Saturday, December 31, 2011

Women's Basketball vs. St. Olaf College at St. Peter, Minn.

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Source: https://gustavus.edu/calendar/women-s-basketball-vs-st-olaf-college-2/32162

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Russian Rocket Launches 6 Satellites Into Space Days After Soyuz Crash (SPACE.com)

A Russian Soyuz rocket launched a pack of communications satellites into orbit Wednesday (Dec. 28) in a successful flight that comes less than a week after a similar rocket crashed somewhere in Siberia.

The Soyuz 2 rocket launched six new satellites for Louisiana-based communications provider Globalstar at 12:09 p.m. EST (1709 GMT) in an apparently smooth liftoff from the snow-covered central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. ?

The rocket lifted off from the same site used by another Soyuz 2 booster on Friday (Dec. 23), but that earlier launch met with disaster when it crashed in Siberia, destroying a Russian military communications satellite.

Today's launch used a Soyuz 2-1a version of Russia's usually dependable Soyuz workhorse rocket. The booster design uses an older third stage rocket engine than the one used in the Soyuz 2-1b booster that crashed on Dec. 23, according to Spaceflight Now.

Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) is investigating the recent rocket failure ? which was the fifth?space mission failure in 2011 ?for the country ? and is expected to present an initial report to the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Thursday (Dec. 29), according to Russia's ITAR-TASS news service.

Last week, Russian space agency chief Vladimir Popovin said that an engine failure was the most likely cause of the Dec. 23 rocket crash, though more investigation was needed to be sure.

Today's Soyuz 2 rocket launch was overseen by the European launch provider Arianespace via its Russian affiliate Starsem. ?The booster carried six second-generation Globalstar satellites ? each weighing 1,543 pounds (700 kilograms) ? into an initial 572-mile (920-km) orbit. The satellites are destined for an operational orbit that reaches an altitude of about 878 miles (1,413 km).

The mission is the third in a series of Globalstar satellite launches, Arianespace officials said. Twelve satellites were launched on two earlier missions, each orbiting six of the craft, in October 2010 and July of this year, they added.

Another six satellites will be launched for Globalstar in 2012, Arianespace officials said.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111228/sc_space/russianrocketlaunches6satellitesintospacedaysaftersoyuzcrash

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Friday, December 30, 2011

New Year's Eve Hook-Ups: The Dos and Don'ts

New Year's Eve Hook-Ups: The Dos and Don'ts

The big moment is almost upon us: it's New Year's Eve people, and between finding the perfect dress and plotting your midnight kiss, the night can be pretty stressful. Luckily, here at StyleCaster we've trudged our way through every New Years scenario in the book -- yes, even the heinous crowds at Times Square. When it comes to being single on New Years, there are a number of ways your kiss can play out. So scroll down for 5 dos and don'ts when it comes to your 12 AM smooch.

DO keep it casual. It's New Year's Eve, not speed dating. Don't go into the night thinking you're going to find your soul mate. Let's be honest, New Year's Eve means bros who've knocked back one-too-many jagerbombs. So keep your hook-up short and sweet. Don't get all sentimental, and let's leave the tipsy tears in 2011.

DO stay within your six degrees of separation. Want to stay away from stalkers and potential serial killers? Then make sure your hook-up comes with a recommendation. Otherwise you may find yourself waking up to your one-night stand in the middle of a sacrificial ritual.

DO make out with old friends. One of the best things about New Years is that everyone feels all warm and mushy. If you're spending the night with old friends, don't hesitate to choose someone from your old posse to share the countdown with. You know there's no pressure and no expectations, so it's a win-win.

DO ask if your anonymous smoocher is single. Maybe you'll never see him again, but starting off the year as "the other woman" is seriously bad karma.

DO keep an emergency goodie bag in your purse. You'll probably need access to the essentials --?emergency money, condoms, clean undies and a tooth brush. Always be prepared.

DON'T?overshare. On the off chance that you don't know the person you're going home with, keep personal details to a minimum. First name, your industry and what area you work in is all you need to confide. Otherwise your drunken mistake can become your Facebook nightmare.

DON'T discusses exes and crushes. It's a small world, and thanks to social media it's shrinking by the minute, so play it safe.

Source: http://www.stylecaster.com/lifestyle/17890/new-years-eve-hook-ups-dos-donts

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

LIPPER: Equine vs equity investing | Funds Hub

Is betting on horses very different from picking stocks? Can understanding a gambler?s approach and mentality give a better understanding of fund managers?

In searching for answers to these questions, I spoke to Paul Moulton, a professional gambler who originally worked in the fund management industry. He then set up a fund research company (Fitzrovia International, which he eventually sold to Reuters), although his working life began with an attempt to become a professional chess player.

Most of the fraternity of professional gamblers who make a living from horse racing are what Moulton describes as ?traders? or ?chisellers?.

This group do not really look at horses at all, but look at market movements, hedging back their bets, and aiming to make tiny but regular profits with much less risk. They remain tucked away in their homes in front of an array of computer screens.

Moulton sees himself as part of a second, smaller group of professional punters, those he refers to as ?judges?, some of whom look at horses in the paddock to assess their physical condition and thus their chances, while others are more reliant on assessing form based on previous races.

Some of them may even be conscious of the FSA?s warnings on funds? past performance, which is deemed to be no guide to future returns. Although past performance does tend to shorten a horse?s starting price.

As part of this approach, Moulton has gathered vast amounts of data on all aspects of racing (jockeys, trainers, pedigrees, speed figures and so on) in a database that covers all horses in all races in the UK and Ireland since January 2005.

Although his background in fund research lends itself to such an approach, Moulton admits that, while his original idea was to ?out-stat? everyone else, this approach has turned out to be much more limited for determining which outsiders to back.

He did try to do all of this from home, but in the end he was better able to deal with losses when trackside. The journey home enables Moulton to carry out a post-mortem of his performance, win or lose, and to clear his mind before returning to the family.

So he now spends more time looking at the horses in the paddock too, even though being at a course means that it is a little more ?archaic? when trying to work out ?what the market is doing?.?But even this has a beneficial side-effect: it is far easier to bet on too many horses in too many races when sitting at home and betting over the internet, he says, while, for practical reasons, this is far less the case when at a course.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

Moulton acknowledges the above findings from Russo and Shoemaker. From his own experience of building a horse racing database, he is all too aware of the desire to add in a new piece of information after virtually every race.

In the early days this process of amassing more and more data on which to base decisions was ?comforting? he says, but he has found that ?it doesn?t help results.? The more detailed any extra analysis that he runs, the smaller the sample size becomes (for more recent races) and the less meaningful the findings are.

