Iran sanctions spur boom for Pakistani diesel smugglers

By Hamdan Albaloshi

JOGAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Some of the contraband is spirited across the mountains in Pepsi bottles carried by child smugglers. Yet more is loaded into pick-up trucks or siphoned into barrels and strapped onto mules.

So lucrative are the returns that even seasoned opium traffickers are abandoning their traditional cargo to grab a share of Pakistan's closest thing to an oil boom: a roaring trade in illicit Iranian diesel.

As Western powers tighten sanctions on Iran, an unexpected set of beneficiaries has emerged in the hard-scrabble Pakistani province of Baluchistan - smugglers lured by surging profits for black market fuel.

"Why smuggle opium when you can earn as much money by smuggling diesel? It's much safer," said a former opium trader from the Pakistani town of Mand, a smuggling hub near the Iranian border.

"Besides, I'm now called a successful businessman -- not a drug dealer," said the man, who gave his name as Hamid.

Diesel smuggling has long been a part of the illicit trade in Baluchistan, where a thriving commerce in goods from guns and narcotics to duty free cigarettes and second hand Toyotas constitutes one the arteries of the globalised criminal economy.

But a Reuters inquiry into the fuel trade, based on interviews with participants across the province and a visit to remote parts of the frontier, has revealed that sanctions on Iran has made diesel smuggling extremely remunerative.

The findings also raise questions about the possible degree of complicity in fuel smuggling among Pakistani security forces stationed in Baluchistan, a vast province sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan.

Covering almost half of Pakistan's land area but extremely sparsely populated, Baluchistan is home to both insurgents campaigning for an independent Baluch homeland, and drug cartels shipping Afghan opium and heroin to world markets.

In Nushki, a small town on one of the roads cutting through Baluchistan's arid moonscape, diesel traders preparing to drive to the Iran border had little to fear from the law.

"Bringing in fuel this way is so much cheaper and makes great profits," said one of the transporters, a burly man wearing a gold watch who had the demeanor of a wealthy businessman. "Even though there are security check points at all these border towns inside Pakistan, no one ever stops me. Why wouldn't I do this?"

TWICE AS MUCH

For years, diesel smuggled from Iran has supplemented the 2.7 million to 3 million tons (20 million to 22 million barrels) of diesel that Pakistan's state oil company buys from the Kuwait Petroleum Corp each year.

The illegal trade cooled in late 2010 when Iran cut fuel subsidies, narrowing profit margins for importers. But smugglers have gone into overdrive since late September, when growing pressure from Western sanctions caused the Iranian rial to lose forty per cent of its value against the dollar in a week, making diesel even cheaper for Pakistani buyers.

Iran sets its diesel price at 4,500 Iranian rials a liter, (about 15 U.S. cents at the open market rate) - less than the price of mineral water. In Pakistan, a liter of smuggled diesel can sell for 104 rupees a liter ($1.06) -- cheaper than the official price of 112 rupees a liter.

In Baluchistan, diesel dealers are making so much cash that some passenger transporters are trading in buses to buy pick-up trucks sturdy enough to make the journey to the frontier across river fords and forbidding escarpments.

"I sold my mini-bus to buy a pick-up. It earns me twice as much as the passenger van," said a man called Altaf, who has started ferrying Iranian diesel to the town of Turbat in Baluchistan.

At Jogar, a border pass in granite mountains, children trek across the hills bearing Iranian diesel in Pepsi bottles. Some is transported on donkeys. On the Baluchistan coast, smuggling proceeds on an industrial scale as diesel arrives at ports via vessels plying the Gulf of Oman.

Like tributaries feeding a river, individual smugglers bring their barrels to depots, where the cargo is aggregated into tanker trucks.

There is no way to reliably measure the amount of fuel involved, but traders believe that 100-130 tankers -- each capable of carrying 25,000-40,000 liters -- are filled with illicit Iranian diesel in Baluchistan each day.

The tankers then deliver the fuel to markets across Pakistan, or into Afghanistan, whose reliance on Iranian refined products poses a particular dilemma for Washington.

In January, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that fuel purchases made for Afghan security forces using U.S. government funds may have included Iranian petroleum products, which would be a violation of Washington's own sanctions on Tehran.

Iran's attempts to boost formal energy ties with Pakistan are also a concern for the U.S. government. Washington has voiced opposition to plans to build a pipeline through Baluchistan to tap Iranian natural gas, which Pakistan sees as a possible answer to its chronic electricity shortages.

"ARMED HENCHMEN"

The ease with which diesel smuggling has blossomed anew underscores the tenuous writ of the authorities in Baluchistan, a region with a long history of independence that has felt marginalized ever since it was merged into Pakistan in 1948.

So large are the sums involved that many suspect elements in the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which has primary security responsibility in Baluchistan, and other agencies are involved.

"The Frontier Corps, coast guards and police provide the smugglers with protection in return for their share," said a senior government official in Makran, a southern coastal strip in Baluchistan and smuggling hotspot.

The Frontier Corps declined comment, but has in the past denied involvement in illegal trade, saying it has repeatedly confronted heavily armed heroin traffickers.

Fuel importers and marketers said, however, that Pakistan's over-stretched security forces turn a blind eye.

"Vehicles loaded with Iranian diesel and petrol provide us with fuel as a routine matter -- there are no hindrances to its transportation," said Ghulam Ali, who sells the smuggled products openly in Quetta, the main city in Baluchistan.

Akbar Baloch, who runs an import and export business from a village near the Iran border, said influential figures on both sides of the frontier were involved. "Their armed henchmen escort the vehicles used for smuggling," he added.

Iran's government, already battling Western moves to restrict supplies of gasoline and other refined products, has sought to stem smuggling by introducing a system of smart cards to ration subsidized fuel.

In Pakistan, authorities admit they are overwhelmed. Ibrahim Vighio, a senior customs official in Quetta, said the government plans to form a new 1,000-strong anti-smuggling unit. "We have lack of forces, proper weapons and equipment to stop the smuggling," he said.

(Additional reporting by Gul Yousufzai In QUETTA and; Jessica Jaganathan in SINGAPORE, Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-sanctions-spur-boom-pakistani-diesel-smugglers-003853301.html

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'Walking Dead' Season-Finale Preview: Bloodshed Is Coming

'When it goes black, the wait until season four is going to be interminable,' actor Dallas Roberts tells MTV News about what to expect.
By Josh Wigler

"The Walking Dead"
Photo: AMC

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704654/walking-dead-season-finale-preview.jhtml

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The South: A near-solid block against 'Obamacare'

ATLANTA (AP) ? As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation's poorest and unhealthiest states.

"Not in South Carolina," Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."

