Stirile care conteaza

Jucariile zgomotoase ar putea afecta auzul copiilor

2007-12-06T18:54:00.000+02:00

ucariile frumos colorate, care scot diferite zgomote sau chiar canta, create special pentru a fi pe gustul copiilor mici si perfecte pentru un cadou de Craciun, ar putea cauza deficiente de auz daca nu sunt folosite corespunzator, sustin cercetatorii.

Potrivit Reuters, cercetatorii au descoperit ca nivelul de sunet a mai mult de o treime din cele 17 jucarii muzicale examinate in cadrul studiului ating peste o suta de decibeli - un nivel de sunet echivalent cu cel emis de o drujba sau de un metrou.

"Unele jucarii zgomotoase, daca copiii le-ar tine langa ureche doar pentru cateva minute, le-ar putea afecta auzul pe termen lung", a declarat Jeff Carroll, de la Universitatea din California, care a condus echipa de cercetare.

Insa el a subliniat ca toate jucariile testate sunt inofensive daca sunt corect folosite, el adaugand ca parintii trebuie sa-si supravegheze copii, mai ales pe cei mici, atunci cand se joaca cu acestea.
[Sursa-Infoportal.ro ]

Un al doilea colet suspect descoperit în Franţa

2007-12-06T18:34:00.001+02:00

Poliţia din Franţa anunţă că a fost descoperit un al doilea colet-capcană în Paris.

Asta după ce la prânz o explozie a unui colet-capcană a ucis un om şi a rănit alţi 5 într-un birou de avocatură dintr-un cartier luxos al capitalei franceze.

Forţele speciale au trecut la dezamorsarea coletului suspect.

Deflagraţia de mai devreme a avut loc la adresa unde a lucrat în trecut fostul preşedinte francez Nicolas Sarkozy.

România este cea mai coruptă ţară din UE

2007-12-06T18:32:00.001+02:00

România este cea mai coruptă ţară din Uniunea Europeană, arată Barometrul global al corupţiei întocmit de organizaţia Transparency International.

Mai mult, media corupţiei în Uniune a crescut după intrarea ţării noastre în blocul comunitar.

O treime dintre românii chestionaţi de Transparency International recunosc că dau mită.

Cele mai multe şpăgi merg în sistemul medical.

Sănătatea conduce şi în clasamentul domeniilor în care se cere mită. 18% dintre cei intervievaţi susţin că li s-au cerut bani în spitale. De altfel, din alte studii făcute de Transparency International reiese ca, în medie, românii pierd aproape 16% din banii pe care îi cîştigă dînd mită doctorilor.

Directorul executiv al organizaţiei Transparency International, Victor Alistar, afirmă că familiile sărace sunt cele care scot de cele mai multe ori bani din buzunar pentru a plăti în plus un serviciu. De multe ori, sumele sunt la fel de mari ca cele date de românii înstăriţi.

Dintre instituţiile publice, românii percep partidele politice şi Parlamentul ca fiind cele mai corupte.

Pentru acest barometru, au fost chestionaţi aproximtiv o mie de români, în perioada iunie-septembrie, marja de eroare fiind de plus-minus 4 procente.

'Lumea, astazi'

2007-12-05T21:30:00.000+02:00

Editura RAO a lansat ieri albumul de fotografie “Lumea, astazi”, volum realizat de fotojurnalistii Reuters.

Dedicat celor aproximativ 250 de ziaristi ucisi, in zonele fierbinti ale globului, in primii sapte ani ai acestui mileniu. RAO lanseaza un album fotografic insolit, cu instantanee terifiante, fotografii document ale lumii in care traim. Valoarea imaginilor adunate in acest album depinde de calitatea jurnalistilor, iar cei de la Reuters sunt cei care slujesc o profesiune cu credinta si mai ales pasiune. Cartea este scrisa de ziaristi de la Reuters, ilustrata cu 534 de fotografii realizate de 227 de reporteri reprezentand 70 de nationalitati.

“Lumea, astazi” este povestea in imagini a secolului nostru, privita prin obiectiv – “lumea desfasurata in toata splendoare ei, si uneori in toata mizeria ei”, asa cum declara Ilies Campeanu, redactor sef al grupului editorial RAO, la conferinta de presa. Se spune ca “o imagine face mai mult decat o poveste”. “Trebuie sa intelegi povestea din spatele imaginii pentru a o reda cat mai sugestiv”, ne-a spus Florin Ghioca, fotoreporter, corespondent al Agentiei foto Gamma din Franta.

Bazata pe inegalabile resurse, de care dispune Reuters, cartea exploreaza noua teme majore ce ofera un bilant al intrebarilor pe care si le pun toti oamenii. Volumul trateaza “Probleme importante” (terorism, planeta, forte ale naturii, poluare, clima, epidemii in randul populatiei, migratie, globalizare), “Stiinta si tehnologie”, “Modele de credinta”, “Politica puterii”, “Razboi si conflict”, “Economia mondiala”, “Cultura in era digitala”, “Moduri de viata”, “Privind inainte, privind inapoi”.
Bogdan Cristel si Mihai Barbu, doi dintre fotografii Reuters, prezenti la lansare, au povestit cum e sa fii in permanenta concurenta si perfectionare, in acest domeniu, in constanta lupta cu o lume la care putini au acces, periculoasa si aventuroasa.
[Sursa-www.9am.ro]

10 ani pina la creierul uman artificial

2007-12-05T21:27:00.000+02:00

Oamenii de Stiinta de la Institutul Brain Mind din Lausanne au atins o piatra de hotar in cadrul proiectului Blue Brain, inceput in urma cu doi ani cu scopul de a realiza o simulare pe calculator a intregului creier uman, pina la cel mai mic detaliu molecular, pentru a studia mai amanuntit structura acestuia.
Ei au aratat ca simularea 3D a zonei neocorticale (cea mai complexa parte a creierului unui mamifer) la sobolani, progresul lor de pina acum, se comporta ca echivalentul sau biologic, informeaza publicatia „Technological Review“. In consecinta, cercetatorii preconizeaza ca intregul creier al unui mamifer poate fi complet modelat pe computer in urmatorii trei ani, in timp ce schema 3D completa a creierului uman ar mai avea de asteptat in jur de zece ani.

Proiectul a inceput cu scopul initial de a modela cei 10.000 de neuroni si cele 30 de milioane de conexiuni sinaptice ce formeaza neocortexul unui sobolan. Aceasta parte a creierului unui mamifer a fost aleasa pentru structura sa eterogena, ce consta in mai multe tipuri diferite de sinapse si canale ionice. „Nu are nici un rost sa visezi la modelarea creierului daca nu poti sa modelezi o mica parte a sa“, spune Henry Markram, codirector al institutului. Modelul zonei neocorticale a sobolanului a fost completat anul trecut, fiind bazat pe 15 ani de munca experimentala pe morfologia neuronala, expresia genica, conectivitatea sinaptica sau inregistrarile electrofiziologice ale acestei parti de creier.
Au fost configurate instrumente software pentru a procesa aceste informatii si pentru a reconstrui automat si cit mai precis din punct de vedere fiziologic modele 3D ale neuronilor si ale cone-xiunilor dintre ei.
Circuitele neuronale au fost testate apoi simulind anumiti stimuli si analizind comportamentul lor in comparatie cu cele biologice. Cind au dat peste parti ale creierului despre care nu stiau cum ar trebui sa se comporte, oamenii de stiinta s-au intors in laborator si s-au cufundat in experimente, cautind sa identifice comportamentele ce trebuiau reproduse. Prin testari repetate, simularea a fost rafinata pina la punctul in care Markram a fost convins ca are aceeasi conduita precum zona neocorticala reala.

Visul American se incheie

2007-12-05T21:20:00.000+02:00

Statele Unite, visul a milioane de imigranti sud-americani, se confrunta de cateva luni cu un fenomen nemaiintalnit: plecarea de bunavoie a strainilor, dezamagiti de conditiile economice precare si climatul politic ostil.

Potrivit cotidianului „New York Times”, numai in cursul ultimelor luni, sute de mii de brazilieni de clasa mijlocie au decis sa se intoarca acasa definitiv.

Tendinta este aceeasi pe intreg teritoriul SUA, desi principalele motive - teama de deportare silita si caderea economiei americane - fac obiectul unor importante variatii regionale, releva sursa citata.

Mai multe trenuri de calatori au inregistrat intarzieri pana la 120 de minute pe Valea Prahovei

2007-12-05T21:17:00.000+02:00

Mai multe trenuri de călători care circulau pe Valea Prahovei au înregistrat întârzieri de până la 120 de minute, din cauza unor copaci căzuţi pe liniile de contact, echipele de specialişti acţionând în continuare pentru rezolvarea situaţiei, a declarat, astazi, pentru NewsIn, directorul in cadrul CFR Calatori, Valentin Dorobanţu.

"În cursul nopţii de marţi spre miercuri, din cauza copacilor căzuţi peste liniile de contact, s-au înregistrat două incidente, între staţiile Predeal-Timişul de Sus, respectiv Câmpina-Breaza", a declarat Dorobanţu.

Potrivit acestuia, în jurul orei 23.30, şase trenuri de călători au rămas blocate între staţiile Predeal-Timişul de Sus, fiecare tren având întârzieri de până la 120 de minute fiecare. Dorobanţu a precizat că multe trenuri aveau vagoane de dormit, astfel încât călătorii "au fost afectaţi într-o mică măsură". În zona respectivă, situaţia a fost remediată miercuri dimineaţa, în jurul orei 6.00.

De asemenea, în zona Câmpina-Breaza, alte şase trenuri de călători au înregistrat întârzieri între 20 şi 40 de minute, din cauza copacilor căzuţi pe şine. În zona respectivă, echipele de intervenţie încearcă încă să remedieze situaţia.
[Sursa-www.rol.ro]

Inchirierea unui Mos Craciun costa intre 100 si 350 de lei pe ora

2007-12-05T21:04:00.000+02:00

Inchirierea unui Mos Craciun la evenimentele organizate de companii incepe sa devina o initiativa din ce in ce mai obisnuita, iar firmele cu astfel de oferte au deja comenzi pentru toata perioada sarbatorilor. Ofertele de inchirieri Mos Craciuni sau Craciunite sunt valabile pentru perioada 1 decembrie - 1 ianuarie, iar cele mai multe rezervari se fac pentru saptamana 19-26 decembrie.
Tarifele variaza in functie de perioada rezervata. Firma Rent-a-Santa, din Bucuresti, inregistreaza cele mai multe cereri pentru perioada 14-26 decembrie, iar acestea vin atat din partea firmelor si a gradinitelor, dar si a persoanelor fizice. Tariful standard este de 100 de lei pentru o ora. Acesta difera insa, in functie de perioada aleasa, astfel ca in perioada 19-26 decembrie este de 100 de lei pentru 40 de minute. Firma are un cor de colindatori, cinci Mos Craciuni, dintre care unul cu barba adevarata, a carui inchiriere costa cu 10 lei mai mult, si doua Craciunite, care pot fi inchiriate doar de catre firme.
Firma Improve It Group, tot din Bucuresti, are noua Mos Craciuni. Cele mai multe rezervari sunt inregistrate pentru perioada 14-27 decembrie. Tarifele sunt diferite, intre 200 de lei si 350 de lei, pentru 30-60 minute, in functie de perioada si serviciile cerute. Clientii care solicita aceste servicii sunt atat persoane fizice, cat si gradinite si firme. "Functionam de patru ani in acest domeniu si am reusit sa ne formam grupul nostru de clienti fideli, stim care este temperamentul fiecaruia si astfel alegem Mos Craciunul potrivit pentru fiecare client in parte. Unii vorbesc cu copiii, le spun poezii, impart cadouri, iar altii se implica in jocuri interactive sau karaoke", a spus Cristina Margine, administratorul firmei. Privit ca hobby sau ca un mijloc de a castiga in plus, Mos Craciunii sunt fie actori, medici, ingineri, fie studenti sau electricieni.
"Lucram in acest domeniu de doi ani, avem cereri atat din partea persoanelor fizice cat si a firmelor, unele organizeaza petreceri aniversare, altele organizeaza targuri de turism, iar cu fiecare an, cererile sunt mai multe si mai variate. Chiar daca este un job temporar, pot spune ca in acest domeniu cererile pe piata continua sa creasca. Anul acesta, pentru luna decembrie, avem rezervari in proportie de 80%", a mentionat Bogdan Balamat, administratorul firmei Rent-a-Santa. Agentia de publicitate Media Management din Bucuresti, are, la randul ei, in portofoliu, inchirierea de Mos Craciuni.
"Facem acest lucru de 11 ani si acum avem 10 Mos Craciuni si 20 de Craciunite, iar fiecare dintre ei participa la cel putin un eveniment pe zi in perioada sarbatorilor. Peste 60% din cereri vin din partea companiilor. Tariful de inchiriere este de 200 de lei pe ora", a afirmat Ioanid Apostol, directorul Media Management. In afara firmelor cu activitati in acest domeniu, sunt si persoane fizice care se ocupa cu inchirierea de Mos Craciuni.
Dan Corla, student din Cluj-Napoca, a deschis o firma al carei unic angajat este, dupa o experienta de trei ani ca Mos Craciun. Cele mai multe cereri vin din partea gradinitelor, circa 90%, dar sunt si persoane fizice care apeleaza la serviciile lui. Rezervarile se fac pentru perioada 1 decembrie-1 ianuarie, iar tarifele variaza intre 50 de lei si 130 de lei pe ora.
Zilele cele mai solicitate sunt 24 si 25 decembrie. "Cererile vin atat din partea persoanelor fizice, cat si a gradinitelor, iar tariful este de 50 de euro pentru 45-60 de minute. Pentru mine este un hobby, care a inceput in urma cu opt ani, cand obisnuiam sa ma costumez in Mos Craciun de sarbatori, pentru copiii mei. Ulterior, am observat ca piata a devenit receptiva si am hotarat sa merg mai departe. Acum intentionez sa deschid o firma", a spus Octavian Bernevic, din Bacau.
[Sursa-www.infoportal.ro]

Dan Iosif a incetat din viata

2007-12-05T20:49:00.000+02:00

Dan Iosif, unul dintre liderii revolutionarilor bucuresteni din decembrie 1989, consilier prezidential in timpul mandatului lui Ion Iliescu si parlamentar PSD, a murit, miercuri dimineata, din cauza unui cancer pulmonar de care suferea de mai multi ani.

Dan Iosif s-a nascut in 14 octombrie 1950, in sectorul 1 al Capitalei, era necasatorit si avea doi copii.

Intre 1967 si 1969 a urmat Scoala de maistri militari Sibiu si 12 clase la liceele IL Caragiale si George Calinescu.

Pana in 1900 a fost electronist, pana in 1992 senator, urmatorii patru ani consilier, intre 1996 si 2000 a fost sef de biroul senatorial, iar pana in 2004 consilier de stat. Din decembrie 2004, Dan Iosif a fost deputat ales pe listele Uniunii Nationale PSD-PUR. Dan Iosif a fost decorat cu Ordinul Serviciul Credincios in rang de Cavaler.

Trupul neinsufletit al lui Dan Iosif a fost depus la Casa de pompe funebre din Novosibirsk, urmand ca, dupa finalizarea formalitatilor de repatriere, sa fie adus in Romania cat mai rapid, cu o cursa charter, a declarat Dinu Pistolea, secretar I in Ambasada romana din Moscova.

Pistolea, care ocupa de asemenea functia de sef ad interim al sectiei consulare a declarat ca ambasada Romaniei la Moscova a luat legatura cu membrii familiei lui Dan Iosif, dintre care o parte se afla la Novosibirsk.

Intrebat daca familia acestuia a solicitat sprijinul ambasadei, Dinu Pistolea a spus ca a luat legatura cu familia, care si-a exprimat dorinta ca formalitatile pentru repatriere sa dureze cat mai putin si sa fie adus in Romania direct, cu o cursa charter.

Pistolea a spus ca deocamdata nu stie data la care Dan Iosif va fi repatriat, dar a precizat ca ambasada este in contact cu Casa de Pompe Funebre de la Novosibirsk. Reprezentantii Casei de Pompe Funebre nu au emis inca certificatul de deces al deputatului, a mai spus diplomatul roman.

Pistolea a dat asigurari ca atat ambasada, cat si sectia consulara depun toate diligentele pentru repatrierea cat mai rapida a lui Dan Iosif si, in cazul in care va fi necesar, un reprezentant al misiunii diplomatice se va deplasa imediat la Novosibirsk.
[Sursa-www.infoportal.ro]

Terminator plans videogame assault

2007-12-03T21:04:00.000+02:00

"The Terminator" will be back on video game consoles.
The Halcyon Co., which owns the rights to the "Terminator" movie franchise, is forming its own gaming subsidiary and making a game adaptation of the upcoming film "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins" its first release.

The game, which will be available on all formats, including next-generation consoles, PC and mobile, is expected to hit the marketplace at the same time as the film, which is slated for release in summer 2009. (Christian Bale is in talks to star in the film, playing freedom-fighter John Connor.)

Peter Levin, the acting CEO of Halcyon Games, said the privately financed parent company opted to form its own game division rather that outsource the "Terminator" license in order "to control our own destiny."

Like a lot of blockbuster film franchises, "Terminator" has had its share of licensed games, most of which have done well in the marketplace. In May, Halcyon announced its acquisition of the franchise rights to "Terminator" from movie producers Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar.
Development of the "Terminator" game has been under way for several months.

"Terminator" will not be the only franchise in the Halcyon Games stable. Halcyon created a splash this year when it secured first-look rights to the works for famed science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. The Halcyon executives said they are looking at bringing out titles based on the Dick books beginning in 2010. Previous screen adaptations of Dick's work, including "Total Recall," "Minority Report," "A Scanner Darkly" and "Blade Runner," have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.
[Source-news.yahoo.com

Stop animal abuse

2007-11-24T13:49:00.000+02:00

Stop torturing animals

Every year in September, a bull is tortured and killed during a fiesta called 'Toro de la Vega' in the Spanish town Tordesillas. Hundreds of agressive men on foot and on horse chase the bull and stab him with long lances, until he collapses. Then, they cut off his tail and testicles, after which he is killed.

What you see in that picture is a horse bleeding to death. It's happening in a city in Romania. He was hit by a car and his owner decided to kill him to get rid of him. The only way he could think of doing that, was by cutting its throat....This is happening in a European Union country that has absolutely no valid laws to protect animals from any form of cruelty or suffering. A country where people of all ages find pleasure and enjoyment in beating animals to death, burning them alive, cutting their throats or ripping their bellies.

A country where stray dogs are collected from the streets only to be killed by barbarian methods: locked in a cell and starved to death, gassed or poisoned. A country where thousands of cats and dogs are killed by speeding drivers or, even worse, injured in such a way that they are left paralyzed and die an agonizing death. A country where there are virtually no shelters for animals, and even the few that do exist are not supported in any way by the State.
The same State that doesn't do anything to punish such people as described above...

The worst that can happen in Romania to someone who hurts, tortures or kills an animal is to get a fine. That is, to pay a certain amount of money. In most cases, he will escape even that. Do you think that's fair? Is it possible to assess a life's worth in the amount of the fine??? Would you sleep better at night knowing that the country's budget is richer by a few dollars.... just because an animal died in horrible conditions?

The only way to change this is to pressure the Romanian Government to enforce a law to protect animals against all forms of abuse and torture ! A law to establish that any act of cruelty against animals is a crime!! A law to set forward tougher penalties! The people who do such things belong in jail, they shouldn't be left walking free in the streets. And not only because they might be a physical danger to us, but because they threaten and destroy the humanity in all of us. Because they alter our dignity as human beings. Because they are beasts and they make us participate in their horrible killings. Because if we do nothing against them, we are responsible too for the pain and suffering they cause!!
Please sign this petition and spread the word! Please help raise awareness about what is happening! Please help, in any way you can, to stop this!
Sign the petition here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-human-beasts-from-torturing-animala

Stop animal testing

A bunny, her eyes are taped wide open, and a stinging liquid (Laundry Detergent), is slowly dripped into her open eyes. The test was/is done to see how much laundry detergent is needed, before the animal goes blind, or her eyes are completely burned out. The test showed: Laundry detergent is damaging when splashed into eyes. Really? No way!
Remember the last time you accidentally splashed some water into your eyes, uncomfortable at best, right? Can’t imagine the pain that animal was in.

Animal abuse is not just the result of a minor personality flaw in the abuser but rather a symptom of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty toward animals don’t stop there; many of them move on to their fellow humans.

