Apple's iWork for iCloud is rolling out in public beta today. The app, announced earlier this month
Source: http://gizmodo.com/apples-iwork-for-icloud-is-rolling-out-in-public-beta-t-837741227
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By Clara Ferreira-Marques and Sarah Young
LONDON (Reuters) - Financier Nat Rothschild, co-founder of troubled Indonesian coal miner Bumi, has sued the company and his one-time partners, taking one of London's messiest corporate battles to court.
Rothschild, who helped set up Bumi almost three years ago, has long opposed the miner's current management, and in a petition heard on Thursday argued Bumi was run in a way that hurt, or "unfairly prejudiced" small investors. A claim of "unfair prejudice" is a key legal remedy under UK law available to smaller investors left unable to block decisions.
Rothschild and his erstwhile Indonesian partners - primarily the influential Bakrie family - have been at odds for over two years, their relationship souring just months after they struck a deal that aimed to bring Indonesian mining promise to London.
Both sides have lost heavily as the partnership fell apart, amid tumbling thermal coal prices, boardroom battles and allegations of misuse of funds and illegal phone hacking.
According to Thursday's petition, Rothschild will not seek financial compensation with the case, but instead asked a court to scrap "relationship agreements" between the company and the Bakries, and to remove outgoing chairman Samin Tan and his executive and Bumi director Alex Ramlie from the board.
Bumi's current board is seeking to turn around the company's fortunes by splitting with the Bakrie family and focusing on majority owned Indonesian subsidiary Berau Coal.
The Bakries have agreed to split with the London firm, in a deal that will see them buy back a 29 percent stake in Indonesian unit Bumi Resources currently held by Bumi. They will sell their interest in the parent company to their partner, major Bumi shareholder and outgoing chairman Tan, lifting his stake to over 47 percent.
A spokesman for Bumi said the court proceedings were "an unnecessary distraction and serve no useful purpose".
"The relationship agreements will come to an end and the board will be restructured as part of the separation transaction," he said.
A spokesman for the Bakries said the family was concentrating on the split and the stake purchase "and we hope Mr Rothschild will support that".
SPLIT PLAN
The split plan was set in motion on Thursday, when Bumi agreed to sell the Bumi Resources stake for $501 million, conditional on the Bakries selling their stake in Bumi Plc. The deal is also conditional on independent shareholder approval.
Rothschild, who holds 14.8 percent of the company, has questioned the plan to sell the Bakrie stake to Tan.
"For the sake of the London market, I hope the regulators step in and ensure the interests of independent shareholders are protected," Rothschild said in a statement before the petition was heard.
Tan's stake rises to 47.6 percent, but he is seeking an exemption to rules which would require a shareholder with more than 30 percent to make a mandatory takeover bid.
Bumi, which has battled investor scepticism over the Bakrie family's ability to raise the necessary cash to buy back Bumi Resources and seal the split, said on Thursday that funding details of the deal were yet to be finalised. But it also sought to put in safeguards.
"More needs to be done before we are able to present a comprehensive package for shareholders to consider," the company's senior independent non-executive director Julian Horn-Smith said. He said this included finalising arrangements covering how the funds will be transferred to close the deal.
A general meeting for independent shareholders to vote on the deal is planned for the autumn, potentially before the next court hearing.
(Reporting by Clara Ferreira-Marques; editing by Keiron Henderson)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/co-founder-rothschild-sues-troubled-miner-bumi-174027824.html
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PHOENIX (AP) ? A new report shows an Arizona wildfire that began with a lightning strike and caused little immediate concern because of its remote location and small size quickly grew into an inferno, leading officials to rapidly order more resources in the hours before the flames killed 19 members of an elite Hotshot crew.
The report from the Arizona State Forestry Division provides precise detail about the response to the fire that began June 28 outside the small town of Yarnell, including the unpredictable weather around the blaze and the exact times in which it escalated and key resources were deployed.
The report doesn't address the question of why the fire crew was still on the mountain above the town more than an hour after the winds shifted about 180 degrees and brought the fire back toward them. It also wasn't immediately clear whether the Hotshots were warned of the erratically changing weather before they were forced to take shelter and were killed.
The report describes how the fire worsened hour by hour ? causing flames up to 20 feet high ? as managers called in inmate and Hotshot firefighting crews and air support.
After the blaze was ignited about 60 miles northwest of Phoenix, an aerial unit assessed it. The unit found the fire to be "less than one acre, in a large boulder field," with little smoke and no structures at immediate risk.
Officials ordered two inmate crews, an engine and a helicopter to report to the scene early Saturday morning, June 29, to "work multiple lightning fires" in the area.
By the next day, the Yarnell Hill Fire was the only one still burning and had grown only slightly, to about 4 acres. Small, single-engine aircraft were used throughout the day as crews worked the ground.