Widening Medicaid insurance rolls, a joint federal-state program for low-income Americans, is an anchor of the law Obama signed in 2010. But states get to decide whether to take the deal, and from Virginia to Texas ? a region encompassing the old Confederacy and Civil War border states ? Florida's Rick Scott is the only Republican governor to endorse expansion, and he faces opposition from his GOP colleagues in the legislature. Tennessee's Bill Haslam, the Deep South's last governor to take a side, added his name to the opposition on Wednesday.

Haley offers the common explanation, saying expansion will "bust our budgets." But the policy reality is more complicated. The hospital industry and other advocacy groups continue to tell GOP governors that expansion would be a good arrangement, and there are signs that some Republicans are trying to find ways to expand insurance coverage under the law.

Haslam told Tennessee lawmakers that he'd rather use any new money to subsidize private insurance. That's actually the approach of another anchor of Obama's law: insurance exchanges where Americans can buy private policies with premium subsidies from taxpayers.

Yet for now, governors' rejection of Medicaid expansion will leave large swaths of Americans without coverage because they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid as it exists but not enough to get the subsidies to buy insurance in the exchanges. Many public health studies show that the same population suffers from higher-than-average rates of obesity, smoking and diabetes ? variables that yield bad health outcomes and expensive hospital care.

"Many of the citizens who would benefit the most from this live in the reddest of states with the most intense opposition," said Drew Altman, president of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

So why are these states holding out? The short-term calculus seems heavily influenced by politics.

Haley, Haslam, Nathan Deal of Georgia and Robert Bentley of Alabama face re-election next year. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is up for re-election in 2015. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is term-limited at home but may seek the presidency in 2016. While they all govern GOP-leaning states, they still must safeguard their support among Republican voters who dislike large-scale federal initiatives in general and distrust Obama in particular. Florida's Scott, the South's GOP exception on expansion, faces a different dynamic. He won just 49 percent of the vote in 2010 and must face an electorate that twice supported Obama.

A South Carolina legislator put it bluntly earlier this year. State Rep. Kris Crawford told a business journal that he supports expansion, but said electoral math is the trump card. "It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party," he said.

Whit Ayers, a leading Republican pollster, was more measured, but offered the same bottom line. "This law remains toxic among Republican primary voters," he told The Associated Press.

At the Tennessee Hospital Association, president Craig Becker has spent months trying to break through that barrier as he travels to civic and business groups across Tennessee. "It's really hard for some of them to separate something that has the name 'Obamacare' on it from what's going to be best for the state," he said, explaining that personality driven politics are easier to understand than the complicated way that the U.S. pays for health care.

Medicaid is financed mostly by Congress, though states have to put in their own money to qualify for the cash from Washington. The federal amount is determined by a state's per-capita income, with poorer states getting more help. On average in 2012, the feds paid 57 cents of every Medicaid dollar. It was 74 cents in Mississippi, 71 in Kentucky, 70 in Arkansas and South Carolina, 68 in Alabama. Those numbers would be even higher counting bonuses from Obama's 2009 stimulus bill.

Obama's law mandated that states open Medicaid to everyone with household income up to 138 percent of the federal poverty rate ? $15,420 a year for an individual or $31,812 for a family of four. The federal government would cover all costs of new Medicaid patients from 2014 to 2016 and pick up most of the price tag after that, requiring states to pay up to 10 percent. The existing Medicaid population would continue under the old formula. In its ruling on the law, the Supreme Court left the details alone, but declared that states could choose whether to expand.

Hospital and physician lobbying groups around the country have endorsed a bigger Medicaid program. Becker said he explains on his road show that the Obama law paired Medicaid growth with cuts to payments to hospitals for treating the uninsured. Just as they do with Medicaid insurance, states already must contribute their own money in order to get federal help with those so-called "uncompensated care" payments.

The idea was instead of paying hospitals directly, states and Congress could spend that money on Medicaid and have those new beneficiaries ? who now drive costs with preventable hospital admissions and expensive emergency room visits ? use the primary care system. But the Supreme Court ruling creates a scenario where hospitals can lose existing revenue with getting the replacement cash Congress intended, all while still having to treat the uninsured patients who can't get coverage.

Becker said that explanation has gotten local chambers of commerce across Tennessee to endorse expansion. "These are rock-ribbed Republicans," he said. "But they all scratch their heads and say, 'Well, if that's the case, then of course we do this.'"

In Louisiana, Jindal's health care agency quietly released an analysis saying the changes could actually save money over time. But the Republican Governors Association chairman is steadfast in his opposition. In Georgia, Deal answers pressure from his state's hospital association with skepticism about projected "uncompensated care" savings and Congress' pledge to finance 90 percent of the new Medicaid costs.

Altman, the Kaiser foundation leader, predicted that opposition will wane over time.

Arkansas Republicans, who oppose Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's call for expansion, have floated the same idea as Haslam: pushing would-be Medicaid recipients into the insurance exchanges. Jindal, using his RGA post, has pushed the Obama administration to give states more "flexibility" in how to run Medicaid.

Deal convinced Georgia lawmakers this year to let an appointed state board set a hospital industry tax to generate some of the state money that supports Medicaid. That fee ? which 49 states use in some way ? is the same tool that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is using to cover her state's Medicaid expansion. Georgia Democrats and some hospital executives have quietly mused that Deal is leaving himself an option to widen Medicaid in his expected term.

"These guys are looking for ways to do this while still saying they are against 'Obamacare,'" Altman said. "As time goes by, we'll see this law acquire a more bipartisan complexion."

-----

Follow Barrow on Twitter (at)BillBarrowAP.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-near-solid-block-against-obamacare-191744666.html

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NASA 'Super Guppy' Swallows Supersonic NASA Jets (Photos)

Two supersonic NASA jets were swallowed whole by the space agency's outsized Super Guppy Transport plane in California this month so that they could be ferried to Texas.

The pair of retired T-38 jets, which are no longer airworthy, were loaded into the Guppy on March 18 at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.,and flown to El Paso. The jets' parts will be cannibalized and used for other T-38s that are still flying.

The loading process, which took over two hours, involved opening the Guppy's nose and hoisting the T-38s onto a specially designed pallet that was put into the Guppy's 25-foot (7.6-meter) diameter "stomach" of the NASA Super Guppy aircraft. Only the T-38s' wingtips needing to be removed so that the jets could fit inside the carrier, Johnson Space Center flight engineer David Elliott, the Guppy's project manager, said in a statement.