?Once filtered to that degree, apparent patterns are really just statistical tricks.?

At its heart, Moulton?s approach to placing bets is to look for value in the market. He creates a ?tissue? for each race, assessing the price at which he would be prepared to back a horse and then compares this to the odds offered by a bookmaker.

Moulton tries to divorce himself from picking winners. ??Anybody can pick winners,? he says. ?There?s no point in picking winners if you?re backing them at the wrong prices, because sooner or later you?ll come a cropper.?

It?s for this reason that he?s always reluctant to answer the question from the occasional punter ?who is going to win the 2.30 at Haydock??

?In all likelihood I?ll back several horses in the race if I think they?re good value and still expect to lose, which most [amateur] punters can?t quite get their heads around.?

Yet after all this work over the past five years of professional gambling, it might come as a surprise that 93 percent of the time Moulton?s chosen horses lose.

Luca Cumani, one of British racing?s leading trainers (and who trains some horses that Moulton owns), on hearing this said, ?if I got 93 percent of my decisions wrong, I would not be able to call myself a professional anything.? ? Moulton?s response to this is that it doesn?t matter as long as the average odds of his selections are greater than a 7 percent chance (or 13-1) because, in the end, ?it?s all about profit?.

In the same way, if typically one backed horses at 33-1 (i.e. a 3 percent chance of winning), then one could get away with losing 96 percent of the time and still make a profit. This contrasts with picking 2-1 shots (a 33 percent chance), where one has to be right more than 35 percent of the time.

In Moulton?s view, each gambler has to decide where on this ?risk spectrum? he believes he can succeed, much of which comes down to temperament. Most professional gamblers are focused on those horses with shorter odds, while Moulton chooses horses with longer odds but has to deal with losing more frequently.

He admits that there are very few punters at his end of the spectrum. But this does not come as a surprise, indeed he seems to relish the apparent loneliness. As he says, ?it does do funny things to your brain when you lose 93 percent of your bets!?

Whatever happens, he can draw more than a little comfort from the fact that all his work is tax free (since the 9 percent betting commission was abolished a decade ago) and has gone to great lengths to check that HMRC will not come knocking at his door . It is as though all of his investments are held in a huge ISA wrapper.

To hit the golden 7 percent, he spends over 80 hours a week at work. His unwavering logic is that to spend that amount of time he needs a decent return, and to do this he needs to place a decent stake. ?So Moulton fairly routinely turns over ?100,000 a day at the big festivals and consequently turns over several million pounds a year.

?I don?t think there?s a serious professional gambler who has made 10 percent of turnover? he says, so his daily stakes of a few hundred pounds back in 2006 were simply not high enough to earn the sort of living he wants to sustain.

Even to make ?25,000 a year, on 5 percent of turnover one would need to turn over ?500,000 a year or ?2,000 a day. ?As a result, Moulton concludes that ?betting on horses is only 50 percent of a professional gambler?s skill, the rest is in temperament and stake management, both if betting too much and too little.?

DEALING WITH LOSING

The biggest challenge for Moulton remains how to deal with losing runs when a 7 percent success rate looks further and further away.

For Moulton it is in the nature of things that he will hit bad spells as winners don?t come neatly spaced between losses. His approach requires consistency but a run of losers has often tempted him to start tinkering with that approach in order to try and end the losing streak ? a fatal error.

This has clear echoes of the pressure on fund managers to deliver short-term returns despite managing money for the long-term. Perhaps Professor John Kay, who is leading an independent review into long-term investing in UK equity markets, has considered talking to professional gamblers.

Moulton has learned this the hard way. Each year he has gone through a ?horrible, horrible losing run? and each year he has tried to train himself to deal with it better. ?Indeed early on he admits to losing all confidence in his abilities. ?He puts such losing runs down to being in his chosen end of the risk spectrum and he admits it would be ?far better for my mental health? if he could find a proven method of making money from backing 4-1 shots.

Despite this, after five full years of betting, with 7,000 to 9,000 bets each year, Moulton has experienced two years that were essentially flat (before expenses) and three ?pretty spectacular? years.

The occasional anonymous mention in the pages of the ?Racing Post? stands as testament to some huge wins. In July 2008 one columnist wrote in disbelief at meeting Moulton and finding that he had won ?200,000 and ?250,000 within a few weeks of each other. And in September this year he made nearly ?600,000 over two pool bets.

INSIDER?

More generally, when considering the similarities with investing in the stock market, Moulton points out that the vast majority of the time, the competitive environment in which companies operate changes relatively slowly, enabling analysis to be carried out over a reasonable length of time and in depth.

He contrasts this with the competitive environment for a horse race that can change in moments ? and often does, such as the previous race highlighting a bias relating to positions in the draw. And of course a horse race is over within a matter of minutes. Moulton has not had to develop the equivalent of a ?buy and hold? investment strategy.

While he may have found an asset class uncorrelated to stocks, bonds or even gold, indeed even the euro zone crisis does not figure very prominently in the minds of punters, if oil rich Middle Eastern owners such as Godolphin (the Maktoum family?s private horseracing stable) decided to leave British racing, this would surely send an earthquake through the sport.

Meanwhile, Moulton?s own moderate success as an owner ? despite friendships across a range of trainers and jockeys ? gives the lie to the idea that apparent ?inside information? is the key to success. ?? ?Indeed much trackside information is available to all, with those in the paddock able to tweet their views to punters within moments. Moulton himself is an avid tweeter ?? @moulton66. So ?market chatter? is increasingly open ? and you don?t get much more transparent than when a horse is sweating!

As for dealing with bookmakers, his response makes clear the implicit trust in those relationships: ?If I had to choose one group of people with whom to do business the rest of my life, it would be bookies.?

THE BITTER END

Moulton would not be drawn on whether his family was the equivalent of dealing with investors in a mutual fund, although he has avoided running a syndicate because this would end up with him being answerable to shareholders. Instead he asserts that he is better at being a professional gambler than anything else he could turn into a career and so it offers the best chance for him to support his family comfortably.

What might be seen as a risky career is bolstered by steadfast confidence. ?Even if I lost 50 percent of my capital, I would ? I would, I would, I would ? turn it around.?

So in 2010 when he sold his beloved E-Type Jaguar to raise some cash, he did not adopt a more cautious approach and proceeded to lose the money made from the sale in 45 minutes on the racecourse.

So how far would he really go? ?I would go all the way.?

