Inside In
Gingrich is also helped by?attacks on him by establishment figures: John McCain, Trent Lott, and a parade of former and current officials who populate the daily Romney campaign conference calls savaging Gingrich. Thursday afternoon, even Bob Dole took a swing at Gingrich. Dole is like many in Washington who?grumble about Gingrich, can’t believe he’s doing so well, and don’t want him to be president, but had assumed he?d collapse from his own hubris. “I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich, but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates?running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.”
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=cf3ba98ac9528c54d0c7644ea918d8b8
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Tags : Gingrich, newt gingrich, romney campaign
As Israeli-Palestinian talks sink, fringe ideas gain traction (The Christian Science Monitor)
Tel Aviv ? As another round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks faltered on Wednesday, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians say that the status quo is rapidly approaching a point at which establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel is impossible or unrealistic.
“I still believe that two-state solution is the only solution and is possible,” says Ron Pundak, an Israeli academic who started the informal peace talks with Palestinians that led to the Oslo Accords. “But I am afraid we will lead ourselves to a situation where the two-state solution is not viable, or people will think it?s not viable, which is almost as bad.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly told Jordan?s King Abdullah that a series of Amman meetings between negotiating envoys had run their course and that the Palestinians would seek the advice of the Arab League on the next step in their pursuit of statehood.
RELATED: The 5 largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank
But several factors are expected to make it increasingly difficult for Israel to extract itself from the West Bank to create a Palestinian state: the rising number of Jewish settlers, eroding political will to order a painful and expensive withdrawal, and a drop in public support for a compromise.
What will come in place of the two-state solution? Suggestions range from a new Palestinian uprising, to a binational state, to a continuation of the status quo.
No appetite for compromise in IsraelThe key number regarding settler evacuation is not the more than 300,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank but the 80,000 to 100,000 of them who reside in isolated settlements far away from the future border. Though uprooting them is feasible for the Israeli government, it is unclear if there are leaders willing to clash with the settlers powerful political constituency.
“The question is not what is happening in the settlements, it?s what is happening in Israeli society in general,” says Dror Etkes, a human rights activist and settlement monitor who sees Israel growing more conservative. “It’s not a physical question, it?s a political question.”
To be sure, a recent joint poll showed that a clear majority of Israelis and about half of Palestinians still support the outline of the two-state compromise proposed by former President Bill Clinton 11 years ago.
But they are becoming increasingly queasy about taking the risks for such a deal, and most public opinion surveys indicate that if elections were held today the new parliament would likely be run by a coalition of parties opposed to such a compromise.
“To get to a two-state solution, Israelis know exactly what kind of costs they will have to pay,” says Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based public opinion expert. “They don?t see the benefits outweighing the costs. They are realists. In general, Israelis fear that everything around them is turning into a radical Islamic takeover” because of Islamist electoral victories in the wake of the Arab revolutions.
Palestinians are similarly gloomy: 78 percent oppose a resuming peace talks without a freeze in settlement construction and only 17 percent believe that Israel intends to withdraw from the West Bank, according to a survey from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Binational state gaining supportFollowing the talks yesterday, Israel, Jordan, and the European Union expressed hope that the Palestinians would return to the month-old exploratory dialogue aimed at setting up a basis for real negotiations. The liberal Israeli paper Haaretz reported that for the first time, the Israeli side laid out a general vision for a border with the Palestinians, but the newspaper didn?t give specifics.
Expectations for the talks are already low for the rest of 2012. The Obama administration is likely to be wary of wading into thorny Arab-Israeli mediation during an election year. And observers believe that the gaps between Mr. Abbas and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is heavily influenced by a far-right contingent, are too wide to bridge.
RELATED: The 5 largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank
Some Israeli doves are starting to talk about a binational state with the Palestinians, which would require both nations to give up on visions of self-determination.
Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli parliament, recently suggested that such a solution would be preferable to the status quo. Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat, says that some are mulling the idea of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.
Prominent Palestinian leaders like chief negotiator Saeb Erekat have suggested the possibility as well, but many see it as a foil to pressure the Israeli public.