The Super Guppy is the last in its class of wide-bodied aircraft to have transported NASA's unwieldy cargo to their launch site, including rockets for the Apollo program and room-size modules for?the International Space Station. The plane is based at Ellington Airport in Houston, near NASA's Johnson Space Center. [See more photos of NASA's Super Guppy swallowing jets]

The first Guppy aircraft, called the Pregnant Guppy, was built from a heavily modified KC-97 Stratotanker in 1962 by the California-based company Aero Spacelines. Its 19-foot (5.8-meter) diameter cargo compartment was the largest such cavity of any aircraft at the time and it was designed to hold the second stage of a Saturn rocket for the?Apollo program.

The next generation, Dubbed the B377SG Super Guppy, was built in 1965 and was outfitted with a 25-foot (7.6-meter) diameter cargo bay, more powerful turboprop engines, a pressurized cockpit, and a hinged nose for easier loading of cargo, according to NASA.

The planes were operated by Aero Spacelines until NASA purchased the aircraft in 1981. The space agency still uses the Super Guppy Transport ? the last generation of Guppy that Aero Spacelines built. The plane is slated to bring the Orion Heat Shield from Textron Defense Systems near Boston to NASA's Kennedy Space Center at the end of March. The U.S. Department of Defense and government contractors also have used the Guppy to ferry aircraft and large components around the continent.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-super-guppy-swallows-supersonic-nasa-jets-photos-112435031.html

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Head-on collisions between DNA-code reading machineries accelerate gene evolution

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Bacteria appear to speed up their evolution by positioning specific genes along the route of expected traffic jams in DNA encoding. Certain genes are in prime collision paths for the moving molecular machineries that read the DNA code, as University of Washington scientists explain in this week's edition of Nature.

The spatial-organization tactics their model organism, Bacillus subtilis, takes to evolve and adapt might be imitated in other related Gram-positive bacteria, including harmful, ever-changing germs like staph, strep, and listeria, to strengthen their virulence or cause persistent infections. The researchers think that these mechanisms for accelerating evolution may be found in other living creatures as well.

Replication -- the duplicating of the genetic code to create a new set of genes- and transcription -- the copying of DNA code to produce a protein -- are not separated by time or space in bacteria. Therefore, clashes between these machineries are inevitable. Replication traveling rapidly along a DNA strand can be stalled by a head-on encounter or same-direction brush with slower-moving transcription.

The senior authors of the study, Houra Merrikh, UW assistant professor of microbiology, and Evgeni Sokurenko, UW professor of microbiology, and their research teams are collaborating to understand the evolutionary consequences of these conflicts. The major focus of Merrikh and her research team is on understanding mechanistic and physiological aspects of conflicts in living cells -- including why and how these collisions lead to mutations.

Impediments to replication, they noted, can cause instability within the genome, such as chromosome deletions or rearrangements, or incomplete separation of genetic material during cell division. When dangerous collisions take place, bacteria sometimes employ methods to repair, and then restart, the paused DNA replication, Merrikh discovered in her earlier work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To avoid unwanted encounters, bacteria orient most of their genes along what is called the leading strand of DNA, rather than the lagging. The terms refer to the direction the encoding activities travel on different forks of the unwinding DNA. Head-on collisions between replication and transcription happen on the lagging strand.

Despite the heightened risk of gene-altering clashes, the study bacteria B. subtilis still orients 25 percent of all its genes, and 6 percent of its essential genes, on the lagging strand.

The scientist observed that genes under the greatest natural selection pressure for amino-acid mutations, a sign of their adaptive significance, were on the lagging strand. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins. Based on their analysis of mutations on the leading and the lagging strands, the researchers found that the rate of accumulation of mutations was faster in the genes oriented to be subject to head-on replication-transcription conflicts, in contrast to co-directional conflicts.

According to the researchers, together the mutational analyses of the genomes and the experimental findings indicate that head-on conflicts were more likely than same-direction conflicts to cause mutations. They also found that longer genes provided more opportunities for replication-transcription conflicts to occur. Lengthy genes were more prone to mutate.

The researchers noted that head-on replication-transcription encounters, and the subsequent mutations, could significantly increase structural variations in the proteins coded by the affected genes. Some of these chance variations might give the bacteria new options for adapting to changes or stresses in their environment. Like savvy investors, the bacteria appear to protect most of their genetic assets, but offer a few up to the high-roll stakes of mutation.

The researchers pointed out, "A simple switch in gene orientation ?could facilitate evolution in specific genes in a targeted way. Investigating the main targets of conflict-mediated formation of mutations is likely to show far-reaching insights into adaptation and evolution of organisms."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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. Sandip Paul, Samuel Million-Weaver, Sujay Chattopadhyay, Evgeni Sokurenko, Houra Merrikh. Accelerated gene evolution through replication?transcription conflicts. Nature, 2013; 495 (7442): 512 DOI: 10.1038/nature11989

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/S-XGYhm7TK4/130329125307.htm

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Tiny DNA Switches Aim To Revolutionize 'Cellular' Computing

If you think programming a clock radio is hard, try reprogramming life itself. That's the goal of Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University.

Endy has been working with a laboratory strain of E. coli bacteria. He sees the microbes as more than just single-cell organisms. They're little computers.

"Any system that's receiving information, processing information and then using that activity to control what happens next, you can think of as a computing system," Endy says.

Normally the E. coli follow their own program. Is there food? Is the temperature all right? The bacteria process this information and make simple decisions about what to do next. Mainly, they decide whether to reproduce. Endy sees potential for them to do much more. He wants to take control of a cell's genetic machinery and use it to do human computing.

"For us, what's become exciting is the idea that we could get inside the cells in sort of a bottom-up fashion," he says.

Endy is talking about more than splicing in a few extra genes, as scientists already do with crops. He wants to make cells that can follow different programs, just like a computer. To do that, he needed to create something all computers have to have: the transistor.

Transistors are simple on/off switches. Computers are made of many millions of these switches. And to program a cell, you need a biological version. As Endy reports this week in Science, he managed to make one out of DNA.

His switch, which he calls a "transcriptor," is a piece of DNA that he can flip on and off, using chemicals called enzymes. Endy put several of these DNA switches inside his bacteria. He could use the switches to build logic circuits that program each cell's behavior. For example, he could tell a cell to change color in the presence of both enzyme A and enzyme B. That's a simple program: IF enzyme A AND enzyme B [are present] THEN turn green. For an in-depth look, check out Endy's own explanation on YouTube.

Timothy Lu, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is also building cellular computers. He can see lots of ways they could be used. For example, you could program cells to automatically scan your bowels for chemical signals of cancer and let you know if they find any.

"These cells could light up, and you could easily see whether the cell has computed [if] you may have early signs of cancer or not," he says. With a little more programming, such cells might be able to produce a drug, or target the cancer directly.