By 5:30 p.m., the fire was only about 6 acres in size.
Air support was ordered but couldn't respond due to thunderstorms and high winds, according to the report. Later, a DC-10 capable of dropping large amounts of fire retardant to prevent the spread of flames was available but not ordered due to concerns about its effectiveness in the steep, boulder-strewn terrain and because darkness was setting in.
By 7:38 p.m., the blaze had grown to about 100 acres but was still "advancing slowly."
On Sunday at about 8 a.m., the 20-member Granite Mountain Hotshots team arrived and headed in to fight the fire, as small aircraft and helicopters worked the blaze from above. Heavy air tankers were ordered just after noon, but only one was able to respond, making multiple retardant drops on the fire.
According to the report, the fire had now increased in size to about 1,000 acres and was burning swiftly through an area that hadn't experienced a significant wildfire in nearly 50 years.
Two large air tankers were sent back to the Yarnell Hill Fire to try to stall its advance.
A few hours later, at 3:26 p.m., officials received word of heavy winds from a thunderstorm moving into the area as the fire grew.
Soon thereafter, the blaze was so out of control that officials asked for half of the available western U.S. heavy air tanker fleet ? six planes. It was about 4 p.m.
Five of the planes weren't deployed because of the limited number of tankers in the nation's aerial firefighting fleet and the dangerous weather conditions at the time. Jim Paxon, a spokesman for the Arizona Division of Forestry, which was managing the fire, said one plane had been headed to the fire from California, but engine problems forced it to turn back.
Paxon noted that even if the planes had been available, winds were so strong they couldn't have been used to save the firefighters' lives.
"We could have had air tankers stacked up from here to the stratosphere and it wouldn't have made a difference," he said Monday. "The fire went through retardant lines like they were non-existent."
Within 45 minutes, at 4:47 p.m., the Hotshot crew radioed that they were trapped and deploying their emergency shelters. Less than two hours later, 19 of them were found dead. Only one crew member who was assigned as the lookout survived.
A national team of investigators is working to understand more about the firefighters' deaths and is expected to finish an initial report in about two months.
Paxon said the behavior of the fire and the enormous "blowup" when the winds shifted was highly unusual.
"It was just an extreme situation," he said.
The fire destroyed more than 100 homes before it was fully contained July 10.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-arizona-wildfire-grew-quickly-erratic-020055060.html
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In what Nigel Godrich is calling a 'small meaningless rebellion,' Atoms for Peace and others exit the streaming service.
By Brenna Ehrlich
Radiohead's Thom Yorke performs during day two of the Coachella music festival
Photo: Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1710545/thom-yorke-spotify-atoms-for-peace.jhtml
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Delhi NCR
In the last four to five months residential values in Sector 76, Noida have shown an upward graph, as per data with MagicBricks.com. The capital values in the locality have moved up from approximately Rs 4,700-4,900 per sq ft in the Oct-Dec 2012 to?Rs 5,900 per sq ft in the Jan-Mar 2013, the data further revealed.
Several factors have led to this surge in property prices. For instance, the announcement of the Metro from City Centre to Sector 78 initiated the price hike as Sector 76 is just half a kilometre away. Further, several projects are nearing possession. This has also pushed prices in the locality.
?A large number of home buyers looking for ready-to-move-in properties are opting for this sector as multiple projects are nearing possession within the next 6-8 months,? informs Vikas Chand Jain, Director Aadinath Infratech, a city based realty firm. Some of the developers offering possession in this time frame are Amrapali Group, JM Group, Sikka Group, Aditya Builders, Skytech Group etc among others.
Giving an insight into the movement of real estate values in Sector 76, Vikas Sahani, Director, Property Guru states, ?Noida Authority gave the allotment of plots in Sector 76 in 2010 and capital values during the 2010-11 period ranged from Rs 2,800-3,200 per sq ft. It moved up during the 2011-12 period and settled at Rs 3,800-4,200 per sq ft. At present capital values in the sector hover around Rs 4,800-5,200 per sq ft.?
Citing another possible explanation for this trend Sahani adds ?The sector was also affected in the Noida Extension land row and work was stopped for nearly eight to nine months. Due to the slight delay caused in construction, developers suffered a loss of roughly Rs 400-500 per sq ft. Further, no new allotments have been done since 2010 and thus land is limited. So, land scarcity and the attempt to recover losses have led the developers to hike prices in the sector. As demand is high, developers feel buyers would still buy here.?
Maximum demand in the locality is witnessed for 2BHK units having a size of
1000-1150 sq ft. The most sought after budget range in the locality is Rs 50-55 lakh.
Sruthi Kailas, MagicBricks.com Bureau?
Source: http://content.magicbricks.com/residential-prices-surge-in-sector-76-noida/
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Tim Duncan runs the not-so-fast break vs. the Miami Heat early in Game 7.