“One state is a brilliant and pretty solution, but it doesn?t mean that brilliant and pretty solutions will come about,” says Kadoura Fares, a prominent member of the Palestinian Fatah party.
‘Beyond the point of no return’In the short- to medium-term, the more likely outcome is a continuation of the status quo, in which Israel retains control over the West Bank. Israel might grant the Palestinian enclaves greater autonomy and freedom of movement in an effort to deflect the inevitable international criticism allegations of an apartheid-like situation and the possible isolation.
Naftali Bennett, the former director general of the settler?s umbrella group Yesha Council, says Israel should annex settlements and open areas in the West Bank while granting Palestinian cities and villages enhanced autonomy. He says he hopes that eventually Jordan, which has a Palestinian majority, would agree to extend citizenship to West Bank Palestinians.
“The whole two-state approach is very 1990s. I don?t think any serious person believes there?s going to be a Palestinians state west of the Jordan [River]. We?re way beyond the point of no return,” Mr. Bennett says.
For the foreseeable future, there isn?t any significant pressure on Israel to compromise. For the first time since perhaps the 1980s, there are no negotiations, no violent uprising or war, and no international pressure for a deal.
But those conditions could eventually give way to a new phase of daily conflict, say experts.
“Maybe we need to do something that will to wake up the world that it can?t remain like this,” says Mr. Fares. “There wont be a vacuum here.”
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20120126/wl_csm/457034
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Arizona Gov. Brewer gets book critique from Obama (AP)
MESA, Ariz. ? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer came to greet President Barack Obama upon his arrival outside Phoenix Wednesday. What she got was a critique. Of her book.
The two leaders could be seen engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One’s steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time.
Asked moments later what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: “He was a little disturbed about my book.”
Brewer recently published a book, “Scorpions for Breakfast,” something of a memoir of her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona’s controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes.
Obama was objecting to Brewer’s description of a meeting he and Brewer had at the White House, where she described Obama as lecturing her. In an interview in November Brewer described two tense meetings. The first took place before his commencement address at Arizona State University. “He did blow me off at ASU,” she said in the television interview in November.
She also described meeting the president at the White House in 2010 to talk about immigration. “I felt a little bit like I was being lectured to, and I was a little kid in a classroom, if you will, and he was this wise professor and I was this little kid, and this little kid knows what the problem is and I felt minimized to say the least.”
On the tarmac Wednesday, Brewer handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border.
“I said to him, you know, I have always respected the office of the president and that the book is what the book is,” she told reporters Wednesday. She said Obama complained that she described him as not treating her cordially.
“I said that I was sorry that he felt that way. Anyway, we’re glad he’s here, and we’ll regroup.”
A White House official said Brewer handed Obama a letter and said she was inviting him to meet with her. The official said Obama told her he would be glad to meet with her again. The official said Obama did note that after their last meeting, which the official described as a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation between the president and the governor.
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Japan’s NEC to slash 10,000 jobs (Reuters)
TOKYO (Reuters) ? NEC Corp said on Thursday it aims to shed 10,000 jobs by the end of September, and would fail to reach a target to raise sales to 4 trillion yen ($51.13 billion) by March 2013.
The job cuts, which will mean shedding almost one in 10 of its workers, are to trim costs after the electronics maker announced a loss of 87 billion yen ($1.11 billion) for the three months to December 31.
The company, which employs 115,840 people worldwide, said it will book a 40 billion yen charge in the business year ending on March 31 to pay for the restructuring.
It blamed its poor performance on tougher competition in the telecoms infrastructure business in Japan from foreign rivals, weak demand for its smartphones and difficulty in expanding operations overseas.
($1 = 78.2250 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Reiji Murai, writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Michael Watson)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/bs_nm/us_nec_jobs
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Tags : NEC, new years ball drop, new years rockin eve
Research: South Africans most active tweeters (AP)
JOHANNESBURG ? Young people tweeting from BlackBerrys and iPhones are driving the growth of Twitter in Africa, with South Africans by far the most vociferous, according to new research published Thursday.