So far, only the simplest logic circuits work. And Endy doubts that these DNA computers will ever outperform a smartphone. But that's not the point.

"We're building computers that will operate in a place where your cellphone isn't going to work," he says.

He's betting that even a little bit of computing in places where cellphones will never roam can be very valuable.

Synthetic biologist Drew Endy's team at Stanford University has created a tiny biological switch, which they're calling a "transcriptor." It can turn genes on and off, and works in a similar way to electronic transistors.

In cells, molecules travel along a strand of DNA and read instructions. Drew Endy built what he's calling a "cellular transistor." It contains a small stretch of DNA that allows this "machinery" to pass over it in a given direction.

But when this stretch of DNA is flipped around, as you can see below, the machinery can't get past it. As a result, instructions for the cell aren't generated.

Endy can flip this cellular transistor around using special enzymes borrowed from viruses. This is just like turning a switch on and off.

Endy can combine these DNA switches to create what are known as "Boolean logic gates." In electronic circuits, and in DNA, these gates take input signals and follow a simple rule. Below is an example of an AND gate. Only if enzyme A AND enzyme B are present will the cell's instructions be created.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/29/175604770/tiny-dna-switches-aim-to-revolutionize-cellular-computing?ft=1&f=1007

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Crowdfunding, Micro-Patronage, And The Future Of Free Software

The "free" in Free Software refers to "freedom", rather than cost. It is largely a happy coincidence that Free Software is available gratis. Copyleft licensing certainly helps, but there's no overarching reason that Free-as-in-Freedom software need not cost anything. As Free Software has evolved and matured over the years, several major developmental archetypes have emerged.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4Wk4Z089WrI/

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Cypriot banks set to reopen after 12 days -- but customers can only withdraw $383 each

Katia Christodoulou / EPA

People wait outside a branch of the Bank of Cyprus, in Nicosia, Cyprus, as banks on the island prepared to open for the first time since March 16.

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

Banks on the tax haven of Cyprus opened Thursday for the first time in 12 days amid the island's continuing financial crisis.

Strict limits on the amount of money that could be withdrawn have been imposed ? people will be able to withdraw 300 euros ($383) a day and no checks will be cashed ? amid fears of a run on the banks.

Account holders showed up hours before the banks were due to open to get in line.

?

Early indications were that there was no mass rush to withdraw cash, with just 13 people waiting outside one large Bank of Cyprus branch on the island as it opened at noon local time (6 a.m. ET). They were surrounded by a scrum of journalists.

Previously people could only withdraw 100 euros (about $127) a day from the country's two biggest banks from ATMs.?Most who lined up for the opening were elderly people and those without ATM cards.?

However a small crowd of people did press against the doors of a branch of Laiki Bank, which is being liquidated. CNBC sources estimate those with more than 100,000 euros (about $128,000) in accounts in Laiki Bank could lose 40 to 70 percent of their deposits.

Deposits above 100,000 euros with the Bank of Cyprus will be frozen and 40 percent of each account will be converted into bank stock. Accounts in both banks with balances under 100,000 euros will be fully protected.

A previous proposal to take less from all bank accounts?was vetoed by the Cypriot parliament.

The country is seeking to meet the terms of a bailout from the European Union of 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) and, in order to raise enough funds to meet strict conditions imposed by the EU, it is preparing to take money from bank accounts.

Ahead of the banks? reopening, money was flown into the island and guards were seen delivering cash to banks in armored vehicles.

The banks were due to close at 6 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET).

There was some relief on the island that the banks were finally opening again, but this was mixed with fear about what could happen.

The banks in Cyprus are set to reopen after days of being closed as a measure to prevent a run on deposits during the country's financial crisis. Millions in cash is on the move tonight as people camped out in expectation. ITV's Emma Murphy reports

'Slow death'
Yorgos Georgiou, who owns a dry cleaning business in Nicosia, told Reuters that "finally people's mood will be lifted and we can start to trust the system again."

But he added: "I'm worried about the poor kids working in the cashiers today, because people might vent their anger at them. You can't predict how people will react after so many days."

Kostas Nikolaou, a 60-year-old retiree, told Reuters that the uncertainty of the past two weeks had been "like a slow death."

"How can they tell you that you can't access your own money in the bank? It's our money, we are entitled to it,? he added.

The country?s president, Nicos Anastasiades, has described the bailout deal as ?painful? but essential.

However, Nobel laureate economist Christopher Pissarides said it was ?extremely unfair to the little guy.?

?For the first time in the euro zone, depositors are (being) asked to bail out failing banks," he said. "Now that used to be the case in the 1930s, especially United States (and) caused big bank runs. It has been decided since then that we shouldn?t allow that to happen again.?

As Cyprus celebrates its Independence Day, the ?government is defending the last-minute bailout deal it's negotiated with the European Union. This means shutting down the country's second biggest bank, with big savers facing ?losses. ?ITV's Emma Murphy reports.

Among other controls, the island's central bank will review all commercial transactions over 5,000 euros and scrutinize transactions over 200,000 euros on an individual basis, Reuters reported. People leaving Cyprus can take only 1,000 euros with them. An earlier draft of the decree had put the figure at 3,000.

Reuters summed up the situation facing the island:

With just 860,000 people, Cyprus has about 68 billion euros in its banks - a vastly outsized financial system that attracted deposits from foreigners as an offshore haven but foundered after investments in neighboring Greece went sour.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund concluded that Cyprus could not afford a rescue unless it imposed losses on depositors, seen as anathema in previous euro zone bailouts.?The bailout looks set to push Cyprus deeper into an economic slump, shrink the banking sector and cost thousands of jobs.

European leaders said the bailout deal averted a chaotic national bankruptcy that might have forced Cyprus out of the euro.

Many Cypriots say the deal was foisted upon them by Cyprus's partners in the 17-nation euro zone within the European Union, and some have taken to the streets to vent their frustration.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Cypriots fear run on banks as branches prepare to reopen

Cypriots: Hope, but also fear they 'will be like slaves' to Russia

EU to Cypriots: Let us raid your savings or no bailout

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:52 AM EDT

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Scientists find new gene markers for cancer risk

NEW YORK (AP) ? A huge international effort involving more than 100 institutions and genetic tests on 200,000 people has uncovered dozens of signposts in DNA that can help reveal further a person's risk for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer, scientists reported Wednesday.

It's the latest mega-collaboration to learn more about the intricate mechanisms that lead to cancer. And while the headway seems significant in many ways, the potential payoff for ordinary people is mostly this: Someday there may be genetic tests that help identify women with the most to gain from mammograms, and men who could benefit most from PSA tests and prostate biopsies.

