assets is still based in the United States, Europe and Japan.

And it's this relative gap on "soft power" that may still determine investment success or failure in the years ahead.

"This grating of the tectonic plates - with the real economies moving past each other but with the emerging world continuing to rely on developed countries' financial markets - will continue to create distortions and volatility in the global financial markets," Jen said.

These distortions have been evident for over a decade as booming China and other giants without adequate financial markets of their own banked their new-found and largely state-managed wealth in the west, exaggerated the credit bubble there and triggered sometimes violent and unpredictable capital flows.

SEISMIC REVERSALS

On a simple level, emerging underperformance of late may just be a function of an integrated world economy where no market is immune from shocks in its richest trading partners.

But even stock markets in the austerity-sapped recession economies of the euro zone periphery have as a group performed better than the BRIC equity indices for two years in a row now.

And while developed world equity at large is up 6 percent over the past two years, emerging markets are still down 10 percent.

There are many explanations, some related to the speed in which markets priced the long-term economic projections in the early part of the millennium with a 500 percent advance in BRIC markets between in the six years to 2007, for example.

This gets to the bigger worry of whether emerging markets are deep and liquid enough to absorb a wholesale shift of western capital without periodic seismic reversals that unnerve relatively conservative investors like pension funds.

In what Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane described last year as the "big fish, small pond" problem, rapid capital shifts quickly create overvaluation and he reckoned just a 1 percent shift in western pension funds to emerging markets was equivalent to some 10 percent of their entire capitalization.

So much so that even though investors in global equities would have increased money up to four fold over the past 20 years, equity investors who spotted China's explosive boom as early as 1993 are still in the red. Shorter-term, Brazil's real has lost 20 percent since March with no ostensible "crisis".

Emerging bond markets have done much better of late, up more than 15 percent in 2012 for example. But much of these are hard currency fixed contracts governed by New York or London law.

Citing demand for property in London or New York at the worst points of the recent global crisis, Citi Private Bank's Chief Investment Officer Richard Cookson reckons some simple rules apply that still make many wary of emerging markets.

"After decades of crises, you may ask what's with the emerging world? The answer is rule of law, property rights, corruption, failed institutions. How much of that has changed? Not much."

What's more, it's not at all obvious that the mega emerging economies like China even have the desire to move toward a center ground on financial soft power at least.

"China wants the prestige of a global power but not the responsibilities," said Michal Meidan, Asia analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia. "They would be happy to be considered a global financial power but they are not ready for the responsibility of shoring up the global financial system."

(Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Sujata Rao, Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-confusing-hard-soft-power-emerging-markets-065405080--sector.html

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Philosophy Essay: How Has Popular Recreation Influenced Sport ...

How has usual recreation influenced sport and pas durations in the 21st century? Popular recreation was pre-industrial sports and pastimes mainly associated with the peasant/lower class. This could as well refer to popular past times at that time. Pre industrial popular recreation accurately reflected society and life in pre industrial Britain. The diverse activities and sports were supported by a stark class system (The feudal system) several(prenominal)times they shared activities such as cock conflict, sometimes they took part in different activities, mob football was predominately lower class and past time such as lawn tennis were upper class. In some cases the different classes had different roles within the sport, for example in search the upper class would take part in the tangible hunt and the lower class would organise the dogs and tend to the animals. utter(a) knuckle pugilism Bare knuckle encase was a popular sport that has heavily influenced modern day boxing. Like some pre industrial past times bare knuckle boxing was simple with very primitive methods, had very some rules and was crimson which reflected the harsh eighteenth century rural life. It was one of few sports in which upper and lower classes were involved.

