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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Namibia to cut corporate tax to encourage investment
WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Namibia, one of the world's largest diamond producers, announced plans to cut its corporate tax rate to 32 percent over the next two years in its 2013/14 budget on Tuesday to encourage investment.
It also said it would cut income tax by adjusting tax bands and expects economic growth to accelerate slightly this year to 4.3 percent.
Corporation tax in Namibia, which is also a major producer of uranium, is now 34 percent, one of the highest in southern Africa and compares with 28 percent in South Africa.
The tax rate does not apply to mining companies, including Anglo American and Rio Tinto, which pay higher tax rates averaging 37.5 percent and as high as 55 percent for diamond miners, plus other levies on top.
Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, presenting the budget to parliament, said corporate tax would be lowered to 33 percent in the financial year ending in March 2014, and to 32 percent in 2014/15.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila also announced higher spending, mostly on health and education, for 2013/14. That will help push the budget deficit up to 6.4 percent of gross domestic product, from an estimated 2.8 percent in 2012/13, she said.
The minister said slowing economic growth and chronic income inequality had put pressure on public finances.
"Although our fiscal position is not as robust as it was four years ago, it nonetheless remains relatively strong," she said. "We, therefore, have limited room to pursue moderate fiscal expansion in a targeted matter."
She said a major financial markets reform bill was under consultation, while regulations to tighten capital outflows and increase domestic investment were about to be finalised.
A new Banking Institutions Bill that will limit foreign shareholding in Namibia's South African-owned banks, will be implemented this year.
Namibia's economy grew by an estimated 4 percent last year, slowing after a 4.8 percent expansion in 2011.
Foreign firms are also exploring the southern Africa country for gold, lead, zinc and iron ore.
Namibia expects government debt to grow to 27.8 percent of GDP next year, from 26.3 percent last year, the finance minister said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/namibia-cut-corporate-tax-encourage-investment-051026962--business.html
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Excess or Umbrella? - Loftis & Wetzel Corporation
In 2009 a jury in Hernando County, Florida, rendered a verdict of just more than $330 million to the family of a 13-year old girl who was tragically killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.Large verdicts are becoming increasingly common. While of course no one is condoning drunk driving?and legitimate arguments can be made about the price tag on a human life?the point is that the average cost of claims against negligent parties is rising at an alarming rate. According to the National Law Journal, premises liability awards increased 16.4 percent to an average of $242,782 in 2009. In that same year, motor vehicle awards jumped almost 40 percent to an average of $48,480 and wrongful death claims averaged $2,185,000.
These numbers should serve as a reminder that liability limits provided by home, auto and other insurance policies should be carefully reviewed. And this review should prompt the question: Are the limits high enough to protect your family?s financial well-being and way of life if a claim is made against you?
Unfortunately there is no definite answer to that question. But if the statistics above make the opportunity to purchase more liability insurance coverage appealing to you, it?s important to consider your options. Two common choices are excess liability insurance and a personal umbrella policy.?? ?
Umbrella vs. Excess
If you have increased the liability limits of your home, auto or other insurance policy to as high as your company will offer and still are not comfortable, you have two options. The first is typically called an excess liability policy. This policy does nothing to the terms of your other insurance policies - it simply raises the limit of liability you have available for a claim. Think of this policy as dollars held in reserve if a claim exceeds the limits you currently have available.
A second option is a personal umbrella policy. Most umbrella policies function as an excess liability policy. However, in addition to acting as a reserve, the umbrella provides additional coverage for types of losses that otherwise would not be paid. Examples of additional coverage may include:
? Expanding the auto coverage territory to almost anywhere in the world
? Personal injury coverage for claims such as libel or slander
? Liability for certain claims resulting from your role as a director/officer of an organization.
Maintenance of ?Underlying?
The intent of an umbrella policy is to extend limits and coverage on some or all of the insurance policies you currently have. Such policies typically include your homeowners and auto insurance policies and may also include others such as a condo, watercraft or ATV. The policies covered by the umbrella are called ?underlying? policies.