A study conducted by Northeastern University and the Massachusetts SPCA found that people who abuse animals are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against humans. The majority of inmates scheduled to be executed for murder at California’s San Quentin penitentiary “practiced” their crimes on animals, according to the warden.

Many jurisdictions around the world have enacted statutes which forbid cruelty to some animals; for example, see Animal Protection Laws of the USA & Canada(2007) or Cruelty to Animals Acts in the United States (2001). These statutes provide minimum requirements for care and treatment of animals, but do not require optimal treatment or address issues of confinement, lack of environmental enrichments, or stress. They require that animals be provided shelter, food, water and medical treatment and that animals not be tortured, or killed in an inhumane manner. Some practices, even if controversial (such as treatment of rodeo and circus animals or medical research or animals deemed pests, including geese), are usually exempted from the enforcement of laws against cruelty.

Did you know?

That the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) estimates that only 10% of the 15,000 tigers in the U.S. are in professionally regulated zoos and sanctuaries. Add to that more than 5000 cougars and assorted other big cats and you start to see the enormity of the problem.

That there are only 23 sanctuaries that are accredited by The Association of Sanctuaries even though there are thousands of places that claim to be animal refuges.

There are only 1200-2000 tigers left in the wild due primarily to habitat loss and hunting. According to the World Wildlife Fund the tiger population has declined by as much as 95% in the past hundred years.

How to Promote & Advertise Your Business Online

2007-11-24T10:33:00.000+02:00

Learn how to promote your business online correctly yourself.

All you need is a computer,internet access and willingness to succeed in Business.

Here is a quick-guide to promote your business online.

Google AdWords

AdWords helps you target local online customers by setting the key words or phrases that pertain to your business and what you offer. The pay-per-click ads appear only when people search a particular city, state or region. There's no minimum spending requirement, so your daily budget is up to you.

Yahoo! Local Listings

Local Listings will promote your business to customers looking for information in Yahoo! Local. This is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google.

Craigslist

From Real Estate to Exercise Equipment, you can find it here locally. Craigslist gets an estimated 10 million unique visitors per day. With an online classified ad format organized by region or city, Craigslist connects buyers and sellers in more than 300 communities. Most postings are FREE.

YellowPages.com

YellowPages.com is a large online local directory site featuring city guides and advertising solutions.

CitySearch

CitySearch offers online advertising tools to easily open your account, manage your daily results and receive ad placement on MSN, Yahoo!, Google and Ask.com. This is similar to the idea of pay-per-click advertising. CitySearch offers two easy paid plans.

Ask.com's AskCity

On one screen, consumers can map a route, make dinner reservations, purchase movie tickets and e-mail plans to others. Pricing for advertising on Ask.com varies.

AOL's CityGuide

AOL's CityGuide specializes in providing local entertainment information to AOL service members. Advertising with AOL allows marketers to target consumers specifically by lifestyle and market.

MerchantCircle.com

This free site offers a local business listing service that allows you to better manage your online reputation and become more visible in search engine results.

Dotster

Dotster is a web domain registration and hosting company offering a local web advertising package called "Local Site Promotion." You set your monthly budget and Dotster will make your ad visible on all the major search engines.

Local.com

Advertising on Local.com will give you access to their 10 million-plus monthly customers. Choose from a free basic listing or pay-per-click options.

Froogle Local

Google's shopping search engine allows users to search for specific products by location. It's a great way for users to find retail stores regardless of whether you use e-commerce

RegisterLocal

RegisterLocal is a service, costing $199.95 per year, that allows you to create a master profile they submit to search engines and directories on your behalf.

TrueLocal

This local search engine features full-text searching and offers advertising opportunities for businesses. Currently indexing more than 13 million local businesses, TrueLocal starts at just $1 per month.

Web.com's MyEzClicks program

MyEzClicks lists your business on more than 30 major search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN for a monthly fee.

New York City's murder rate may be lowest in 40 years

2007-11-24T10:18:00.000+02:00

The city is on track to have fewer than 500 murders in 2007, the lowest amount in a 12-month period in more than 40 years, according to a published report Thursday.

New York City's murder rate is on track to be the lowest in more than 40 years.

There were 427 murders logged as of Monday -- 411 killings plus 16 crime victims who died this year from injuries they got years ago, The New York Times reported on its Web site. That makes the city's average slightly more than one per day.

Last year, the city reported 579 homicides through December 24 -- a nearly 10 percent increase from the year before.

The city's homicide rate reached an all-time high of 2,245 in 1990, making it the murder capital of the nation. Since then, the rate has plummeted to levels not seen since the 1960s. There were 570 homicides in 2004, dropping to 539 in 2005.

This year, police have determined a relationship between the victim and assailant in nearly half of the slayings committed as of November 18, The Times reported. The motives in the remainder of the killings were still being analyzed.

The majority died in disputes with acquaintances, rival drug crew members or spouses and family.

Police department analysts found only 35 cases where the victim did not know the killer, as compared to 121 instances last year, officials said, according to The Times.

In the first half of 2007, New York City had a 5 percent decline in violent crimes, 23,887, down from 25,132. The city also had a 4 percent drop in property crimes for the first half of the year, according to a recent state report.
[Source- http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/23/newyork.homicide.ap/index.html ]

Web advertising to come under EU scrutiny

2007-11-23T22:46:00.000+02:00

Targeted online advertising is set to face increased scrutiny from European Union regulators concerned about invasion of privacy, threatening the growth of a potentially big online revenue-booster for media companies.

"This is a very hot topic that can be expected to be part of our work program next year," Gabriele Loewnau, a senior legal adviser for the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, said on Friday.

The German commissioner currently heads the European Union's advisory body on data protection matters, the so-called Article 29 Working Party.

Recommendations from the working party have been used by the European Commission to get Google to curtail the amount of time it stored past Web searches to 18 months.

When an individual makes an online search or purchase, the computer can remember the entry through so-called cookies and pass on the information to advertisers.

"Targeted advertising will become a major tool for us, it will irrigate various parts of the group and help increase our average revenue per user," Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of telecoms and media group Vivendi, told a telecoms conference in Montpellier last week.

Brussels' heightened awareness comes as more than 13,000 Facebook users have signed a petition protesting against the networking site's new advertising system which alerts members of friends' purchases online.

Members can opt for their transactions to be kept private but critics say the option is easily missed.

Some Facebook members have even threatened to leave, complaining the new system allowed their friends to find out what they were planning to give them for Christmas. The Facebook petition was led by the U.S. civic action group MoveOn.org.

"Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate with each other in a 21st century democracy," said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org Civic Action.

"But we need to make sure they place the needs and privacy rights of their users ahead of the needs of corporate advertisers," he said in an e-mailed statement.

Facebook says it spares no effort in respecting members' privacy and stresses they can always prevent their purchases from being passed on to friends.

FAST GROWING

Online advertising is the fastest-growing segment of the ad industry, gaining more than 25 percent a year, or more than five times the recent average annual growth all media included.

Between 6-7 percent of advertising is spent on the Internet globally, analysts estimate.

Internet giants including Google, its YouTube division, Yahoo, and MySpace have all said they were keen to develop targeted advertising to boost revenues. But a balance would have to be struck with privacy, analysts say.

"Online sites have to make sure they are not intruding people's privacy, otherwise targeted advertising will backfire," said Vincent Bonneau from French telecoms research group Idate.

YouTube introduced in August a new type of targeted advertising - banners that pop-up at the bottom of videos. The ads target consumers according to the content viewed.

"It will be a significant booster to the business. We will be able to charge more for that," Patrick Walker, director of video partnerships at YouTube for Europe told Reuters last week.

But if targeted advertising is regarded as the next big thing, media specialists say there are few statistics available on its effectiveness and it is still traffic that counts.

[Source-http://news.yahoo.com/ ]

Why Men Are Happier Than Women

2007-11-11T13:22:00.000+02:00

1. We keep our last name.

2. The garage is all ours.

3. Wedding plans take care of themselves.

4. Chocolate is just another snack.

5. We can be president.

6. We can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.

7. Car mechanics tell us the truth.

8. The world is our urinal.

9. We never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.

10. Same work, more pay.

11. Wrinkles add character.

12. Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.

13. People never stare at our chest when we're talking to them.

14. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.

15. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle our feet.

16. One mood, ALL the time.

17. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

18. We know stuff about tanks.

19. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.

20. We can open all our own jars.

21. We get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

22. If someone forgets to invite us, he or she can still be our friend.

23. Our underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.

24. Everything on our face stays its original color.

25. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.

26. We don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.

27. We almost never have strap problems in public.

28. We are unable to see wrinkles in our clothes.

29. The same hair style lasts for years, maybe decades.

30. We don't have to shave below our neck.

31. Our belly usually hides our big hips.

32. One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.

33. We can "do" our nails with a pocket-knife.

34. We have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

35. We can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

What is MRSA?

2007-11-11T10:27:00.000+02:00

Q:What is MRSA?

A:MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a type of ''staph'' bacterial infection that is resistant to usual antibiotics.

Q:How dangerous is it?

A:MRSA infections can range from mild skin infections to more severe infections of the bloodstream, lungs and surgical wounds.

A report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month found that MRSA caused more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and 18,650 deaths in the United States in 2005.

Attention to the disease has increased since the deaths of a 17-year-old in Virginia and a 12-year-old in Brooklyn, N.Y., were blamed on MRSA infections.

Q:Who's at risk?

A:Most cases (about 85 percent) occur during hospital stays. Rates of infection are highest among people 65 or older. African-Americans are affected at twice the rate of whites.

Besides hospital patients and nursing-home residents, athletes are at high risk because of skin-to-skin contact in games and practices.

Q:How is MRSA transmitted?

A:It can be spread through skin-to-skin contact with someone who carries the bacteria or has an active infection. It also can be spread indirectly through shared items, such as towels, razors, clothing or athletic equipment. MRSA is not spread by coughing or sneezing.

Q:When should I be concerned that a skin lesion is MRSA?

A:If a pimple-like lesion, boil, infected hair follicle or suspected insect bite progresses to a painful, swollen, reddened area, contact your doctor.

Q: Should schools close if a student or staff member is diagnosed with MRSA?

A: No, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Closing schools has not been found to reduce the spread of MRSA from one person to another.

Q:What should schools do?

A:Hand-washing is the most effective method of infection control for MRSA, as well as for the common cold and influenza, the state health department says. Schools should allow time for frequent and thorough hand-washing by students and staff members.

Waterless hand sanitizers can be used as an alternative if soap and water are not available.

Other suggestions by the state for schools:

Students with MRSA infections should not be excluded from attending school unless the wound cannot be covered and contained with a clean, dry bandage.

Students or staff members who have severely compromised immune systems should not share a classroom with a person who has an active MRSA infection.

Students with open wounds should not use whirlpools, hydro-therapy pools, cold tubs, swimming pools and other common tubs.

Routine cleaning of classrooms and common areas helps to prevent the spread of all potential infections, including MRSA. Special attention should be given to surfaces and equipment that students and staff members touch with their hands, such as light switches, door handles, desks, tables and keyboards. If contamination of a surface with MRSA bacteria has occurred, clean the area using household bleach diluted 1:100 with water.

Q:How is MRSA treated?

A:Although MRSA is resistant to some antibiotics — including methicillin, oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin — it can be treated with antibiotics.

If given an antibiotic, you should take all the doses — even if the infection is getting better — unless your doctor tells you to stop taking it.

However, many staph skin infections may be treated by draining the abscess and may not require antibiotics.

[Source-http://www.ohio.com ]

Pulitzer winner Norman Mailer dead at 84

2007-11-11T10:13:00.000+02:00

Norman Mailer, the pugnacious prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song," has died at the age of 84.

Mailer died Saturday of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, J. Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor and biographer, said.

"He was a great American voice," said a tearful Joan Didion, author of "The Year of Magical Thinking" and other works, struggling for words upon learning of Mailer's death.

From his classic debut novel to such masterworks of literary journalism as "The Armies of the Night," the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner always got credit for insight, passion and originality.

Some of his works were highly praised, some panned, but none was pronounced the Great American Novel that seemed to be his life quest from the time he soared to the top as a brash 25-year-old "enfant terrible."

Mailer built and nurtured an image over the years as bellicose, street-wise and high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbed his second wife, almost fatally, during a drunken party.

He had nine children, made a quixotic bid to become mayor of New York City on a "left conservative" platform, produced five forgettable films, dabbled in journalism, flew gliders, challenged professional boxers, was banned from a Manhattan YWHA for reciting obscene poetry, feuded publicly with writer Gore Vidal and crusaded against women's liberation.

Mailer had numerous minor run-ins with the law, usually for being drunk or disorderly, but was also jailed briefly during the Pentagon protests in the late 1960s. While directing the film "Maidstone" in 1968, the self-described "old club fighter" punched actor Lane Smith, breaking his jaw, and bit actor Rip Torn's ear in another scuffle.

But as Newsweek reviewer Raymond Sokolov said in 1968, "In the end, it is the writing that will count."

Mailer, he wrote, possessed "a superb natural style that does not crack under the pressures he puts upon it, a talent for narrative and characters with real blood streams and nervous systems, a great openness and eagerness for experience, a sense of urgency about the need to test thought and character in the crucible of a difficult era."

Norman Mailer was born Jan. 31, 1923, in Long Branch, N.J. His father, Isaac, a South Africa-born accountant, and mother, Fanny, who ran a housekeeping and nursing agency, soon moved to Brooklyn.

Mailer earned an engineering science degree in 1943 from Harvard University, where he decided to become a writer, and was soon drafted into the Army. Sent to the Philippines as an infantryman, he saw enough of soldiering to provide a basis for his first book, "The Naked and the Dead," published in 1948 while he was a postgraduate student in Paris.

The book became a best seller, and Mailer returned home to find himself anointed the new Hemingway, Dos Passos and Melville.

Buoyed by instant literary celebrity, Mailer embraced the early 1950s counterculture, defining "hip" in his essay "The White Negro," allying himself with Beat Generation gurus Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and writing social and political commentary for the Village Voice, which he helped found. He also churned out two more novels, "Barbary Shore" (1951) and "Deer Park" (1955), neither embraced kindly by readers or critics.

Mailer turned reporter to cover the 1960 Democratic Party convention for Esquire and later claimed, with typical hubris, that his piece, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," had made the difference in John F. Kennedy's razor-thin margin of victory over Republican Richard M. Nixon.

While Life magazine called his next book, "An American Dream" (1965), "the big comeback of Norman Mailer," the author-journalist was chronicling major events of the day: an anti-war march on Washington, the 1968 political conventions, the Ali-Patterson fight, an Apollo moon shot.

His 1968 account of the peace march on the Pentagon, "The Armies of the Night," won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and was listed in the top 20 on a 1999 New York University survey of 100 examples of the best journalism of the century.

When he covered the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago for Harper's magazine, Mailer was torn between keeping to a tight deadline or joining the anti-war protests that led to a violent police crackdown. "I was in a moral quandary. I didn't know if I was being scared or being professional," he later testified in the trial of the so-called Chicago Seven.

Jorge Herralde, editor of Mailer's Spanish publishers, Anagrama, said Saturday that Mailer was a titan of literature who, like Kafka, was never awarded a Nobel prize. "He surely had too excessive a profile for that award," Herralde said.

Mailer's personal life was as turbulent as the times in which he lived. In 1960, at a party at his Brooklyn Heights home, he stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, with a knife. She declined to press charges, and it was not until 1997 that she revealed in her memoir how close she had come to dying.

His other wives were: Beatrice Silverman, Lady Jeanne Campbell, Beverly Bentley, Carol Stevens and Norris Church. He had five daughters, three sons and a stepson.

"He had such a compendious vision of what it meant to be alive. He had serious opinions on everything there was to have an opinion on, and everything he had was so original," friend William Kennedy, author of "Ironweed."

Mailer's suspicion of technology — "insidious, debilitating and depressing" — was so deep that while most writers used typewriters or computers, he wrote with a pen, some 1,500 words a day. In a 1971 magazine piece about the new women's liberation movement, Mailer equated the dehumanizing effect of technology with what he said was feminists' need to abolish the mystery, romance and "blind, goat-kicking lust" from sex.

Time magazine said the broadside should "earn him a permanent niche in their pantheon of male chauvinist pigs."

"He could do anything he wanted to do — the movie business, writing, theater, politics," author Gay Talese said Saturday. "He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything. He was a courageous person, a great person, fully confident, with a great sense of optimism."

In "Advertisements for Myself" (1959), Mailer promised to write the greatest novel yet, but later conceded he had not. Among other notable works: "Cannibals and Christians" (1966); "Why Are We in Vietnam?" (1967); and "Miami and the Siege of Chicago" (1968).

"The Executioner's Song" (1979), an epic account of the life and death of petty criminal Gary Gilmore, won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. "Ancient Evenings" (1983), a novel of ancient Egypt that took 11 years to complete, was critically panned.

"Tough Guys Don't Dance" (1984) became a 1987 film. Some critics found "Harlot's Ghost" (1991), a novel about the CIA, surprisingly sympathetic, considering Mailer's left-leaning past. In 1997, he came out with "The Gospel According to the Son," a novel told from Jesus Christ's point of view. The following year, he marked his 75th birthday with the epic-length anthology "The Time of Our Time."

Mailer lived for decades in a Brooklyn Heights town house with a view of New York harbor and lower Manhattan from the rooftop "crow's nest," and kept a home in Provincetown, Mass., where he spent increasing time in his later years.

Despite heart surgery, hearing loss and arthritic knees that forced him to walk with canes, Mailer retained his enthusiasm for writing and in early 2007 released "The Castle in the Forest," a novel about Hitler's early years. "On God: An Uncommon Conversation," came out in the fall.

In 2005, Mailer received a gold medal for lifetime achievement at the National Book Awards, where he deplored what he called the "withering" of general interest in the "serious novel." Authors like himself, he said often, had become anachronisms as people focused on television and young writers aspired to screenwriting or journalism.
[Source-http://news.yahoo.com/]

The iPhone Invades Europe

2007-11-10T19:33:00.000+02:00

Apple's knack for generating fanatical customer loyalty was clearly on display in London Nov. 9, as a line of plucky fans braved inclement British weather outside the company's Regent Street store. They wanted to be the first to get their hands on the iPhone, which finally launched that day in Britain and Germany.

Bracing himself against the cold, student John MacGregor, 23, says he has been looking forward to the iPhone's British launch since the device was first unveiled in January, 2007. "There's nothing quite like it out there at the moment," he says.

Despite the hoopla surrounding the iPhone—more than 1.4 million units already have been sold in the U.S.—Apple's bid to grab a share of the European mobile-phone market is no sure bet. The European market is home to well-entrenched locals Nokia (NOK) and Sony Ericsson, which enjoy dominant market share and offer their own multimedia music phones. European consumers also could turn up their noses at a phone that, despite its groundbreaking user interface, offers lesser specifications and slower data speeds than some of its rivals.

Exclusive Deals Signed
"European users have higher expectations for mobile phones than their U.S. counterparts," says Aleksandra Bosnjak, media and technology analyst at StrategyEye Digital Media in London. "The iPhone is a great product, but in terms of full functionality [for the European market], it still has a long way to go."

That hasn't stopped Britain's O2 (TEF) and Germany's T-Mobile (DT) from signing exclusive deals with Apple (AAPL) to offer the iPhone to their domestic customers. In Britain, subscribers will have to pay between $74 and $115 per month for an 18-month contract, while in Germany, customers must fork over $72 to $130 per month for a two-year contract.

Such figures are in addition to the cost of the iPhone handset—which is itself a radical departure for the European market, where most phones are heavily subsidized by operators. British and German customers must pay $565 and $439, respectively, for the iPhone, compared with $399 for U.S. consumers.

Dead-Simple Operation
"The handset price could be an issue because people don't usually pay for their phones," says Jonathan Arber, analyst at telecom consultanncy Ovum in Britain. "Apple is banking on the cachet of its product to overcome the extra cost."

The question is whether buyers will opt for specs or coolness. Nokia's N95, for example, sports a 5-megapixel camera, vs. the iPhone's 2-megapixel offering. The Sony Ericsson W960 handset can download data over speedy third-generation (3G) networks, whereas the iPhone runs only on a souped-up second-generation technology called EDGE. But no other phone on the market today has the iPhone's touch-screen technology and dead-simple operation.

Another issue for Apple will be prying customers away from existing contracts and phones. According to mobile market researcher M:Metrics, a third of people who express interest in buying an iPhone already own a 3G phone, while 40% of potential buyers already have a phone with a 2-megapixel or above camera.