And perhaps farther in the future these genetic clues might lead to new treatments.

"This adds another piece to the puzzle," said Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research U.K., the charity which funded much of the research.

One analysis suggests that among men whose family history gives them roughly a 20 percent lifetime risk for prostate cancer, such genetic markers could identify those whose real risk is 60 percent.

The markers also could make a difference for women with BRCA gene mutations, which puts them at high risk for breast cancer. Researchers may be able to separate those whose lifetime risk exceeds 80 percent from women whose risk is about 20 to 50 percent. One doctor said that might mean some women would choose to monitor for cancer rather than taking the drastic step of having healthy breasts removed.

Scientists have found risk markers for the three diseases before, but the new trove doubles the known list, said one author, Douglas Easton of Cambridge University. The discoveries also reveal clues about the biological underpinnings of these cancers, which may pay off someday in better therapies, he said.

Experts not connected with the work said it was encouraging but that more research is needed to see how useful it would be for guiding patient care. One suggested that using a gene test along with PSA testing and other factors might help determine which men have enough risk of a life-threatening prostate cancer that they should get a biopsy. Many prostate cancers found early are slow-growing and won't be fatal, but there is no way to differentiate and many men have surgery they may not need.

Easton said the prospects for a genetic test are greater for prostate and breast cancer than ovarian cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide, with more than 1 million new cases a year. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer, with about 900,000 new cases every year. Ovarian cancer accounts for about 4 percent of all cancers diagnosed in women, causing about 225,000 cases worldwide.

The new results were released in 13 reports in Nature Genetics, PLOS Genetics and other journals. They come from a collaboration involving more than 130 institutions in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. The research was mainly paid for by Cancer Research U.K., the European Union and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Scientists used scans of DNA from more than 200,000 people to seek the markers, tiny variations in the 3 billion "letters" of the DNA code that are associated with disease risk.

The scientists found 49 new risk markers for breast cancer plus a couple of others that modify breast cancer risk from rare mutated genes, 26 for prostate cancer and eight for ovarian cancer. Individually, each marker has only a slight impact on risk estimation, too small to be useful on its own, Easton said. They would be combined and added to previously known markers to help reveal a person's risk, he said.

A genetic test could be useful in identifying people who should get mammography or PSA testing, said Hilary Burton, director of the PHG Foundation, a genomics think-tank in Cambridge, England. A mathematical analysis done by her group found that under certain assumptions, a gene test using all known markers could reduce the number of mammograms and PSA tests by around 20 percent, with only a small cost in cancer cases missed.

Among the new findings:

? For breast cancer, researchers calculated that by using all known markers, including the new ones, they could identify 5 percent of the female population with twice the average risk of disease, and 1 percent with a three-fold risk. The average lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is about 12 percent in developed countries. It's lower in the developing world where other diseases are a bigger problem.

? For prostate cancer, using all the known markers could identify 1 percent of men with nearly five times the average risk, the researchers computed. In developed countries, a man's average lifetime risk for the disease is about 14 to 16 percent, lower in developing nations.

?Markers can also make a difference in estimates of breast cancer risk for women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations. Such women are rare, but their lifetime risk can run as high as 85 percent. Researchers said that with the new biomarkers, it might be possible to identify the small group of these women with a risk of 28 percent or less.

For patients like Vicki Gilbert of England, who carries a variation of the BRCA1 gene, having such details about her cancer risk would have made decision-making easier.

Gilbert, 50, found out about her genetic risk after being diagnosed with the disease in 2009. Though doctors said the gene wouldn't change the kind of chemotherapy she got, they suggested removing her ovaries to avoid ovarian cancer, which is also made more likely by a mutated BRCA1.

"They didn't want to express a definite opinion on whether I should have my ovaries removed so I had to weigh up my options for myself," said Gilbert, a veterinary receptionist in Wiltshire. "...I decided to have my ovaries removed because that takes away the fear it could happen. It certainly would have been nice to have more information to know that was the right choice."

Gilbert said knowing more about the genetic risks of cancer should be reassuring for most patients. "There are so many decisions made for you when you go through cancer treatment that being able to decide something yourself is very important," she said.

Dr. Charis Eng, chair of the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, who didn't participate in the new work, called the breast cancer research exciting but not ready for routine use.

Most women who carry a BRCA gene choose intensive surveillance with both mammograms and MRI and some choose to have their breasts removed to prevent the disease, she said. Even the lower risk described by the new research is worrisomely high, and might not persuade a woman to avoid such precautions completely, Eng said.

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report from London.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-gene-markers-cancer-risk-162853893.html

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T-Mobile kills off contracts, simplifies plans

Devin Coldewey , NBC News ? ? ? 4 hrs.

T-Mobile is significantly changing the way it sells mobile phone services, eschewing long-term contracts entirely and offering only month-to-month plans. It could be a better deal for some, but it's not quite the "reinvention" the company calls it.

At its "Un-Carrier" event Tuesday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere disparaged the state of the mobile industry as, among other things, "smartphone hell," and pointed out that waiting out a two-year contract in order to qualify for a subsidized, new phone was unthinkable for gadget lovers.

And the contracts themselves, he said, are confusing and misleading ? and he didn't mince words. "This is the biggest crock of s*** I've ever heard in my life," he told the crowd. "Do you have any idea how much you're paying?"

With that, he shared T-Mobile's new pricing structure, which is less a new idea than a new focus. All plans are monthly, with no obligation at all, following the lead of such growing pre-paid services as TracFone and Virgin Mobile.

At a starting rate of $50 for unlimited calls, text and data (with tiered limits on high-speed service), the plans undercut Verizon and AT&T significantly.

The catch is that the cost of your phone won't be subsidized or covered entirely by the carrier, as larger companies tend to do with new, high-end phones like the iPhone and Galaxy S4. T-Mobile asks customers to choose between two options: Pay the cost of the phone upfront, or put some money down toward it, and then pay $15-20 a month until you've paid the whole thing off.

As Legere points out, the other companies do this too by simply increasing the amount you pay monthly ? but they don't let you choose the terms, and your bill doesn't go back down once you've paid the full cost of the device.

Does this mark the beginning of a global change in carrier strategies? Probably not, said analyst Jeff Kagan in a note:

I would say there would be absolutely no way the larger and stronger competitors will make such a dramatic shift. There is no reason. Now if T-Mobile pulls a rabbit out of the hat and starts to win incredibly strong business and takes significant share away from one or more leaders, then all bets are obviously off, but I really don?t think that will happen.

It's a gamble, but pre-paid services are on the rise: Consumers are becoming fed up with expensive contracts, and high-end phones are available on smaller carriers now instead of just the major ones.