Underlying policies are important because most umbrellas will only cover such a policy if certain rules are met. Examples of such rules typically include the financial strength rating of the insurance company from which you purchased the underlying policy and the limits of insurance included on that policy.
For example, to obtain an umbrella policy, you likely will have to prove that the limits of the underlying policies that it covers (such as your homeowners and auto insurance) are not less than a specified dollar amount. Should you change those limits mid-term, you risk changing the way your umbrella will apply toward a loss.
Illustration
Say you decide to purchase a $1 million umbrella policy and the umbrella provider specifies that it will cover your homeowner?s policy provided it includes a personal liability limit of at least $300,000. You currently have $300,000 personal liability on your homeowner?s policy and show a copy of it to the umbrella provider as proof. A few months after the umbrella policy takes effect, you call your homeowner?s insurance company and request that your personal liability limit be lowered to $100,000 to lower your premium.
A few weeks later someone suffers a serious injury for which you are legally liable and a claim is filed. Your policy limit of $100,000 is used up but there are still bills to pay. You are certain everything is okay because you have a $1 million umbrella policy. However, since you no longer meet the terms of the agreement, the umbrella provider may not pay a dime until the required minimum of $300,000 has been met. In this case, you would be out-of-pocket for $200,000. This is the difference between your personal liability limit ($100,000) and the required minimum specified by the umbrella provider ($300,000). Some personal umbrella policies may not respond at all once the terms have been breached.
It?s important to remember that excess and umbrella polices differ depending on which insurance company you choose to work with. Understanding how such policies relate to your underlying policies can be tricky. A call to your Trusted Choice? independent insurance agent will help you determine which policy is right for you and what you need to do to be sure it works at claim time.
-Source-
Posted Tuesday, February 26 2013 5:43 PM
Source: http://www.loftiswetzel.com/blog/excess_or_umbrella.aspx
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Kenya: Official who oversaw 2007 chaotic poll dies
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? Kenya's former electoral chief who oversaw a flawed electoral process in 2007 has died following a battle with cancer.
A family spokesman, John Musyoki, says the 74-year-old Samuel Kivuitu died Monday of cardiac arrest. The death comes one week before Kenya holds its next presidential elections, the first since a flawed 2007 vote triggered violence in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 were evicted from their homes.
A 2008 government report said the electoral commission overseeing the 2007 poll lacked independence, capacity and functionality. The report said results of that election were so perverted it was impossible to determine who won the presidency.
Kenyan leaders hope a new constitution, an improved judiciary and police reforms will help next week's election proceed without violence.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Good Reads: Ideas for Obama, the creep of capitalism, millionaire count, work at the top
This week's round-up of Good Reads include foreign policy advice for President Obama, how entrepreneurs are slowly revitalizing North Korea, a look at what makes a millionaire in the United States, and a dizzying visit to the window washers who clean the nation's highest buildings.
Private access gates surround multimillion- dollar homes in Dana Point, Calif.
Reed Saxon/AP/File
EnlargeUS presidents traditionally turn to foreign policy in their second terms. The executive branch operates with greater freedom in the international realm than in domestic policy, and world affairs are an appealing arena in which to cement a presidential legacy.
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The January/February issue of Foreign Policy magazine observes tongue in cheek that the paper required to print all of the white papers and op-eds urging President Obama to take various actions on the international scene ?would probably require chopping down the Amazon rain forest.?
The magazine counters with 10 tightly written essays on what Foreign Policy editor Susan Glasser calls ?ideas for what Obama could really accomplish in these next four years to make the world a better place ? concrete, achievable goals that, for the most part, wouldn?t even require the cooperation of Congress.?
Among the recommended actions: having Mr. Obama send the Senate the 1997 treaty on banning land mines (as 161 countries have already done); taking a tougher stance toward allies ? like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain ? with less-than-stellar human rights records; and working with Russia to reduce the hair-trigger, launch-ready alert status on both nations? nuclear-tipped missiles.