Tim Duncan may have lost a step since he won his first championship in 1999 but the Miami Heat couldn't catch him in the open floor early in Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals.
With the winner-take-all Finals finale between the Heat and San Antonio Spurs just underway, the 37-year-old Duncan intercepted a pass intended for Chris Bosh at the top of the key. Rather than wait for his teammates, Duncan took off on his own. While "fast" might not be the most accurate word to describe this moderately paced break, no one in a Heat jersey caught Duncan before he threw down the one-handed dunk.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE
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Public release date: 19-Jun-2013
Share ] Contact: Jim Dryden
jdryden@wustl.edu
314-286-0110
Washington University School of Medicine
Nitrous oxide best known as laughing gas is one of the world's oldest and most widely used anesthetics. Despite its popularity, however, experts have questioned its impact on the risk of a heart attack during surgery or soon afterward. But those fears are unfounded, a new study indicates.
The findings by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will appear in the July issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
"It's been known for quite a while that laughing gas inactivates vitamin B12 and, by doing so, increases blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine," said lead author Peter Nagele, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology and genetics. "That was thought to raise the risk of a heart attack during and after surgery, but we found no evidence of that in this study."
Nitrous oxide normally is used as an adjunct during general anesthesia because by itself the drug isn't strong enough to keep patients unconscious during surgical procedures. The drug's influence on B vitamins and homocysteine is unrelated to its anesthetic effects.
Nagele and his colleagues followed 500 surgery patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, heart failure or other health problems that could contribute to a heart attack. All subjects in the study had noncardiac surgery and received nitrous oxide anesthesia.
The patients were divided into two groups. Half received intravenous vitamin B12 and folic acid to help prevent homocysteine levels from rising during surgery. The others did not get the intravenous B vitamins.
"There were no differences between the groups with regard to heart attack risk," Nagele said. "The B vitamins kept homocysteine levels from rising, but that didn't influence heart attack risk."
To detect heart attacks during and after surgery, the researchers monitored a marker of heart damage, cardiac troponin I, for 72 hours. A rise in troponin levels indicates damage to the heart. But they found no link between patients' homocysteine and troponin levels.
The study also looked at gene variations that naturally lead to elevated homocysteine. Individuals with common variants in the MTHFR gene already make excess homocysteine. If people with those variants then get nitrous oxide anesthesia, their levels can climb even higher.
But only 3.1 percent of patients with the high-risk genetic variants had heart attacks during or after surgery, compared with 4.7 percent of the patients who didn't have the risky variants. Neither the gene variation nor treatment with B vitamins had an effect on troponin levels following surgery.
"People who had the gene variant did, indeed, develop very high levels of homocysteine in response to nitrous oxide," Nagele said. So the question is whether those patients would be at a higher risk for heart attack, and that answer is no."
###
Funding for the VINO trial comes from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences and the National Institute for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It also was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, as well as Roche Diagnostics, which provided high-sensitivity troponin T assays and funding to cover the costs of running those tests but had no role in the design of the study, data collection or analysis or manuscript preparation and submission.
NIH Grant numbers K23 GM087534 and UL1 RR024992.
Nagele P, Brown F, Francis A, Scott MG, Gage BF, Miller JP, and the VINO study team. Influence of nitrous oxide anesthesia, B-vitamins, and MTHFR gene polymorphisms on perioperative cardiac events: the vitamins in nitrous oxide (VINO) randomized trial. Anesthesiology, 119: pp. 19-28, July 2013
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 19-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Jim Dryden
jdryden@wustl.edu
314-286-0110
Washington University School of Medicine
Nitrous oxide best known as laughing gas is one of the world's oldest and most widely used anesthetics. Despite its popularity, however, experts have questioned its impact on the risk of a heart attack during surgery or soon afterward. But those fears are unfounded, a new study indicates.
The findings by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will appear in the July issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
"It's been known for quite a while that laughing gas inactivates vitamin B12 and, by doing so, increases blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine," said lead author Peter Nagele, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology and genetics. "That was thought to raise the risk of a heart attack during and after surgery, but we found no evidence of that in this study."
Nitrous oxide normally is used as an adjunct during general anesthesia because by itself the drug isn't strong enough to keep patients unconscious during surgical procedures. The drug's influence on B vitamins and homocysteine is unrelated to its anesthetic effects.
Nagele and his colleagues followed 500 surgery patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, heart failure or other health problems that could contribute to a heart attack. All subjects in the study had noncardiac surgery and received nitrous oxide anesthesia.
The patients were divided into two groups. Half received intravenous vitamin B12 and folic acid to help prevent homocysteine levels from rising during surgery. The others did not get the intravenous B vitamins.
"There were no differences between the groups with regard to heart attack risk," Nagele said. "The B vitamins kept homocysteine levels from rising, but that didn't influence heart attack risk."