As for whether the new T-Mobile plans are a better choice than the competition for you or your family, that's a more complicated question, depending on how much data is consumed, how many devices per person, how many people, and so on. One person buying an iPhone 5 on T-Mobile and opting for 2GB of data will pay less over two years, but The Verge's calculations show that when unlimited data and family plans enter the equation, the contest is much closer.

The new simplified plans can be checked out at T-Mobile's website, and questions might be answered by the company's FAQ.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2a060071/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cgadgetbox0Ct0Emobile0Ekills0Econtracts0Esimplifies0Eplans0E1C90A890A58/story01.htm

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Six Seconds to Glory: How to Make a Great Vine Video

Like Twitter in its early days, Vine confuses before it enlightens. The new 6-second video-sharing app is in the same kind of frontier position Twitter once was: populated by pioneers trying to figure out what it can do. So far, very few Vine users have managed to garner mass followings, and the network remains like most things on the Internet: overrun with cats. On the plus side, you still have a chance to seize the day from the felines and become a Vine superstar.

The trick is figuring out how to make Vine's ultra-limited features work for, not against, you. A combination of hardware accessories and sharing strategies could help elevate these abbreviated, looping smartphone videos to viral status.

Still and Sturdy

One of the biggest problems with Vine right now is camera shake. Twitches from handheld devices make otherwise cool effects distinctly amateurish. And because the Vine app requires you to tap the screen each time you want to stop and start the camera, it exacerbates the problem. You can fix trembling videos a bit by adopting a wider stance or by resting your elbows on a flat surface. But an even better solution is using a small tripod.

A good option is the Joby GorillaMobile Tripod. Joby's bendy tripods, like this one for the iPhone 4 and 4S with a plastic bumper-style case that can be used in portrait or landscape position, are a hit with point-and-shoot as well as DSLR photographers. Wrap the flexible legs of the tripod around any surface to get that otherwise impossible angle for your Vine video.

Alternatively, those who already own the regular GorillaPod can buy an the Studio Neat Glif to make it work with your iPhone 4 or 4S. If you're an iPhone 5 owner, this Joby GripTight Mount will work with the regular GorillaPod, and it will also work with any other smartphone (though Twitter has yet to launch Vine apps for Android and Windows phones).

Minimize or Enhance Sound

Vine records ambient sounds while your finger is on the camera button, but the iPhone's built-in microphone is weak and often muffled. Since Vine doesn't let you separate audio and video tracks, it's best to get close to your subject if you want to actually be able to hear anything. If you're outside and it's windy, or if there are unavoidable ambient sounds, static will overwhelm and swallow your words.

If you're really intent on giving your Vine videos legitimate audio, try an external microphone. The Apogee MiC is one of the best iPhone mics for use with Apple's GarageBand software. A cheaper alternative is the slick-looking iPhone Boom Mic, which has gained popularity among iPhone-toting YouTubers. It won't do much for audio mixing, but it will help your phone record clear, crisp voices.

Go Where Others Haven't

Unlike Instagram, Vine doesn't offer fancy filters and effects to enhance humdrum videos. It's up to you to make your Vine look different from all the rest. We're sure you can do this with optical illusions and tricks of the light, but here are three products to help make some highly original Vines.

LifeProof Case for iPhone: The next wave of Vines is underwater Vines. Now's your chance to create a video that makes you look like you've hosted a lengthy tea party at the bottom of your swimming pool, without scuba gear. This case features a sensitive touch screen and is submersible to 6 feet.

Photojojo Bikepod Mobile: Mount your smartphone to your bike for smooth panning videography action. Granted, it might be tough to keep your eyes on the road while stopping and starting the Vine app every half a second, but the resulting montage of your neighborhood will be breathtaking.

Olloclip 3-in-1 Lens Kit: All you've got is a camera, so why not spice things up by changing what your camera captures? This snap-on iPhone lens kit features three lenses: fisheye, wide angle, and macro.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/how-to-make-a-great-vine-video-15264979?src=rss

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NEW YORK SUN: Sequester Joe Biden. ?Vice President Biden?s hotel bill in Paris ? the Drudge Re?

NEW YORK SUN: Sequester Joe Biden. ?Vice President Biden?s hotel bill in Paris ? the Drudge Report headlines it at $585,000.50 for a night at the Intercontinental, not including the ride in from the airport ? is prompting the futureofcapitalism.com to wonder why Amtrak?s most famous passenger failed to stay at the sprawling palace that serves as the residence of the American ambassador in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honor?. A good question, to which we?d add our own: What was Mr. Biden, whose only constitutional duty is to serve in the Senate as its president, doing in Paris in the first place??

Good question.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 7:48 am

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pjmedia/instapundit/~3/Itnqu_eC9EU/

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Self Improvement | Personal Development Tips - 3 Tools For ...

By Jag Foo ?

Personal growth is as much about strategy as it is about actual improvement and development.

It all comes down to setting the stage for your success.

Think about your growth like that of a building; without a firm foundation you?re building on ground that?s not going to support the growth. Setting this foundation means embracing tools for personal growth that can lead to long-term success. What are those tools? Here are three that are absolutely essential for long-term personal improvement.

Personal Growth Tool #1: A thorough self-assessment.

You can?t move forwards without knowing where you are now. You need to take a thorough and honest self-assessment, with a focus on identifying your flaws and working out how to solve them.

Without this essential first step, the rest of your development can be flawed, lacking in utility, and ultimately useless. Put this step ahead of all others and watch as you improve dramatically.

Personal Growth Tool #2: A simple plan for achieving your goals.

It?s easy to make a simple journey too complicated, but it?s very difficult to simplify a crowded and difficult journey. In personal development, you need to make sure you take the direct, simple approach. Take an ?Occam?s Razor? approach to your personal development and focus on the strategies that lead to direct, simple results.

Personal Growth Tool #3: Honest outlook needed.

You need to be 100% honest with yourself to see any real growth in yourself. Too many people become disillusioned with their improvement and end up thinking that they?re doing better or worse than they really are.

Trust in your own judgment and make sure you?re 100% honest with yourself on your improvement, your flaws and your strengths.

*Important Note* => Do you have the courage to achieve what you want [http://bestclassicscollection.com/MastersOfSuccess] in life?