Some members of the gentry sponsored a lower class fighter and they became their jock. The patron would arrange the contest, charge up a stake or wager nones and give board and lodging to the performer. The fighters were usually from very poor people background and this gave them a chance to earn money fame and status. The patron however did this for prestige and popularity. Modern day boxing is sympathetic in many ways to bare knuckle boxing; there are accepted rules such as not striking a downed opponent, In 1853 London prize fighting ring rules were introduced which stated that fights had to take place in a 24 feet square ring, if the fighter was knocked down he had 30 seconds to rise to his feet and biting, head butting and hitting below the belt were declared... If you call for to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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Source: http://philosophy-essay.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-has-popular-recreation-influenced.html

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Environmentalists seek increased focus on renewable energy plans

Lansing ? A Michigan environmentalist group is calling for increased focus on renewable energy when Gov. Rick Snyder rolls out his plan for energy and the environment in a special message to the Legislature today.

The Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs coalition, which backed the failed Proposal 3 ballot initiative this month, said Tuesday it's continuing the push to increase the renewable energy standard. Proposal 3 called for Michigan utilities to purchase 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

Snyder presentation this morning at Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners near Battle Creek is the next in a series of special messages he's had. Other topics included education, health care, worker development and public safety.

Tourists flock to Michigan's woods and waterways for recreation and sports. Supporters say the state's environment, highlighted by a highly successful Pure Michigan advertising campaign, is the foundation for a thriving tourism industry and plays an important role in attracting job-creating industries and professionals.

The Michigan Public Service Commission reported this year the state's major utilities are on track to meet the 10 percent by 2015 renewable energy standard. More than 30 other states ? including Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota ? have stronger renewable energy standards than Michigan, according to the group.

Mark Fisk, spokesman for Michigan Energy, Michigan jobs, said Snyder should keep up the pressure on utilities to continue increasing their use of energy from wind, solar and other renewable sources.

"We think the governor has a very important opportunity to lay out a road map (for renewable energy)," Fisk said at a news conference Tuesday.

Millions in advertising revenue was spent on both sides of Proposal 3. More than $10 million in mostly out-of-state money was raised in support of the measure, which proponents said would accelerate Michigan's move away from environmentally damaging fossil fuels while attracting investment and creating jobs.

The proposal was opposed by the Clean Affordable Renewable Energy for Michigan Coalition, which raised more than double that amount from major utility companies. Opponents said the renewable energy standard should not be included in the state constitution, and disputed supporters' job creation claims.

"As we've said all along, we strongly support renewable energy in a reasonable, responsible, affordable fashion," said Megan Brown, spokeswoman for the opponents. "However, the voters spoke at the polls on Nov. 6 and it is clear that the 2008 law is still working."

kbouffard@detnews.com

(517) 371-3660

Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121128/POLITICS02/211280361/1022/rss10

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Steven Tyler to Nicki Minaj: I'm Far From Racist

Steven Tyler isn't going to take Nicki Minaj's claims that he's a racist lying down. Though the Aerosmith rocker inserted his foot firmly in his mouth during a recent interview, he has come forth to say that the American Idol judge had taken his quotes out of context.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/steven-tyler-apologizes-nicki-minaj-after-racist-comment/1-a-505027?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Asteven-tyler-apologizes-nicki-minaj-after-racist-comment-505027

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China?s New Leaders May Surprise Obama

Both China and the United States completed their respective political transitions this November. President Obama secured a second term in the White House and will remain the U.S. commander-in-chief. Xi Jinping ascended to the chairmanship of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, in what was a surprise to some observers, took control of China?s Central Military Commission (CMC). Many expected retiring CCP chairman Hu Jintao to retain control of the body that governs the Chinese military.

Hu?s ?graceful? surrender of the CMC chair may be a sign Xi enjoys the Chinese Communist Party equivalent of a mandate. Unlike Hu, a ?closet reformer? hemmed in by a?deadlocked collective leadership, Xi commands what Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution describes as ?a majority? within the Standing Committee of the Politburo, China?s most powerful decision-making body. Chinese domestic politics is often characterized as a struggle between two dominant factions: the ?princeling? children of past communist party leaders and the Hu Jintao-led ?tuanpai? faction based in the Chinese Communist Youth League. Six of the seven members of the new Standing Committee, according to Li, are associated with Xi?s ?princeling? faction.