To detect heart attacks during and after surgery, the researchers monitored a marker of heart damage, cardiac troponin I, for 72 hours. A rise in troponin levels indicates damage to the heart. But they found no link between patients' homocysteine and troponin levels.
The study also looked at gene variations that naturally lead to elevated homocysteine. Individuals with common variants in the MTHFR gene already make excess homocysteine. If people with those variants then get nitrous oxide anesthesia, their levels can climb even higher.
But only 3.1 percent of patients with the high-risk genetic variants had heart attacks during or after surgery, compared with 4.7 percent of the patients who didn't have the risky variants. Neither the gene variation nor treatment with B vitamins had an effect on troponin levels following surgery.
"People who had the gene variant did, indeed, develop very high levels of homocysteine in response to nitrous oxide," Nagele said. So the question is whether those patients would be at a higher risk for heart attack, and that answer is no."
###
Funding for the VINO trial comes from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences and the National Institute for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It also was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, as well as Roche Diagnostics, which provided high-sensitivity troponin T assays and funding to cover the costs of running those tests but had no role in the design of the study, data collection or analysis or manuscript preparation and submission.
NIH Grant numbers K23 GM087534 and UL1 RR024992.
Nagele P, Brown F, Francis A, Scott MG, Gage BF, Miller JP, and the VINO study team. Influence of nitrous oxide anesthesia, B-vitamins, and MTHFR gene polymorphisms on perioperative cardiac events: the vitamins in nitrous oxide (VINO) randomized trial. Anesthesiology, 119: pp. 19-28, July 2013
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/wuso-lgd061713.php
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FILE - This file image provided by IntelCenter on Wednesday Dec. 8, 2010 shows a frame grab from a video released by the Taliban containing footage of a man believed to be Bowe Bergdahl, left. A Taliban spokesman, Shaheen Suhail, in an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from the newly opened Taliban offices in Doha, Qatar, said Thursday, June 20, 2013, that they are ready to hand over U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The U.S. is scrambling to save talks with the Taliban after angry complaints from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (AP Photo/IntelCenter, File) MANDATORY CREDIT: INTELCENTER; NO SALES; EDS NOTE: "INTELCENTER" AT LEFT TOP CORNER ADDED BY SOURCE
FILE - This file image provided by IntelCenter on Wednesday Dec. 8, 2010 shows a frame grab from a video released by the Taliban containing footage of a man believed to be Bowe Bergdahl, left. A Taliban spokesman, Shaheen Suhail, in an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from the newly opened Taliban offices in Doha, Qatar, said Thursday, June 20, 2013, that they are ready to hand over U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The U.S. is scrambling to save talks with the Taliban after angry complaints from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (AP Photo/IntelCenter, File) MANDATORY CREDIT: INTELCENTER; NO SALES; EDS NOTE: "INTELCENTER" AT LEFT TOP CORNER ADDED BY SOURCE
FILE -- The image of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who is being held captive in Afghanistan, is worn by an audience member as Bergdahl's father Bob, not pictured, speaks at the annual Rolling Thunder rally for POW/MIA awareness, in Washington, Sunday, May 27, 2012. A Taliban spokesman, Shaheen Suhail, in an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from the newly opened Taliban offices in Doha, Qatar, said Thursday, that they are ready to hand over U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The U.S. is scrambling to save talks with the Taliban after angry complaints from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - This undated photo provided by the Bergdahl family and released by the Idaho National Guard shows Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho. A Taliban spokesman, Shaheen Suhail, in an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from the newly opened Taliban offices in Doha, Qatar, said Thursday, that they are ready to hand over U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The U.S. is scrambling to save talks with the Taliban after angry complaints from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (AP Photo/The Bergdahl Family, File)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.
The offer to exchange U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the Afghan detainees came as an Afghan government spokesman said President Hamid Karzai is now willing to join planned peace talks with the Taliban ? provided that the Taliban flag and nameplate are removed from the militant group's newly opened political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar. Karzai also wants a formal U.S. statement supporting the Afghan government.
Bergdahl, 27, of Hailey, Idaho, is the only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.
In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl "is, as far as I know, in good condition."
Col. Tim Marsano with the Idaho National Guard said Bergdahl's parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, plan to speak at an event honoring the soldier in Hailey on Saturday.
"They're aware that the possibility of a transfer or exchange is on the table and they're encouraged by it," Marsano said.
Bergdahl's parents earlier this month received a letter from their son through the International Committee of the Red Cross. They did not release details of the letter but renewed their plea for his release. The soldier's captivity has been marked by only sporadic releases of videos and information about his whereabouts.
The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks, said Suhail, a top Taliban figure who served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001.
"First has to be the release of detainees," Suhail said when asked about Bergdahl. "Yes. It would be an exchange. Then step by step, we want to build bridges of confidence to go forward."