Capitalism and North Korea?s leaders
With North Korean leader Kim Jong-un having just overseen his nation?s third nuclear weapons test, The Economist magazine?s Feb. 9 cover story takes a very timely look at how ?capitalism is seeping through the bamboo curtain? with consequences the despotic Mr. Kim may not be able to control.
The North Korean famine of the 1990s, which killed up to 1 million people, triggered a breakdown in the government?s control over food distribution. So individual entrepreneurs began selling food grown in family plots. That market impulse has grown. ?It has become clear that other merchants today operate on a far more ambitious scale, exporting raw materials to China and bringing back consumer goods,? the Economist reports. So, the magazine says, money talks in today?s North Korea in ways that have a variety of destabilizing consequences.
For example, traders bring in computers, radios, and mobile phones, which diminish the Kim regime?s control of information. That allows some North Koreans to have a more acute sense of how impoverished their lives are compared with those of citizens of neighboring South Korea.
The role of the sexes has changed as women, who run some black markets, have become the breadwinners in their families. And there is a widening gap between the lives of market-involved elites centered in Pyongyang and the lives of the chronically underfed rest of the country.
Who are the millionaires?
The debate over how to reform the US tax code will be one of the top political stories of 2013. Whether America?s richest individuals are paying their fair share will be a key aspect of the debate. So it is useful to get a clearer picture of the financially fortunate.
?[T]he common conception of millionaires, on whom so much of the nation?s long-term fiscal viability depends, is largely a caricature,? writes Graeme Wood in the conservative National Review.
The first step in understanding millionaires, Mr. Wood writes, is a matter of definition. One group of millionaires are those who have assets like homes, savings accounts, and pensions that are worth a million dollars. ?The majority are working people,? Wood writes, and some 5.26 million households meet that definition.
The second group of millionaires consists of those who earn a million dollars or more a year. This much more rarefied group includes fewer than half a million households a year. Wood notes that many in this group are ?lucky one-timers,? folks who won the lottery or inherited from wealthy parents.
Only the 200,000 households with $20 million or more in assets have ?the financial equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine, capable of spontaneously replenishing itself and fairly reliably producing large amounts of money for its fortunate owner,? Wood says.
The window washers? life at the top
The New Yorker provides a vicarious glimpse into the dangerous, silent, and exhilarating world of skyscraper window washers for readers whose own jobs may offer less excitement.
The advent of computer design software made it practical for architects to create buildings with a different window configuration on every floor, ?turning Manhattan into a crystal garden of geometric forms and irregular shapes,? writes Adam Higginbotham. At the same time, the work of men with buckets and squeegees has remained just outside the reach of automation.
Thus it is that window washers still have to step out onto an 18-inch-wide walkway outside the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building.
When Mr. Higginbotham joined a window washer there, briefly, he writes, ?I sank to my knees in what may have resembled an attitude of pure terror.?
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Connecting the (quantum) dots: First viable high-speed quantum computer moves closer
Feb. 26, 2013 ? Recent research offers a new spin on using nanoscale semiconductor structures to build faster computers and electronics. Literally.
University of Pittsburgh and Delft University of Technology researchers reveal in the Feb. 17 online issue of Nature Nanotechnology a new method that better preserves the units necessary to power lightning-fast electronics, known as qubits (pronounced CUE-bits). Hole spins, rather than electron spins, can keep quantum bits in the same physical state up to 10 times longer than before, the report finds.
"Previously, our group and others have used electron spins, but the problem was that they interacted with spins of nuclei, and therefore it was difficult to preserve the alignment and control of electron spins," said Sergey Frolov, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, who did the work as a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Whereas normal computing bits hold mathematical values of zero or one, quantum bits live in a hazy superposition of both states. It is this quality, said Frolov, which allows them to perform multiple calculations at once, offering exponential speed over classical computers. However, maintaining the qubit's state long enough to perform computation remains a long-standing challenge for physicists.