[Source-http://www.businessweek.com]

Oil prices rise to record above $98 a barrel

2007-11-07T18:07:00.000+02:00

Record oil prices edged closer to $100 a barrel Wednesday amid expectations of declining U.S. supplies. The weak dollar and OPEC's apparent reluctance to pump more crude into the market also boosted prices.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery surged $1.24 to $97.94 a barrel by midday in Europe after earlier reaching a record $98.62 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract hit a high of $97.10 Tuesday before closing at $96.70 a barrel, a record settlement 66% higher than the closing price on the first trading day of the year.

In London, Brent crude rose $1.29 to $94.55 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. A number of North Sea oil platforms were evacuated Tuesday ahead of expected severe weather, and BP said it expects to shut production Thursday from its Valhall oil and gas field.

Traders remain worried about whether supplies will be adequate to meet demand for heating fuel in the approaching Northern Hemisphere winter. News of an attack Monday on an oil pipeline in Yemen added to those concerns.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Wednesday | LONDON | Vienna | Singapore | OPEC | Victor Shum

"The oil market sentiment remains bullish ... there is an overall upward trend toward the $100 level," said Victor Shum, energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "Meanwhile, we can expect extreme volatility where on the one hand some traders will take profit while others will buy back positions."

Global Insight energy analyst Simon Wardell was even more unequivocal.

"The run on $100 ... (a barrel) now seems inevitable," he said in a research note. "In the short term all eyes will be fixed on the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration ... inventory data."

Those figures to be released later Wednesday are expected to show crude supplies dropped last week. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires predict, on average, that crude oil inventories fell by 1.6 million barrels.

"The price rise is really driven by expectations of drawdowns in crude oil and distillate stocks inventories in the U.S. inventory report," said Shum. "Some cold weather reports out of the U.S. and Europe serve as a reminder that winter is coming and that there are still supply concerns."

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration said oil stocks in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are forecast to fall this winter, ending the year at the lowest level since January 2005.

In London, International Energy Agency head Nobuo Tanaka said he shared those concerns.

"Stocks (oil in storage) provide an important cushion between supply and demand," he told reporters. "They add supply side flexibility, reduce volatility and minimize the incentive for speculation.

"At current prices the market is signaling that (oil reserves) need to be higher — something that is in the power of producers to address.

"In the longer term, there is little doubt that both producers and consumers share the responsibility to ensure more investment in supply and greater effort to improve energy efficiency."

According to the Paris-based IEA, consumers and governments globally are currently doing too little to improve energy supply security and cut pollution. In its annual outlook for energy through 2030, the agency said the next 10 years are critical for governments globally to address these challenges as energy demand surges in the booming economies of China and India.

Continuing strong global oil demand and lower-than-expected output from countries outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will put more reliance on supplies from OPEC and global inventories, the U.S. EIA said in its short-term outlook.

Any reduction in oil inventories is likely due to a suspension of output at Mexico's state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, a major crude exporter to the United States, which temporarily shut its ports last week due to severe weather.

The weak U.S. dollar, which fell to another new low against the euro Wednesday, is also lifting oil prices. Oil futures offer a hedge against a weak dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

OPEC — supplier of about 40% of the globe's crude — appeared unimpressed. In Vienna, PVM Oil Associates noted that — despite record prices — OPEC "has not shown any intention of increasing supplies on top of the 5,000,000 b/d (barrel a day) hike, which became effective at the beginning of this month."

Heating oil futures added 2.56 cents to $2.6334 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline prices rose 2.02 cents to $2.4552 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 4.7 cents to $7.910 per 1,000 cubic feet.

[Source-http://www.usatoday.com ]

Tips: How to Gesture Effectively

2007-11-03T09:57:00.000+02:00

Gestures are reflections of every speaker's individual personality. What's right for one speaker may not be right for another; however, the following six rules apply to anyone who seeks to become a dynamic effective speaker.

1. Respond naturally to what you think, feel, and see. - It's natural for you to gesture, and it's unnatural for you not to. If you inhibit your impulse to gesture, you will probably become tense.

2. Create the condition for gesturing, not the gesture - When you speak, you should be totally involved in communicating-not thinking about your hands. Your gestures should be motivated by the content of your presentation.

3. Suit the action to the word and the occasion - Your visual and verbal messages must function as partners in communicating the same thought or feeling. Every gesture you make should be purposeful and reflective of your words so the audience will note only the effect, not the gesture itself. Don't overdo the gesturing. You'll draw the listener away from your message. Young audiences are usually attracted to a speaker who uses vigorous gestures, but older, more conservative groups may feel irritated or threatened by a speaker whose physical actions are overwhelming.

4. Make your gestures convincing - Your gestures should be lively and distinct if they are to convey the intended impressions. Effective gestures are vigorous enough to be convincing yet slow enough and broad enough to be clearly visible without being overpowering.

5. Make your gestures smooth and well timed - Every gesture has three parts:

The Approach - Your body begins to move in anticipation.
The Stroke - The gesture itself.
The Return - This brings your body back to a balanced posture.
The flow of a gesture - the approach, the stroke, the return-must be smoothly executed so that only the stroke is evident to the audience. While it is advisable to practice gesturing, don't try to memorize your every move. This makes your gesturing stilted and ineffective. The last rule is perhaps the most important but also the hardest.

6. Make natural, spontaneous gesturing a habit- The first step in becoming adept at gesturing is to determine what, if anything, you are doing now. The best way to discover this is to videotape yourself. The camcorder is completely truthful and unforgiving. If you want to become a better speaker, you need to make the camcorder your best friend.

Videotape yourself and identify your bad habits, then work at eliminating them, one at a time. You will need to continue to record yourself and evaluate your progress if you expect to eliminate all your distracting mannerisms.

To improve gestures, practice - but never during a speech. Practice gesturing while speaking informally to friends, family member, and coworkers.

[Source-http://www.ljlseminars.com]

Climate affects security

2007-11-03T09:49:00.000+02:00

Climate change could be one of the greatest national security challenges ever faced by U.S. policy makers, according to a new joint study by two U.S. think tanks.

The report, to be released Monday, raises the threat of dramatic population migrations, wars over water and resources, and a realignment of power among nations.

During the last two decades, climate scientists have underestimated how quickly the Earth is changing — perhaps to avoid being branded as "alarmists," the study said. But policy planners should count on climate-induced instability in critical parts of the world within 30 years.

The report was compiled by a panel of security and climate specialists, sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security. The Associated Press received an advance copy.

Climate change is likely to breed new conflicts, but it already is magnifying existing problems, from the desertification of Darfur and competition for water in the Middle East to the disruptive monsoons in Asia which increase the pressure for land, the report said.

It examined three scenarios, ranging from the consequences of an expected temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, to the catastrophic implications of a 10-degree rise by the end of the century.

At the very least, the report said, the U.S. can expect more population migrations, both internally and from across its borders; a proliferation of diseases; greater conflict in weak states, especially in Africa where climates will change most drastically; and a restructuring in global power in line with the accessibility of natural resources.

Left unchecked, "the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life," said the report, comparing the potential outcome with the Cold War doomsday scenarios of a nuclear holocaust.

"Climate change has the potential to be one of the greatest national security challenges that this or any other generation of policy makers is likely to confront," said the report.

Among its contributors were former CIA director James Woolsey, Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff John Podesta and former Vice President Al Gore's security adviser Leon Fuerth.

The report listed 10 implications of climate change that policy makers should consider, including rising tensions between rich and poor nations, the backlash resulting from massive migrations, health problems partly caused by water shortages and crop failures, and concerns over nuclear proliferation as nations increasingly rely on nuclear energy.

The global balance of power will shift unpredictably as trade patterns change, it said. China's importance in the climate equation will grow as it increases emissions of greenhouse gases, and Russia's influence will increase alongside its exports of natural gas, the report said.

Attention began to focus earlier this year on the strategic consequences of climate change. But the latest report, more than 100 pages long, is among the most detailed analyses published so far on security aspects.

Last April, a a panel of retired top-ranking military officers issued the alarm that global warming was a "serious security threat" likely to aggravate terrorism and world instability.

The Office of the National Intelligence Director said the following month it has begun working on an assessment of the national security implications of climate change.

[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Plan would limit tracking of web surfing

2007-10-31T17:31:00.000+02:00

A coalition of privacy groups Wednesday called for creation of a "Do Not Track List," that would prohibit advertisers from tracking online movements of consumers.

Similar to the popular Do Not Call telephone lists, the Internet proposal comes as online advertising revenues are growing rapidly, providing critical revenue to startups and Web giants such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Online ad revenue is forecast to more than double to $44 billion in 2011 from $17 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer.com.

Computer users should be notified when their Web surfing is tracked by online advertisers and Web publishers, argue the Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum and the Center for Democracy and Technology, among other groups in a coalition promoting the idea.
Rather than burying privacy policies in fine print, companies should also disclose them more fully and provide easier ways to opt out, the groups said.

The organizations submitted the proposals to the Federal Trade Commission, ahead of the consumer watchdog agency's workshop on Nov. 1-2 to study the increasing use of tracking technology to target online ads.

The issue arose during recent congressional hearings on Google's $3.1 billion bid to buy DoubleClick Inc., which places and tracks online ads.

Industry representatives say targeting means users are more likely to see ads for products they are interested in, rather than random ads.

Consumer groups counter that companies such as DoubleClick collect vast amounts of data on Web users that amount to a potential privacy threat.

Pam Dixon, executive director of the San Diego-based World Privacy Forum, added that the practice could lead to price discrimination. For example, lower-income Web surfers might receive higher interest-rate mortgage or other loan offers than what higher-income consumers receive.
Other advocates warn that the collected data is vulnerable to hackers and other security breaches, not to mention possible government agency efforts to subpoena the information.
AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., said Wednesday it will begin a consumer-awareness campaign and provide customers more information about targeted advertising.
The campaign, which includes millions of clickable banner ads on the practice and the opportunity for consumers to opt-out of Web tracking, AOL officials said.

AOL also said it will expand the use of extended opt-out technology, developed by Tacoda, an online ad company AOL bought earlier this year
Currently, if users choose to opt-out from online ad tracking, a cookie, or small piece of software, is placed on their browser reflecting that choice.
But if users delete their cookies, then the opt-out is lost. AOL's technology would enable the opt-out cookie to reset after cookies are deleted.
The technology amounts to a "de facto do not track list," Polonetsky said, adding:"We want to make the opt-out process as simple and transparent as possible," said Jules Polonetsky, chief privacy officer at AOL.

[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Uruguay buys first '$100 laptops'

2007-10-30T12:24:00.000+02:00

The first official order for the so-called "$100 laptop" has been placed by the government of Uruguay.

The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12.

A further 300,000 may be purchased to provide a machine for every child in the country by 2009.

The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders.

"I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written," Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation, recently told the New York Times.

However, he said he was "delighted" with the first deal.

"We commend Uruguay for being the first country to take concrete actions to provide laptops to all its children and teachers and look forward to other countries following this example," he said.

[Source-http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7068084.stm ]

No credit card, no iPhone

2007-10-29T20:33:00.000+02:00

People looking to walk into an Apple retailer and buy an iPhone with cash will be out of luck. The company is now accepting only credit or debit card payments for the devices so they can track who purchases the phone, according to an employee at the Apple Store in New York's SoHo neighborhood.

The new policy is Apple's attempt to prevent people from purchasing and then unlocking and reselling iPhones, a situation that has been a problem for the company. Apple won't let anyone without a credit card or debit card in their name purchase iPhones, according to an unidentified Apple Store employee in a phone interview.

"We need to track the purchases of the iPhone [because] we have people buying the phones, unlocking the phones and selling them," she said.

A report by the Associated Press last week said Apple was limiting the purchases to two devices and allowing users to purchase them only with credit or debit cards. According to store employees, the two-device limit has always been in place, but the noncash policy is new.

Apple's public relations team did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the new policy. However, it's no secret the company is trying to stem the tide of unlocked and resold phones, now totaling about 250,000. Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook mentioned that number last week in a quarterly results conference call as the difference between the number of handsets sold -- approximately 1.4 million -- and those actually connecting via AT&T Wireless, the iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier.

If one analyst's estimate is correct, those unlocked phones are costing Apple millions of dollars. Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster said that he believes Apple receives US$18 per iPhone per month from AT&T Wireless, based on iPhone-related revenue Apple reported in its latest quarterly earnings , totaling more than $4.5 million in lost revenue.
[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Strange USB Gadgets

2007-10-28T18:22:00.000+02:00

1.The USB Powered Missile Launcher
Is your neighbor in the cubicle next door driving you nuts with his constant off-key humming of "Sweet Child of Mine?" Maybe you have a stalker that likes to sneak up behind you and breathe heavily until you agree to notice him? Imagine the satisfaction you will get by pelting them with your little foam rockets from hell.

2.ThinkGeek USB Snowbot
Along the same vein as the popular seasonal creation the USB Christmas Tree, the ThinkGeek USB Snowbot ranks highly on the strange but cool scale due to its very Battlestar Galactica style scanning eyeball. Imagine walking into a dark room this Christmas and seeing this thing staring back at you with that sinister red eye and otherworldly noises. Merry Christmas human, you will be assimilated!

3.USB self destruction button
Why on earth would you want a USB powered self destruction button? You can read that it can be used to block access to certain applications. Ok. That’s really neat. This one is so weird that I don’t even know how it’s supposed to be used. It’s definitely worth a place on this list.

Dollar Falls to Record Low Versus Euro Before Fed Rate Meeting

2007-10-28T17:11:00.000+02:00

The dollar fell to a record low against the euro on signs a slump in housing is hurting the U.S. economy, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates next week.

The U.S. currency has weakened three straight weeks on speculation the housing recession will spread to consumers and erode corporate earnings. Sales of previously owned homes declined last month by almost twice the rate economists forecast, and consumer confidence dropped to the lowest since May 2006.

``The dollar will continue to fall as long as the Fed is cutting interest rates,'' said Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities Inc. in Toronto.

The dollar weakened 0.6 percent this week to $1.4393 per euro. It touched an all-time low of $1.4395 per euro yesterday and declined against 15 of the 16 major currencies this week. The U.S. currency dropped 0.3 percent this week to 114.19 yen.

The U.S. Dollar Index, measuring the dollar's performance against six major peers, has lost 8 percent in 2007 and set a record low of 76.977 on Oct. 26.

Interest-rate futures traded on the Chicago Board of Trade show a 92 percent chance the Fed will lower its benchmark overnight rate a quarter-percentage point to 4.50 percent on Oct. 31, after reducing the rate a half-point on Sept. 18 in the first cut since 2003. Futures show an 8 percent chance of a half-point cut on Oct. 31.

Slowing Economy

A government report on Oct. 31 may show U.S. gross domestic product slowed to an annualized 3.1 percent growth rate last quarter, from a 3.8 percent clip in the prior quarter, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.

Sales of previously owned homes fell 8 percent last month, while the median price dropped the most in almost a year, the National Association of Realtors said this week. Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, reported its first quarterly loss in 25 years yesterday as borrowers defaulted.

``We had a string of pretty ugly numbers, both from the real economy side and the financial side,'' said Alan Ruskin, head of international currency strategy in North America at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut. ``That is weighing on the dollar.''

A Reuters/University of Michigan index of U.S. consumer sentiment showed confidence was the weakest this month since May 2006.

European Exports

Politicians including French President Nicolas Sarkozy have said exports from the $10 trillion euro-region economy may suffer as the euro gains. At the same time, the cheaper dollar has buoyed U.S. exports. The nation's trade deficit in August dropped to $57.6 billion, the narrowest since January, the Commerce Department said Oct. 11.

``A stronger euro may be starting to hurt Europe's economy,'' said Robert Fullem, vice president of U.S. corporate currency sales at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York.

The dollar will rebound to $1.40 by June, according to the median forecast of 47 analysts and brokerages in a Bloomberg survey.

The weaker dollar helped push Philip Morris International's operating profit up 19 percent to $2.5 billion in the third quarter, according to New York-based Altria Group Inc., the parent company. Sales at Egide SA's American unit fell 12 percent last quarter partly because of the dollar's drop, the French maker of ceramic packages said.

ECB Meeting

The European Central Bank will keep its key rate at 4 percent at a Nov. 8 meeting, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Futures contracts suggest traders see a rate increase by year-end. The implied yield on the December Euribor futures contract was 4.485 percent. The contract settles to the three- month interbank offered rate for the euro, which has averaged about 0.18 percentage point above the ECB's key rate since 1999.

Oil rose above $92 a barrel for the first time in New York this week, pushing Canada's dollar to the highest since 1974 versus the U.S. dollar.

The yuan had its biggest weekly advance in six weeks, to 7.4877 per dollar, reaching the strongest since China ended a peg to the dollar in July 2005. Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations last week called for a faster appreciation in the yuan, which they contend is artificially cheap.

A recovery in global stocks this week gave investors confidence to resume carry-trade bets, where they buy assets in countries with high yields, using loans in low-yielding currencies such as the yen. The Standard and Poor's 500 Index gained 2.3 percent this week, following a 3.9 percent tumble the week before.

The yen fell 0.3 percent this week to 164.34 per euro, and dropped 2.2 percent versus the New Zealand dollar.
[Source-http://www.bloomberg.com]

Wii helps Nintendo double profits

2007-10-28T16:34:00.000+02:00

The success of the Wii has helped Nintendo to double its profit in the six months to the end of September.

Demand for the console has outstripped that for Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft's XBox 360 - selling about 7.3 million units.

The Japanese firm made a net profit of 132.4bn yen ($1.16bn; £506m) from 54.4bn yen a year earlier.

Popularity of the handheld DS also helped, with Nintendo selling about 13.4 million of the consoles.

The DS console, which allows users to control play with a stylus, has proved popular with women and older users.

Meanwhile the motion sensitive Wii has proved popular after introducing a new way of playing computer games.

Supply difficulties

Earlier this week, Nintendo's Wii Sports swept the board at the 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards in London.

The games package won awards in categories such as gameplay, strategy and simulation, innovation and sports.

The game allows players to compete in onscreen sporting events using the Wii's controller as a tennis racquet, golf club or even a bowling ball.

Nintendo has upped the number of Wii consoles it expects to sell in the year to March from 16.5 million to 17.5 million.

Demand has been so high that the Japanese firm has had supply difficulties. It is thought that it will take another year before the firm can ramp up production to meet demand.

Separately, Sony, which has cut the price of its Playstation 3 to try to win back sales in the run-up to Christmas, said that strong sales of televisions and cameras had offset losses in its video games division during the July-to-September quarter.

The company made a net profit of 73.7bn yen in the period against just 1.7bn yen in the same period a year ago, when it was dogged by hefty costs related to recalling computer batteries.
[Source-http://news.bbc.co.uk]

Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' goes online

2007-10-28T11:12:00.000+02:00

Can't get to Milan to see Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper?" As of Saturday, all you need is an Internet connection. Officials put online an image of the "Last Supper" at 16 billion pixels — 1,600 times stronger than the images taken with the typical 10 million pixel digital camera.

The high resolution will allow experts to examine details of the 15th century wall painting that they otherwise could not — including traces of drawings Leonardo put down before painting.

The high-resolution allows viewers to look at details as though they were inches from the art work, in contrast to regular photographs, which become grainy as you zoom in, said curator Alberto Artioli.

"You can see how Leonardo made the cups transparent, something you can't ordinarily see," said Artioli. "You can also note the state of degradation the painting is in."

Besides allowing experts and art-lovers to study the masterpiece from home, Artioli said the project provides an historical document of how the painting appears in 2007, which will be valuable to future generations of art historians.

Although there appeared to be problems with the Web site late Saturday, it was accessible earlier in day.

The work, in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, was restored in a painstaking effort that wrapped up in 1999 — a project aimed at reversing half a millennium of damage to the famed artwork. Leonard painted the "Last Supper" dry, so the painting did not cleave to the surface in the fresco style, meaning it is more delicate and subject to wear.

"Over the years it has been subjected to bombardments; it was used as a stall by Napoleon," Artioli said. The restoration removed 500 years of dirt while also removing previous restoration works that masked Leonardo's own work.

Even those who get to Milan have a hard time gaining admission to see the "Last Supper." Visits have been made more difficult by measures to protect it. Twenty-five visitors are admitted every 15 minutes to see the painting for a total of about 320,000 visitors a year. Visitors must pass through a filtration system to help reduce the work's exposure to dust and pollutants.

"The demand is three or four times higher, but we can't accommodate it because of efforts to preserve the painting," Artioli said.

[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Russia seeks report on Iran nuke program

2007-09-28T11:03:00.000+03:00

UNITED NATIONS - Russia's foreign minister made clear ahead of high-level talks Friday on Iran's nuclear program that Moscow wants to see a U.N. agency report on Tehran's past suspicious nuclear work before considering new sanctions.