The reconciliation process with the Taliban ? seen by most as the only way to end the nearly 12-year war ? has been a long and bumpy one. It began nearly two years ago when the U.S. opened secret talks that were later scuttled by Karzai when he learned of them.
It was then that the U.S. and Taliban discussed prisoner exchanges and for a brief time it appeared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners would be released and sent to Doha to help further the peace process. But Karzai stepped in again and demanded they be returned to Afghanistan over Taliban objections.
Since then, the U.S. has been trying to jumpstart peace talks and the Taliban have made several offers ? including sharing power in Kabul. The Taliban have also attended several international conferences and held meetings with representatives of about 30 countries.
The idea of freeing some of the Taliban's most senior operatives has been controversial over fears they would simply return to the battlefield. Afghan and U.S. officials have said the Taliban being considered for any exchange deal are:
? Mohammad Fazl , a former Taliban chief of army staff and the deputy minister of defense.
? Abdul Haq Wasiq, former Taliban deputy minister of intelligence, who was in direct contact with supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar during the Taliban rule, according to military documents.
? Mullah Norullah Nuri , who has been described as one of the most significant former Taliban officials held at Guantanamo. He was a senior Taliban commander in Mazar-e-Sharif and previously was a Taliban governor in two provinces in northern Afghanistan,
? Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban minister of the interior and military commander. According to military documents, he had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden and was also a friend of Karzai.
? Mohammed Nabi, former chief of security for the Taliban in Qalat, the capital of the southern province of Zabul.
If the Taliban hold talks with American delegates in the next few days, they will be the first U.S.-Taliban talks in nearly 1? years.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was expected in Doha ahead of a conference there scheduled for Saturday on the Syrian civil war. He was not expected to meet with the Taliban although other U.S. officials might in coming days.
On Wednesday in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had "never confirmed" any specific meeting schedule with Taliban representatives in Doha.
Prospective peace talks were again thrown into question Wednesday when Karzai became infuriated by the Taliban's move to cast their new office in Doha as a rival embassy.
The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner that evoked the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." Later, the Taliban replaced the sign to read simply: "Political office of the Taliban."
At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed four American service members.
The U.S. expectation had been that U.S.-Taliban talks would be followed several days later with direct talks between the Taliban and a Karzai peace delegation.
But on Wednesday, Karzai announced that his government would not participate, apparently also angered by the way Kabul had been sidelined in the U.S.-Taliban bid for rapprochement.
The Afghan president also suspended negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement that would cover American troops who will remain behind after the final withdrawal of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014.
That left U.S. officials scrambling to save the talks, and Kerry spoke with Karzai in phone conversations in an effort to bring him back on board.
On Thursday, Karzai spokesman Fayeq Wahidi said the Afghan president is willing to join peace talks with the Taliban if the U.S. follows through with promises he said were made by Kerry over the phone.
Wahidi said Kerry promised Karzai that the Taliban flag and a nameplate with their former regime's name would be removed and that the U.S. would issue a formal written statement supporting the Afghan government and making clear that the Taliban office would not be seen as an embassy or government-in-exile.
"If all those assurances and commitments the U.S. had given, if we are assured that they will be fully put in place on the issue of talks in Qatar," Wahidi said, "we would see no problem in entering into talks with the Taliban in Qatar. "
A decision on whether to restart the U.S. security agreement talks would be made after those assurances, he added, referring further questions to the foreign ministry.
On Thursday, the "Islamic Emirate" nameplate had been removed from the Taliban office. The flagpole inside the compound was apparently shortened and the Taliban flag ? dark Quranic script on a white background ? was still flying but not visible from the street. Journalists gathered at the office shot images of the flag through the gaps in the walls.
The Taliban have long refused to talk to Karzai's representatives but the opening of the office was seen as a first step toward those meetings.
Suhail said the Taliban are insistent that they want their first interlocutors to be the United States. "First we talk to the Americans about those issues concerning the Americans and us (because) for those issues implementation is only in the hands of the Americans," he said.
"We want foreign troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan," he added. "If there are troops in Afghanistan, then there will be a continuation of the war."
Suhail indicated the Taliban could approve of American trainers and advisers for the Afghan troops, saying that "of course, there is cooperation between countries in other things. We need that cooperation."
He said that once the Taliban concluded talks with the United States, they would participate in all-inclusive Afghan talks.
Suhail ruled out exclusive talks with Karzai's High Peace Council, which has been a condition of the Afghan president, who previously said he wanted talks in Doha to be restricted to his representatives and the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban would talk with all Afghan groups, Suhail said.
"After we finish the phase of talking to the Americans, then we would start the internal phase ... that would include all Afghans," he said. "Having all groups involved will guarantee peace and stability."
____
Gannon reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Brian Murphy in Dubai contributed to this report.