"To create a viable quantum computer, the demonstration of long-lived quantum bits, or qubits, is necessary," said Frolov. "With our work, we have gotten one step closer."
The holes within hole spins, Frolov explained, are literally empty spaces left when electrons are taken out. Using extremely thin filaments called InSb (indium antimonide) nanowires, the researchers created a transistor-like device that could transform the electrons into holes. They then precisely placed one hole in a nanoscale box called "a quantum dot" and controlled the spin of that hole using electric fields. This approach -- featuring nanoscale size and a higher density of devices on an electronic chip -- is far more advantageous than magnetic control, which has been typically employed until now, said Frolov.
"Our research shows that holes, or empty spaces, can make better spin qubits than electrons for future quantum computers."
"Spins are the smallest magnets in our universe. Our vision for a quantum computer is to connect thousands of spins, and now we know how to control a single spin," said Frolov. "In the future, we'd like to scale up this concept to include multiple qubits."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pittsburgh.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- V. S. Pribiag, S. Nadj-Perge, S. M. Frolov, J. W. G. van den Berg, I. van Weperen, S. R. Plissard, E. P. A. M. Bakkers, L. P. Kouwenhoven. Electrical control of single hole spins in nanowire quantum dots. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.5
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/yzWo70ni_zA/130226114021.htm
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Crick's letter about DNA discovery to be sold at auction
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A letter by Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, outlining the Nobel Prize-winning achievement to his young son is expected to fetch as much as $2 million when it is sold at auction in April, Christie's said on Tuesday.
Crick and James Watson unraveled the double-helix structure and function of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) while working together in Cambridge, England, in 1953. They received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1962 for their ground-breaking work.
In the seven-page, handwritten letter, Crick, who was 33 years old at the time, described the discovery to his 12-year-old son Michael, who was away at a British boarding school.
"When you come home we will show you the model," he wrote in the letter.
Crick went on to say he believed DNA is a code and that the order of the bases (the letters) makes one gene different from another gene.
"In other words we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life. You can understand that we are very excited," Crick added, before signing the letter, "Lots of love, Daddy."
In his later years Crick was a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He died in 2004.
The letter, which is being sold by Crick's son, will be part of the books and manuscripts sale on April 10.
A letter dated August 2, 1939, by physicist Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelet warning him of the potential danger of "the construction of extremely powerful bombs" through nuclear fission sold for more than $2 million at auction in 2002.
(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cricks-letter-dna-discovery-sold-auction-224504607.html
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Resveratrol and Hearing Loss May Have Connection
It?s possible that resveratrol, a phytonutrient found in red wine and red grapes, may have a role in hearing loss associated with noise. However, before you begin downing glasses of merlot to protect your hearing, read this.
The potent antioxidant resveratrol has been touted as a natural anti-aging supplement and a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. Both of these positive traits seem to have made an appearance in the latest study by researchers from the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
The animal study, headed by Michael D. Seidman, director of the Division of Otologic/Neurotologic Surgery at the hospital, involved an evaluation of the ability of resveratrol to reduce noise-induced hearing loss. The issue of hearing loss has long been a concern, and with a rapidly aging population that concern is growing.
Approximately 20 percent of Americans have some level of hearing loss, and the majority of these individuals are middle-age or older. However, noise-induced hearing loss among younger people has become an especially important problem given that more than 12 percent of military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have significant hearing loss.
In fact, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and hearing loss were the most common service-connected disabilities among veterans receiving federal compensation in 2011. Therefore, research into effective ways to prevent and treat hearing loss in people of all ages is critical.
Resveratrol and hearing loss study
The scientific team set out to identify the factor associated with resveratrol that can protect against hearing loss as well as the impact of resveratrol on cognition and aging using an animal model. Specifically, Seidman noted that they looked at ?resveratrol and its effect on bioinflammation, the body?s response to injury and something that is believed to be the cause of many health problems including Alzheimer?s disease, cancer, aging and hearing loss.?