Conviction, dedication, self-awareness and a consistent investment process. Surely attributes all investors long for in a fund manager; although you would allow them some nerves if the trackside approach to capital preservation turned up in their fund factsheet.

(Editing by Joel Dimmock) ?((joel.dimmock@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @reutersJoelD; +44 20 7542 3505;))

Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/fundshub/2011/12/28/lipper-equine-vs-equity-investing/

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'Rare' brain disorder may be more common than thought

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

A global team of neuroscientists, led by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida, have found the gene responsible for a brain disorder that may be much more common than once believed. In the Dec. 25 online issue of Nature Genetics, the researchers say they identified 14 different mutations in the gene CSF1R that lead to development of hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with spheroids (HDLS). This is a devastating disorder of the brain?s white matter that leads to death between ages 40 and 60. People who inherit the abnormal gene always develop HDLS. Until now, a definite diagnosis of HDLS required examination of brain tissue at biopsy or autopsy.

The finding is important because the researchers suspect that HDLS is more common than once thought and a genetic diagnosis will now be possible without need for a brain biopsy or autopsy. According to the study?s senior investigator, neurologist Zbigniew K. Wszolek, M.D., a significant number of people who tested positive for the abnormal gene in this study had been diagnosed with a wide range of other conditions. These individuals were related to a patient known to have HDLS, and so their genes were also examined.

?Because the symptoms of HDLS vary so widely ? everything from behavior and personality changes to seizures and movement problems ? these patients were misdiagnosed as having either schizophrenia, epilepsy, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson?s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, or other disorders,? says Dr. Wszolek. ?Many of these patients were therefore treated with drugs that offered only toxic side effects.

?Given this finding, we may soon have a blood test that can help doctors diagnose HDLS, and I predict we will find it is much more common than anyone could have imagined,? he says.

Dr. Wszolek is internationally known for his long-term efforts to bring together researchers from around the world to help find cases of inherited brain disorders and discover their genetic roots.

Dr. Wszolek?s interest in HDLS began when a severely disabled young woman came to see him in 2003 and mentioned that other members of her family were affected. The diagnosis of HDLS was made by his Mayo Clinic colleague, Dennis W. Dickson, M.D., who reviewed the autopsy findings of the patient?s uncle, who had previously been misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, and subsequently, Dr. Wszolek?s patient and her father. All members of the family had HDLS.

Dr. Dickson had identified other cases of HDLS from Florida, New York, Oregon and Kansas in the Mayo Clinic Florida brain bank and knew of a large kindred in Virginia with similar pathology, based upon a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association of Neuropathologists. With concerted efforts, Dr. Wszolek and collaborators at University of Virginia were able to obtain DNA samples from the Virginia kindred. Dr. Wszolek also sought other cases, particularly those that had been reported in the neuropathology literature, and he was able to obtain samples from Norway, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada, and other sites in the U.S. He and his team of investigators and collaborators have since published studies describing the clinical, pathologic and imaging characteristics of the disorder, and they have held five international meetings on HDLS.

In this study, which included 38 researchers from 12 institutions in five countries, the study?s first author, Rosa Rademakers, Ph.D., led the effort to find the gene responsible for HDLS. Her laboratory studied DNA samples from 14 families in which at least one member was diagnosed with HDLS and compared these with samples from more than 2,000 disease-free participants. The gene was ultimately found using a combination of traditional genetic linkage studies and recently developed state-of-the art sequencing methods. Most family members studied ? who were found to have HDLS gene mutations ? were not diagnosed with the disease, but with something else, thus emphasizing the notion that HDLS is an underdiagnosed disorder.

The CSF1R protein is an important receptor in the brain that is primarily present in microglia, the immune cells of the brain. ?We identified a different CSF1R mutation in every HDLS family that we studied,? says Dr. Rademakers. ?All mutations are located in the kinase domain of CSF1R, which is critical for its activity, suggesting that these mutations may lead to deficient microglia activity. How this leads to white matter pathology in HDLS patients is not yet understood, but we now have an important lead to study.?

?With no other disease have we found so many affected families so quickly,? says Dr. Wszolek. ?That tells me this disease is not rare, but quite common.? He adds, ?It is fantastic that you can start an investigation with a single case and end up, with the help of many hands, in what we believe to be a world-class gene discovery.?

###

Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/news

Thanks to Mayo Clinic 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/116318/__Rare__brain_disorder_may_be_more_common_than_thought

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Terminales Xperia de Sony Ericsson con Android 4.0

Noticias

Fecha:? 19/12/2011? Fuente:? GSMspain

Los usuarios de la gama Xperia de Sony Ericsson ya pueden probar la ?ltima versi?n del sistema operativo Android.


Terminales Xperia de Sony Ericsson con Android 4.0En la compa??a Sony Ericsson parecen decididos a proceder muy pronto con la esperada actualizaron de todos sus smartphones de la familia Xperia, a la ?ltima versi?n del sistema operativo Android, es decir, la 4.0 tambi?n conocida como Ice Cream Sandwich. Para ir abriendo boca, la Comunidad de Desarrolladores de Sony Ericsson ha lanzado un v?deo en el que ya puede verse un Xperia Arc funcionando bajo esta versi?n de Android.

No obstante, la compa??a sigue trabajando en dicha actualizaci?n, ya que esta versi?n Alpha de Android 4.0 tiene todav?a muchas limitaciones. Google Mobile Services, que ofrece soporte para Gmail o Google Maps no est? operativo, as? mismo, ni la radio FM, ni las conexiones v?a Wi-Fi o Bluetooth pueden ser activadas. Aun as?, podemos ver muchas de las novedades de la ?ltima versi?n de Android como la nueva forma de manejar el reproductor de m?sica con la pantalla bloqueada, o la original manera de eliminar avisos del men? de notificaciones con solo deslizar un dedo.

Aun as?, Sony Ericsson ha puesto esta ROM a disposici?n de todos aquellos que quieran probarla en su Xperia arc S, Xperia Neo V y Xperia Ray. Para ello, es imprescindible disponer del terminal desbloqueado (rooteado), lo cual puede hacerse mediante el servicio "Unlock Boot Loader Service" de Sony Ericsson. No obstante esta opci?n s?lo est? recomendada para usuarios avanzados, ya que la compa??a no se hace responsable de lo que pudiera salir mal en este proceso de "trasteo" con el m?vil.



Comentarios
Hola! tengo una duda a ver si me podeis ayudar.
Estoy pensando sacarme el ARC (normal) que es el que tiene movistar, mi duda es si ya es un poco tarde para pillarlo,quiero decir que si sus 512 de memoria se quedan cortos o si su 1gb podr? mover con fluidez la version 4 de android.