____
Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be reached at www.twitter.com/kathygannon
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June 19, 2013 ? Improved methods for breaking down cellulose nanofibers are central to cost-effective biofuel production and the subject of new research from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC). Scientists are investigating the unique properties of crystalline cellulose nanofibers to develop novel chemical pretreatments and designer enzymes for biofuel production from cellulosic -- or non-food -- plant derived biomass.
"Cellulose is laid out in plant cell walls as crystalline nanofibers, like steel reinforcements embedded in concrete columns," says GLBRC's Shishir Chundawat. "The key to cheaper biofuel production is to unravel these tightly packed nanofibers more efficiently into soluble sugars using fewer enzymes."
An article published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests -- counter-intuitively -- that increased binding of enzymes to cellulose polymers doesn't always lead to faster breakdown into simple sugars. In fact, Chundawat's research team found that using novel biomass pretreatments to convert cellulose to a unique crystalline structure called cellulose III reduced native enzyme binding while increasing sugar yields by as much as five times.
"The ability of this unconventional pretreatment strategy, currently under development at GLBRC, to selectively alter the cellulose crystal structure may lead to an order of magnitude reduction in enzyme usage. This will be critical for cost-effective cellulosic biofuel production," says Bruce Dale of Michigan State University, who leads GLBRC's biomass deconstruction research area.
The researchers had previously demonstrated that altering the crystal structure of native cellulose to cellulose III accelerates enzymatic deconstruction; however, the recent observation that cellulose III increased sugar yields with reduced levels of bound enzyme was unexpected. To explain this finding, Chundawat and a team of LANL researchers led by Gnana Gnanakaran and Anurag Sethi developed a mechanistic kinetic model indicating that the relationship between enzyme affinity for cellulose and catalytic efficiency is more complex than previously thought.
Cellulose III was found to have a less sticky surface that makes it harder for native enzymes to get stuck non-productively on it, unlike untreated cellulose surfaces. The model further predicts that the enhanced enzyme activity, despite reduced binding, is due to the relative ease with which enzymes are able to pull out individual cellulose III chains from the pretreated nanofiber surface and then break them apart into simple sugars.
"These findings are exciting because they may catalyze future development of novel engineered enzymes that are further tailored for conversion of cellulose III rich pretreated biomass to cheaper fuels and other useful compounds that are currently derived from non-renewable fossil fuels," says Gnanakaran.
This research was funded by the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research through Cooperative Agreement DE-FC02-07ER64494 between the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and the U.S. Department of Energy). The LANL team was supported by the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium (NABC), the Center for Non-Linear Studies, and the Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) program at LANL.
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Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald declared on Monday that some U.S. officials were partaking in "a fear mongering campaign" in their extreme criticisms of Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leak.
Greenwald, one of the first to cover the NSA's secret domestic surveillance programs, challenged claims that Snowden might be planning to provide U.S. secrets to a foreign government on CNN's "AC360". He acknowledged to Anderson Cooper, "...If huge amounts of secrets were to simply be turned over en masse to another government, it is true that would be damaging." But, he added, Snowden has "been very clear that's not his intention. If it were his intention, he could have done that in lots of different ways."
Greenwald suggested this could be an effort to distract from the substance of the information leaked, explaining, "I think what this really is, is a fear mongering campaign on the part of the U.S. government to turn Americans and the public against him."
Earlier in the day, Greenwald helped facilitate an online chat with Snowden, who denied allegations that he was a spy for the Chinese and declared, "The U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
Also on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/glenn-greenwald-anderson-cooper_n_3456643.html
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Public release date: 17-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Sarah Butcher
sarah.butcher@helsinki.fi
358-504-155-492
University of Helsinki
RSV is a common cause of respiratory infection, but there is no vaccine available. It causes flu-like symptoms in healthy adults, but becomes life-threatening in young children and the elderly. It is estimated to cause over 100 000 deaths yearly worldwide.
The teams of Research Director Sarah Butcher (Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki) and Professor Ari Helenius (ETH Zurich) have now solved the three-dimensional structure of RSV.
"The structural model helps us to understand how infectious viruses are formed. This information can be useful in the intelligent design of vaccines" said the researcher Lassi Liljeroos.
RSV is related to measles and mumps viruses. All three viruses parasitize human cells, stealing parts of the cell membrane to use as their own. In RSV the resulting virus membranes look likes tubes and spheres. We could show that the virus' matrix protein controls this shape.
"In addition, we observed that the fusion protein on the surface is in two different forms. The fusion protein is responsible for attaching the virus to human cells and invading them. This is an important finding because the fusion protein is the key molecule in developing therapeutic antibodies to the virus. "
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 17-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Sarah Butcher
sarah.butcher@helsinki.fi
358-504-155-492
University of Helsinki
RSV is a common cause of respiratory infection, but there is no vaccine available. It causes flu-like symptoms in healthy adults, but becomes life-threatening in young children and the elderly. It is estimated to cause over 100 000 deaths yearly worldwide.