The Obama administration plans to follow through on its controversial strategic ?pivot? to Asia despite vociferous Chinese criticism of the strategy as a throwback to Cold War containment. The foreign policy coaches who called this Asian play,?National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and his former?senior director for East Asian affairs Jeffrey Bader,?heavily discount Chinese concerns.

Donilon believes the Obama administration enjoys ?extensive habits of cooperation and communication? with its Chinese counterparts and frequently reminds audiences how often he meets with senior Chinese leaders. Donilon insists?the Chinese ?recognize the importance? of the U.S. ?security platform? in Asia, and places more faith in supposedly supportive ?statements the Chinese have put out after our encounters? than the more frequent and sharply critical commentary coming from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Chinese military spokespersons, Chinese academics and the Chinese media. ?Bader claims?Chinese officials express a more sympathetic understanding of Obama?s new Asia policy in private. He interprets China?s official public statements of concern as nationalistic posturing for domestic consumption.

Discounting Chinese criticism of the ?pivot? could lead to some surprises as the Obama administration confronts China?s new leaders. According to many of my Chinese colleagues, Xi Jinping and his contemporaries are unlikely to be as deferential or as intentionally abstruse as their predecessors. Few share Donilon?s positive assessment of the bilateral dialog and some worry U.S. decision-makers will not be able to adjust to the generational shift that took place during the 18th Party Congress.

Robert Blohm?s suggestion that Xi?s initial remarks to journalists?embody what one Chinese dissident describes as a new?Chinese naziism?seem overblown, but Xi?s use of the term ?Great Chinese National Renaissance ?(????????)? deserves attention.

Having consumed nearly thirty years of Chinese Communist Party propaganda, I don?t believe Xi?s reiteration of a long-standing CCP talking point represents a dramatic departure from past practice. Those concerned about Xi?s choice of words should watch the 2007 CCTV 6-part series The Road to Renaissance?(????). It tells the familiar story of an ancient civilization, fractured by the dissolution of its traditional culture and exploited by foreign imperialism, that is now in the process of restoration under the leadership of what recent history ?proves? is the only political organization capable of unifying the country, developing the economy and realizing the long repressed potential of the Chinese people.

The aims of the Chinese Renaissance are fairly modest; to achieve the status of a ?basically modern? nation whose citizens enjoy a ?medium level? of economic development by the middle of this century. That?s not the kind of ambition U.S. observers seem to expect from a ?rising power.? There is no justifiable comparison, obviously, to the aims or the rhetoric of the Third Reich. The high tide of Maoist demagoguery crested during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), leaving in its wake a healthy distrust of grandiose plans and cultish political behaviors that could transform the People?s Republic into a twenty-first century version of late Meiji Japan.

The Chinese revolution is unique. Comparisons to other nations and other eras are more likely to mislead than to enlighten. The most insidious subplot in the CCP?s historically legitimating political narrative ?which Mr. Bader and Mr. Donilon should study more carefully and take more seriously?is the challenge expected from what is depicted as an inherently hostile capitalist elite. Chinese interpretations of the Obama administration?s ?pivot? as a policy designed to constrain Chinese economic development are a product of a deeply entrenched worldview that extends well beyond the eighty-million members of the CCP. The entire Chinese population is educationally pre-programmed to interpret the ?pivot? as a challenge to their relatively humble expectations for a better life.

Foreign observers who focus on the supposedly ethnic or nationalist characteristics of Chinese political propaganda tend to overlook the arguably more important socialist worldview that still defines the regime. Many of those observers assume, without careful investigation, that Chinese communism is a bankrupt ideology, either because of the growing hold of market forces in Chinese economic planning or widespread patterns of corruption. That is a questionable hypothesis. Xi and the other ?princelings? who inherited their parent?s revolution, whatever their personal vices, probably still believe in it. They most certainly understand their political legitimacy depends on whether their fellow citizens do, and especially whether the men and women of the People?s Liberation Army?the Party?s army?remain willing to sacrifice their lives to defend it.