Graciasde antemano!

Los ?ltimos en salir tendran antes la actualizaci?n, entre marzo y abril. Por eso dicen que seran el Arc S, Ray y Neo V.

Pero los demas de la gama, el Arc. Neo, Play, Mini, Mini Pro y Activ lo tendran entre Abril y Mayo, un mes despues.

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericss...2-news-3559.php

Saludos.

Tiene muy buena pintaa un saludo y gracias por la info

Eso no os olvideis del Neo normal! Aunque supongo que lo que hagan para el Neo V deber?a servir para el normal no?

Saludos

De los minis nada no?

Muy bien por Sony.

Espero que no dejen olvidao el Xperia NEO porque en la noticia mencionan que ponen la beta a disposi?n para el NEO V.


Source: http://www.gsmspain.com/noticias/2341_Terminales-Xperia-de-Sony-Ericsson-con-Android-4-0-Los-usuarios-de-la-gama-Xperia-de-Sony-E.html

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Ipswich Announced as the Destination for a Dr Who Adventure as Part of the London 2012 Festival

?
? Focus: Game Development Ipswich Announced as the Destination for a Dr Who Adventure as Part of the London 2012 Festival
? By PRWEB

(PRWEB) December 24, 2011 Following confirmation of Arts Council England funding, London 2012 Festival organisers are pleased to announce that The Crash of The Elysium, Punchdrunks live Doctor Who adventure for ch...

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Keywords:education, adult education, further education, university, religious education, sports event, sports disciplinary action, sports awards, sport, sports organisations, education, adult education, further education, religious education, medical procedure/test, medical research, medical staff, medicine, preventative medicine, medical specialisation, medical service, medical conditions, sports organisations, sports event, sports disciplinary action, sports awards, market research, research and development,

Source:PRWEB.COM Newswire. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://www.reviewseeker.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=1814779

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Stuffed animals bring Christmas joy to cancer patients | mu?oz - Life ...

Alexandra "Alex" Mu?oz knows where she will be today.

After attending Mass in the morning, it's tradition for her family to head over to her grandmother's house, just two blocks away from their Cypress home.

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How to reach them:

To attract future donors for the Teddy Bear Donation Drive, the Mu?oz family is working with Brenda Trujillo, senior account executive with Dawson & Dawson, an executive search firm in Mission Viejo.

The family can be contacted at 714-373-4542 for more information. Trujillo can be reached at 949-421-3966 or 714-600-1660.

But Alex knows that a lot of kids can't celebrate Christmas at home with family. They're in the hospital being treated for cancer.

To bring some Christmas cheer, she started the Teddy Bear Donation Drive.

A few days before Christmas, Alex, her mom and younger brother Anthony visited local hospitals to drop off armfuls of joy ? stuffed animals donated by friends, family, neighbors, students and teachers at Cypress High, and people at workplaces.

Why stuffed animals?

"It's like giving a hug to someone all the time," said Alex, a freshman and pre-med student at UCLA who wants to be a pediatrician.

She knows just how much hugs can mean to a child who is scared and missing home.

Last year, at 17, Alex was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a rare disease for someone so young.

She had surgery in May 2010 to remove a tumor the size of a cantaloupe and then subsequent rounds of chemotherapy that left her exhausted, nauseous and bald. Alex found comfort in a chocolate-colored stuffed animal puppy that was a gift from her TeamOC gymnastics club coaches.

She'd fall asleep holding it, a reminder of all the people who loved her.

So last Christmas she distributed more than 100 stuffed animals to childhood cancer patients at Kaiser medical centers and at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach, where the mother of one of Alex's best friends is a doctor ? and a cancer survivor.

Alex and her mom recall one older teen, a big guy sporting tattoos and earlobe plugs. They weren't sure he'd want a stuffed animal, but when Sylvia asked him, he gave a quick nod. Later, they saw him walking the hall in his gown, clutching his white teddy bear.

"That made me think stuffed animals really are for everyone," Alex said.

Alex and her two elves were back at Miller on Thursday with two wagons filled with stuffed animals. They stopped in playrooms, met children in the hallways and paid bedside visits to kids too sick to leave their rooms.

Ashley Perez, 12, of Garden Grove looked up from a paper snowman she was making to choose a fluffy brown bear. Ashley, who has leukemia, was hospitalized a week ago because she felt too sick to eat. Seeing Ashley's wisps of hair, Alex shared hopeful words.

"It'll come back," she told the girl. "I promise you."

A CHILD SHOWS THE WAY

Early last year, before her diagnosis, Alex had gone a few weeks feeling a "bump" in her abdomen. A competitive gymnast since the age of 9, Alex hid the growth from her parents.

"I thought I was just getting chunky," she said.

Then it got to where she couldn't stretch in gymnastics. Finally, she called her parents from practice to say she wasn't feeling well. On the ride to urgent care, her worry surged. "I just started rambling and crying."

The entire summer before her senior year of high school was spent undergoing four rounds of chemotherapy ? one every three weeks, and a hospital stay of four days each time. She lost about 15 pounds, most of it muscle. She would beg her mom to make the constant "beep, beep" of the chemo pump go away. That stuffed puppy dog stayed by her side.

"My daughter's experience with ovarian cancer taught me just how far a little bit of comfort goes for a child who must endure the indignities of chemotherapy," Sylvia Mu?oz said.

Alex was older than the other pediatric cancer patients at Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim Hills, but she took her cue on being brave from a 2-year-old named Omar. Alex saw him that first day she went for chemotherapy.

Sylvia Mu?oz says her nervous daughter had the same look on her face that she gets right before competing in gymnastics, "that blank look, like, 'Ooh, here we go.' "

Omar was all business.

"He wasn't even nervous when the doctors pulled out his shunt to take his blood count," Alex said. "It let me know that if a little kid could do it, I could do it too."

A NEW TRADITION

Her recovery has gone well. She returned to school for the start of her senior year and got back to gymnastics that October. Her dark, wavy hair ? once halfway down her back ? slowly grew in.

But as good as things were going for Alex, she kept thinking about young cancer patients. She wanted to do something to help make them feel better, something to make it easier to be hospitalized at Christmas.

"I thought how much the dog helped me," she said of that puppy, the only stuffed animal she took along to her dorm at UCLA.

With her mother's organizing skills ? Sylvia Mu?oz works in human resources ? they launched the Teddy Bear Drive.

This year, they collected about 160 stuffed animals and added Children's Hospital of Orange County to their stops. Next year, they hope to attract corporate donors to help expand the drive.