The teams of Research Director Sarah Butcher (Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki) and Professor Ari Helenius (ETH Zurich) have now solved the three-dimensional structure of RSV.
"The structural model helps us to understand how infectious viruses are formed. This information can be useful in the intelligent design of vaccines" said the researcher Lassi Liljeroos.
RSV is related to measles and mumps viruses. All three viruses parasitize human cells, stealing parts of the cell membrane to use as their own. In RSV the resulting virus membranes look likes tubes and spheres. We could show that the virus' matrix protein controls this shape.
"In addition, we observed that the fusion protein on the surface is in two different forms. The fusion protein is responsible for attaching the virus to human cells and invading them. This is an important finding because the fusion protein is the key molecule in developing therapeutic antibodies to the virus. "
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uoh-osc061713.php
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Gerry Brownlee writes in The Press:
The Christchurch Town Hall is broken and unusable, and fixing it would be an expensive challenge, says the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee.
it would cost around $130 million to repair it, and insurance would cover only half.
In April 2012 we established the Christchurch Central Development Unit, of which the Christchurch City Council is a part, with the Crown and Ngai Tahu.
Council staff advised and played a significant role in developing the blueprint, ensuring it reflected what Christchurch residents told them. There was strong community support for a performing arts precinct, which was developed into an anchor project.
In 1974, Christchurch opened the premier performing arts facility of its generation.
The Christchurch Town Hall was state of the art for its time. The ultimate compliment was paid when in 1975 the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington was commissioned using the same architects and acoustic engineer.
A building younger than me, is not a heritage building.
Today the Christchurch Town Hall is badly torn apart.
What is left of it sits on some of the worst land from the geotechnical perspective in the central city ? in part why it is so seriously damaged. It lies broken and unusable, and fixing it would be an expensive challenge.
We have a clear choice: try to recapture the magic of the past and patch up the town hall, as some want to do; or deliver modern facilities that could again have Christchurch leading the world for quality performing arts spaces.
The blueprint proposes developing an arts and entertainment complex with multiple theatres and performing arts spaces.
It would deliver auditoria of differing sizes, for multiple purposes, across a range of entertainment genres and with the performing arts community?s needs in mind.
This proposal encompasses the things Christchurch residents told the city council they wanted through the Share an Idea process.
It would incorporate space for our music schools.
It would have space for art house cinema and documentaries.
Performance spaces of varying sizes would take some risk out of mounting shows; if more seats were required, they would be at the same venue.
Sounds a much better plan to me, and something that would be used by many many more people than the old Town Hall.
But I have no doubt the Council will vote the other way.
Tags: Christchurch, Gerry BrownleeSource: http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/06/brownlee_on_christchurch_town_hall.html
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While running between booths at Computex earlier this month, we were momentarily distracted by these vegetable boxes (maybe it was lunch time as well). As it turned out, this product was launched by Taiwan-based Home Lohas around the same time as when the expo started. The company pitches its hydroponic gardening appliance -- so the vegetables rely on nutritious water instead of soil -- as a hassle-free, low-power solution for growing your own greens, plus it's apparently the only solution in the market that doesn't need water circulation. With its full spectrum LED light, air pump and timers, harvest time can apparently be reduced by about 30 percent. It's simply a matter of filling up the water tank, adding the necessary nutrients and placing the seeded sponge on the tray (the package includes three types of organic fertilizers and some seeds).
The only downside is that this system costs NT$15,800 (about US$530) in Taiwan, and for some reason, it'll eventually be priced at US$680 in other markets. If that's too much, then stay tuned for a half-size model that's due Q4 this year.
Filed under: Household
Source: Home Lohas (Chinese)
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How do massive electromagnets move? Incredibly slowly, if the $3 million plan to get one of them from New York to Chicago can tell us anything. The move, over land and sea, will take a total of five weeks.?
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Here's why: the 15-ton electromagnet can't just be disassembled and reassembled ? it has to move with minimal tweaks to maintain its functionality. The entire rig is about 50 feet wide, and if it twists more than an eight of an inch, it could break for good. Given that it's ten times cheaper to move the magnet than it is to build a new one, researchers will take their chances transporting it to Chicago's Fermi lab in an inert state, where it's needed for a new experiment. According to the Associated Press, the 3,200-mile trip will go something like this:?
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Day One: move the magnet from its place at the?Brookhaven National Lab to the lab's front gate, nearly 2 miles away.
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Day Two: Somehow transport it down the ?William Floyd Parkway to the ocean, 6 miles away. That's two days to move fewer than 10 miles.?
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Here's a model of the rig they'll use to transport it:?