Kenya-based Portland Communications and Tweetminster published findings indicating Twitter in Africa is widely used for social conversation and is fast becoming an important source of information. More than 80 percent of those polled said they mainly used it for communicating with friends, 68 percent said they use it to monitor news and 22 percent to search for jobs, the companies said.
The research analyzed more than 11.5 million geographically pinpointed tweets originating on the continent during the last three months of 2011. That was complemented by a survey of 500 of Africa’s most active tweeters.
South Africans, with the continent’s biggest economy, were the most prolific with over twice as many tweets at 5,030,226 than the next most active country of Kenya with 2,476,800 tweets. Surprisingly, Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, had only 1,646,212 tweets from its more than 160 million people. It was followed by Egypt with 1,214,062 and Morocco with 745,620 tweets.
African tweeters are young, averaging 20 to 29 years, compared to 39 worldwide, the report said. And some 57 percent of analyzed tweets were sent from mobile phones, mainly BlackBerrys and iPhones.
The researchers noted how few African business and political leaders were joining Africa’s burgeoning Twittersphere.
“With some notable exceptions, we found that business and political leaders were largely absent from the debates playing out on Twitter across the continent,” they said. “As Twitter lifts off in Africa, governments, businesses and development agencies can really no longer afford to stay out of a new space where dialogue will increasingly be taking place.”
Among noted Twitter users are President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Kagame got into an infamous Twitterspat last year with journalist Ian Birrell of The Guardian of London, with the two trading tweets about human rights and repression in the central African nation. The cyber-conversation first was joined by Kagame’s foreign minister, and then went global.
While Kenyan soldiers and fighters of an extremist Somali Islamist group have been fighting each other, their spokesman have taken the battle onto Twitter, with taunts, accusations and insults being directly traded in a rare engagement on the Internet.
On Thursday, South Africa’s new Corruption Watch campaign launched, including a Twitter account where tweeters encouraged each other to make it “the No. 1 followed Twitter account in South Africa.”
The research, called “How Africa Tweets,” found Twitter is helping form new links within Africa. The majority of those surveyed said at least half of the Twitter accounts they followed were based on the continent.
Beatrice Karanja, head of Portland Nairobi, said: “We saw the pivotal role of Twitter in the events in North Africa last year, but it is clear that Africa’s Twitter revolution is really just beginning.”
—
Online:
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame: http://twitter.com/paulkagame
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga: http://twitter.com/odinga_raila
Kenyan military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir: http://twitter.com/Major_chirchir
Corruption Watch: http://twitter.com/Corruption_SA
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Tags : iphones, south africans
Diabetes Mystery: Why Are Type 1 Cases Surging?
Image: Getty Images
When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body?s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin.
For reasons that are completely mysterious, however, the incidence of type 1 diabetes has been increasing throughout the globe at rates that range from 3 to 5 percent a year. Although the second trend is less well publicized, it is still deeply troubling, because this form of the illness has the potential to disable or kill people so much earlier in their lives.
No one knows exactly why type 1 diabetes is rising. Solving that mystery?and, if possible, reducing or reversing the trend?has become an urgent problem for public health researchers everywhere. So far they feel they have only one solid clue.
?Increases such as the ones that have been reported cannot be explained by a change in genes in such a short period,? says Giu?seppina Imperatore, who leads a team of epidemiologists in the Division of Diabetes Translation at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?So environmental factors are probably major players in this increase.?
A Challenge of Counting
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes share the same underlying defect?an inability to deploy insulin in a manner that keeps blood sugar from rising too high?but they arise out of almost opposite processes. Type 1, which once was known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own cells?namely, the beta cells of the pancreas?destroying their ability to make insulin. In type 2, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, tissues that need insulin to take up glucose (such as the liver, muscles and fat) become resistant to insulin?s presence. The insulin-producing cells respond by going into overdrive, first making more of the hormone than normal and then losing the ability to keep up with the excess glucose in the blood. Some people end up unable to make insulin at all.