Researchers looked at the effect of resveratrol on cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), a key factor in inflammation. They discovered that while excessive noise exposure caused an up-regulation of COX-2 expression over time, use of resveratrol reduced the potential for damage, inhibited COX-2 expression, and lowered noise-induced hearing loss in rats.
Hearing loss can have a devastating impact on quality of life, resulting in major problems with communication, sleep, and emotional health, as well as raising a person?s risk of heart disease because of a higher prevalence of high blood pressure and glucose. The results of this study are additional evidence that resveratrol can effectively reduce inflammation associated with a significant health problem, in this case noise-induced hearing loss, but further research is needed.
SOURCES:
Seidman MD et al. Resveratrol decreases noise-induced cyclooxygenase-2 expression in the rat cochlea. Otolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery 2013 Feb; DOI: 0194599813475777
Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration, Annual Benefits Report
Image: Morguefile
Source: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/resveratrol-and-hearing-loss-may-have-connection
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Dennis Rodman worms his way into North Korea
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? Former NBA star Dennis Rodman brought his basketball skills Tuesday and flamboyant style ? tattoos, nose studs and all ? to a country with possibly the world's strictest dress code: North Korea.
Landing in Pyongyang with VICE television, the American athlete and showman known as "The Worm" became an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
Rodman is joining three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and a VICE correspondent for a news show on North Korea that will air on HBO later this year, VICE told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday before they landed.
Rodman and VICE said the Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" by running a basketball camp for children and playing with North Korea's top basketball stars ? and, they hope, drawing leader Kim Jong Un to a game. Kim is said to be a huge basketball fan.
"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing.
Rodman might seem an odd fit for North Korea, where men's fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and where growing facial hair is forbidden. Though there's a burgeoning fashion sense among the women of Pyongyang, the men in this conservative society still tend dress austerely: khaki work suits, military uniforms, dark blue Mao-style suits or Western-style suit jackets.
In contract, Rodman was a poster boy for flashy excess during his heyday in the 1990s. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" ? and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.
Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"
But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships.
On Tuesday, Rodman, now 51, was low-key and soft-spoken in cobalt blue sweatpants and a Polo Ralph Lauren cap. There was a bit of flash: white-rimmed sunglasses and studs in his nose and lower lip. But he told AP he was there to teach basketball and talk to people, not to stir up trouble.
Showier were three Harlem Globetrotters dressed in fire-engine red. Rookie Moose Weekes flashed the crowd a huge smile as he made his way off the Air Koryo plane.
"We use the basketball as a tool to build cultural ties, build bridges among countries," said Buckets Blakes, a Globetrotters veteran. "We're all about happiness and joy and making people smile."
It's the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.
Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.
Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.
North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.
VICE, known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the "VICE Guide to North Korea." The HBO series, which will air weekly starting April 5, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.
The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea.
Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.
The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture. But they know Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman's when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.
During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong Il, famously an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.
North Korea even had its own Jordan wannabe: Ri Myong Hun, a 7-foot-9 star player who is said to have renamed himself "Michael" after his favorite player and moved to Canada for a few years in the 1990s in hopes of making it into the NBA.
Even today, Jordan remains well-loved here. At the Mansudae Art Studio, which produces the country's top art, a portrait of Jordan spotted last week, complete with a replica of his signature and "NBA" painted in one corner, seemed an odd inclusion among the propaganda posters and celadon vases on display.
An informal poll of North Koreans revealed that "The Worm" isn't quite as much a household name in Pyongyang.
But Kim Jong Un, also said to be a basketball fanatic, would have been an adolescent when Rodman, now 51, was with the Bulls, and when the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team, kept up a frenetic travel schedule worldwide.
In a memoir about his decade serving as Kim Jong Il's personal sushi chef, a man who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto recalled that basketball was the young Kim Jong Un's biggest passion, and that the Chicago Bulls were his favorite.