If yes, then these proven success strategies will shortcut your way to the top in double quick time. To discover these techniques? ?Click here now => [http://bestclassicscollection.com/MastersOfSuccess]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jag_Foo
http://EzineArticles.com/?Personal-Development-Tips?3-Tools-For-Personal-Growth&id=3086529

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Source: http://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/tools-for-self-improvement/personal-development-tips-3-tools-for-personal-growth/

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Source: http://davis36.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/self-improvement-personal-development-tips-3-tools-for.html

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About Nokia N95 Cell Phone's Gps Functionality | Bilboard Online

5:26 am on March 23, 2013

Immediately of SMS online messaging that makes it especially valuable towards mobile software functions is that who?s utilizes smartphone installed identity, the phone number. This characteristic presents an unique profit over other technologies that rely from IP addresses since a mobile phone Ip address can vary internet site the current supplier.

Tracking device is a satellite-based navigation method which is originally created additionally employed by certain . The device enables you to determine and also connect the complete spot regarding gizmo people coming via just about anywhere on earth.

Product categories section your report talks within the various segregations amongst GPS products for the Indian present. It highlights the connected with users and the kind of use of these products. GPS Benefits meal enlists major positive that can take part in by users, therefore highlighting the key features on which the purchase decisions are based upon. This report at the same time speaks about how the Website Technology where the possible use of mobile GPS and its benefits have lately mentioned. These is followed with a section towards GPS for SMBs which explains each role of SMBs in the Indian market and those various implications associated with GPS within SMBs.

Fitting up takes time, mostly for anyone which will isn?t comfortable having cell phone apps. Your family must install traveler phone software Until any messages were deleted that well-developed body is stronger to retrieve. Requires active connection to the web. Requires the you jailbreak one particular iPhone.

Cell GPS tracking modern advances is touted among the most expert technological milestones the actual planet history of moving communication systems. Global Positioning Arrangements (GPS) enables the users to trail personal location through your current analysis of about pc signals beamed over from orbiting geostationary satellites.

Progress is so good a variety individuals who these devices are worth purchasing. Whether you want to monitor your car or lorry, discover where your missing cat or dog or relative should certainly or just want complete peace of mind, a gps Tracking System is perfectly worth the receive. Look into buying something that lasts an extremely long term and will invariably help you seriously secure and acceptable. Today?s systems are very accurate , durable and easy to use. Technology has made them affordable for everyone so invest today and see significant difference.

Now, if you really want a decent Global positioning systems device, you can find one which is outfitted to every spending. The low-end GPS devices have the basic features and they are presented at really more affordable prices.

Cell phone GPS tracking versus location privacy have become hot topics nowadays. Federal e911 (enhanced 911 communications for on the move devices) rules will need that your handset carrier be happy to provide your placement information in the celebration that you implement a 911 call, but some buyers are reporting that his or her?s GPS cell telephone are transmitting numerous reasons all the any time , not just when they dial 9-1-1. Cellular phone tracking uses either communication network or GPS to obtain a cellular phone.

It?s a fact that wherever your company drive, your G-p-s knows exactly where you are, and as well as this is realistic in life also. We the majority of have our region in the world, albeit many positions. You may continually be a parent, a worker, or i?d sure imagine that a student, at the same thing time you have you. Each of us is usually a unique special and has a valuable place in this particular world. Basically think about it also. Your GPS instructs you exactly even you are, but also no one different is in which is particular spot, but this is a definite fact in life, someone alone are that this only person and fulfil your perform in this long time to come.

Source: http://www.bilbord-online.com/about-nokia-n95-cell-phones-gps-functionality/

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MaxRedline: Suit City

Cincinnati: Butler County residents have had just about enough of winter, and officials there have drawn up an "indictment" claiming that Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that Spring would come early.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser even called for the death penalty to be brought upon Phil as his punishment, if convicted.

On a more disturbing note, disability lawsuits are starting to crop up online, as professional "advocates" accuse companies of violating ADA requirements by not making their websites "accessible".

Their theory that the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act applies to the modern Internet has been dismissed by several courts. Still, the National Federation of the Blind and the National Association of the Deaf have won legal victories against companies such as Target Corp.TGT +0.56% and Netflix Inc. NFLX -0.38% Both companies settled the cases after federal judges rejected arguments that their websites were beyond the scope of the ADA.

And of course, Barky's DOJ is about to get involved, so expect them to rule that all websites and streaming content must have captions for the deaf, audio for the blind, and be dumbed down "to aid" Democrats and other intellectually impaired individuals. NetFlix, for example, has agreed to make 100% of its streamed video content closed-captioned for the hearing impaired - and will do so by 2014. That's a whole lotta captioning.

Related articles

Source: http://maxredline.typepad.com/maxredline/2013/03/suit-city.html

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EU regulator monitors Apple iPad and iPhone distribution

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is looking into potential antitrust violations involving the distribution of Apple Inc's iPhones and iPads, after receiving what sources said were informal complaints from telecoms operators.

The complaints involve handset subsidies and marketing that the world's most valuable technology corporation sign-off with operators that carry its smartphones and tablets, and also includes subsidies that carriers pay to Apple, one of the three sources told Reuters on Friday.

The source insisted on anonymity because contracts with carriers are business secrets.

"Apple insists on a certain level of subsidies and marketing for the iPhone," said the source, who declined to identify the companies that had approached the Commission.

U.S. and European operators pay hefty subsidies to smartphone makers including Apple, offering customers an attractive discount on devices in exchange for tying them into lucrative two-year wireless contracts.

Historically, Apple has been able to command higher fees for its devices because of its market dominance. It also tended to tightly regulate launch prices for its devices, while rival handset makers with less market share tended to defer to operators on pricing announcements.

Since 2012, however, Samsung Electronics unseated Apple as the world's most-used smartphone brand, which industry experts say will erode the U.S. corporations' ability to negotiate the best subsidies and marketing support.

U.S. regulators are unlikely to launch their own investigation into Apple's industry practices because of a different regulatory approach, and also recognition that the company's own market clout is diminishing.

"They're one failure to innovate away, or one innovation by somebody else away, from being in a very different spot," said a U.S. telecom industry lobbyist close to both carriers and device manufacturers, but who asked not to be named due to a lack of authorization to speak to the media.

"Apple is an important, powerful and innovative company but I don't think they've got the kind of market power that maybe some in Europe are alleging where it would rise to the level of running afoul of the antitrust laws," the person said.

CONCERNS

A Commission spokesman on Friday said that EU competition regulators had been informed about concerns over Apple and its distribution practices. Three people familiar with the matter said that several telecoms companies had aired their grievances to the Commission.

Their concerns focused on the commercial terms in contracts with Apple, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

"There have been no formal complaints, though," Antoine Colombani told a regular Commission briefing. "Generally, we are actively monitoring developments in this market. We will, of course, intervene if there are indications of anticompetitive behavior to the detriment of consumers."

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said: "Our contracts fully comply with local laws wherever we do business, including the EU."