The Russian official, Sergey Lavrov, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice exchanged sharp words at a luncheon Wednesday on the subject. Rice pushed for tough new sanctions to pressure Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, and Lavrov said Moscow wanted to give nuclear inspectors time to do their job, according to the Russian minister and U.S. and European officials present.

Two U.N. resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran have failed to persuade it to suspend uranium enrichment. Tehran insists its program is aimed at producing energy for civilian use but the U.S., its European allies and many others fear the program's real goal is nuclear weapons.

In a Tuesday address at the U.N. General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the nuclear issue is "closed" and vowed to defy any U.N. Security Council move for more sanctions.

On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that China as well as Russia refuses to discuss possible new sanctions against Iran until the International Atomic Energy Agency reports on Tehran past activities at the end of the year.

"I think that it would be very difficult to convince the Russians and the Chinese before," he said. "We'll do our best to convince them, but honestly, the position was difficult to tackle."

The various ministers will have another chance to debate at a meeting Friday morning of the six key international players trying to negotiate with Iran. Besides Russia and the U.S., the Chinese, British, French and German ministers are also expected to attend.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and Iranian officials agreed in July that Tehran would answer questions from agency experts by December on more than two decades of nuclear activity — most of it secret until revealed more than four years ago. IAEA technical officials returned to Tehran this week to start probing outstanding questions, some with possible weapons applications.

Lavrov told reporters Thursday night that the IAEA's progress with Iran "is obvious."

Security Council measures must be proportionate "and commensurate with what Iran is actually doing — and as long as Iran is doing something which satisfies part of the demands of the Security Council, I believe we have to caliber our action in the Security Council and elsewhere," he said.

Lavrov's comments to ITAR-TASS and RIA-Novosti earlier Thursday were stronger.

"Interference by means of any sanctions would undermine the International Atomic Energy Agency's efforts," Lavrov was quoted as saying. "The U.N. Security Council measures on Iran should be balanced and respond to the steps taken by Tehran itself that obliged to answer all questions."

Rice and her top aides want to capitalize on international frustration with Ahmadinejad for his recent remarks. But Lavrov said the U.S. wanted to ignore the IAEA — as it has in the past — but "we want to rely on IAEA expertise."

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, on Thursday said the agreement with the IAEA "cannot be used as a shield to protect Iran from its violation, lack of cooperation, lack of implementation of the demands of the Security Council" on the nuclear issue.

Khalilzad said that Iran's ability to enrich uranium to a level usable for weapons is a "threat to international security and stability. It is one of the most important, perhaps one of the defining issues of our time."

A united diplomatic front, he said, increases the chances that diplomacy will succeed. "Those who will not cooperate on the diplomacy of this, with regard to pressure on Iran, sanctions on Iran, bear some responsibility should diplomacy, God forbid, fail."
[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Spy chief: China, Russia spying on U.S

2007-09-18T12:36:00.000+03:00

WASHINGTON - China and Russia are spying on the United States nearly as much as they did during the Cold War, according to the top U.S. intelligence official.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, says in testimony prepared for a Tuesday congressional hearing that a law passed last month expanding the U.S. government's eavesdropping power is needed to protect not just against terrorists but also against more traditional potential adversaries, such as those two Cold War foes.

"China and Russia's foreign intelligence services are among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected U.S. systems, facilities and development projects, and their efforts are approaching Cold War levels," McConnell says in his testimony. "Foreign intelligence information concerning the plans, activities and intentions of foreign powers and their agents is critical to protect the nation and preserve our security."

The new law will also enable the intelligence agencies to identify "sleeper cells" of terrorists in the United States, according to McConnell's statement to the House Judiciary Committee.

Congress last month hastily adopted the Protect America Act just before it went on summer vacation, propelled by McConnell's warnings of a need to close a dangerous gap in U.S. intelligence law.

Some lawmakers are now having second thoughts as the complicated law — intended to make it easier for the government to intercept foreign calls and e-mails — has come under attack by civil liberties and privacy advocates who contend it gives the government broader powers than intended.

The Protect America Act allows the government to listen in, without a court order, on all communications conducted by a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States, even if an American is on one end of the conversation.

Such surveillance was generally prohibited under the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and it is one of the more controversial aspects of the new law.

But McConnell's prepared testimony says one of the most important new powers granted by the law is the possibility of obtaining a call or e-mail "from a foreign terrorist outside the United States to a previously unknown 'sleeper' or coconspirator inside the United States."

While some Democrats are angling to roll back what they consider the excesses of the new law, McConnell and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein are pushing Congress to make even more changes to FISA.

Among the changes they seek is a new definition for "electronic surveillance." The legal definition includes not just which technologies are used to conduct the surveillance, but also whom is targeted, what communications are collected, where the target is and where the eavesdropping takes place.
The definition is critical because it limits the government's power. FISA generally requires court orders for any activity deemed to be "electronic surveillance."
[Http://news.yahoo.com]

Bird brain Alex the parrot dies

2007-09-14T21:08:00.000+03:00

WALTHAM, Massachusetts (AP) -- Alex, a parrot that could count to six, identify colors and even express frustration with repetitive scientific trials, has died after 30 years of helping researchers better understand the avian brain.

Alex could count to six, identify colors and even express frustration with repetitive scientific trials.

The cause of Alex's death was unknown. The African grey parrot's average life span is 50 years, Brandeis University scientist Irene Pepperberg said. Alex was discovered dead in his cage Friday, she said, but she waited to release the news until this week so grieving researchers could get over the shock and talk about it.

"It's devastating to lose an individual you've worked with pretty much every day for 30 years," Pepperberg told The Boston Globe. "Someone was working with him eight to 12 hours every day of his life."

Alex's advanced language and recognition skills revolutionized the understanding of the avian brain. After Pepperberg bought Alex from an animal shop in 1973, the parrot learned enough English to identify 50 objects, seven colors and five shapes. He could count up to six, including zero, was able to express desires, including his frustration with the repetitive research.

He also occasionally instructed two other parrots at the lab to "talk better" if they mumbled, though it wasn't clear whether he was simply mimicking researchers.

Alex hadn't reached his full cognitive potential and was demonstrating the ability to take distinct sounds from words he knew and combine them to form new words, Pepperberg said. Just last month, he pronounced the word "seven" for the first time.

The last time Pepperberg saw Alex was Thursday, she said. They went through their back-and-forth goodnight routine, which always varied slightly and in which she told him it was time to go in the cage.

She recalls the bird said: "You be good. I love you." She responded, "I love you, too." The bird said, "You'll be in tomorrow," and she responded, "Yes, I'll be in tomorrow."
[Source-http://www.cnn.com/]

Oil prices drop below $80 a barrel

2007-09-14T11:57:00.000+03:00

SINGAPORE - Oil prices fell Friday amid profit taking after closing at a record high the previous session on supply concerns.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery lost 46 cents to $79.63 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange in Singapore.

The contract finished Thursday at a record $80.09 a barrel, up 18 cents, and above the previous record close of $79.91 set a day earlier.

Analysts say much of the recent advance in crude prices has been due to buying by large investment funds. The relatively weak dollar, which encourages buying by foreign investors, has also played a role.

Oil first traded over $80 a barrel Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Department reported declines in crude and gasoline inventories and a drop in refinery activity, but it ended that session below the psychologically important mark.

"Had that large drop (in crude inventories) occurred on its own, people might have been skeptical about whether that number is real or is it a blip in the data, but given that there have been big falls in the weeks before, that's pushed prices up as well," said Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Gorey said a decision earlier in the week by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to raise output by 500,000 barrels served as a signal to the market that even the producers reckoned that demand in coming months is expected to be strong enough to absorb the extra output.

"Northern winter demand normally goes up, and clearly the producers in the market think it's going to be pretty robust," Gorey said.

Thursday, Hurricane Humberto added to the supply concerns by cutting power to several refineries in the Port Arthur, Texas, area. Another tropical system gaining strength in the Atlantic also supported prices.

Despite the gains, oil is still well below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

Many analysts are perplexed by the high prices, arguing that they have been driven by a flood of speculative buying. Many believe demand does not support such high prices.

In London, October Brent crude declined 17 cents to $76.95 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.

October gasoline declined 0.89 cent to $2.0375 a gallon after jumping 3.04 cents Thursday to $2.0464 a gallon as refiners reported production problems after Humberto hit Texas.

The shuttered refineries included Valero Energy Corp.'s 325,000 barrel-a-day facility, Total SA's 180,000 barrel-a-day plant and Motiva Enterprises LLC's 285,000 barrel-a-day refinery.

Exxon Mobil Corp. said its 350,000 barrel-a-day Beaumont, Texas, refinery suffered a minor production outage but remained up and running.

Heating oil futures fell 0.9 cent to $2.21 a gallon while natural gas declined 0.4 cent to $6.025 per 1,000 cubic feet.
[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Bush hopes to buy time for Iraq strategy

2007-09-13T21:38:00.000+03:00

WASHINGTON - President Bush was set Thursday to ask the country for more time to let success bloom in Iraq as his administration saluted a Sunni sheik assassinated after challenging al-Qaida's presence in Anbar province.

The president's pitch is the latest in a countless series of speeches over the course of the 4 1/2-year war aimed at shoring up public support by signaling new directions and new rationales. His Oval Office talk is scheduled for 9 p.m. EDT, and had Democrats as well as many rank-and-file Republicans aggravated even before it was delivered.

"The American people long ago lost faith in the president's leadership of the war in Iraq because his rhetoric has never accepted the reality on the ground," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Senate Democrats discussed plans for legislation to limit the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq. By restricting troops to training Iraq's military and police, protecting U.S. assets and fighting terrorists — but not setting a deadline to end the war — they they hoped to walk a fine enough line between anti-war stalwarts and moderate Republicans to attract necessary support.

The day after Bush's televised address — expected to last 18 minutes — he is reinforcing his message from a Marine base in Quantico, Va., just outside Washington, and with the White House's release of an Iraq status report required by Congress.

Thursday's assassination of Sunni sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was a setback, serving notice of the danger facing people who cooperate with coalition forces and the difficulty in fractured, violent Iraq of touting progress.

Abu-Risha headed an alliance of clans allying with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces to take on al-Qaida. He was among a group of tribal leaders who met with Bush last week in Iraq. Part of Bush's rationale for keeping troop levels high has been centered on recent progress in Anbar Province, and his argument — disputed by many — that it could be replicated elsewhere in Iraq if the effort were given more time.
The White House called Abu Risha's death an "unfortunate and outrageous act" and said it believed al-Qaida was responsible.

The top U.S. general in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, called it "a tragic loss."
"It's a terrible loss for Anbar province and all of Iraq. It shows how significant his importance was and it shows al-Qaida Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," Petraeus said in a statement.

As part of the administration's newest public relations push on Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney planned to travel Friday to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Iraq also was chosen as the topic for Bush's weekly Saturday radio address, and administration officials were being offered to television networks for Sunday news show appearances.

The full-throttle effort reflects the high stakes for a president who lost his popularity and his party's control of Congress in large measure over the war and yet ordered 21,500 additional combat troops there in January to try to bring calm and give his goal of a stable, self-sustaining Iraq a chance. An additional 8,000 support troops soon followed.

A poll released Thursday by The Associated Press and Ipsos showed that only a third of the country approve of Bush's performance on the war.

Gradually phasing out most if not all of that force escalation by next July — Bush's plan to be announced Thursday night — would still leave U.S. troop strength a bit higher than it was before the buildup, which ranged from 130,000 to 135,000.
Democrats against the war were not at all satisfied. They chose Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army Ranger, to deliver their party's response.

"It creates and provides an illusion of change in an effort to take the wind out of the sails of those of us who want to truly change course in Iraq," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said of the Bush policy.

Bush's latest approach matches recommendations offered by Petraeus to Bush and in two days of congressional testimony earlier this week. What the president is endorsing, however, represents only a slight hastening of the originally scheduled end of the so-called surge.
Planned troop rotations already call for the first of the additional troops sent this year to come back starting next spring, with all of them home by the end of next summer. That could change only if Bush and his team made unpopular decisions to extend tour lengths or shorten home leave for replacements.

The plan Petraeus announced this week would instead have the first of the additional troops returning home this month, a 2,000-member Marine unit, followed by the mid-December departure of an Army brigade numbering 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers. The other four combat brigades would leave by July 2008 under an unspecified timetable. Petraeus was not precise about whether all of the 8,000 support troops sent with those extra combat forces would be withdrawn by July.

The general cautioned against any talk before March of going below the pre-surge level of 135,000, and Bush is expected to endorse that idea. The president also will say that even ending the surge will depend on continued security gains and no unforeseen events that change the dynamic.

Bush was expected to cite progress but also was ready to talk candidly about the fact that few of the 18 benchmarks that Congress and the White House set to measure progress have been met. The administration has sought to deflate the importance of those benchmarks, which are required to be the focus of the Friday's report but which the White House now regards as offering an unrealistic or incomplete look at the situation.

While Senate Democrats plotted how to regain momentum in the debate, Bush went over his speech with aides in the Oval Office. He talked by phone Wednesday with Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, thanking them for their service. White House aides also were reaching out to key foreign and domestic leaders to preview the broad outlines of the speech.
[Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Jane Wyman,Oscar winner,has died

2007-09-11T12:34:00.000+03:00

Jane Wyman, the Oscar-winning actress and former wife of Ronald Reagan, has died. She was 90.

Wyman died at her home in Rancho Mirage, California yesterday.
She was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in Missouri in 1917, though many sources give her birthdate as 1914.

In January 1940, when they were both actors, she wed Ronald Reagan in California but their marriage ended in divorce in June 1948.

She was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, and was highly sought-after as a character actress.

Her best known film roles included a rape victim in 'Johnny Belinda', for which she won an Oscar in 1948, and 'Magnificent Obsession' with Rock Hudson, for which she was also nominated.

She starred in 83 movies and the 1980s TV series 'Falcon Crest'; she was nominated for an Academy Award four times in total.

In recent years, she had experienced declining health, including arthritis and diabetes.

[Source- http://news.google.com ]

Europeans vs Americans

2007-09-11T10:47:00.000+03:00

Childhood obesity is an acute health crisis. Various studies estimate that 10-30% of European children aged 7-11 years and 8-25% of adolescents (14-17 years) carry excess body fat. Obese children are likely to develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases before or during early adulthood.

About 61% of Americans, or 127 million people, weigh too much, according to the latest government statistics. And 26%, or 54 million are obese — that is, 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight. That's up from 15% in the late 1970s.

Weighing too much contributes to heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and other ailments, and the U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher recently issued a call to action to put the brakes on the epidemic of overweight and obesity in this country.

Perhaps the worst statistic of all - -20% of American children are now clinically obese, according to recent government figures, and upwards of 51% are overweight. And these numbers will only get worse.

Pregnant smokers may suffer depression

2007-09-11T02:05:00.000+03:00

WASHINGTON - More than one in 10 pregnant women smoke, and new research suggests many of them also may suffer from depression, making kicking the habit even harder.

The emerging science suggests that decades-old "quit for your baby" messages are too simplistic an approach for many women — and that perhaps prenatal checkups should include screening pregnant smokers for mental health disorders that themselves require care.

"These ladies all know, I promise you, about the health risks. That's not what it is," says Dr. Jan Blalock of the University of Texas M.D Anderson Cancer Center, which has begun a first-of-a-kind study, Project Baby Steps, to test whether non-drug depression therapy helps pregnant smokers quit.
"We should at least understand more about why these ladies don't quit. We should be looking more carefully instead of just saying, 'Whoop, got this group of hard-core smokers.'"

Nearly 45 million Americans, or one in five adults, smoke. Quitting takes on average three to five attempts, and scientists know it's harder if the smoker has depression or anxiety disorders. In fact, one prescription anti-smoking pill is actually the old antidepressant Wellbutrin sold under a different name, Zyban.

Certainly learning how dangerous smoking is to their developing baby can prompt women to try to quit. It increases the risk of miscarriage, premature birth, low birthweight, death from SIDS, and learning and behavior disorders.

But only recently have researchers begun to delve into why, despite the enormous stigma, so many pregnant smokers don't quit. The government estimates about 12 percent of pregnant women smoke.

Dr. Renee Goodwin, a Columbia University epidemiologist, tracked more than 1,500 pregnant women who took part in a larger study of Americans' health. A surprising 22 percent smoked at some point during pregnancy, and about 12 percent were classified as nicotine-dependent.
Pregnant smokers were typically poor, less educated and had less access to health care.

But strikingly, 30 percent of the smokers had a mental health disorder, as did more than half who were nicotine-addicted — and the vast majority suffered depression. The smokers were about three times as likely to have a disorder as pregnant nonsmokers, Goodwin recently reported in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Smaller studies also have linked depression to smoking during pregnancy.
Nicotine and other chemicals in cigarette smoke can act in the brain like weak antidepressants, says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
"They are not just smoking to get the habit-forming aspects," Volkow explains. "On top of that, they are seeking the therapeutic effect. It comes at a very, very high cost."

It can be hard for the depressed to realize when they need help. And chances of relapse increase when would-be quitters feel worsening sadness, lethargy or other depression symptoms.
That makes the smoking more "a disease instead of a choice," Volkow says. "Society's responsibility is to provide a treatment. Because here you have two individuals that will be affected."

But how to treat pregnant smokers?
While many smokers turn to medication to ease quitting pangs, doctors hesitate to prescribe even nicotine patches during pregnancy. Studies so far haven't proven the patches' role in pregnancy, and some suggest pregnant women metabolize nicotine faster and thus need higher doses, raising fetal safety questions. A major study is beginning in Britain to try to settle those questions.
What about alleviating depression to help them quit?
Antidepressants haven't been studied specifically in pregnant smokers. Generally, those drugs are reserved for severe symptoms during pregnancy, although recent studies suggest the risk of birth defects is low.

Enter Texas' Project Baby Steps. More than 250 pregnant smokers, and counting, are testing whether a form of cognitive therapy for depression helps them kick the habit better than anti-smoking counseling alone.

The psychological therapy is intense, teaching women to problem-solve so they can improve dysfunctional relationships that can fuel both the depression and the smoking, Blalock explains.
This is a high-risk group of poor, inner-city women. Almost half are currently suffering major depression, and Blalock says many also have a history of abuse or other trauma. But they volunteered for the study because they want to quit smoking.[Source-http://news.yahoo.com/]

Intel raises 3Q sales outlook

2007-09-10T21:37:00.000+03:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor company, boosted its third-quarter sales forecast on Monday amid stronger-than-expected demand for its microprocessors. The announcement came on the day rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a smaller chip maker that has struggled financially in recent quarters, hoped to own the headlines with the launch of its ballyhooed new server chip.

Intel added $200 million to the top of its financial outlook, saying it now expects sales of $9.4 billion to $9.8 billion in the current quarter. That compares with the previous forecast of $9.0 billion to $9.6 billion.

Santa Clara-based Intel also told investors that profits are expected to be at the upper range of the company's previous guidance. Gross profit margin, a key measure of Intel's profitability, is expected is expected to be within the upper half of the previous estimate of 52 percent of revenue, plus or minus a couple of percentage points.

Intel cited higher demand worldwide for its products for the upgrade. Intel's and AMD's primary products are microprocessors, which act as the core calculating engines in computers, from desktops and laptops to larger corporate servers that handle Internet traffic and other large volumes of data.

Intel shares rose 27 cents to 25.74 in mid-afternoon trading Monday. AMD shares were up 29 cents to 12.90.
The brightened financial forecast came as AMD was preparing launch events around the world Monday for its newest Opteron brand server chip, the biggest overhaul to AMD's product lineup since the first Opteron chip was introduced in 2003 and gave AMD a foothold in the lucrative server market.

With Opteron, AMD had captured about a quarter of the worldwide market by the time the company's momentum appeared to peak last year, according to market-share data from Mercury Research.

AMD hopes the new product — which Chief Executive Hector Ruiz has acknowledged is six months behind schedule — can help it regain some of the ground it has lost to Intel since last year and break even by the end of this year.

Intel, whose market value of $150 billion on Monday makes it 21 times as big as Sunnyvale-based AMD, has squeezed its smaller competitor with severe price cuts and a quick transition to a more advanced manufacturing process that lowers costs while boosting chip performance. Armed with a powerful new product lineup, Intel has roared back to command about 87 percent of the server market, according to Mercury Research.

Intel's comeback has helped it reverse some of its own financial misfortunes from last year, when its profit fell 42 percent from the previous year and the company was scrambling to offer products that could compete with AMD's latest offerings.

For the first six months of this year, Intel earned $2.91 billion on $17.5 billion in sales. Profits were up 30 percent from the same period the previous year.