The notoriously unpredictable and irrepressible Rodman said he has no special antics up his sleeve for making his mark on one of the world's most regimented and militarized societies, a place where order and conformity are enforced with Stalinist fervor.
But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind. "They shouldn't be scared of a few piercings."
__
Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report from Washington. Follow AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dennis-rodman-worms-way-north-korea-051224872.html
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Tuesday, February 26, 2013
High-stakes oil spill trial begins
NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? BP bears most of the blame for the disastrous 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico because it cut corners and put profits ahead of safety, a U.S. Justice Department attorney charged Monday at the opening of a high-stakes trial that could result in the oil company and its partners being forced to pay billions more in damages.
The London-based oil giant acknowledged it made "errors in judgment" before the deadly blowout, but it also cast blame on the owner of the drilling rig and the contractor involved in cementing the well. It denied it was grossly negligent, as the government contended.
The civil case went to trial after attempts to reach an 11th-hour settlement failed.
Eleven workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by the BP exploded on April 20, 2010. An estimated 172 millions of gallons of crude spilled into the Gulf over the three months that followed.
Justice Department attorney Mike Underhill said the catastrophe resulted from BP's "culture of corporate recklessness."
"The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment," Underhill said in opening statements. He added: "Despite BP's attempts to shift the blame to other parties, by far the primary fault for this disaster belongs to BP."
BP attorney Mike Brock acknowledged that the oil company made mistakes. But he accused rig owner Transocean Ltd. of failing to properly maintain the rig's blowout preventer, which had a dead battery, and he claimed cement contractor Halliburton used a "bad slurry" that failed to prevent oil and gas from traveling up the well.
BP has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other criminal charges and has racked up more than $24 billion in spill-related expenses, including cleanup costs, compensation for businesses and individuals, and $4 billion in criminal penalties.
But the federal government, Gulf Coast states and individuals and businesses hope to convince a judge that the company and its partners in the ill-fated drilling project are liable for much more in civil damages under the federal Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing the case without a jury and ? barring a settlement ? will decide months from now how much more money BP and the other companies must pay.
During opening statements, attorney Jim Roy, who represents individuals and businesses hurt by the spill, said BP executives applied "huge financial pressure" to "cut costs and rush the job." The project was more than $50 million over budget and behind schedule at the time of the blowout, Roy said.
"BP repeatedly chose speed over safety," Roy said, quoting from a report by an expert who may testify.
Roy said the spill also resulted from Transocean's "woeful" safety culture and failure to properly train its crew. And Roy said Halliburton provided BP with a product that was "poorly designed, not properly tested and was unstable."
BP's partners pointed the finger at the oil company and at each other.
Brad Brian, a lawyer for Transocean, said the company had an experienced, well-trained crew on the rig. He said the Transocean workers' worst mistake may have been placing too much trust in the BP supervisors on the rig.
"And they paid for that trust with their lives," Brian said. "They died not because they weren't trained properly. They died because critical information was withheld from them."
A lawyer for Halliburton defended the company's work and tried to pin the blame on BP and Transocean.
"If BP had shut in the well, we would not be here today," Halliburton's Donald Godwin said.
Underhill, the Justice Department attorney, heaped blame on BP for cost-cutting decisions made in the months and weeks leading up the disaster. He said two BP rig supervisors, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, disregarded abnormally high pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble.
Kaluza and Vidrine have been indicted on federal manslaughter charges.
Brock, the BP lawyer, said Transocean employees on the rig also played roles in misinterpreting the "negative pressure test."
"It was a mistake made by several men from two different companies," Brock said. "They were trying to get it right. They were trying to do the right thing."
Hundreds of attorneys have worked on the case, generating roughly 90 million pages of documents, logging nearly 9,000 docket entries and taking more than 300 depositions from witnesses who could testify at trial.
"In terms of sheer dollar amounts and public attention, this is one of the most complex and massive disputes ever faced by the courts," said Fordham University law professor Howard Erichson, an expert in complex litigation.