A second source said that the companies expressed their concerns to the Commission late last year.

It is not the first time Apple has come under the scrutiny of the EU antitrust regulators. The company was the target of an investigation nearly three years ago over its iPhone business practices.

It subsequently allowed cross-border repair services and eased restrictions on applications for the iPhone, which resulted in the Commission dropping its investigation.

"Historically, carriers have looked at themselves as being at the center of the ecosystem, and if there was a party in the relationship ... that held the power, it was them," the industry lobbyist said.

"The dynamic is a little different with respect to Apple, but I don't think that's a problem because Apple has rivals."

The New York Times first reported that the EU was looking into complaints about Apple.

(Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Rex Merrifield, David Goodman and Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-antitrust-regulators-monitoring-distribution-apples-ipad-iphone-120634556--sector.html

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My Chemical Romance, In Memoriam

MCR have called it quits, and Bigger Than The Sound remembers their career.
By James Montgomery

My Chemical Romance
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704226/my-chemical-romance-band-split.jhtml

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Tina Fey And Paul Rudd Relive Their College Experiences For 'Admission'

"Admission," the romantic comedy that deals with the stressful world of getting into college, has a premise that makes you wonder why no one has attempted it before. It was the more absurd elements of that process that attracted Tina Fey to the project, as she told MTV News when we sat down with her [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/03/22/tina-fey-paul-rudd-admission/

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Brands Have Them So Why Not Families? On Family Mission ...

Posted by Kathy Buckworth on March 22, 2013 ? Leave a Comment?

?

The next time you visit a corporate website, look at the ?About Us? page. Most feature a mission statement, a few sentences or paragraphs that tell the world at large what the company does and what it wants to accomplish.

I have a theory about mission statements. I believe that they came to be as a result of countless CEOs asking countless versions of the same question: What am I trying to accomplish here? And how many times might you have muttered this as a mother? While literally or figuratively pounding your head against the wall?

The mission statement is a shortcut to the answer ? a handy-dandy, quick-reference guide to what the company is all about. Or why you chose to throw birth-control caution to the wind. Once or twice. (Or four times. What was I thinking? Cue more head-pounding.)

As the boss of your family, you will likely find a mission statement handy, if for no other reason than to remind yourself of what you were thinking when you brought these people into the world. And why you shouldn?t take them out. Corporately, a mission statement should address the employees, the shareholders, and the customers. Here?s a quick primer on adapting those three categories to family life.

• Employees: Your employees are the members of your family. And we all know who the boss is, right?
• Shareholders: This refers to your own parents ? or any other relative or friend who has invested in you and wants you to be successful. No matter how old you are, your parents will always want to take responsibility for your successes and failures. If you are the parent of a young child and currently wondering when things get easier, it sucks to realize this.
• Customers: Who are we getting to buy from us? Our neighbours, friends, acquaintances? Everyone we interact with on a daily basis? How about the world at large?

At its most basic level, a mission statement should easily and clearly define who you are and what you do. Think of it as your family?s elevator speech ? a thirty-second-or-less summary of what your business is. This might be the time you?ve got to introduce yourself at an indoor playground before the screaming starts.

Poke around on the Internet and do some research. Make a list of words that mean something to you, that perhaps reflect the attitudes or approaches you feel are important: commitment, knowledge, quality, weight loss, child control, or wherever your focus needs to be. String ideas together until you come up with a mission statement of your own. Mine? I worked with keywords such as know, admire, inspire, value, personal mastery, and focus. After a lot of thought, I boiled it down to this: ?Do your best. People are watching.?

Excerpted from Kathy Buckworth?s ?I Am So The Boss Of You: An 8 Step Guide To Giving Your Family ?The Business? McClelland & Stewart, 2013.

About Kathy Buckworth
Kathy Buckworth is a mother of four kids, who only has two hands, and one of them is usually holding a glass of Chardonnay. She is also an award winning writer, television personality and public speaker, with numerous publishing credits in both national and local magazines and newspapers. ?The Secret Life of SuperMom? was published in 2005, by U.S. publisher, Sourcebooks, and has been published in Chinese, Indonesian, and Polish. ?SuperMom: A Celebration of All You Do? was released in April, 2006. ?Journey to the Darkside: SuperMom Goes Home? was published by Key Porter in April, 2007, and was nominated for the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal of Humour (read reviews) ?The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood? was released in April, 2009, by Key Porter, to rave reviews. Kathy traveled across the US and Canada on tour with the BlackBerry Diaries. Her new book, ?Shut Up & Eat: Tales of Chicken, Children & Chardonnay? was released by Key Porter in March, 2010, and is available on Amazon.ca or bookstores anywhere. Kathy Buckworth?s latest book, ?Shut Up and Eat: Tales of Chicken, Children and Chardonnay? is available at bookstores everywhere. Visit www.kathybuckworth.com or follow Kathy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kathybuckworth

Source: http://www.momeomagazine.com/brands-have-them-so-why-not-families-on-family-mission-statements-by-kathybuckworth/

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Pope Francis wrote frankly about celibacy struggles

>>> this is a question a lot of people are asking this morning, just a few days after the official installation of pope francis , will the church change under his leadership? those who want to get rid of the celibacy requirement for priests are looking hopefully at the pope's admission of past crushes. jim maceda has more.

>> good morning, matt. it turns out francis , the first latin-american pope came to the priesthood at age 32, not before he had his own moments of doubt and temptation. as pope francis emerges, we're learning the former archbishop of buenos aires can be most frank will celibacy and sex.

>> you can marry me. you love me.

>> but i love god more.

>> reporter: like the conflicted catholic priest in the 1980 tv mini series "thornbirds" former jorgeb jorgeber bergoglio said "i could not pray for over a week because when i tried to do the girl appeared in my head." eventually he went into priesthood and swore to celibacy, fulfilling a promise he made to this woman, amalia, once his neighborhood and childhood crush.

>> translator: he said to me if i don't marry you, i'll become a priest.

>> reporter: surprising some vatican watchers pope francis appears to bless the idea of married priests , at least in the future, saying this about celibacy. "it is a matter of discipline, not faith. it can change."

>> it means basically that pope francis or jorge bergoglio was a man before he became a priest.

>> reporter: he's even waited on sexual matters, what if a priest gets a woman pregnant, "he has to leave the ministry and take care of that child, even if he alcoho chooses not to marry a woman." he's already setting the tone for a more open papacy. in another sign of just how open pope francis s he's reaching out to atheists calling them "our precious allies in the search for human dignity and peace." that's something critics say benedict would never do.

>> jim maceda in london thank you very much.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/29de6514/l/0Lvideo0Btoday0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51286661/story01.htm

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