Meanwhile, AMD, which was still digesting its controversial $5.6 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc., lost $1.21 billion on $2.61 billion in sales in the first six months of 2007.

In the same period a year earlier, AMD had net income of $274 million on $2.55 billion in revenue. AMD has said the results don't directly compare between the years because of the ATI acquisition.[Source-Yahoo news]

Apple sells 1 millionth iPhone

2007-09-10T18:19:00.000+03:00

NEW YORK - Apple Inc. sold its millionth iPhone on Sunday, just 74 days after the combination cell phone-iPod went on sale and less than a week after its price was cut by a third.
Apple previously said it expected to hit the million-sold mark by the end of September.
Monday's announcement sent Apple shares up $2.94, or 2.2 percent to $134.71.
On Wednesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs cut the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone from $599 to $399 and discontinued the $499 4-gigabyte version.
The next day he apologized to those who had paid full price and offered $100 credits to early buyers.
In a letter on the company's Web site, Jobs acknowledged that Apple disappointed some of its customers and said he had received hundreds of e-mails complaining about the price cut.
Jobs added that "the technology road is bumpy," and there will always be people who pay top dollar for the latest electronics but get angry later when the price drops.
"This is life in the technology lane," Jobs said in the letter Thursday.
[Source-Yahoo news]

Britney's MTV comeback falls flat

2007-09-10T12:43:00.000+03:00

Britney Spears' first major performance in three years, at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas, has been widely dismissed as a disaster.
The BBC's David Willis said her performance would "go down in the history books as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards".
Teenage R&B star Rihanna and pop singer Justin Timberlake were the big winners.
Timberlake took four awards, including top male artist, while Rihanna scooped video of the year for Umbrella.
Spears, who was not nominated for any awards, opened the show dressed in a sequinned bikini and knee-high boots, performing her new single Gimme More
The singer looked "really out of sorts" and "looked as though she completely lost the art of lip-synching", he said.
Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton said: "She blew it. Everybody knows Britney lip-synchs, but that's because she dances so much.
"She barely even danced in this. It was so bad. It was painful. It was embarrassing. And I loved it!"
Her performance followed a troubled 12 months, during which she was admitted to rehab after shaving her head in public, following the collapse of her second marriage.
[Source-http://news.bbc.co.uk]

Storm clouds gather for US economy as job growth stalls

2007-09-10T00:14:00.000+03:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US economic outlook has suddenly darkened in the wake of data showing a stalling of the job growth machine, raising risks that a housing slump will lead to a full-blown recession, analysts say.
Friday's data showing the first contraction in employment in four years, a loss of 4,000 US payroll jobs in August, stunned even the bearish analysts on Wall Street and flew in the face of most forecasts for slow but steady growth.
"People had been saying that as long as employment holds up, the consumer will be OK," and the economy will keep growing, said Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight.
"Now that job growth has stopped, we have to question that," he said.
The report on nonfarm payrolls, seen as one of the best barometers of economic momentum, was all the more of a shock because it included downward revisions for June and July, subtracting 81,000 jobs from earlier estimates.
Marc Chandler, analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, said the report "is simply horrific and fans the most pessimistic fears (that) the housing market woes will undermine the US consumer, push the US economy into recession and drag down growth in much of the rest of the world."
Moreover, analysts say the worst may be yet to come, since housing remains mired in its worst slump in decades and job cuts in the mortgage and financial sector may not be fully reflected in the August payrolls report.
"These data will have captured the earlier declines in construction activity but won't yet capture the impact of the credit crunch" which began in early August, said Avery Shenfeld, economist at CIBC World Markets.
One question is whether the Federal Reserve, which has been consistently predicting "moderate" economic growth for the remainder of the year, has ignored the warnings signs.
"This report is weak enough that the Fed has to show it is getting out in front of the weakening economy and not lagging behind as it had been," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.
"I think we won't be hearing those optimistic words from the Fed for some time to come," said Shenfeld. "But it's hard to blame them in that history has been rewritten" with drastic revisions to earlier job growth estimates.
The International Monetary Fund said earlier in the week it planned to cut its US economic growth forecast for the second time this year. The IMF earlier had shaved two-tenths of a percentage point from its US gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for 2007 to 2.0 percent.
Other economic data have been mixed. Business surveys suggest modest growth in both the manufacturing and service sectors in August, but housing market data have been decidedly weak, with mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures rising and prices weak.
The Fed has been reluctant to cut its main federal funds interest rate, stuck at 5.25 percent since June 2006, even though the central bank has reduced its discount rate for direct loans to commercial banks in an effort to get credit flowing in the face of lender retrenchment.
Now, say many analysts, the Fed is almost forced to cut rates, and the only remaining question is by how much and how quickly.
Futures markets have fully priced in a cut of 25 basis points and show a strong probability of further reductions.
"I don't see how the Fed can stand by and watch any longer," said Kevin Giddis, analyst at Morgan Keegan.
While Fed members are reluctant to yield to market pressure, Giddis said, "They can hold their heads high and declare that it is the weak economy, not the bond market vigilantes, making them do it."
Even though the economy grew at a 4.0 percent pace in the second quarter, most analysts see weakness in 2007 and into 2008.
Gault said his forecast calls for sluggish expansion below two percent in the fourth quarter and into mid-2008, but that another downward revision is possible.
[Source- http://news.yahoo.com/]

Video:Luciano Pavarotti - Funeral in Modena Italy

2007-09-09T13:48:00.000+03:00

A man respected at his funeral in Italy Modena. People flocked to show final respects to the great Tenor.
Part (1)

Part(2)

Pakistan tightens security for Sharif

2007-09-09T13:27:00.000+03:00

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan stepped up airport security, banned rallies and continued rounding up hundreds of opposition activists Sunday, a day before former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's planned return to challenge the military ruler who sent him into exile seven years ago.
Sharif plans to fly to Islamabad on Monday to campaign against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf — who ousted Sharif's elected government in a 1999 coup — setting up a political showdown that could further shake Musharraf's weakening grip on power and spark unrest.
"I will go back to Pakistan on Sept. 10 with my brother because my country needs me," Sharif said Saturday at a news conference in London. "I am going to lead the people of Pakistan against the dictatorship, and the dictator sitting in Islamabad should give up his futile efforts to stop me."
In a television interview broadcast Sunday, Sharif acknowledged he might be arrested on his return on corruption charges from his days in power in the 90s. The government has not said what action, if any, it plans to take against Sharif.
"I know that this is a risky course for me and there can be dangers in it for me. But I am doing this for Pakistan," he told Pakistan's Geo TV channel.
"Nothing else can be more pleasing for me then freeing (Pakistan) from the clutches of military dictatorship. I will be happy that for a small price — my going to jail — Pakistan will get freedom," he said.
Analysts say Sharif's return could upset talks on a power-sharing pact between his archrivals Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, another exiled former premier plotting a political comeback in the country, which is a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.
Supporters fear Sharif could be arrested or deported on his arrival. The government has dusted off corruption cases against him, and media reports suggest a "VIP cell" at a 16th-century fortress is being readied.
A court issued an arrest warrant last week in connection with a murder case for his brother Shabhaz Sharif, who will return with him. Shabhaz Sharif has denied the allegation.
After arriving in Islamabad, the Sharifs plan to travel in a motorcade to their home and political base in Lahore, about 180 miles to the south. The trip through Punjab province could take three days as he greets supporters along the way, Sharif's party said.
More than 2,000 Sharif supporters in Punjab have been detained in a crackdown over the past four days, and others have gone into hiding, party spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said. Police and security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed about 700 arrests.
Human Rights Watch urged Musharraf to release the detainees.
"The government should release arbitrarily detained opposition activists immediately and allow them to peacefully welcome Nawaz Sharif freely and without threat of violence," said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for the rights group.
Security has been stepped up at all of Pakistan's major airports after receiving reports about possible terror attacks, two senior intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
The new security measures came days after the U.S. Embassy warned its citizens to avoid popular markets and crowded areas, saying it had received "non-specific information regarding terrorist attacks, possibly suicide attacks, against U.S. interests or places frequented by Westerners in the major cities in Pakistan."
The government will take action against anyone violating a ban imposed on rallies in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad where the federal capital's airport is located, Rawalpindi Mayor Raja Javed Ikhlas said.
He said the ban came in response to two suicide bombings that killed 25 people and wounded more than 60 others Wednesday in the garrison city.
In an unexpected development on Saturday, two foreign envoys — Lebanese lawmaker Saad Hariri and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud — appeared at a news conference outside Musharraf's presidential office saying Sharif should respect a 2000 agreement under which he allegedly promised to stay away from Pakistan for 10 years.
"We are sincerely hoping that his excellency Nawaz Sharif honors that agreement," the Saudi envoy said, adding King Abdullah was concerned about the "unity, stability and prosperity" of Pakistan.
Sharif acknowledged that Hariri — the son of assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri — helped broker his release in 2000 after he was convicted of terrorism and hijacking charges in Pakistan, and the agreement included a 10-year exclusion period.
But Sharif claimed that Hariri later told him the period of exile was only five years, though he conceded that was not mentioned in the document he signed.
Musharraf wants to win a new five-year presidential term from lawmakers by mid-October. Both Sharif and Bhutto want to contest general elections due by mid-January 2008.
Musharraf has seen his popularity shrink since his failed attempt to fire the country's top judge earlier this year spurred calls for an end to military rule. His administration is also struggling to contain a surge in Islamic militancy that has spread from the Afghan border.
Musharraf has been holding talks with Bhutto to reach a deal that could see the bitter rivals share power. But the negotiations appear to have run into opposition from lawmakers on both sides. [Source-http://news.yahoo.com]

Heavy Internet users unplugged by US cable company

2007-09-09T13:01:00.000+03:00

A computer user in Chicago. Several Internet users in the United States have been unplugged by their service provider because they download too much, a press report said here Friday.
Several Internet users in the United States have been unplugged by their service provider because they download too much, a press report said here Friday. Cable Internet and entertainment provider Comcast "has punished some transgressors by cutting off their Internet service, arguing that excessive downloaders hog Internet capacity and slow down the network for other customers," the Washington Post reported.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas told AFP the company was addressing "the problem of abusive activity that adversely impacts on everybody else's experience." "I can't give you a number" for clients who have been disconnected, said Douglas, while assuring that customers whose plugs were pulled are "very rare." According to the Washington Post, a customer would have to download the equivalent of 1,000 songs or four feature films a day to trigger a disconnection warning. Comcast gives customers a month to fix problems or upgrade their service before they are disconnected, the Washington Post said. An unplugged client in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, has filed a complaint with the county he lives in, saying his contract with his service provider states that he is entitled to unlimited Internet access, officials in Montgomery County said. A recent report by the ABI market research company warned that the growth in demand for "bandwidth-hungry services such as HDTV and online gaming is leading to a critical lack of capacity" in US cable operators' networks. "Cable TV operators trying to satisfy the increasing bandwidth demands of HDTV customers feel very much like the thrifty grocer who tried to cram ten pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag," ABI research director Stan Schatt said last month. "The increasing bandwidth demands on cable operators will soon reach crisis stage, yet this is a ‘dirty little industry secret’ that no one talks about."

Depression leads to worst health

2007-09-09T09:52:00.000+03:00

Depression is a more disabling condition than angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes, World Health Organization research shows.
And those with depression plus a chronic illness, such as diabetes, fare particularly badly, the study of more than 245,000 people suggests.
Better treatment for depression would improve people's overall health, the researchers concluded in the Lancet.
Experts called for better funding for mental health services.
Dr Somnath Chatterji and colleagues asked people from 60 countries taking part in the World Health Survey a variety of questions about their health, such as how they sleep, how much pain they have, and whether they have any problems with memory or concentration.

Participants were also asked about how they manage with day-to-day tasks.
After taking into account factors such as poverty and other health conditions, the researchers found that depression had the largest effect on worsening health.
And people with depression who also had one or more chronic diseases had the worst health scores of all the diseases looked at or combinations of diseases.
Urgency
Dr Somnath Chatterji said: "The co-morbid state of depression incrementally worsens health compared with depression alone, with any of the chronic diseases alone, and with any combination of chronic diseases without depression.
"These results indicate the urgency of addressing depression as a public health priority to reduce disease burden and disability, and to improve the overall health of populations."
The team called on doctors around the world to be more alert in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition, noting that it is fairly easy to recognise and treat.
Marcus Roberts, head of policy at mental health charity Mind, said the impact of depression could be devastating on relationships, finances and physical health.
"The treatment of depression must be given equal footing to the treatment of other conditions.
"While treatments for most physical health problems are readily accessible, mental health treatments such as talking therapies are limited, with some patients waiting months or even years for their first appointment with a therapist."
He added that mental health was often overlooked in those with chronic health problems, as doctors focused on the physical symptoms.
'Vast sea of misery'
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: "Seven million adults in England suffer from a common mental health problem such as anxiety, eating disorders and depression.
"We recognise that many of those with depression do not receive treatment at the moment, partly because they do not seek appropriate help.
"The government is committed to providing greater choice and access to timely and appropriate treatment options and is currently working to expand access to and choice of talking therapies in the NHS."
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "We now have yet more evidence, as if it were needed, of the destructive and life-threatening effects of depression, which this global study shows can be an even greater danger than many chronic physical conditions.
"Yet even in developed countries like our own, proper diagnosis and appropriate treatment can be patchy at best.
"A vast sea of misery could be avoided if this condition received the same attention and resources as Aids or cancer."
Lynn Mitchell, who has terminal lung condition, chronic obstructive lung disease, reached rock bottom two years ago with her depression.
And although she had always received quick treatment for her lung problems on the NHS she struggled to get help for her mental illness.
Now she is on antidepressants and feels a different woman.
"I think if I hadn't had help with my mental attitude I would have been dead.
"My life was so bad and so bleak it was just horrendous really. I didn't want to live but now I don't want to die."

[Source-http://news.bbc.co.uk/]

Techies ponder computers smarter than us

2007-09-09T09:44:00.000+03:00

SAN FRANCISCO - At the center of a black hole there lies a point called a singularity where the laws of physics no longer make sense. In a similar way, according to futurists gathered Saturday for a weekend conference, information technology is hurtling toward a point where machines will become smarter than their makers. If that happens, it will alter what it means to be human in ways almost impossible to conceive, they say.
"The Singularity Summit: AI and the Future of Humanity" brought together hundreds of Silicon Valley techies and scientists to imagine a future of self-programming computers and brain implants that would allow humans to think at speeds nearing today's microprocessors.
Artificial intelligence researchers at the summit warned that now is the time to develop ethical guidelines for ensuring these advances help rather than harm.
"We and our world won't be us anymore," Rodney Brooks, a robotics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the audience. When it comes to computers, he said, "who is us and who is them is going to become a different sort of question."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder of the Palo Alto-based Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which organized the summit, researches on the development of so-called "friendly artificial intelligence." His greatest fear, he said, is that a brilliant inventor creates a self-improving but amoral artificial intelligence that turns hostile.
The first use of the term "singularity" to describe this kind of fundamental technological transformation is credited to Vernor Vinge, a California mathematician and science-fiction author.
High-tech entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil raised the profile of the singularity concept in his 2005 book "The Singularity is Near," in which he argues that the exponential pace of technological progress makes the emergence of smarter-than-human intelligence the future's only logical outcome.
Kurzweil, director of the Singularity Institute, is so confident in his predictions of the singularity that he has even set a date: 2029.
Most "singularists" feel they have strong evidence to support their claims, citing the dramatic advances in computing technology that have already occurred over the last 50 years.
In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore accurately predicted that the number of transistors on a chip should double about every two years. By comparison, according Singularity Institute researchers, the entire evolution of modern humans from primates has resulted in only a threefold increase in brain capacity.
With advances in biotechnology and information technology, they say, there's no scientific reason that human thinking couldn't be pushed to speeds up to a million times faster.
Some critics have mocked singularists for their obsession with "techno-salvation" and "techno-holocaust" — or what some wags have called the coming "nerdocalypse." Their predictions are grounded as much in science fiction as science, the detractors claim, and may never come to pass.
But advocates argue it would be irresponsible to ignore the possibility of dire outcomes.
"Technology is heading here. It will predictably get to the point of making artificial intelligence," Yudkowsky said. "The mere fact that you cannot predict exactly when it will happen down to the day is no excuse for closing your eyes and refusing to think about it."
[Source-yahoo news]

Zimbabwe's precarious survival

2007-09-08T23:37:00.000+03:00

For a country which is in a state of economic collapse, there is a surprising amount of movement in Zimbabwe today.

Drive through the darkened streets of Harare at night - for there is no electricity - and you see hundreds of people walking purposefully at two and three o'clock in the morning.

Empty shelves are a common sight in Zimbabwean supermarkets
They are the few who need to get to work - only one in five of the adult population still has a job.
They take up their positions on street corners waiting for a passing car or pick-up truck.
There is no petrol, and regular bus services are already a distant memory.
"I sometimes wait four or five hours to get to work," said one office worker.

"But even the bosses don't complain."

People are starving. The evidence is in the hospitals where tiny, wizened babies lie dying in their cots while their mothers look on helplessly.

Infant mortality is 51.12 per 1,000 live births (Source: CIA Factbook)
One mother cradles a child who is losing her hair and her skin, a sign of the most advanced form of Kwashioka or vitamin deficiency.

Buses loaded with people and luggage wait for days around the petrol stations on the roads leading out of the country.
When fuel eventually arrives, they lurch off, swaying precariously under the weight of so many passengers, on the five-hour journey to the border with South Africa.
Zimbabwean immigration officials do not bother them and, on the South African side, they can be paid off with bribes.

For those who do not have the money and who have to duck through the bush, there is a greater risk.
Gangs wait on either side of the river for the groups of desperate refugees.
[Source-http://news.bbc.co.uk/]

Missing girl's parents want to go home

2007-09-08T16:56:00.000+03:00

PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal - The British couple named as suspects in the disappearance of their 4-year-old daughter are eager to leave Portugal, a family friend said Saturday. The girl's uncle, defending the parents, called on police to reveal any evidence against them.
Gerry McCann, 4-year-old Madeleine's father, said he and his wife expected clarification of their legal status within 48 hours, according to the friend, Clarence Mitchell. Their lawyer said late Friday that police had declared the parents suspects in the May 3 disappearance.
"They are in broad agreement that they should get out as soon as they can," Mitchell told The Associated Press by telephone from Britain. Whether Portuguese police will allow them to leave is unclear, though their passports are not believed to have been seized up until now.
Mitchell said Kate and Gerry McCann had previously intended to leave southern Portugal, where they have stayed since their daughter vanished from a hotel room during a family vacation, on Sunday night.
"They are determined to prove this is a travesty ... and clear their names," Mitchell said of the police allegations about their possible involvement.
The police decision to name the parents as suspects brought a dramatic twist in the four-month-old case. Their ordeal has drawn attention around the world, partly because of an international campaign they have run to find their daughter.
Mitchell said the McCanns, both doctors from central England, were considering hiring lawyers in Britain, where they would also have support from family and friends.
The McCanns' Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto Abreu, said police have not brought charges against them and that the investigation was continuing.
The McCanns have strenuously professed their innocence, and relatives said police should reveal any evidence against them.
"If this is what it takes to speed up the process of absolutely exonerating Gerry and Kate, let's get on with it," Gerry's brother John McCann told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "I hope the police can move quickly, bring whatever evidence they have got and discuss with Gerry and Kate why they think what they think."
The girl's aunt said that during the questioning of Kate McCann police suggested Madeleine might have been killed accidentally and offered the mother a plea deal if she confessed.
"They tried to get her to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer — 'If you say you killed Madeleine by accident and then hid her and disposed of the body, then we can guarantee you a two-year jail sentence or even less,'" Gerry McCann's sister, Philomena, told ITV news on Friday.
Until Friday, suspicion had focused on a British man who lived near the hotel from which Madeleine disappeared and who was the only formal suspect. But police said new forensic tests done on evidence gathered months after the girl vanished found traces of blood in the couple's car, according to Justine McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the family.
The new evidence — including the traces of blood missed in earlier forensic tests — was uncovered by sniffer dogs brought from Britain.
Kate McCann underwent two straight days of interrogation at a police station in southern Portugal on Thursday and Friday. Her husband was questioned separately afterward.
A police spokesman, Olegario Sousa, confirmed to The Associated Press that police had named a new suspect, but would not say it was Mrs. McCann. He cited privacy laws in declining to comment further. He could not be reached for comment Saturday on the McCanns' apparent desire to leave Portugal.
The McCanns said they were dining with friends in a hotel restaurant when Madeleine vanished. Their daughter was in their hotel room with her twin 2-year-old siblings, and the parents said they returned frequently to check on them.
Since then, the McCanns have toured Europe with photos of Madeleine and the child's stuffed animals and clothing, even meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Celebrities including J.K. Rowling and David Beckham made public appeals that helped the family raise more than $2 million. [Yahoo news]

It's Official: Apple is the New Microsoft

2007-09-08T10:06:00.000+03:00

Ten years ago, Microsoft was the company everyone loved to hate.
The most vociferous Microsoft haters slammed the company for being a greedy industry bully that used its monopolistic, clunky, copycat operating system to force software on users and coerce partners into unfair licensing deals.
Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here's a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.
Apple the monopolist
The core complaint about Microsoft in the 1990s was that its Windows market share gave it monopoly power, which it abused in multiple ways. Attorneys General and others zeroed in on the "bundling" of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which they claimed was forced on users because Microsoft offered it as part of Windows.
People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.
Apple not only "bundles" iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.
Not fair, you might say. Any hardware device that syncs data with a PC as part of its core functionality has software to facilitate that syncing. True enough. But operating systems have browsers as part of core functionality, too. Doesn't MAC OS X come with Safari? Doesn't the iPhone?
And "bundling" works. Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has distributed 600 million copies of iTunes to date. The overwhelming majority of those copies were iTunes for Windows. And iTunes for Windows' popularity isn't driven by software product quality. ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods.
At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else? Can I uninstall iTunes but keep using the iTunes store and my iPods? Apple strongly discourages all that, claiming that the iPod, the iPod software and iTunes are three components of the same product. But that's what Microsoft said about Windows and IE.
[Source-Google news]

Polar bear population seen declining

2007-09-08T09:57:00.000+03:00

WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

USGS projects that polar bears during the next half-century will disappear along the north coasts of Alaska and Russia and lose 42 percent of the Arctic range they need to live in during summer in the Polar Basin when they hunt and breed. A polar bear's life usually lasts about 30 years.

"Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately two-thirds of the world's current polar bear population by the mid 21st century," the report says.

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, which is their primary food. They rarely catch seals on land or in open water. Because the general decline of Arctic sea ice appears to be underestimated, scientists said their forecast of how much polar bear populations will shrink also may be on the low side.

"There is a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the welfare of polar bears," said USGS scientist Steven Amstrup, the lead author of the new studies. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear."

Amstrup said 84 percent of the scientific variables affecting the polar bear's fate was tied to changes in sea ice.

As of this week, the extent of Arctic sea ice had fallen to 4.75 million square miles — or 250,000 square miles below the previous record low of 5.05 million square miles in September 2005, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Scientists do not hold out much hope that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases blamed for heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse can be turned around in time to help the polar bears anytime soon.

Polar bears have walked the planet for at least 40,000 years.
"In spite of any mitigation of greenhouse gases, we are going to see the same amount of energy in the system for at least 20, 30, 40 years," Mark Myers, the USGS director, said.
Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia. The agency says their range will shrink to no longer include Alaska and other southern regions.

The findings of U.S. and Canadian scientists are based on six months of new studies, during which the health of three polar bear groups and their dependency on Arctic sea ice were examined using "new and traditional models," Myers said.

USGS issued nine separate reports on polar bears Friday. Those included projections for one group of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea and two in Canada that are among 19 distinct subpopulations.
They were made public to help guide Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision expected in January on his agency's proposal to add the polar bear to the government's endangered species list.

USGS declined to provide precise estimates of polar bear populations 50 years from now.
A separate organization, the World Conservation Union, based in Gland, Switzerland, has estimated the polar bear population in the Arctic now is about 20,000 to 25,000, put at risk by melting sea ice, pollution, hunting, development and tourism.

Last December, Kempthorne proposed designating polar bears as a "threatened" species deserving of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, because of melting Arctic sea ice from global warming. That category is second to "endangered" on the government's list of species believed most likely to become extinct.

That action is in response to a lawsuit in 2005 by three environmental groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace — to force such a proposal from Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species.
"This grim news about polar bears and sea ice decline is horrifying, but it is a call to action, not despair," said Kassie Siegel of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity. "The good news is that there is still time to save polar bears. Our hope lies in a rapid response, including both deep and immediate carbon dioxide reductions and a full-court press on other greenhouse pollutants such as methane."

The fate of polar bears has struck a public nerve. Fish and Wildlife officials have received 600,000 public comments so far on the proposed listing, spokesman Chris Tollefson said.
On Friday, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., urged the Bush administration to grant polar bears federal protection.

"This is becoming a tragic metaphor for the administration's voluntary approach to global warming," said Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "Instead of meeting the challenge, the Bush administration is happy to float along, waiting to see if the planet, and polar bears, will sink or swim."

Another member of the committee, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said the loss of some of the magnificent creatures on earth may be the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" needed to prod both Congress and the Bush administration into action on climate change. [Source-Yahoo news]

Monster Hackers Also Hit USAJobs.gov

2007-09-02T09:11:00.000+03:00

The hackers who compromised more than a million users of the Monster.com job search site also accessed a U.S. government career site that the company runs for the U.S. Office of Personnel and Management, the government said Friday.
OPM spokesperson Peter Graves told Reuters that 146,000 users of the USAJobs.gov site had their personal information stolen -- including names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. The government shut off recruiter access to the site until Monster.com completes its review of the system's security .
Graves said the government alerted Monster.com to the problem on July 20, when a subscriber submitted a fraudulent e-mail. That statement raises questions about whether Monster.com improperly withheld news of the breach from its users.
A week ago, Monster said it had first learned of the breach when Symantec researchers alerted the company to the issue. It now appears that Monster knew about a breach of its systems almost a month before the Symantec report.

Lag Time 'Inexcusable'

That long of a lag is "inexcusable," said W. David Stephenson, a homeland security and corporate crisis management consultant, "after the legacy of past problems." As a Massachusetts company, Monster.com should have been especially sensitive to the case of TJX, parent corporation of the TJ Maxx department store chain.
In the largest corporate data breach in history, hackers made off with more than 45 million credit card numbers. In August, TJX reported that its costs from the breach would be $256 million, 10 times more than the company estimated three times earlier. And analysts said the costs could reach as high as $1 billion.
"Every new example of identity theft is judged in light of the past missteps," Stephenson said. "Crisis management has to be a continuous, cyclical process, where you continually test the plans and adapt them in light of new incidents."

[Source-www.toptechnews.com]

Steaua in grupa H a LIgii Campionilor

2007-08-31T12:41:00.000+03:00

Steaua Bucureşti va întâlni echipele Arsenal, FC Sevilla sau AEK Atena şi Slavia Praga în grupa H a Ligii Campionilor. Asa s-a stabilit în urma tragerii la sorţi ce a avut loc la Monte Carlo.
Meciurile din faza grupelor se vor disputa la următoarele date: 18/19 septembrie, 2/3 octombrie, 23/24 octombrie, 6/7 noiembrie, 27/28 noiembrie, 11/12 decembrie. Partida retur dintre AEK Atena şi FC Sevilla, din turul trei preliminar al Ligii Campionilor, se va disputa luni, de la ora 21.45, la Atena. În tur, Sevilla a învins pe teren propriu cu scorul de 2-0. Meciul a fost amânat din cauza decesului jucătorului spaniol Antonio Puerta, care a survenit, în urma unei crize cardio-respiratorii.

Antrenorul FC Steaua, Gheorghe Hagi, a declarat la Sport.ro că echipa sa trebuie să aibă încredere şi curaj pentru a se bate de la egal la egal cu echipele valoroase din grupa H a Ligii Campionilor, Arsenal Londra, FC Sevilla sau AEK Atena şi Slavia Praga.

"Adversarele au jucători valoroşi, au atuurile lor, dar trebuie să credem în şansa noastră, trebuie să ne batem cu ei. Avem şansele noastre şi trebuie să ni le jucăm. Toate echipele sunt valoroase, bune, dar dacă am ajuns aici avem şi noi cât de cât o valoare. Important e să crezi, să ai curaj. Poate le batem pe toate trei. Trebuie să fiu optimist. Dacă revin şi cei accidentaţi, sunt mulţumit de lotul meu. Stăm bine dacă revin toţi jucătorii. Nu-mi doresc să mai vină Camus pentru că a spus că vine doar dacă ne calificăm, nu-l mai doresc eu, îi doresc doar pe cei care au muncit. Sevilla e foarte cunoscută, a avut cel mai mare succes în ultima vreme, echipă-surpriză în ultimii ani, e în formă. Arsenal a investit foarte mult în reconstrucţie, în tineri. Slavia a eliminat pe Ajax, nu trebuie tratat superficial niciun adversar", a spus Hagi.

Gheorghe Hagi a menţionat că atunci când nu pleci ca favorit poţi produce surprize. "Bineînţeles că gândul de a trece de grupe rămâne. Va fi foarte greu, dar vom vedea, am încredere. Dacă nu aveam, nu vorbeam dinainte. O să muncim pentru asta. Sunt pe urmele lui Nea Imi (Emeric Ienei). Cred că Steaua poate s-o facă, depinde şi de conjunctură, dacă va fi bună, putem trece", a spus Hagi.

Fostul tehnician stelist Emeric Ienei, câştigător al CCE în 1986 la Sevilla, a declarat că grupa Stelei "nu este chiar atât de dificilă". "Arsenal trece printr-o perioadă destul de grea, a plecat Henry, mizează pe mulţi tineri. Sevilla e un oraş foarte bun pentru Steaua, chiar dacă ultima dată nu a fost. Trebuie să ne luptăm cu cei tari", a spus Ienei.

Componenţa grupelor Ligii Campionilor, stabilită în urma tragerii la sorţi ce a avut loc, joi, la Monte Carlo, este următoarea:

Grupa A: FC Liverpool, FC Porto, Olympique Marseille, Beşiktaş Istanbul;

Grupa B: Chelsea, Valencia, Schalke 04, Rosenborg;

Grupa C: Real Madrid, Werder Bremen, Lazio Roma, Olympiakos Pireu;

Grupa D: AC Milan, Benfica Lisabona, Celtic Glasgow, Şahtior Doneţk;

Grupa E: FC Barcelona, Olympique Lyon, VfB Stuttgart, Glasgow Rangers;

Grupa F: Manchester United, AS Roma, Sporting Lisabona, Dinamo Kiev;

Grupa G: Internazionale Milano, PSV Eindhoven, ŢSKA Moscova, Fenerbahce Istanbul;

Grupa H: Arsenal, FC Sevilla/AEK Atena, Steaua Bucureşti, Slavia Praga.

Meciurile din faza grupelor se vor disputa la următoarele date: 18/19 septembrie, 2/3 octombrie, 23/24 octombrie, 6/7 noiembrie, 27/28 noiembrie, 11/12 decembrie.

[Sursa InfoPro]

Cetatean impuscat pentru un loc de parcare

2007-08-30T10:27:00.000+03:00

Miercuri seara, in cartierul bucurestean Ferentari, un barbat a fost impuscat cu 3 gloante de cauciuc intr-o altercatie cu alti trei vecini. Cei patru s-au certat pe un loc de parcare, s-au luat apoi la bătaie, dupa care unul dintre ei a scos un pistol si a tras fara sa ezite. Din fericire, persoana impuscată in torace se afla acum in afara oricarui pericol. Politistii sectiei 18 i-au interogat toata noaptea pe cei trei frati implicati in scandal pentru a afla care dintre ei a fost cel care a tras cu pistolul. Vinovatul risca intre 3 si 8 ani, mai ales ca a tras cu un pistol pentru care nu avea autorizatie.

Tragedie la Targoviste

2007-07-22T09:25:00.000+03:00

Tragedie în acesta dimineata langa Targoviste! 8 persoane si-au pierdut viata si alte 21 au fost ranite, intre care 3 grav, dupa ce un autobuz cu aproape 40 de pasageri la bord a fost lovit de un tren personal care circula pe ruta Targoviste - Ploiesti. Mai multe ambulante, pompieri si lucratori de la descarcerare au sosit de urgenta in zona pentru a acorda primul ajutor. Victimele au fost transportate imediat in diferite locatii din tara in functie de gravitatea ranilor. Unele dintre ele au ajuns in urma cu putin timp la Spitalul Floreasca din Capitala. Ce se petrecuse aflati in varianta audio de la directorul Serviciului de Ambulanta Targoviste, doctorul Silviu Gotea

Nadia Comaneci intra in Cartea Recordurilor

2007-07-21T10:55:00.000+03:00

Nadia Comaneci intra in Cartea Recordurilor pentru evolutia ei perfecta, care a dat peste cap calculatoarele. Academia Recordurilor Mondiale a anunţat, miercuri, cu ocazia împlinirii a 31 de ani de la prima notă de zece obţinută de Nadia Comăneci la Jocurile Olimpice de la Montreal, că a omologat recordul stabilit de fosta gimnastă: şapte note de zece la o singură ediţie a JO. World Records Academy a anunţat, pe site-ul oficial, că îi va trimite Nadiei Comăneci un certificat special, sigilat cu aur, care să ateste acest record mondial, numele fostei gimnaste române urmând să rămână pentru totdeauna menţionat în Cartea Recordurilor Mondiale. De asemenea, ziua de 18 iulie este declarată Ziua Recordurilor Mondiale, "pentru a aminti de una dintre cele mai frumoase evoluţii din istoria olimpică". "Cu un total de şapte note de zece la Jocurile Olimpice din Montreal (1976), legenda olimpică Nadia Comăneci a stabilit un record mondial pentru cele mai multe note de zece obţinute la o singură ediţie a Jocurilor Olimpice. Ea a furat inimile tuturor, devenind prima gimnastă din lume care a aflat cum este să fii perfectă. Înainte de 1976, niciun bărbat şi nicio femeie nu a reuşit să obţină nota zece la un eveniment olimpic. Şi atunci a apărut Nadia Comăneci, o româncă de numai 14 ani care a uimit juriul de la Montreal până într-atât încât a fost nevoit să-i dea nota zece", scrie sursa citată. Nadia Comăneci a câştigat, la Montreal, trei medalii de aur: la individual compus, la paralele şi la bârnă, o medalie de argint cu echipa României şi o medalie de bronz la sol.

Accident cu 7 romani morti in Ungaria

2007-07-19T10:03:00.000+03:00

Şapte persoane au murit şi 16 au fost rănite într-un accident în care a fost implicat un autocar românesc cu turişti, produs în apropiere de Mako, în sudul Ungariei, în primele ore ale dimineţii de joi. Autocarul avea la bord 35 de cetăţeni români şi se îndrepta spre Szeged. El se apropia de un pod peste râul Maros când a intrat în coliziune cu un camion-platformă, care transporta autoturisme şi care se deplasa pe banda stângă din motive deocamdată necunoscute, a declarat purtătorul de cuvânt al poliţiei din Csongrad.[Sursa InfoPro]

Norul toxic nu va afecta Romania!

2007-07-18T12:13:00.000+03:00

Pericolul unei eventuale poluări a României s-a stins. Ministrul mediului Attila Korody a declarat că este puţin probabil ca în următoarele 48 de ore norul toxic din Ucraina să se deplaseze pe teritoriul ţării noastre. Ministrul a mai precizat că – din studiile care au fost efectuate – singurele zone care ar putea fi afectate sunt cele din Polonia. Totodată, ministrul mediului a declarat că nu mai este necesar să se întrunească într-o nouă şedinţă Comitetul pentru Situatii de Urgenta. Attila Korody susţine că în scurt timp norul toxic nu va mai prezenta absolut nici un pericol pentru România.

L-AM OFERTAT PE ZAPATA!

2007-07-17T10:52:00.001+03:00

Chiar daca Steaua l-a luat in aceasta vara pe Vitca, fostul portar al celor de la Otelul Galati costind 500.000 de euro, se pare ca Hagi vrea extrem de mult sa mai aduca un goalkeeper de valoare in Ghencea.Cum Bobadila, portarul Paraguayului la recent incheiata Copa America este dorit in continuare la Boca Juniors, oficialii stelisti si-au indreptat atentia si ofertele catre columbianul Robinson Zapata, un goalkeeper de 30 de ani. Acesta se pare ca si-a dat deja acordul de a evolua pentru ros-albastri si a fost contactat de managerul sportiv. "Am vorbit cu Zapata si ne-a spus ca vrea sa ajunga in Ghencea. Am inaintat o oferta clubului sau (n.r. - Deportivo Cucuta) si asteptam un raspuns acum. Nu pot zice despre ce suma e vorba, dar pot spune ca acum discutam cu oficialii columbieni", a declarat Adrian Ilie. De asemenea, se fac din ce in ce mai multe eforturi pentru aducerea francezului Fabien Camus, de la Charleroi, un fotbalist dorit inca de pe vremea in care manager general in Ghencea era Mihai Stoica. Cum Hagi cauta un mijlocas versatil, capabil sa joace pe ambele laturi ale terenului, precum in in centrul acestuia, Camus pare alegerea perfecta, el fiind capabil sa acopere toate zonele de la mijlocul terenului. Pretul acestuia este unul destul de mare, el fiind si dorit si de FC Bruxelles, numai mirajul Ligii Campionilor si salariul oferit de Gigi Becali atragindu-l pe Camus in Ghencea. "Ne intereseaza Fabien Camus, o sa incercam sa-l aducem si pe el, dar deocamdata n-am facut nici o oferta pentru el", a mai spus Adrian Ilie.
VOR AMICALE PUTERNICEDupa ce au intilnit mai degraba echipe modeste in stagiile de pregatire de la Kaprun, Austria, si Mierlo, Olanda, Steaua cauta formatii puternice pentru a-si verifica fortele. Gica Hagi s-a aratat hotarit sa schimbe putin programul echipei, in cele douasprezece zile ramase pina la startul campionatului, el declarind ca ar fi bine sa se mai faca un stagiu de pregatire montan, apoi sa se perfecteze un amical cu o echipa mare. "Sper sa jucam cu o formatie gen Manchester United, pentru ca e cu totul altceva sa joci impotriva unor fotbalisti buni, in fata a mii de spectatori, decit sa joci cu formatii modeste, la partide asistind cateva zeci de fani", a spus Hagi.
Sursa[Ziarul]

Saptamana de foc

2007-07-17T10:50:00.000+03:00

In urmatoarele cinci zile temperaturile vor atinge 40 de grade Celsius.

Medicii din zona de vest a Romaniei sunt in alerta! Timisul, Aradul si judetul Caras-Severin au primit cod portocaliu, asta inseamna ca la finele saptamanii se vor putea atinge si 40 de grade Celsius, la umbra. Pe moment, corturile de prim-ajutor au fost desfiintate, dar medicii vor sta in continuare de garda ca sa ii ajute pe timisorenii lesinati de cald. „Administratia locala, Primaria si Prefectura, impreuna cu Autoritatea de Sanatate Publica au gasit cateva locatii inchise pentru a amplasa aceste puncte de prim-ajutor“, a declarat Dana Spac, purtator de cuvant al Autoritatii de Sanatate Publica Timis. Opera Romana, spital de campanie Astfel, timisorenii afectati de canicula vor putea intra in cladirea Operei din centrul Timisoarei, unde medicii vor sta opt ore pe zi, si vor acorda asistenta medicala si apa rece. „S-a luat aceasta decizie la nivel national, ca aceste puncte de prim-ajutor sa nu fie amplasate in strada, probabil ca sa intre oamenii undeva la racoare, dar si medicii sa nu stea opt ore in caldura”, a declarat Dana Spac. Alte doua locatii de amplasare a punctelor de prim-ajutor vor fi Gara de Nord si Gara de Est, unde sefii de aici pun la dispozitia medicilor, spatii inchise. In plus, daca sunt necesare mai multe puncte, numarul acestora va fi suplimentat si se vor amplasa medici si in cele cinci piete din Timisoara, in Iosefin, Cartan, Piata 700, Giroc si Calea Sagului, dar si la Generala 22. Daca este necesar, numarul acestor puncte va fi suplimentat. Mai multi pe ambulante Echipajele de pe ambulanta vor fi suplimentate pentru ca in masinile de interventie, temperaturile ating si 60 de grade Celsius. „Suplimentarile nu le facem atat pentru populatie, ci pentru echipaje, in masini sunt 60 de grade Celsius, si daca sunt mai multe masini, nu ajung atat de des la o interventie, mai au timp sa se racoreasca, sa bea un pahar cu apa“, a declarat seful Serviciului de Ambulanta Timis, Iancu Leonida. Niciuna dintre cele 76 de masini functionale de care dispune serviciul de ambulanta nu are aer conditionat. In paralel, angajatorii sunt obligati sa le asigure angajatilor minim doi litri de apa pe zi, iar cei care lucreaza in spatii deschise se vor opri la orele amiezii. Pericol Arde campul! In ultimele saptamani, pompierii au fost nevoiti sa intervina zilnic pentru a stinge cateva incendii de miriste. Ei sting greu focul pentru ca, din cauza secetei, totul este foarte uscat, iar focul se intinde cu repeziciune. Cele mai mari pericole sunt tigarile aprinse si focul lasat nesupravegheat, dar si focul pus intentionat pentru a curata terenul, dupa recoltare. Atentie Masuri de precautie > Nu circulati intre orele 11 si 17, cand temperaturile sunt foarte ridicate; > Evitati sa stati la plaja intre aceste ore; > Daca sunteti nevoiti sa mergeti pe strada, purtati haine deschise la culoare, din materiale usoare, palarii cu boruri largi si ochelari de protectie; > Beti minim doi litri de apa pe zi pentru a preveni deshidratarea si insolatia. Ce ne asteapta? Marti 17 iulie: 36 grade Miercuri 18 iulie: 38 grade Joi 19 iulie: 39-40 grade Vineri 20 iulie: 39-40 grade [Sursa INMH]

Medicamente mai ieftine

2007-07-16T11:05:00.000+03:00

Preţurile medicamentelor se vor reduce cu până la 15% din noiembrie. Aşa promite ministrul sănătăţii. Eugen Nicolăescu susţine că ieftinirea va fi posibilă datorită modificării sistemului de calcul al preţurilor, care va intra în vigoare la 1 septembrie. Astfel, adaosurile de distribuţie, care sunt în prezent de 16 pînă la 24 de procente, ar trebui să ajungă la 13%.
Farmaciştii spun însă că reducerea adaosurilor comerciale ar duce la închiderea multor farmacii, în condiţiile în acre chiriile pentru spaţii sunt mari. De cealaltă parte, distribuitorii sunt de părere că măsura ar afecta calitatea medicamentelor distribuite bolnavilor. Ministrul Eugen Nicolăescu vrea să îi invite la discuţii, la sfârşitul lunii, atât pe distribuitori, cât şi şi pe farmacişti.