It would be a mistake, therefore, for U.S. policy-makers to underestimate the power and the relevance of Chinese socialism in the formation and implementation of the foreign and security policies of China?s new leaders. They see the world and China?s place in it very differently than President Obama, whatever they may be telling his aides and emissaries behind closed doors.

?

Posted in: Tags: China, obama administration, Xi Jinping

About the author: Gregory has lived and worked in China for the better part of the last twenty-five years facilitating exchanges between academic, governmental, and professional organizations in both countries. Since joining the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2002, he has focused on promoting and conducting dialog between Chinese and American experts on nuclear arms control and space security. Areas of expertise: Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese space program, international arms control, cross-cultural communication

Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.

Source: http://allthingsnuclear.org/chinas-new-leaders-may-surprise-obama/

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Surprisingly Interesting

The most boring topics in the world can be interesting?if framed in the right way.

iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

By the time I arrived at York Hall Health and Leisure Centre in Bethnal Green on Sunday, the Boring 2012 conference had been underway for about an hour, and I was concerned that I might already have had more than enough tedium for one day. Due to a combination of Irish fog and English gales, I had spent 90 minutes sitting on a runway in Dublin and a further 40 or so circling Heathrow as the plane awaited a landing slot. The irony of my morning?that I was subjecting myself to the boredom and frustration of air travel in order to attend a conference dedicated to the most boring topics imaginable?was not lost on me, but as my flight looped repeatedly over greater London, I was too bored and frustrated to properly appreciate it.

When I got to the venue, the young lady at the welcome table informed me, with an air of genuine sympathy, that I?d missed some very boring stuff already. The day had kicked off with conference organizer James Ward?s keynote on supermarket self-service checkouts, (with an emphasis on the phenomenon of ?unexpected items in the bagging area?). Then a former postman had given a talk on letterboxes and the neglected problem of protective bristles, and there had been a very well-received presentation on discontinued IBM cash registers. I regretfully agreed that all this did sound extremely boring and proceeded to the large neo-Georgian auditorium, where an audience of about 500 mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings were listening with careful amusement as a dapper young man talked about toast. There was a large screen behind him on the stage, and he was clicking through a series of photographs of toast slices, ranging from the entirely burnt to the effectively untoasted, in order to demonstrate what he called ?the confusing, non-regulated series of toaster settings on the market.? His manner of weary, slightly apologetic pedantry seemed to be going down exceptionally well with the audience, and a detailed graph mapping various popular toaster models along a continuum of bread-toastedness drew some delighted laughter.

Why would hundreds of people be sitting in a cold East London community hall on a Sunday morning, listening to people talk about toasters and IBM cash machines and self-service checkouts? Because people enjoy boring things. This, at least, is the contrarian premise of Boring, a conference that has taken place every November for the last three years. If the whole thing sounds like an idle Twitter gag, that?s because that?s exactly how it started. In 2010, when a conference called Interesting was canceled, Ward (who maintains a blog called I Like Boring Things) jokingly tweeted that he was thinking of filling the gap by organizing a conference called Boring. Lots of people tweeted back at him saying that if he actually arranged such a thing, they would definitely attend it. So he did, and its program of short presentations on topics of appealing banality?one speaker held forth on his fondness for car park roofs, another on his project of logging each of his sneezes over the previous three years?turned out, against all apparent odds, to be a major success. Last year drew a larger crowd, high-profile speakers like journalist Jon Ronson and documentary-maker Adam Curtis, and a fair amount of media attention. Despite this year?s lack of such relatively glitzy boredom impresarios, the conference still sold out in record time. The deepening London chill was forcing everyone to keep their coats on, but the mood in the hall was one of skittish communal joy.