One of the biggest questions facing the judge is whether BP acted with gross negligence.
Under the Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a minimum of $1,100 per barrel of spilled oil; the fines nearly quadruple to about $4,300 a barrel for companies found grossly negligent, meaning BP could be on the hook for nearly $18 billion.
The judge plans to hold the trial in at least two phases. The first phase, which could last three months, is designed to determine what caused the blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. The second phase will determine how much crude spilled into the Gulf.
The spill fouled marshes, killed wildlife and closed fishing grounds. Scientists warn that the disaster's full effect may not be known for years. But they have reported dying coral reefs and fish afflicted with lesions and illnesses that might be oil-related.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/high-stakes-trial-begins-over-2010-gulf-oil-204618200--finance.html
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Talk So He Will Listen: 10 Powerful Tips to Get Heard & Build ...
There?s the?woman who seems to know the ?secret? ways into a man?s heart. She may not be pretty or sexy, she may be downright plain ? but she gets the guy and she keeps him hooked right from her very first word. Then there?s the woman who is beautiful, confident, and smart ? seemingly the ?perfect package?. She may even be a fantastic speaker, but falls woefully short when it comes to talking to the guys in her life and more importantly getting heard.?
If there is one thing that makes or breaks a relationship ?communication? would be it. Yet, there are so few books dedicated to the subject of the art of communication between man and woman. This book by Kimberly Courtney is an attempt to fill the gap.
Who is the book for?
If you are single and new to the dating scene, or have been in the dating game for a while, if you are newly married or a veteran who wants to bring the old spark back to your love life. If you are looking to start, save or just add some sizzle to your relationship, this book is for you.
What you will learn
There are no complicated ?secret formulas? to remember or rules, steps or plans to follow. In this book you get 10 simple and doable tips that you will be able to use right now. These are things you should know that will guarantee that conversations with every guy in your life is positive, vibrant, refined and most of all productive.
The book includes information on the following concepts and answers your questions:
- ?The three triggers that awaken the ?cave-man? in him and why you never want to go there.?
- There is such a thing as TMI (too much information) ? what it is and why it will have your guy running away from you faster than you can say ?presto?.
- Why every time you add to your ?negativity? account you take one step closer to closing out your relationship account.
- ?How to know if you are a ?certified bore? and what you can do about it.?
- ?Social networking and text-talk: what, when, where and how??
- ?and much more?
As a person who has been there, Kimberly speaks to you as a friend. This is a funny, forthright and truthful take on a vital skill that will guarantee to get you and your guy on a steady path to an amazing future together.
Get ?Talk So He Will Listen? and get on the fast-track to getting heard and building incredible relationships NOW!
Source: http://dating-love-relationships.com/?p=3593
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Lawmakers dispute records for private gun sales
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Senate aide and a lobbyist say a dispute over whether to require record keeping for private gun sales is holding up a bipartisan compromise over expanding background checks for firearms transactions.
Requiring background checks for virtually all firearm sales is a keystone of President Barack Obama's proposed gun curbs. The checks are currently required only for sales at federally licensed dealers, but not private transactions at gun shows, online or elsewhere.
Two Republican and two Democratic senators have been looking for a compromise.
The aide and lobbyist say Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, a conservative playing a leading role in the talks, is balking at requiring record keeping for private transactions. They say he is concerned it could lead to a national gun registry, which Democrats say is untrue.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-dispute-records-private-gun-sales-004021428--politics.html
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Good Advice On Managing Your Next Payday Loan | Fathead ...
TIP! Research any company that you are considering using for your payday loan, as many have hidden fees or extremely high interest rates. Do business only with companies that have been around longer than five years.
You can use a payday loan to get cash pretty quickly. If you are facing a financial crisis and really need cash fast, you may want to turn to a payday loan. Read on for some common payday loan considerations. Before making a payday loan decision, use the tips shared here.