Their visit on Thursday to the Hematology and Oncology Unit at Miller Children's Hospital touched the heart of Juliet Pulido of Downey, whose daughter Marie, 6, has been hospitalized since June. Marie has aplastic anemia, a condition that prevents her bone marrow from producing enough new blood cells.

Marie picked out a big brown plush teddy bear, while her brother, Aaden, 3, chose a creature that could play a part in "Monsters Inc."

"It's kind of sad for her to be here for Christmas," Juliet Pulido said of her daughter. "So this is awesome."

Contact the writer: twalker@ocregister.com or 714-796-7793


Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/alex-332882-stuffed-year.html

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Monday, December 26, 2011

iPad Charger Review: Twelve South PlugBug for iPad and MacBook Laptops

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Source: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Board=news&Number=41890

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Cleric blames Iraqi politicians for Baghdad blasts (AP)

BAGHDAD ? Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader on Friday demanded the country's politicians work to restore security, saying their conflicts were to blame for attacks like the devastating bombings that tore through mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and killed at least 69 people.

The calls by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made by his representative in a Friday prayer sermon, implicitly hit on the political showdown between the Shiite prime minister and the top Sunni political leader in the country, against whom the government put out an arrest warrant, accusing him of running hit squads.

Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has denied the charges, which have fueled Sunni fears that the minority community is being pushed out of influence by the Shiite-dominated government.

Al-Sistani's aide Ahmed al-Safi did not specifically mention the conflict or any of the players in it, but his comments seemed to be a call for Sunni politicians to back down.

If someone is "dealing with terrorism, what should we do? What is the punishment that he must face after knowing that he is a killer?" al-Safi said in his sermon in the holy city of Karbala.

"The prestige of the government must be preserved ... part of its prestige is punishing abusers," he said. "The security file is not a luxury! People can be patient with lack of electricity, or lack of services, but not blood. They cannot be patient over their blood. Wyy don't you exert your efforts to preserve the blood of these people?"

Al-Sistani, who is in his mid 80s, is the most respected cleric among Iraq's Shiite majority. But he rarely appears in public and stopped meeting with politicians since around the middle of this year. He usually makes his positions known through his representative at the prayer sermon.

Sixteen blasts across Baghdad on Thursday also wounded nearly 200 people, evoking fears Iraq could dissolve into a new round of sectarian violence now that American troops have left.

Al-Safi condemned the bombing, saying, "The people are looking forward for a new life after the departure of the foreign forces, instead they face massacres."

"Politicians, be merciful with this country. You are dragging the country with your crises and you are held responsible."

These calls were echoed by other Shiite and Sunni clerics. Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric, whose militiamen were blamed for sectarian killings during the worst of Iraq's violence, issued a statement, calling the conflict among Iraqi politicians as "the conflict of the mighty" which "led to the deterioration of the fragile security."

The preacher of Abu Hanifa, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad, also criticized the Iraqi leaders who "preoccupy themselves with side issues and conflicts and ignore essential issues. You (politicians) have to pay heed to reunite Iraqis. You have to give up hatred, killing and intimidation," Sheik Ahmed al-Taha told worshippers in his sermon.

"Do not let our defeated enemy (the Americans) say that we are unable to continue with them," he added.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Pope urges end to Syria bloodshed, peace worldwide (AP)

VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI called for an end to the bloodshed in Syria and the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in his Christmas message Sunday, an appeal for peace that was challenged by deadly attacks on Nigerian churches.

Benedict delivered his "Urbi et Orbi" speech (Latin for "to the city and to the world") from the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica overlooking a sun-drenched piazza below, before thousands of jubilant tourists and pilgrims, and hundreds of colorful Swiss Guards and Italian military bands.

The 84-year-old pope, fresh off a late-night Christmas Eve Mass, said he prayed that the birth of Jesus, which Christmas celebrates, would send a message to all who need to be saved from hardships.

He cited refugees from the Horn of Africa and flood victims in Thailand, among others, and called for greater political dialogue in Myanmar, and stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa's Great Lakes region.

He said he prayed that God would help the Israelis and the Palestinians resume talks.

"May he bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed," he said.

The pope didn't mention the deadly blasts on churches in Nigeria, but the Vatican issued a statement denouncing the attacks as a sign of "cruelty and absurd, blind hatred" that shows no respect for human life.

Early Sunday, an explosion ripped through a Catholic church during Christmas Mass near Nigeria's capital of Abuja, and an emergency worker reported that 25 people were killed. A second explosion struck near a church in Nigeria's restive central city of Jos, while two other explosions hit the northeast state of Yobe.

There was no immediately claim of responsibility for either explosion, but Nigeria has suffered a wave of sectarian attacks blamed on the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Catholic church was praying for all Nigerians confronting "this terrorist violence in these days that should be filled with peace and joy."

The Vatican press office noted that Benedict's speech was prepared well in advance of the attacks.

After his speech, Benedict delivered Christmas greetings in 65 different languages, from Mongolian to Maori, Aramaic to Albanian, Tamil to Thai. He finished the list with Guarani and Latin, as the bells tolled from St. Peter's enormous bell towers.

In the West Bank, hundreds of Christian faithful, defying lashing rains and wind, celebrated Christmas Mass at Jesus' traditional birthplace of Bethleham on Sunday, spirits high despite the gloomy weather.

Worshippers dressed in their holiday best rushed under cover of umbrellas into St. Catherine's Church on Manger Square, leaving the plaza, with its 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) Christmas tree, deserted. The church was packed, and the overflow crowd waited eagerly in an arched corridor for a chance to enter.

Inside, supplicants, some dressed in the traditional attire of foreign lands, raised their voices in prayer, kissed a plaster statue of a baby Jesus and took communion. St. Catherine's is attached to the smaller Church of the Nativity, which is built over a grotto where devout Christians believe Jesus was born.

"Lots of pilgrims from around the world are coming to be here on Christmas," said Don Moore, 41, a psychology professor from Berkeley, Calif., who came to Bethlehem with his family. "We wanted to be part of the action. This is the place, this is where it all started."

With turnout at its highest in more than a decade, proud Palestinian officials said they were praying the celebrations would bring them closer to their dream of independence.

In Britain, the leader of the world's Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the summer riots in Britain and the financial crisis have broken bonds and abused trust in British society.

In his Christmas Day sermon, Rowan Williams appealed to those congregated at Canterbury Cathedral to learn lessons about "mutual obligation" from the events of the past year. He said Sunday "the most pressing question" now facing Britain is "who and where we are as a society."

"Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_christmas

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Video: Can Ron Paul win Iowa?

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45770066#45770066

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

World Briefing | Asia: China: Stricter Air Pollution Monitoring Standards to Start Next Year

[unable to retrieve full-text content]China will introduce stricter air pollution standards next year to monitor tiny particles of pollution in Beijing and other cities, state news media reported Thursday.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6a69982dc34287522f7014e0d484df1c

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Mayor, 4 chambers of commerce host holiday mixer Thursday night

Area chambers of commerce are holding a holiday mixer 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, 1725 Eye St.

Mayor Harvey Hall is sponsoring the mixer, which is hosted by the Bakersfield chamber in partnership with the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Kern County Black Chamber of Commerce and the North of the River Chamber of Commerce.

Members of any participating chamber can get in for $5. Those who aren't members can attend for $10.

No reservations are needed, the Bakersfield chamber said.

Source: http://northwest.bakersfieldnow.com/news/business/72835-mayor-4-chambers-commerce-host-holiday-mixer-thursday-night

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Windows 7 Plus Web Browser Plus Special Sauce Make Simple Blue Screen Recipe!

To make this delicious poison dish, simply take a large dollop of Windows 7 Professional, mix it with a portion of Safari and add a dash of special iFrame sauce and voila! instant Blue Screen of Death. The flaw is triggered by running Apple's Safari web browser on a fully patched 64-bit Windows 7 Professional, then feeding it a web page containing a simple iFrame with an overly long height attribute, like this: (remove the space after the first angle bracket) Result: Windows 7 falls over instantly with a memory corruption error. Ouch. Interestingly, it seems that 32-bit Windows 7 doesn't suffer from this vulnerability and neither does XP SP3 32-bit, although this is by no means certain at this point. The flaw appears to be in the win32k.sys kernel-mode driver, which is a common source of critical Windows vulnerabilities. It was first reported by Twitter user webDEViL (@w3bd3vil) and being a zero day vulnerability, there's currently no fix or workaround for it. However, the worst part about this critical vulnerability, is that Safari runs 100% in User Mode, which is effectively a type of sandbox, preventing an application from bringing down Windows, regardless of what it does. There's obviously a little loophole here though.

To prevent a malicious web page from taking out Windows 7 at the moment, inspection of every web page before being rendered by the browser would have to be performed by installed security software, which would tend to reduce browsing performance and increase CPU usage. Alternatively, just don't use Safari.

Respected security outfit Secunia has looked at this vulnerability and believe that the crash could be used to execute malicious code, rather than just kill the operating system. They have issued advisory SA47237 about this problem:

Description

A vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Windows, which can be exploited by malicious people to potentially compromise a user's system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a flaw in win32k.sys and can be exploited to corrupt memory via e.g. a specially crafted web page containing an IFRAME with an overly large "height" attribute viewed using the Apple Safari browser.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code with kernel-mode privileges.

The vulnerability is confirmed on a fully patched Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Other versions may also be affected.

Solution
No effective solution is currently available.

Provided and/or discovered by
webDEViL

Original Advisory
https://twitter.com/#!/w3bd3vil/status/148454992989261824


Additionally, Secunia's chief security specialist Carsten Eiram, expanded on this problem:
Based on our testing the impact could be more severe due to the type of crash and nature of the vulnerability i.e. crashing when attempting to write to invalid memory in a call to memmove(). Based on this we do consider remote code execution a possibility though it has not been proven at this time.

Other 64-bit versions could be affected. During testing we observed no crashes on Windows XP SP3 32-bit nor Windows 7 32-bit, but cannot completely rule out that these could be affected via different approaches.

As can be expected, this rather embarrassing zero day security flaw is being urgently looked into by Microsoft: "We are currently examining the issue and will take appropriate action to help ensure customers are protected" said Jerry Bryant, Group Manager, Response Communications Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. Of course, one must ask why is it only Safari that does this, so Apple should be equally concerned to fix their browser.

Below is an 11 second video demonstration of the flaw:

Source: InfoWorld

Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/157227/Windows-7-Plus-Web-Browser-Plus-Special-Sauce-Make-Simple-Blue-Screen-Recipe-.html

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Adam Lambert Arrested Following Fight With Boyfriend Sauli Koskinen

American Idol alum Adam Lambert was arrested earlier this morning in Finland, following a fight with his boyfriend, Sauli Koskinen. Lambert had arrived in Helsinki on Monday to spend the holidays with his Finnish Big Brother winning reality star boyfriend, Sauli Koskinen. The two have been a couple since November of 2010, living together in Hollywood. Lambert and Koskinen were at famed Helsinki gay club Don’t Tell Mama Wednesday night, where they were reportedly seen bickering with each other in the club. Their heated quarrel was enough to get the two kicked out of the club, where they continued to argue, escalating into a violent skirmish. Koskinen’s Big Brother co-star, Niko Nousiainen, was at the bar with with his girlfriend and they tried to separate both Koskinen and Lambert. Instead, they were on the “receiving end of Adam’s wrath,” but it was not intentional, according to Perez Hilton, just an accident. After police were called to the scene, both Lambert and his boyfriend were arrested around 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning, jailed and then later released that afternoon after being questioned by authorities. Looks like they possibly could have several assault charges brought against them, but no word yet on any [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/ML1VoVkBX8Y/

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

VidaBox Media Servers add metadata support for XBMC, Popcorn Hour and others

We wouldn't expect for upper-crust aimed media server setups like the ones offered by VidaBox to play nicely with the common rabble, but apparently that's just what is going on. With the click of a check box, its "Drop-n-Rip" Blu-ray and DVD archiving now includes cover art and other metadata compatible with third party streamers including Popcorn Hour, HDI Dune, TViX, XBMC, Sage TV and others. This probably won't drop the cost of a custom installed setup by much, but if you have one and want to bring your own extender hardware (similar to its recent iPad support) into the mix, it should be a simple upgrade.

Continue reading VidaBox Media Servers add metadata support for XBMC, Popcorn Hour and others

VidaBox Media Servers add metadata support for XBMC, Popcorn Hour and others originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/vidabox-media-servers-add-metadata-support-for-xbmc-popcorn-hou/

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Monday, December 19, 2011

Selena Gomez Cancels Concerts Due To Family Emergency

www.eonline.com:

Selena Gomez has pulled the plug on two holiday-themed concerts scheduled for tonight and tomorrow.
Her rep says Selena is OK, instead citing a "family emergency" as the reason for the abrupt cancellation.

What happened?