The first strong signal that the incidence of type 1 diabetes was on the rise came in 2006, from a World Health Organization project known as DIAMOND (a combination of words in several languages for worldwide diabetes). That survey, which looked at 10 years of records from 112 diabetes research centers in 57 countries, found that type 1 had risen an average of 5.3 percent a year in North America, 4 percent in Asia and 3.2 percent in Europe.
Statistics from Europe?where the single-payer health care systems that care for residents throughout their lives generate rich stores of data?back up that first finding. In 2009 researchers from a second project called EURODIAB compared diabetes incidence across 17 countries and found not only that type 1 was rising?by 3.9 percent a year on average?but also that it was increasing most quickly among children younger than five. By 2020, they predicted, new cases of type 1 diabetes in that age group will nearly double, from 3,600 children to an estimated 7,076 children.
Most assessments of diabetes in the U.S. have been more partial and local. There is one comprehensive national surveillance project, the federally funded SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study, which published data in 2007. Because that was an initial report, however, researchers could not compare it with earlier years. Still, when looked at against the findings of other studies, it suggests a rising tide. For example, the 2007 study found higher rates of type 1 in the U.S. than did the WHO?s worldwide study of the year before. In addition, the SEARCH study results were sharply higher than regional studies from the 1990s in Alabama, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=84f9835f942b7c21177a21376e163e1c
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Russia Launches Robot Cargo Ship to Space Station (SPACE.com)
A new robotic Russian space freighter launched into orbit Wednesday (Jan. 25) hauling tons of food and equipment for the crew of the International Space Station.
The unmanned cargo ship Progress 46 soared spaceward atop a Soyuz rocket from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff occurred at 6:06 p.m. EST (2306 GMT), though it was early Thursday at the launch site, marking Russia’s first space mission of the year.
“Progress 46 successfully delivered to orbit ? it is en route to the International Space Station,” said NASA spokesman Rob Navias during launch commentary. Navias said it was a “flawless” launch by Russia’s Federal Space Agency.
The Progress 46 spacecraft is due to arrive at the space station on Friday to deliver about 2.9 tons of cargo to the outpost’s six-man crew. The space station is currently home to three Russians, two Americans and a Dutch astronaut.
Progress 46, or vehicle M-14M as it is known in Russia, is the first of several spacecraft to visit the International Space Station this year. It is packed with 2,050 pounds (930 kilograms) of fuel, 110 pounds (50 kg) of oxygen and air, 926 pounds (420 kg) of water and 2,778 pounds (1,260 kg) of spare parts and experiment gear, NASA officials have said.
Russia’s Progress 24-foot (7.3-meter) spacecraft are disposable vehicles that resemble the three-module design of the country’s crewed Soyuz space capsules. But Progress vehicles replace the central crew capsule of the Soyuz with a propellant storage module. At the end of their missions, Progress spacecraft are commanded to destroy themselves by burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. [Infographic: How Russia's Progress Spaceships Work]
The launch of Progress 46 comes just two days after the departure of an older cargo ship, Progress 45, from the space station. The Progress 45 spacecraft undocked from the orbiting lab on Monday (Jan. 23) and was disposed of in Earth’s atmosphere a day later.
Before Progress 45 burned up on Tuesday it deployed a novel miniature satellite called Chibis-M. The 88-pound (40-kg) microsatellite was released in an orbit that is slight higher than that of the International Space Station. It is expected to spend several years studying how plasma waves interact with Earth’s ionosphere, NASA officials said.
The next big departure at the International Space Station will come on March 16, when the outpost’s current commander ? NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank ? and two crewmates are due to return to Earth. They will be replaced by a fresh three-person team slated to launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft on March 30.
With the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet in 2011, Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft are the only vehicles currently capable of ferrying astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit. In addition to Russia’s Progress vehicles, robotic cargo ships built by the space agencies of Japan and Europe also help keep the space station supplied.
NASA currently plans to rely on private U.S.-built cargo ships to resupply the space station. The first of those commercial space freighters are slated to launch in late March. The U.S. space agency is also relying on new privately built spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the orbiting lab.
You can follow Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.