RELATED: Should You Watch Tonight's Transit of Venus or Take a Nice Nap?
Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory
And a video!?
According to Brookhaven, they'll only drive the rig at night, at a top speed of 10 miles an hour.?
That will get them about this far (route is very, very approximate):?
Source: Google Maps
Day Three, etc.: get that thing on a boat. The bulk of the magnet's trip will be on water. It'll head south, go around Florida, and use the Mississippi river to get as close to the Fermi lab as possible.?
Then, it's a two-day journey over land for a few miles to the lab. Once it's in place, the massive magnet will help researchers learn more about subatomic particles called muons. They live for?2.2 millionths of a second, and there's a lot the field of particle physics has to learn about them. The magnet move begins next Saturday.?
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/move-fifteen-ton-electromagnet-022929228.html
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ESPN is further boosting its major sports coverage by producing a raft of extra material for golf enthusiasts at the US Open. And the outlet will be doing the same during the British Open, along with Wimbledon, the US Open and Australian Open for tennis. The network is employing a special team during the tournament (including some not normally involved in golf coverage) to supplement the main ESPN broadcasts with featured group and hole coverage, hole flyovers, shot tracking and more. Some of the extra goodies will appear on ESPN3, DIRECTV, and USOpen.com. All that means you might need to drag that extra TV out of the spare room, and possibly your Xbox, laptop or tablet. Who says watching sports reduces your attention span?
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: ESPN Frontrow
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Source: http://www.deannaproach.com/tips-and-advice-to-get-a-payday-advance/
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June 12, 2013 ? The ability to distinguish between odors declines steadily with age, but a new study shows that African-Americans have a much greater decrease in their sense of smell than Caucasians. This can have serious consequences. Olfactory loss often leads to impaired nutrition. It also may be an early warning sign of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, and can predict death.
The study, published early online in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, found that as they aged, African-Americans and Hispanics had comparable deficits. For Hispanics, many of whom are recent immigrants, social and cultural factors, such as disparities in education and household assets and health-related cognitive problems, accounted for the sensory loss. For African-Americans, however, premature presbyosmia -- age-related declines in the ability to smell -- could not be explained by social, environmental or medical factors.
"We have long known that men begin to lose their sense of smell some years sooner than women, but this is the first study to point to racial or ethnic differences," said study author Jayant Pinto, MD, associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. "What surprised us was the magnitude of the difference. The racial disparity was almost twice as large as the well-documented difference between men and women."
Although many people live long lives with only minor age-related declines in the ability to smell, about 24 percent of Americans 55 years or older have a measurable problem with their sense of smell, according to data from the National Institute on Aging. That rises to about 30 percent for those ages 70 to 80, and to more than 60 percent for those over age 80.
This study was one component of the University of Chicago-based National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), the first in-home study of social relationships and health in a large, nationally representative sample of older adults, ages 57 to 85.
For this project, conducted from 2005 to 2006, survey teams from the National Opinion Research Center used a standard, well-validated test to assess the ability of 3,005 older participants to identify five common odors. The scents were presented one at a time. Subjects were asked to identify each smell from a set of four choices. The odors, in order of increasing difficulty, included peppermint, fish, orange, rose and leather.
Personal information about race and ethnicity was provided by the study subjects. The surveyors also assessed their physical and mental health, social and financial resources, education, and alcohol or substance abuse through questionnaires and careful observation.
The researchers found that:
Caucasian women typically begin to experience some loss of smelling acuity in their early 70s, Pinto said. Caucasian men start about five years earlier, in their late-60s. Black and Hispanic women start in their mid-60s. Non-white men start in their late-50s or early 60s. Because the changes occur gradually over several years, many older people do not notice the decline.
The cause of this disparity is not clear. Genetic variation may play a role, as could exposure to nerve-damaging substances in the environment, or both. "Race likely serves as a proxy for differential environmental exposures and life experiences, which may interact with biological differences," the authors note.
Certain medications, chronic or recurrent nasal disease or exposure to various volatile chemicals can harm olfactory function. "Sanitation workers, for example, are often affected," Pinto said. "They are routinely exposed to noxious odors that can trigger inflammation."
Presbyosmia can have a substantial impact on wellbeing, the researchers emphasize. Those who can't detect odors are unable to maintain their personal hygiene. Food smells have a huge impact on how foods taste, so many with smelling deficits lose the joy of eating.
"They make poor food choices, get less nutrition," Pinto said. "They can't tell when foods have spoiled or detect odors that signal danger, like a gas leak or smoke."
Follow-up interviews with the original study subjects five years later confirmed earlier findings that impaired olfaction also is a harbinger of mortality. Those with the poorest sense of smell in 2006 were three times more likely to have died by 2011 than those with normal smell function.
"Olfaction is the canary in the coal mine of human health," Pinto said.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/te6MoUbwIno/130612184038.htm
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