Read the whole story: www.eonline.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/17/selena-gomez-cancels-family-emergency_n_1155723.html

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

CBS sets new schedule with "Amazing Race," "Gifted Man" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? "The Amazing Race" will return with a new edition on Sunday, February 19 at 8 p.m., CBS said Thursday.

The network also revealed a shakeup to its Friday night lineup, with "Undercover Boss" moving to Fridays at 8 starting February 17, following three Sunday broadcasts, starting with its January 15 premiere at 8 p.m.

The network's new offering "A Gifted Man," which premiered September 23, will shift from Fridays at 8 to Fridays at 9 to accommodate "Boss."

"CSI: NY," which had been occupying the Fridays at 9 p.m. timeslot, will return to its place on March 30, when "A Gifted Man" completes its season.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111216/media_nm/us_cbs_schedule

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Miners safely removed from Idaho underground mine (Providence Journal)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/174829967?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Society may get stuck with the bill for expensive higher education

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The rising cost of a college education and limited access to financial aid may create a less productive workforce and steeper wealth inequity, according to a study by North American economists.

Students with low-income parents are discovering that it is more difficult to find funds to pay for a college education now compared to students of similar economic backgrounds in the 1980s, said Alexander Monge-Naranjo, assistant professor of economics, Penn State.

"The consensus was that in the 1980s, credit constraints didn't seem to matter for those who went to college," said Monge-Naranjo. "But according to the latest data, we see family income and parental wealth are making a big difference in who is attending college."

Monge-Naranjo said there were several reasons for the move away from affordability. Over the last two decades, more higher-paying jobs required a college degree. The higher demand for a college education led universities to increase tuition, according to Monge-Narajo.

At the same time, money available through government loan programs remained flat or, when adjusting for in inflation, declined. During the 1990s, the percentage of undergraduates who borrowed from government lending programs increased significantly. Of those students, the ones at the top limit of their borrowing capacity tripled to 52 percent. Many more students are relying on private lenders for loans, Monge-Narajo said.

In the 1980s, credit constraints -- factors that limit financial access to college funding, such as caps on financial assistance and family income -- did not significantly stop students from attending college, once the researchers controlled for other factors, such as SAT score, age and race. Even poor students who had little financial resources to pay for college, but who were smart, could access credit to pursue an education, Monge-Naranjo said.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the current issue of the American Economic Review, said a shift occurred in the 1990s as more low-income students began to struggle to access credit to pay for a college. During the 1990s, youths from high-income families were 16 percent more likely to attend college than youths from low-income families.

Monge-Naranjo, who worked with Lance Lochner, associate professor, Western economics and director, CIBC Centre for Human Capital and Productivity, University of Western Ontario, used the most recent data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and the Armed Forces Qualifying Test to examine the relationships between intelligence, family income and college attendance.

According to Monge-Naranjo, constraints on financial aid could have far-reaching economic impacts. When poor but intelligent workers are unable to earn a college degree, their career choices are restricted, Monge-Naranjo said. That could mean less qualified and less productive workers will attain those positions.

"It's a matter of economic efficiency," said Monge-Naranjo. "Are we choosing the best individuals for the job, or just the individual whose parents are wealthy? In the long-term that may have an effect on the economy, although it may take a couple of generations to find out and, even then, perhaps be hard to quantify."

###

Penn State: http://live.psu.edu

Thanks to Penn State 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/116007/Society_may_get_stuck_with_the_bill_for_expensive_higher_education

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Clinton warns South Sudan of "resource curse" with oil wealth (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged newly independent South Sudan on Tuesday to be prudent with its oil wealth, warning mismanagement and the "resource curse" could see money siphoned off by unscrupulous elites and foreign powers.

Clinton, speaking at a development conference for South Sudan in Washington, welcomed the new government's pledge to improve transparency and accountability, particularly in the oil sector that appears poised for major development.

"The proof is in the pudding. What matters most is whether the government follows through on it," Clinton told the audience, which included South Sudan President Salva Kiir.

"We know that it will either help your country finance its own path out of poverty or you will fall prey to the natural resource curse which will enrich a small elite, outside interests, corporations and countries and leave your people hardly better off than when you started."

Kiir said South Sudan was determined to become "an island of stability" in Africa after emerging to claim independence in July, culminating a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with Sudan.

"We have come from 50 years of conflict, marginalization and war. Our history has created countless roadblocks and challenges that we must overcome," Kiir told the conference.

"We can have well-written and thought-out dreams, but if we do not practically improve our governance system, this dream is as good as not being there," he said.

South Sudan accounts for around 75 percent of the formerly united country's 500,000 barrels per day of oil output. Oil revenues could make it one of the wealthiest countries in the region - at least on paper.

But South Sudan and Sudan still face disputes over sharing oil revenues and ending fighting in a volatile border region, keeping tensions high between the two neighbors whose long civil war killed an estimated 2 million people.

"THE LOGIC OF FORCE"

Kiir urged the international community to take a tougher line with Khartoum, which he accused of violating his country's air space and bombing villages and refugee camps.

"It is our strong desire that the international community seeks means and ways of making appropriate interventions so that potential flashpoints for renewed fighting between the Republic of Sudan and us are extinguished," he said.

He repeated South Sudan's demand that the fate of the disputed oil-producing border region of Abyei must be decided through a referendum "and not through the logic of force."

U.S. officials say the Washington conference will introduce South Sudan both to aid organizations and to private companies, seeking to jump start the economy and open up new opportunities, particularly in the oil and agriculture sectors.

The country, roughly the size of France, remains one of the last developed in the world, and officials tick off a huge list of needs ranging from schools, hospitals and roads to telecommunication infrastructure and basic consumer goods.

The United States last week eased sanctions on South Sudan to allow investments in the oil sector, although it has maintained standing bans on most economic interaction with Khartoum.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the United States hoped soon to qualify South Sudan for trade benefits including the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows most goods produced in select African countries to enter the United States duty-free.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/wl_nm/us_sudan_south_develoment

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Friday, December 16, 2011

China makes growth guarantee against grim global economy (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China pledged to guarantee growth in the face of an "extremely grim" outlook for the global economy in 2012, as its annual policy-setting conference closed on Wednesday with a series of commitments to deliver economic stability.

Laying out a blueprint for the world's second-biggest economy in the year ahead, Beijing promised to keep monetary policy "prudent" and fiscal policy "pro-active" while ensuring stable consumer prices -- language broadly in line with previous commitments.

But it was China's view on the global economic backdrop that was a sign of the policy challenge that could lay ahead.