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Tags : spacecraft
2 Live Crew to reunite and tour
By Miriam Coleman, Rolling Stone
2 Live Crew, the rap group famous for lewd party hits such as “Me So Horny,” has reunited and will be touring this summer.
Rapper and producer Luther Campbell announced the news on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival, where he is promoting a short film called “The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke.”
2 Live Crew?s 1989 album “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” gained notoriety as the target of a national anti-obscenity campaign, which culminated in the arrest of three of the group?s members in 1990. They were soon acquitted of the obscenity charges, partly on the strength of expert testimony from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The controversial album ended up selling more than 2 million copies, but the group?s popularity faded with subsequent albums, and members gradually went their separate ways.?
“I just can’t wait to just start practicing. That’s going to be a blast,? Campbell, the 51-year old MC and recent Miami-Dade Mayoral candidate, told the Associated Press.
“We’re going to perform the songs and everybody’s going to be excited. Some of the older people of our generation will be able to tell their kids, ‘You’re staying home tonight, we’re going to see 2 Live Crew and shake our booty!’”
More from Rolling Stone:
Source: http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216911-2-live-crew-to-reunite-and-tour
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Tags : henry louis gates, Live, sundance film festival
[OOC] Group 1 intro: Jo and David
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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
This group will be starting in Briggsdale, Colorado (I just couldn’t help it…) — directly east of Fort Collins on 14.
Places of interest:
- Briggsdale Elementary School
- Briggsdale Undivided Highschool
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- US Post Office
- Pawnee Sportsman Center (quite a distance from Briggsdale)
Environment:
Briggsdale is largely rural, with few places of interest.
The climate is dry, with dirt roads and rough vegetation.
A majority of Briggsdale is open and flat, with only the center of the city sporting buildings and homes.
There was a population of approximately 586 people.
With no nearby hospitals, many individuals bunked down in their homes to try and escape the reaches of the infection.
~*Do not frown, you never know who is falling in love with your smile*~
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CSX posts higher 4Q profit and revenue (AP)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. ? Freight railroad operator CSX Corp. said Monday that fourth-quarter profit rose 6 percent as higher rates offset a decline in the volume of goods it shipped.
The company also announced it had replaced its chief operating officer.
CSX shares fell in after-hours trading.
CSX said Chief Financial Officer Oscar Munoz would become chief operating officer, replacing David A. Brown, who is “no longer with the company.” CSX said the change was unrelated to the company’s business or financial performance.
Fredrik J. Eliasson, a 16-year CSX veteran, will take Munoz’s spot as CFO. He was vice president of sales and marketing for CSX’s chemicals and fertilizer business.
CSX net income in the quarter ended Dec. 30 rose to $457 million, or 43 cents per share, from $430 million, or 38 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts expected 44 cents per share, according to a survey by research firm FactSet.
The railroad shipped less coal, chemicals and agricultural products than it did a year ago. Overall volume was down 4 percent. CSX said it shipped less coal because utilities needed less of it to generate electricity. Some utilities are using more natural gas to run generators, because its price is close to a 10-year low.
CSX carried more cars and automotive components in the quarter, as North American production picked up from a year ago. Volume of some construction materials ? such as crushed stone and sand ? was also higher, helped by mild winter weather that extended the building season in many parts of the country.
Revenue per shipping unit jumped 9 percent ? led by double-digit increases for hauling coal and autos. That helped the company boost revenue to $2.95 billion, compared with $2.82 billion a year earlier. Analysts expected $2.99 billion.
Economists follow the performance of railroads as one indicator of the strength of the broader economy. That’s because railroads haul a wide range of things, from consumer goods to cars and commodities like coal and grain.
The report wasn’t as ringing as last week’s numbers from bigger rival Union Pacific Corp., which said fourth-quarter net income jumped 24 percent. UP raised prices and hauled more freight during the quarter.
CSX officials planned to discuss the results in a conference call with analysts on Tuesday.
The shares fell 13 cents to close at $22.69 before the results were posted. In after-hours trading, they dropped 62 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $22.07.
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