The talks all took the form of brisk PowerPoint presentations, most of which tended to come across as affably shambling versions of the sort of headset-mic?d hunch-mongering TED has flooded the cultural marketplace with in recent years. In fact, it?s initially tempting to see the whole thing as a satiric inversion of the TED hegemony. If Boring had a tagline (which is doesn?t), ?Ideas Probably Not Worth Spreading? might be a contender. Certainly, some of the talks were purely comic in intent, tapping into a quintessentially English delight in the overlap between banality and absurdity. The comedian Helen Arney, for instance, gave a funny presentation titled ?Features and Specifications of the Yamaha PSR-175 Portable Keyboard (Discontinued).? A radio DJ named Neil Denny talked, less amusingly, about various breakfasts that he?d eaten at places like Denny?s and IHOP on a recent trip across the United States. He got some polite laughs, but the audience was becoming restless at this point, either because he was talking about food and it was getting on for lunchtime or because he had unwittingly meandered into the disputed territory between fun, ironic tedium and actual straightforward tedium.

When the conference broke up for lunch, I mooched around the auditorium for a bit. At the back of the hall, a guy with a conspicuously un-boring Mohican hairstyle was inviting people to spin in an office chair. I wandered over and joined the small cluster of spectators, and asked the bearded and bespectacled man standing next to me what exactly we were looking at. ?It?s a world-record attempt for the largest number of rotations in an office chair from a single self-propelled spin, apparently,? he said. ?Seems more fun than boring, if you ask me.? I agreed in principle, but it didn?t seem fun enough to take in much more of, so I wandered out past the world?s most boring buffet table?white sliced bread, digestive biscuits, dry crackers, cucumber slices skewered on cocktail sticks?and ducked out into the tedious drizzle for a conventionally boring meal at a Nando?s franchise down the road.

The rest of the day was a blur of enjoyably inverted tedium, with some flashes of genuine insight. A blogger named Elise Bramich spoke about the carriage numbering system on the London underground. There was an unexpectedly spirited talk by Kathy Clugston about her job as reader of the shipping forecast on BBC radio, and a faintly queasy exposition by a guy who keeps himself occupied on long walks home from work by not swallowing any of his spit. It tends to work out at about 5.8 milliliters of accumulated saliva per mile, if you?re interested.

The best talks weren?t so much riffs on the absurdity of banality as investigations of the principle that the most unappealing of topics can become intriguing if considered in the right way. A guy called Greg Stekelman, who announced himself as 5-foot-4?, talked about his obsession with celebheights.com, a website devoted to determining, and bickering over, the heights of famous people. (Sample comment from contentious thread on Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine: ?Nothing but jealous short guys on here. This dude is a strong 5?11, almost, if not 6?0? in the morning.?) This was one of the funniest talks, and fascinating in its furtive approach to anxieties about masculinity and related measurement-compulsions. Andrew Male, an editor at the music magazine Mojo, gave an intricate and surprisingly affecting talk about double yellow lines, which discussed postwar efforts to combat anti-social elements in London and touched on his own grief over the loss of his parents. The journalist/musician Rhodri Marsden?many slash-based professions were represented throughout the day?conducted a brief tour of the online underground of ASMR (Auto-Sensory Meridian Response) videos. These are apparently non-sexual role-plays in which people, usually women, speak very softly and slowly while directly addressing the viewer on how to fold towels, or pretending to be the viewer?s dermatologist or travel agent. Apparently they?re a massive YouTube phenomenon.

?Boring? is obviously a succinct and eye-catching title for an event like this, but, as the day wore on, it started to seem like something of a misnomer. As banal as the individual topics were, the minuscule obscurity of the subjects people can find themselves interested in?and, more importantly, make interesting to others?emerged as the real theme. In fact, despite its tone of jocular irony, the implied message of the conference was actually a pretty earnest one: nothing is boring if you look at it in the right way. This was a message I tried (and failed) to bear in mind later that evening as I sat in Heathrow?s Terminal 1, waiting for another delayed flight to be called, bereft of Wi-Fi and my phone drained of battery. I?m willing to admit to a possible failure of perspective here, but that, to me, was boring.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=c254cb236278601c15b7b6ad006951ae

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Use of stem cells in personalized medicine

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) ? Johns Hopkins researchers report concrete steps in the use of human stem cells to test how diseased cells respond to drugs. Their success highlights a pathway toward faster, cheaper drug development for some genetic illnesses, as well as the ability to pre-test a therapy's safety and effectiveness on cultured clones of a patient's own cells.