"Looking into next year, the trend in the global economy on the whole is grim and complicated. Uncertainties are rising around a recovery in the world economy," said a statement published on the official Xinhua news agency after the end of the annual conference.

Beijing's wish to downplay those risks domestically was apparent in all the economic plans outlined, which broadly endorsed a decision by China's top leaders last week to avoid big policy changes before a critical leadership succession in 2012 that will see the nation's top two leaders retire.

"Stability means to maintain basically steady macro-economic policy, relatively fast economic growth, stable consumer prices and social stability," one of several statements carried by the official Xinhua news agency said.

The yuan's value will be kept "basically stable"; interest rate and exchange rate reforms will continue; measures aimed at calming the property market will be maintained; exports will kept steady whilst imports boosted to balance trade.

Economists were sanguine in their initial take on the pronouncements from the single most important annual meeting in China's economic calendar.

They singled out the commitment to domestic economic stability as a sign of steady-as-she goes policies in the year ahead.

"This year it's a lot less drama," said Tim Condon, an economist at ING Bank in Singapore. "The statements are much less thematic than a year ago when they moved from a moderately loose to a prudent stance."

"This is the case of an economy where policy does not need fixing so they are just staying the course."

The bevy of statements did not betray a clear policy bias between growth and inflation, a stance which some economists say underscores China's nagging concerns that inflation could rebound after this year's tentative victory.

Indeed, while noting the global economic malaise, Beijing conceded that China is in a tight spot itself, squeezed by both inflation and slowing economic growth.

"We will fine-tune monetary policy in an appropriate and timely manner, according to the economic situation, and will also use various monetary tools to keep a reasonable growth in money and credit," one statement said.

China's economic growth has slowed down for three straight quarters and economists widely expect expansion in 2012 to be below 9 percent for the first time since 2001.

Inflation appears to be coming off the boil, having fallen from a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July to 4.2 percent in November, but stability-obsessed Beijing is wary of any policy that might revive a trend of rising prices.

FINE-TUNING

Economists said the official rhetoric suggested Beijing was only ready to fine-tune economic policies, rather than swing into an outright monetary easing mode to aid economic growth.

"There is no sharp reversal of (monetary policy) and there is no across-the-board easing," said Wang Jun, an economist at CCIEE, a top government think-tank in Beijing.

"People may feel a bit disappointed. There is limited room for big policy adjustments as inflation has just slowed while economic growth is not that pessimistic."

One statement said Beijing aims to make policies more targeted and flexible to keep pace with changes in the world economy, whose 2012 outlook was described as being "extremely grim."

The Central Economic Work conference brings together China's top leadership, provincial government leaders, ministers, the heads of the biggest state companies as well as the generals from the People's Liberation Army.

Private-sector economists believe China has tacitly shifted to a pro-growth policy stance, despite Wednesday's statements, after the central bank cut bank reserve requirements on Dec 5.

A Reuters poll last week had a consensus view that China was primed to roll back much of the monetary tightening it had used to tame inflation over the last year and cut the ratio of deposits that banks are required to keep as reserves (RRR).

No aggressive policies were forecast to be used to stimulate the economy unless there was a sharp slowdown in GDP growth below 8 percent.

(Reporting by Zhou Xin and Kevin Yao; Editing by Nick Edwards, Ken Wills and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/bs_nm/us_china_economy

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Fresh iPhone Apps for Dec. 15: Grand Theft Auto 3, Sonic CD, Snoticles, Breakout: Boost (Appolicious)

It?s a day of big-time video game releases in the iTunes App Store. Grand Theft Auto 3, one of the most controversial (and extremely fun) games ever created, just landed this week for the incredibly low price of $5. It leads this week?s gaming selection, followed closely by an iOS version of Sonic CD, the platforming classic from 1993 from Sega. After that is a new Adult Swim title in the Angry Birds style called Snoticles, and a new brick-breaker title from Atari called Breakout: Boost.

The controversial third-person action game that has riled up parents and politicians for 10 years has finally jumped the gap from consoles to Apple?s iOS platform. That?s right, this is THE Grand Theft Auto III, the game in which you can steal cars, pick up prostitutes and get hunted down by the cops. It?s the PlayStation 2 title that took the world by storm, shrunk down to the size of your iPhone or iPad. Obviously, it?s more for adults than children.

Developer Rockstar Games has optimized the game for iOS with new touch controls and Retina-supporting HD graphics. It also has a huge amount of content ? everything that was available for PlayStation 2 players way back in 2001, which is hours and hours of missions, a huge locale to explore in Liberty City, and lots of hidden stuff to discover. If you like video games at all, you owe it to yourself to give Grand Theft Auto 3 a try.

Sonic CD (iPhone, iPad) $1.99

Another classic ported from the video game consoles of yesterday is Sonic CD, hailing from all the way back in 1993. Optimized for touch controls and packing a ton of classic side-scrolling Sonic action, this is a must-have for platforming fans and a great port from a developer, Sega, whose other games brought to iOS from other platforms can sometimes leave something to be desired.

Sonic CD has been optimized for iOS and touchscreen controls and packs HD Retina graphics for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users. It also includes both the original U.S. soundtrack, as well as the Japanese soundtrack for the game. On top of all that, Sega has secured Game Center support, which brings leaderboards, achievements and friends lists into the equation, too.

Snoticles (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

Taking a page from physics-based arcade games like Angry Birds is Snoticles, a game in which you control as many as four somewhat gross cartoony characters in a title that?s all about flinging things at other things to earn points. All four of your heroes (ones a pimple, ones a ball of snot and the other two are kind of unidentifiable) throw different implements of destruction and their weapons have different properties. You?ll have to use the right tool for the job to get maximum points as you clear each level of enemies by blowing up the ?alpha? enemy in each one.

Snoticles packs ?dozens? of levels across five separate worlds, each mixing an Angry Birds-style arcade feel with puzzles to solve. It also packs Game Center support, providing you with leaderboards and achievements that allow you to check your abilities against those of other players.

Breakout: Boost (iPhone, iPad) Free (with $0.99 in-app purchase)

There are lots of brick-breaker titles in the iTunes App Store, but not all of them are free ? or at least partially free. Atari?s Breakout: Boost, on the other hand, comes with its first five levels for free. It also packs plenty of classic arcade action. You control a plate with by sliding your finger around, bouncing a ball toward the top of the screen and using it to break a bunch of bricks planted up there. The more you blast, the more points you earn.

After the first five free levels, you can purchase another 65 stages for $0.99. You also can earn a mess of power-ups in true brick-breaker fashion to add to your score, and see how you stack up against other players thanks to Game Center achievements and leaderboards.

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