Fãrã brichete, umbrele sau medicamente la concertul Rolling Stones

2007-07-16T11:02:00.000+03:00

Fãrã brichete, umbrele sau medicamente la concertul de mâine al trupei Rolling Stones. Organizatorii avertizeazã cã accesul pe stadionul "Lia Manoliu" va fi strict supravegheat de fortele de ordine, orice obiect contondent care ar putea fi aruncat pe scena fiind interzis.

Rockerii de la Rolling Stones au ajuns asearã la Bucuresti, dupã ce au sustinut un concert grandios la Belgrad. La evenimentul din capitala românã sunt asteptati peste 60.000 de fani.

Avionul cu care au ajuns în România membrii formatiei Rolling Stones a aterizat asearã pe Aeroporul "Henri Coandã", rockerii fiind cazati la un hotel luxos, unde cei 4 artisti, împreunã cu staff-ul tehnic, au ocupat nu mai putin de douã etaje. Timp de peste o orã, mai multe persoane au descãrcat aproximativ o sutã de bagaje dintr-un camion. Potrivit sefului american al echipei care asigurã paza trupei, în bagaje se aflã, printre altele, crose de golf, biciclete si role. "Suntem în turneu de trei luni, cãlãtorim în toatã lumea", a explicat acesta motivul pentru care au fost aduse atâtea lucruri.

De altfel, în jurul orei 21.15, basistul Ron Wood nu a mai pierdut timpul si, însoþit de o femeie, a pãrãsit hotelul pentru a vedea cum se distreazã Bucurestiul noaptea. El a luat masa la un restaurant cu specific traditional si s-a arãtat foarte impresionat de mâncarea româneascã, dar si de muzica popularã. Împreunã cu echipa sa, Wood s-a delectat cu mezeluri vânãtoresti, saramurã cu mãmãligã si plãcinte. Totodatã, basistul de la Rolling Stones s-a arãtat interesat sã participe la o nuntã traditionalã de rromi. Mai mult decât atât, la plecare, rockerul Ron Woods nu s-a abtinut si a dansat pe ritmurile populare românesti.

Concertul de mâine de pe stadionul "Lia Manoliu", face parte din turneul "A Bigger Bang", care a demarat în 2005. În deschidere vor cânta Iris si britanicii de la The Charlatans. Atât organizatorii, cât si fanii români care au mai vãzut formatia concertând si prin alte tãri spun cã spun cã publicul de la Bucuresti va avea parte mâine searã, de un show grandios din punct de vedere tehnic. De altfel, Rolling Stones utilizeazã pentru acest turneu cea mai mare scenã folositã vreodatã la un concert. Scena are o deschidere de 62,5 metri, o adâncime de 17,6 metri si o înãltime de 21 de metri. Arena, care cântãreste 200 de tone, necesitã trei macarale de 80 de tone pentru a putea fi montatã.

Accesul publicului va fi permis mâine de la ora 16, trupa Iris urmând sã cânte de la ora 18. Organizatorii avertizeazã cã sunt interzise brichetele, umbrelele, curelele metalice, artificii, obiecte contondente, petarde sau si bauturile de orice fel (chiar daca este vorba si de apa). De asemenea NU este permisã introducerea medicamentelor de orice fel in stadion, astfel cã orice medicament va fi confiscat la intrare. In aceste conditii, persoanele cu afectiuni sau antecedente medicale trebuie sa se inregistreze la punctul de prim ajutor al stadionului.

Posibil divort in familia Columbeanu

2007-07-15T02:20:00.000+03:00

Presa mondena de ieri sustine ca familia Columbeanu se poate destrama de la o zi la alta. Celebrul cuplu format din Irinel si Monica ar putea ajunge la tribunal pentru divort. Conform informatiilor din presa, de la nasterea micutei Irina lucrurile au inceput sa se schimbe in rau. Cei doi soti se cearta tot mai des, au accese de furie si se contrazic in mai orice. Iesirile in cluburi s-au rarit bine de tot, iar atunci cind se petrec, Irinel si Monica sunt vazuti separat, nu mai merg impreuna. Sotii Columbeanu se afla acum pe Litoral, dar cind ies pe plaja Irinel e mai mult singur, in timp ce Monica sta cu fetita. Contactat de reporteri, Irinel Columbeanu a refuzat sa dea orice fel de declaratie referitoare la relatia sa cu sotia. Cei doi au uimit o tara intreaga atunci cind au hotarat sa se casatoreasca. Monica era un fotomodel de succes, in timp ce milionarul era cunoscut drept un playboy autohton, care a avut mai multe legaturi amoroase cu manechine de succes. Printre iubirile lui Irinel se numara creatoarea de moda Romanita Iovan si cantareata Ana Lesko. Atat nunta, cat si nasterea copilului familiei au fost transmise la tv, intr-o emisiune de tip reality-show. Divortul dintre Irinel si Monica ar fi a doua mare despartire a anului, dupa cea dintre Maria Marinescu si Ion Ion Tiriac.

Captura de cocaina de 4,5 milioane $

2007-07-14T00:20:00.000+03:00

Captură uluitoare de droguri! 45 de kilograme de cocaină sub formă de... umeraşe pentru haine au fost descoperite de poliţiştii români pe aeroportul Otopeni! Marfa în valoare de 4, 5 milioane de euro era trimisă din Venezuela alături de costume bărbăteşti şi urma să ajungă în România la un dealer italian. Greutatea mare a coletelor şi ţara de provenienţă a creat suspiciuni, iar poliţiştii de frontieră au cerut verificarea minuţioasă a pachetelor. Italianul a ajuns ieri la tribunalul Bucureşti cu propunerea de arestare preventivă pentru trafic de droguri de mare risc. Coletele au sosit pe aeroportul internţional, Henri Coandă la începutul acestei luni. Documentele oficiale arată că acestea conţineau cutii cu costume bărbăteşti. Având în vedere ţara de provenienţă şi greutatea exagerată a pachetelor, poliţia de frontieră şi-a dat imediat seama că la mijloc e ceva suspect. Destinatarul era o femeie, care a mărturisit că marfa îi aparţine de fapt surorii ei, căsătorite cu un italian. Autorităţile au decis să verifice conţinutul coletelor. Umeraşele au fost analizate în laborator, unde s-a constatat că sunt fabricate din cocaină. Poliţiştii au înlocuit umeraşele drog cu unele reale, au organizat o livrare supravegheată şi aşa au pus mîna pe destinatarul stupefiantelor. Ei aveau informaţii că italianul – pe nume Gilio Luciano – urma să ridice marfa de la aeroport pe 12 iulie. Bărbatul a venit la Otopeni cu un taxi, a luat marfa, iar la întoarcere a oprit la o benzinărie unde a verificat conţinutul coletelor. Şocat şi foarte agitat, el a revenit la aeroport, unde a reclamat că pachetele nu sunt cele pe care le aştepta. Pentru că nimeni nu a reuşit să îi rezolve problema, italianul a rătăcit ore în şir pe străzi. Seara târziu a ajuns acasă, în cartierul Bucureştii noi, unde a fost reţinut de poliţişti. Anchetatorii au percheziţionat ieri 5 locaţii din capitală, unde au descoperit mai multe documente de transport şi plată a mărfii. Italianul a fost prezentat Tribunalului Bucuresti cu propunere de arestare preventiva pentru trafic transfrontalier de droguri de mare risc.

Vaduva neagra a muscat pe Litoral

2007-07-13T15:03:00.000+03:00

Temerile autoritatilor s-au adeverit. Vaduva Neagra a atacat din nou pe litoral. Un barbat de 32 de ani din Navodari a ajuns azi noapte in stare grava la spital, dupa ce a fost muscat de un paianjen negru. Imediat dupa intepatura, i s-a facut rau si era sa se prabuseasca pentru ca si-a mai simtit picioarele. Saptamana trecuta, o echipa de biologi a descoperit pe plaja 200 de exemplare din temutul paianjen si a alertat autoritatile. Degeaba insa, planurile au ramas doar pe hartie.

Unguri prinsi cu droguri in Romania

2007-07-13T11:07:00.000+03:00

Captura de droguri la granita cu Ungaria! Trei cetateni maghiari au fost prinsi cu substante de mare risc asupra lor, imediat dupa ce au intrat in Romania. Politistii i-au suspectat de cum au trecut de vama Borş si i-au urmarit pana cand au oprit la prima benzinarie. Ofiterii sub acoperire i-au luat ca din oala pe cei trei. Politistii le-au cerut sa-şi goleasca buzunarele si borsetele şi au descoperit asupra lor peste 100 de pliculete cu amfetamina, 15 mostre de haşiş, un pliculet cu cocaina, 18 pastile de extasy si 8 grame de cannabis. Drogurile introduse in tara de cei trei maghiari urmau să fie vindute unor oameni de legatura si apoi plasate pe piata neagra din Oradea. Valoarea marfii depaseste 3000 de euro. Dacă vor fi gasititi vinovati, cei trei risca pedepse de pina la 15 ani de inchisoare.

Sisu este liber

2007-07-13T11:02:00.001+03:00

Tudor Sişu - unul din membrii fostei trupe "La Familia” a fost eliberat azi. Magistraţii Tribunalului Bucureşti au înlocuit măsura de arestare preventivă cu interdicţia de a părăsi ţara, în cazul lui şi a altor şase inculpaţi acuzaţi de trafic de droguri. Decizia poate fi atacată de Parchet cu recurs la Curtea de Apel Bucureşti. Judecatorii au stabilit următorul termen in acest caz după terminarea vacanţei judecătoreşti – pe 6 septembrie.

Fructele si legumele din piete arata din ce in ce mai bine, dar sunt otravitoare

2007-07-13T09:24:00.000+03:00

Rosia romaneasca si-a pierdut definitiv gustul si calitatea. La fel ca si cele din import, multe dintre legumele romanesti au devenit apoase, atoase si inodore.
Culturile autohtone sunt stropite dupa ureche, cu chimicale otravitoare care pot duce la alergii extreme, ciroza si chiar cancer. Semintele folosite sunt vechi, furate din fabricile de bulion sau altoite cu seminte europene, "de plastica��. Obligatia de a eticheta alimentele modificate genetic ramane, deocamdata, doar pe hartie. Piata scade din lipsa calitatii, iar consumatorii, pacaliti de formele frumoase ale produselor, se expun la atacul chimicalelor.Avantajul calitatii pe care il aveau culturile romanesti peste cele de import nu mai exista. Federatia Nationala de Agricultura Ecologica spune ca 90% din fructele si legumele de pe piata nu sunt crescute suta la suta natural. In sustinerea acestei teze vin din ce in ce mai multe cazuri medicale de toxiinfectii si alergii provocate de legume. Medicii spun ca microtoxinele din produsele chimice pot duce pana la cazuri de ciroza. Iar pentru ca autoritatile nu controleaza culturile, producatorii folosesc seminte modificate genetic si slabe calitativ, uda culturile dupa ureche cu doze mari de chimicale, iar vanzatorii stropesc produsele cu apa amestecata cu azotati otravitori. Nici macar obligatia de a informa cumparatorii despre modificarile genetice ale produselor nu se respecta. Pentru a-si rotunji profitul, crescatorii pompeaza chimicale fara sa se sinchiseasca de sanatatea milioanelor de oameni care le consuma productia. Abuz de ingrasaminte"Legumele tratate chimic devin cancerigene, daca se depasesc dozajele. In cazul ingrasamintelor azotoase, o administrare abuziva poate face ca planta sa acumuleze cantitati mari de azotati, care se transforma in azotiti si apoi in nitrosamine, care sunt substante cancerigenea��, explica Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, director general al Institutului de Cercetare Alimentara. Primele efecte ale organismelor modificate genetic (OMG) asupra sanatatii sunt insa crize de alergie care pot fi foarte puternice. "Reactiile se manifesta atat la nivel respirator, cat si cutanat, iar procentul socurilor anafilactice a crescut de cinci ori in ultimii 15 ania��, spune prof. dr. Georgeta Sinitchi, medic alergolog.Romanii nu pot alege ce manancaPentru a cultiva plante modificate genetic in Romania normele legale cer consultarea publicului cu privire la aprobarea cultivarii si etichetarea alimentelor obtinute din modificari genetice, precum si a celor care contin arome sau aditivi modificati genetic. Un sondaj realizat de Asociatia pentru Protectia Consumatorilor arata ca 78% din romani nu ar da bani pe alimente modificate genetic, 98% cred ca aceste produse trebuie etichetate, iar jumatate din respondenti cred ca alimentele modificate pot afecta sanatatea. Totusi autoritatile, producatorii si importatorii nu se grabesc sa se conformeze. Soia modificata in toata tara"Se pare ca, in 2006, aproape 100% din cultura de soia din Romania a fost modificata genetic, din cauza contaminarii culturilor nemodificate de la cele modificate. Oficial, doar 75% din cultura de soia este modificataa��, spune Anamaria Bogdan, coordonator de proiecte Greenpeace pentru Romania. Asta inseamna peste 300.000 de tone de soia modificata, care nu se stie exact unde a ajuns. Cel mai probabil ea este ingredient in maionezele, mezelurile pe baza de soia si pateurile vegetale de pe rafturile alimentarelor. Dupa estimarile fermierilor, culturile de soia sunt pe primul loc la productia romaneasca de OMG.Semintele romanesti sunt expirateSemintele autohtone folosite de producatori nu mai au proprietatile necesare pentru a produce legume si fructe de calitate. Calitatea lor trebuie verificata si improspatata anual. Pamantul se usuca si el din cauza schimbarilor climei, iar rotatia culturilor sau cultivarea plantelor "formatoarea�� de pamant, cum este lucerna, nu se mai practica. Folosirea semintelor de import duce la aparitia hibrizilor, care arata bine dar nu respecta normele de calitate. "Toate acestea, plus lipsa reglementarilor concrete, fac ca productia de legume sa se faca la nimereala, in detrimentul consumatorului. Degeaba exista doze recomandate de chimicale, daca nu sunt cunoscute, asa cum nu se cunosc inca toate efectele acestori exageraria��, explica prof. univ. Dr. Mihai Berca, presedinte al Corpului Agronomic din Romania. "Am cumparat, de la magazinul din sat, seminte de rosii tratate. Apoi am constatat cu surpindere ca jumatate din rasadurile din februarie s-a uscat, iar rosiile din august erau coapte doar pe jumatatea��, ne-a declarat Eftene Ion, din comuna Hotarele, judetul Giurgiu. Cu cativa ani in urma, avantajul culturilor romanesti era calitatea. Rosiile autohtone aveau succes si peste granite, chiar daca nu aratau perfect. Se vindeau imediat pentru ca aveau parfum si gust de rosii. Acum piata romaneasca si-a pierdut credibilitatea si chiar scade in vanzari fiindca alti producatori au experienta mai mare in cultivarea legumelor "de plastica��. Agronomii avertizeaza ca un produs natural nu arata perfect. Chimicalele folosite pentru cresterea fortata a legumelor dau un aspect frumos, dar distrug calitatea. Iar toxinele nu dispar la spalare. O parte din ele pot fi eliminate daca legumele sunt lasate in apa cu putin otet, macar jumatate de ora. Iar pentru cei care mai stiu ce gust ar trebui sa aiba legumele, lipsa lui este al doilea semn al existentei chimicalelor. "Printr-un consum constant de microtoxine, cum exista in legumele chimice, este foarte usor sa apara semnele unei ciroze. Asa ca o alergie la azotati devine ceva banala��, spun medicii, care se intalnesc cu astfel de cazuri din ce in ce mai des.Rosii cu gust de trandafiri sau lamaieUltima inventie in materie de alimente modificate genetic vine sub forma unei rosii cu gust de trandafir sau de lamaie. 82 de voluntari au testat noua leguma inventata de un grup de cercetatori israelieni. Cei mai multi au reusit sa le deosebeasca de rosiile normale dupa parfum si dupa culoare. Noile rosii au o culoare mai degraba roz, deoarece contin de doua ori mai putin licopen, un antioxidant care confera culoarea rosiilor si care este benefic pentru sanatate. Pe de alta parte, noile rosii au o cantitate mai mare de trepenoizi, compusi organici care cresc rezistenta legumei. Cercetatorii spun ca noua rosie nu prezinta riscuri pentru sanatate.

Atentie la carnea cancerigena

2007-07-13T09:19:00.000+03:00

UE a interzis aditivii alimentari periculosi, printre care un colorant rosu pentru hamburgeri si salam chorizo - E128 - considerat cancerigen.Dupa 30 de ani de la ultima evaluare si zeci de semnale de alarma, aditivii alimentari sunt din nou verificati.

Autoritatea Europeana pentru Siguranta Alimentelor (EFSA) a facut zilele acestea o prima propunere de interzicere a colorantilor si a pus pe lista substante noi.

In plus, Parlamentul European a hotarat saptamana aceasta ca aditivii sa nu mai fie folositi in produsele neprocesate. Mai mult, niciun aliment destinat nou-nascutilor sau copiilor nu va mai contine indulcitori sau coloranti artificiali. Totodata, aditivii vor putea fi folositi numai daca sunt siguri pentru sanatate ori daca exista o necesitate tehnologica pentru utilizarea lor si nu induc in eroare consumatorii privind caracteristicile produsului alimentar.

E128 agraveaza astmul

E128, denumit si "Rosu 2G", va fi primul colorant interzis oficial pe piata europeana. Colorantul se gaseste in produsele de patiserie, in carnea de carnati, burgeri si in carnea tocata cu adaos vegetal. Expertii au ajuns la concluzia ca E128 este cancerigen, intensifica simptomele astmului si genereaza tulburari metabolice persoanelor care nu tolereaza aspirina.

Rezultatele studiului arata ca E128 se transforma in organism intr-un compus uleios, incolor, denumit anilina. In urma testelor pe cobai, s-a demonstrat ca anilina are proprietati cancerigene. Riscul producerii cancerului exista si la oameni, metabolizarea anilinei fiind similara la cobai si la om, a spus un purtator de cuvant al EFSA, citat de publicatia "The Telegraph".

Mai mult, conducatorii studiului nu au putut stabili pana la ce doza aditivul este sigur pentru om. In combinatie cu benzoati, colorantul este implicat in aparitia hiperactivitatii la copii. In plus, Rosu 2G poate duce la anemii si poate provoca mutatii.

Aditivii cancerigeni ataca ADN-ul

E128 nu este singurul colorant care pune probleme. "Toti colorantii azoici, din familia carora face parte si E128, sunt cancerigeni", mentioneaza profesorul Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, directorul Institutului de Cercetari Alimentare Bucuresti.