The project, described in an article published November 25 on the website of the journal Nature Biotechnology, began several years ago, when Gabsang Lee, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Cell Engineering, was a postdoctoral fellow at Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York. To see if induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could be used to make specialized disease cells for quick and easy drug testing, Lee and his colleagues extracted cells from the skin of a person with a rare genetic disease called Riley-Day syndrome, chosen because it affects only one type of nerve cell that is difficult if not impossible to extract directly from a traditional biopsy. These traits made Riley-Day an ideal candidate for alternative ways of generating cells for study.

In a so-called "proof of concept" experiment, the researchers biochemically reprogrammed the skin cells from the patient to form iPSCs, which can grow into any cell type in the body. The team then induced the iPSCs to grow into nerve cells. "Because we could study the nerve cells directly, we could for the first time see exactly what was going wrong in this disease," says Lee. Some symptoms of Riley-Day syndrome are insensitivity to pain, episodes of vomiting, poor coordination and seizures; only about half of affected patients reach age 30.

In the recent research at Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Lee and his co-workers used these same lab-grown Riley-Day nerve cells to screen about 7,000 drugs for their effects on the diseased cells. With the aid of a robot programmed to analyze the effects, the researchers quickly identified eight compounds for further testing, of which one -- SKF-86466 -- ultimately showed promise for stopping or reversing the disease process at the cellular level.

Lee says a clinical trial with SKF-86466 might not be feasible because of the small number of Riley-Day patients worldwide, but suggests that a closely related version of the compound, one that has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for another use, could be employed for the patients after a few tests.

The implications of the experiment reach beyond Riley-Day syndrome, however. "There are many rare, 'orphan' genetic diseases that will never be addressed through the costly current model of drug development," Lee explains. "We've shown that there may be another way forward to treat these illnesses."

Another application of the new stem cell process could be treatments tailored not only to an illness, but also to an individual patient, Lee says. That is, iPSCs could be made for a patient, then used to create a laboratory culture of, for example, pancreatic cells, in the case of a patient with type 1 diabetes. The efficacy and safety of various drugs could then be tested on the cultured cells, and doctors could use the results to help determine the best treatment. "This approach could move much of the trial-and-error process of beginning a new treatment from the patient to the petri dish, and help people to get better faster," says Lee.

Other authors of the paper are Christina N. Ramirez, Ph.D., Nadja Zeltner, Ph.D., Becky Liu, Constantin Radu, M.S., Bhavneet Bhinder, Hakim Djaballah, Ph.D., and Lorenz Studer, Ph.D., of the Sloan-Kettering Institute; and Hyesoo Kim, Ph.D., Young Jun Kim, M.D., Ph.D., InYoung Choi, Ph.D., and Bipasha Mukherjee-Clavin of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The work was supported by funds from New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM), the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), the state of Maryland (TEDCO, MSCRF), the Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research, the Experimental Therapeutics Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the William Randolph Hearst Fund in Experimental Therapeutics, the L.S. Wells Foundation, and the National Cancer Institute (grant number 5 P30 CA008748-44).

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Gabsang Lee, Christina N Ramirez, Hyesoo Kim, Nadja Zeltner, Becky Liu, Constantin Radu, Bhavneet Bhinder, Yong Jun Kim, In Young Choi, Bipasha Mukherjee-Clavin, Hakim Djaballah, Lorenz Studer. Large-scale screening using familial dysautonomia induced pluripotent stem cells identifies compounds that rescue IKBKAP expression. Nature Biotechnology, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2435

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/atjPK3Bc9qU/121126151021.htm

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