Acesta subliniaza ca sunt inca permisi pentru ca se considera inofensivi in cantitati mici. "Nu sunt scosi din alimentatie pentru ca nu exista studii mari care sa confirme aceasta teorie", adauga Eduard Adamescu, medic specialist diabet zaharat, nutritie si boli metabolice.

Un studiu al Food Standard Agency, din Marea Britanie, a aratat ca mai multi coloranti alimentari pot provoca tulburari de comportament la copii, precum hiperactivitatea, lipsa de concentrare, stari de furie si alergii. Specialistii mai spun ca substantele potential cancerigene produc modificari in ADN.

"Aceste substante modifica genele noastre in faza de inceput a unui cancer. In functie de ce mancam, cancerul poate sa apara sau poate fi inhibat, daca ducem un stil de viata sanatos", mai explica directorul Institutului de Cercetari Alimentare.

VERIFICARI

E128, urmarit general in Romania

Industria mezelurilor din Romania nu a utilizat colorantul alimentar rosu E128, ne-a declarat, ieri, presedintele Asociatiei Romane a Carnii (ARC), Sorin Minea.

Potrivit acestuia, colorantul este traditional utilizat in industrie pentru doua tipuri de produse - carnati breakfast si hambugeri breakfast, mezeluri care nu sunt produse sau importate pe piata romaneasca.

"Din informatiile pe care le avem, colorantul rosu este folosit pentru a colora cerealele continute in aceste doua produse, si nu carnea", a spus Minea. In cazuri mai rare, aditivul este folosit si pentru un anumit tip de salam chorizo, care nu exista pe piata autohtona.

Sorin Minea a subliniat ca a recomandat tuturor membrilor ARC sa nu utilizeze colorantul E128, chiar daca, in urma anuntului facut de sanitar-veterinarii europeni, pretul lui ar putea sa scada.

"De regula, cand apar astfel de informatii despre un produs, fabricantii incearca sa il arunce pe alte piete la preturi scazute. Noi am recomandat deja tuturor membrilor ARC sa nu astepte decizia Comisiei Europene referitoare la toxicitatea acestui colorant, ci pur si simplu sa refuze folosirea lui indiferent de pret", a explicat Minea.

Consumul zilnic de mezeluri depaseste 300 de tone in Romania, iar consumul de carne si preparate din carne se ridica la 500-600 de tone pe zi. Mezelarii vand anual produse in valoare de aproximativ 700 de milioane de euro, potrivit reprezentantilor ARC.

E128 e prezent si la noi, in burgeri si carnaciori, spun medicii

Pe de alta parte, specialistii in sanatate publica sustin ca acest aditiv este prezent in tara noastra. "Colorantul E 128 se foloseste si la noi in tara, dar numai in carnea de tip burger, adica in carnaciori", explica medicul Bogdan Stolica, de la Institutul de Sanatate Publica din Bucuresti.

Gheorghe Mencinicopschi spune ca proportia cea mai mare a aditivului E128 se gaseste in produsele aduse din strainatate. "Multe persoane aleg un "jambon cocido" sau o sunca pe care scrie "prosciutto", doar pentru ca suna bine, dar nu se gandesc ca sunt pline de E-uri", subliniaza Gheorghe Mencinicopschi.

In Romania, aditivii alimentari sunt autorizati de Institutul de Sanatate Publica, iar dozele si felul in care sunt trecuti acestia pe etichete intra in sarcina Autoritatii Nationale Sanitar-Veterinare si pentru Siguranta Alimentelor. (Adelina Vlad)

NU E E- UL!

Etichete mincinoase pe produsele din magazine

Cat timp cele doua institutii arunca pisica moarta de la una la alta, producatorul face ce doreste. Astfel, in majoritatea supermarketurilor din Bucuresti, pe eticheta produselor nu sunt trecute E-urile sau sunt scrise ilizibil. Exista si situatia in care eticheta cu ingredientele este acoperita de o alta, pe care de obicei scrie numele supermarketului.

In Kaufland, carnea tocata figureaza doar cu ingredientele: "carne porc, sare, orez, piper si verdeata", in conditiile in care aspectul foarte rosu pe care il prezinta nu poate fi obtinut decat cu ajutorul E-urilor. Carnea tocata de vitel Aldis prezinta doar inscriptia "Governement inspected", eticheta lipsind cu desavarsire, iar pipotele de Avicola Calarasi figureaza doar cu "produs realizat intr-un sistem de management al calitatii".

"Nu exista o astfel de atestare, toate aceste "scapari" au ca scop inducerea in eroare a consumatorului", spune profesor doctor Gheorghe Mencinicopschi. Sunca, salamurile, crenvurstii si toata carnea vidata prezinta E-urile in denumire stiintifica - polifosfati, stabilizatori - fara a preciza ca este E si care e numarul lui.

In Carrefour, tartele si prajiturile nu prezinta niciun E pe eticheta, figurand ca naturale, cu urmatoarea compozitie: "lapte, faina, zahar, oua, margarina, jeleu". Tocmai ultimul ingredient ascunde de fapt colorantii care s-au utilizat pentru a obtine culorile puternice de rosu, galben, verde ale prajiturii. (Roxana Lupu)

CE URMEAZA

Viata fara aditivi

Specialistii apreciaza ca, odata cu eliminarea aditivilor din produse, consumatorii trebuie sa se adapteze cu gustul mult mai fin si mai slab al produselor in stare naturala. Chiar daca producatorii ar alege aditivii naturali, produsele nu vor avea aceeasi aroma tare ca a alimentelor de acum. "Aditivii artificiali bulverseaza simturile din cauza aromelor si a culorilor mult prea puternice", sustine profesorul Gheorghe Mencinicopschi.

Maria si Ion Ion Tiriac, divorteaza

2007-07-13T09:17:00.000+03:00

Maria Marinescu si Ion Ion Tiriac si-au spus oficial - 'nu'. Acum insa dupa ce nunta anului s-a transformat in divortul anului, incheierea acestei povesti de dragoste cu debut si final neasteptate se anunta a fi una cu nabadai, in ciuda intentiei celor doi de a se desparti amiabil.

Dupa doar trei luni de casnicie, intre Maria Marinescu si Tiriac jr nu se pune problema injumatatirii averilor, dar au aparut deja primele semne ca acest divort nu va fi unul chiar amiabil. Chiar daca Maria si Ion Ion le spusesera prietenilor ca sunt amandoi de acord cu divortul si ca vor ramane prieteni, Tiriac jr a aflat abia din editia de ieri a ziarului Libertatea ca sotia lui a depus cererea la Judecatoria sectorului 1.

"Deocamdata, tot ce stie a aflat din presa"

Aparatorul lui Tiriac jr, av. Nicolae Mandrila, ne-a declarat ieri ca citatia nu a ajuns la clientul sau, asa ca nu stie care va fi decizia lui. 'Daca cererea a fost depusa, va primi oficial citatia si atunci va decide ce va face. Cu siguranta va face si el ceva in acest sens. Deocamdata, tot ce stie a aflat citind ziarele', ne-a spus avocatul.

Sa tradeze lipsa de comunicare dintre Maria si Ion Ion un soi de tensiune legata de motivele reale ale divortului sau e aceeasi comunicare deficitara invocata in cererea de divort? Poate ca intr-o zi ne vor spune chiar ei.

O nunta facuta in pripa

Maria si Ion Ion s-au casatorit pe 6 aprilie anul acesta, la scurt timp dupa ce relatia lor a fost facuta publica. Au mers doar la starea civila din cadrul Primariei sectorului 1, fara sa faca si o cununie religioasa si o nunta propriu-zisa, cu petrecere si tot tacamul. Nasi le-au fost Amalia si Ilie Nastase.

Extras din cererea de divort

Prin hotararea ce o veti pronunta, sa constatati ca relatiile de familie sunt grav si iremediabil vatamate si, pe cale de consecinta, sa dispuneti desfacerea casatoriei noastre si revenirea subsemnatei la numele avut inaintea casatoriei.

Al-Qaida ameninta Marea Britanie

2007-07-13T08:33:00.000+03:00

Ayman al-Zawahiri, adjunctul lui Osama bin Laden, l-a avertizat direct pe Gordon Brown ca se afla in fata unor noi catastrofe

Numarul doi al Al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a amenintat Marea Britanie cu noi atacuri teroriste, intr-un discurs de 20 de minute postat pe un website folosit de gruparile teroriste. Avertismentul vine intr-un moment in care nervii britanicilor sunt incordati in urma atentatelor esuate de la Londra si Glasgow, de acum doua saptamani.

"Ii transmit succesorului lui Blair ca politica predecesorului sau a atras catastrofe in Afganistan, Irak si in centrul Londrei. Daca nu ati invatat lectia, suntem gata sa o repetam, cu voia Domnului, pana suntem siguri ca ati inteles", spune Al-Zawahiri. Mesajul, intitulat "Malitioasa Britanie si sclavii sai indieni", avertizeaza ca "furia musulmanilor privind acordarea de catre Marea Britanie a titlului de cavaler scriitorului indian Salman Rushdie" va exploda in violente. Rushdie a publicat in 1988 cartea "Versetele Satanice", interpretata de o parte a lumii arabe drept o blasfemie la adresa islamului. El a fost condamnat la moarte, in 1989, de fostul lider suprem al Iranului, Aiatolahul Ruhallah Khomeini.

„Pregatim un raspuns special"

Autorul a primit luna trecuta, din partea Marii Britanii, titlul de cavaler, devenind "Sir Salman", cu ocazia aniversarii zilei de nastere a reginei Elisabeta a II-a. In mesajul sau, Al-Zawahiri spune ca Marea Britanie este "ipocrita". "Ii transmit Elisabetei si fostului premier Blair ca mesajul vostru a ajuns la noi si ca pregatim un raspuns special", mai spune Al-Zawahiri in inregistrarea audio. Serviciile de securitate care monitorizeaza internetul au spus ca inregistrarea a fost facuta de As-Sahab, ramura multimedia a Al-Qaida.

Despre Al-Zawahiri, fost chirurg egiptean, considerat "arhitectul" ideologiei Al-Qaida, se crede ca s-ar ascunde in munti, la granita dintre Pakistan si Afganistan.

Downing Street respinge amenintarile

Un purtator de cuvant al Downing Street a replicat ca teroristii nu vor "submina modul de viata britanic".

Ministerul britanic de Externe a aratat ca distinctia acordata lui Rushdie reflecta contributia sa la literatura si ca nu este o insulta la adresa islamului.

Premierul Gordon Brown a declarat pentru BBC ca Marea Britanie ar fi tinta amenintarilor Al-Qaida indiferent de rolul sau in Afganistan si Irak. "Nu este posibil sa fii ferit de amenintarile unui grup extremist global, cu o atitudine vicioasa si dogmatica", a spus Brown.

El a aratat ca lupta cu extremistii trebuie dusa nu numai pe plan militar, dar si la nivel cultural si ideologic.

Vaslui-Zaglebie: 5-0!

2007-07-13T08:30:00.000+03:00

Moldovenii s-au distrat cu viitoarea adversara a formatiei Steaua, in turul doi preliminar al Ligii Campionilor, marcand prin Temwanjera (15 si 29), Ljubinkovici (23), Gheorghiu (30) si Bukvici (71). Campioana Poloniei a avut in echipa de start doar sase titulari.

La finalul partidei, Dorinel Munteanu, antrenorul vasluienilor, i-a dat curaj omologului sau de pe banca Stelei, Gheorghe Hagi: „Cu un joc in viteza si cu multe pase, stelistii se vor impune fara probleme. Polonezii sunt agresivi doar cand se apara, in rest sunt prudenti. Steaua are inteligenta de a obtine calificarea fara prea mari probleme”.

Antrenorul Ionut Popa a luat la injuraturi ziaristii

2007-07-13T08:27:00.000+03:00

O alta stire interesanta,care are legatura,de aceasta data,cu Ionut Popa.
„Voi ce cautati, ma, aici? Plecati in p... mea de-aici! N-aveti voi ce cauta aici! Afara! Dupa ce ca va las sa va uitati la meci, acum veniti si peste mine? Iesiti in p... mea afara!”, a racnit… „Profesorul” (tehnicianul Ionut Popa) catre cativa jurnalisti sportivi, martori, miercuri dupa-amiaza, la amicalul Poli Iasi – Dunarea Galati (3-1).

In timp ce injura, Ionut Popa a sutat intr-o minge in directia gazetarilor. Ca la alte partide amicale, ziaristilor li s-a permis sa sada intre cele doua banci tehnice de pe terenul de antrenament din Complexul Sportiv „Emil Alexandrescu”, teren fara tribune.

Efectele negative ale cosmeticelor

2007-07-13T08:24:00.000+03:00

Indiferent de impulsul de moment, incearca sa nu te lasi pacalita de o eticheta frumoasa, pe care scrie cu litere ingrosate "100% natural" asa cum nu trebuie nici sa te lasi manipulata de reclame "stralucitoare" din care, dupa o scurta analiza, nu ar reiesi decat ca toate produsele fac minuni. In plus, aminteste-ti ca un produs "perfect" pentru tenul prietenei tale poate fi un real dezastru pentru tine.

PRODUSE PE BAZA DE APA

Producatorii de cosmetice au inceput sa promoveze din ce in ce mai mult produsele bazate pe apa si diferiti emolienti care iti fac pielea "de bebelus". Ei bine, chiar daca efectele pe termen scurt par a fi ideale, in timp rezultatele sunt asemanatoare cu cele aparute dupa o baie lunga si fierbinte: pielea se inmoaie excesiv, se umfla si capata chiar un aspect "zbarcit", deloc natural.

CREME ANTI-IMBATRANIRE

Nici cremele "anti-imbatranire" nu sunt chiar o "minune" a industriei cosmetice, pentru ca niste riduri deja formate sunt aproape imposibil de eliminat prin proceduri atat de simple. De fapt, actiunea cosmeticelor este aceea de a elimina celulele moarte de la suprafata, astupand usor micile "adancituri" din piele. Senzatia temporara de ameliorare va crea automat un soi de dependenta, iar atunci cand se face abuz, tenul poate reactiona exact asa cum nu ne-am fi asteptat niciodata: apar eczeme sau iritatii minore, care avertizeaza ca "pelicula" permanenta de pe fata nu-i mai ofera pielii sansa de a mai respira, de a se apara de factorii externi in mod natural.

PEELING

In plus, vis-a-vis de procedeele de exfoliere a pielii, nici intrebuintarea acestora in mod frecvent nu pare a fi o idee prea buna pentru ca, eliminand stratul de celule moarte, se elimina implicit si o "bariera" naturala care ar avea un rol important in protectia impotriva elementelor nocive din mediu sau a razelor de soare care interactioneaza astfel direct, fara a mai trece prin vreun filtru.

SAMPOANE

In ceea ce priveste ingrijirea parului, situatia nu e nici ea foarte "roz". Aproape toate produsele de styling si curatare contin elemente de curatare de origine chimica, ce lasa un aspect lucios, sanatos, dar in acelasi timp deshidrateaza, slabesc rezistenta firelor de par si le grabesc degradarea. De fapt, cantitatea de agenti de curatare folosita este si ceea ce face diferenta dintre sampoanele pentru diferite tipuri de par. Respectivele componente se depun pe firul de par si pe scalp, impiedicand aparitia uleiurilor naturale. Acestea din urma, chiar daca nu lasa tocmai o imagine de invidiat asupra parului, contribuie la mentinerea vitalitatii acestuia. Deci, ce preferi: un par sanatos sau unul aratos? Desi tentatia inclina balanta catre a doua varianta, gandeste-te bine inainte sa iei o decizie.

FARA PARFUM

Nici macar cosmeticele care se lauda cu proprietatea de a nu contine parfum, in ideea exluderii posibilitatii aparitiei iritatiilor nu sunt 100% sigure. Asta pentru ca, in ciuda inexistentei unei miresme sesizabile, ele contin substante menite sa "ascunda" mirosul specific celorlalte ingrediente. De cele mai multe ori asta inseamna deci un efect cel putin la fel de ingrijorator ca si in primul caz, doar ca ceva mai... "subtil".

INGRIJIREA OCHILOR

Cand vine vorba despre zona ochilor, situatia trebuie tratata cu si mai multa seriozitate. Orice clipa de neatentie poate insemna o rana, aparent minora pentru ochi. Un creion dermatograf neascutit sau o periuta de la mascara pot atinge cu usurinta corneea si de aici complicatiile sunt nenumarate. De aceea e recomandabil sa evitam folosirea in comun a mascarei sau machiajul facut in graba intr-o oglinda micuta si fara o lumena destul de puternica, sa ne inlocuim periodic cosmeticele daca primele semne ale uzurii au inceput sa apara, sa folosim produse de demachiere speciale pentru fiecare zona sensibila sau sa avem grija sa nu aplicam mascara si la baza genelor, marind in acest fel riscul ajungerii
[sursa-Ziarul]

Doar 1,7 la suta din pensionari platesc impozit pe pensie si contributia de sanatate

2007-07-13T08:22:00.000+03:00

Pensii de peste nouă sute de lei primesc doar 94.413 persoane (1,7%), dintr-un total de 5,58 milioane de pensionari, aceştia fiind singurii care achită impozitul de 16% şi contribuţia la fondul de sănătate de 6,5%, conform datelor furnizate NewsIn de Casa Naţională de Pensii.

Potrivit Codului Fiscal, pensiile cu o valoare de până la 900 lei sunt scutite de la plata impozitului pe venit de 16%. Pensionarii care primesc pensii de peste 900 lei sunt obligaţi la plata impozitului pe venit de 16% şi a contribuţiei la fondul de sănătate de 6,5%.

Impozitul de 16% se aplică după ce din suma totală a venitului brut este scăzută deducerea de 900 de lei şi contribuţia de sănătate.

De exemplu: în cazul unui venit brut din pensii de 1.000 lei, venitul lunar impozabil va fi obţinut după ce se scade deducerea de 900 de lei şi suma de 65 lei (contribuţia la sănătate de 6,5% din 1.000 lei). Suma rezultată de 35 de lei va fi impozitată cu 16%, ceea ce înseamnă că impozitul datorat va fi de 5,6 lei. În final, pensionarul va primi o pensie netă de 929,4 lei.

Potrivit datelor Casei de Pensii, un număr 1.187 de persoane primesc pensii de peste 2.000 lei. Cele mai mari 10 pensii lunare din România sunt cuprinse între 8.583 lei şi 13.609 lei.

Vinovatii de la Navodari

2007-07-13T08:18:00.000+03:00

S-au gasit vinovatii pentru imbolnavirea copiilor de la Tabara din Navodari.Rezultatele analizelor arata ca de vina pentru imbolnavirea celor aproximativ 100 de copii sunt doi angajati ai cantinei, care erau purtatori de salmonela. Autoritatile au inchis cantina si se gandesc ce sa faca cu cei 800 de copii ramasi in tabara. Analizelor arata clar ca de vina pentru imbolnavirea copiilor care erau purtatori de salmonela. Se presupune ca cei doi au folosit toaleta fara a se spala pe miini dupa care au pus mana pe mancare si au infestat-o. 20 de noi cazuri de toxiinfectie alimentara cu salmonela au fost confimate astazi la copiii deja internati. Autoritatile se gandesc la solutii de cazare pentru cei 800 de copii ramasi in tabara, dupa ce aceasta se va inchide. O mie de locuri de cazare au fost gasite in taberele din tara. Tabara nu va fi inchisa definitiv ci numai pana la remediarea deficintelor. Administratorul taberei a fost amendat cu 7.500 de lei, pentru nerespectarea conditiilor igienico-sanitare. Copiii care se mai afla inca in tabara mananca la o alta cantina. Mai mult, 2O de noi cazuri de toxiinfectie cu salmonela au fost confirmate astazi. Pana acum 100 de persoane de la tabara din Navodari s-au imbolnavit.

Traian Basescu doreste invatamant de 13 clase

2007-07-13T08:11:00.000+03:00

Invatamant gratuit de 13 clase si eliminarea Testelor Nationale.Acestea sunt doua din solutiile propuse de comisia prezidentiala privind Educatia, în Raportul privind situatia din invatamantul romanesc.Presedintele Traian Basescu a prezentat concluziile acestei comisii. Raportul comisiei prezidentiale privind educatia prevede o reorganizare a ciclurilor gimnaziale si o noua metoda de admitere la liceu. Potrivit documentului intocmit de comisia prezidentiala privind educatia, probleme majore sunt si in institutiile de invatamant superior. Traian Basescu a criticat Universitatile care scot doctorate pe banda rulanta.