TIP! When taking out a cash advance, make sure there is a written contract of some sort. Many times, the clerks aren?t educated about the details or policies differ from what is told or advertised.
Prior to agreeing to a payday loan, be sure all of your questions are answered. It doesn?t matter how unimportant you think the question is, it is critical that you understand every single step of the process before committing to it. Don?t worry about how the questions make you appear; ask whatever is on your mind.
TIP! When you applying for a payday loan, you may actually have to work out a contract wherein you are using a post-dated check in order to ensure the repayment of your debt. You must be certain that you will actually have funds in your account to cover the check on the specified date.
Have a solid plan for paying the loan back. If you do not pay your loans off immediately, you are risking high interest rates in the future. Do no fall for it. You must find out what you can contribute towards your debt. Calculate how much you can pay back every week and find a loan that corresponds to your budget.
TIP! Do not take out a payday loan for much more than you can afford to repay. There are some companies that might want to give you more than the amount you want so you will default and incur charges.
Avoid cash advances unless there are no other oprions. Do not use it to buy something that is not necessary. Examples of using a payday loan frivolously including buying anime DVDs or new fashion accessories. This is wasting your hard-earned cash. Keep in mind that payday cash advances must be paid back soon.
TIP! If you?re taking out a payday loan, understand that this is essentially your next paycheck. When you get your money you must know that your paycheck will not be avaiable to you! If you do not consider this fact, you will wind up with another loan, thus beginning a cycle of debt that can continue indefinitely.
Don?t consolidate multiple cash advances into one large loan. If you cannot pay off the smaller loans, you will never be able to pay the larger one. Try to find ways to pay your loan with a smaller interest rate so you can out from under the payday loan.
TIP! You should understand the high interest that payday loans charge you. If possible, try getting the money from a different source because it isn?t common for annual rates to be over 300%.
As the article went over earlier, getting a payday loan can help you when you need fast cash. Before you get yourself a payday loan, you have to go over this article carefully and remember its advice. All the knowledge you now have should help you avoid making any mistakes when it comes to payday advances.
Source: http://fatheadandbraindeadssaloon.com/good-advice-on-managing-your-next-payday-loan/
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Despite peace accord, eastern Congo still on edge
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels sit in a vehicle as they withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
Joseph Kabila , President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, waits for the signing of the Congo peace agreement, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Eleven African countries have signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. (AP Photo/ Elias Asmare)
Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, during the signing of the Congo peace agreement, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government.( AP Photo/Elias Asmare)
GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Despite the signing of a Congo peace accord on Sunday, this Central African country remains unsettled by signs of a return to war.
The peace agreement, signed in Ethiopia by 11 neighboring countries and backed by the United Nations, elicited much praise from African and other world leaders who said it points the way to stability in Congo.
But on the ground here in eastern Congo, there are signals that fighting may soon erupt between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels. The regional peace accord is helpful but it does not have specifics to immediately improve the tense security situation, said an expert on eastern Congo.
"I think it is a step in the right direction. But the agreement is more a statement of principles than a concrete action plan. It is lacking in details, such as what an oversight mechanism for its implementation would look like," Jason Stearns, a Congo specialist for the Rift Valley Institute, said to The Associated Press.
The agreement did not mention the much-awaited intervention forces that would come to reinforce the UN peacekeeping troops in eastern Congo, nor did it state how a drone force could patrol the border.
Another problem is that no conclusion has been reached in the negotiations between the M23 rebels and the Kinshasa government of President Joseph Kabila.
Instead the M23 rebels appear to be positioning themselves for a new attack. And the Congolese government is making alliances with other rebel militias. The result is that eastern Congo remains tense and unsettled.
Just over three months ago, on Nov. 20, the M23, who are allegedly backed by neighboring Rwanda, seized this strategic city of 1 million and threatened to take the rest of mineral-rich eastern Congo. Two weeks later, as a result of international pressure and the Congolese army's pledge to negotiate, the rebels withdrew from Goma. But now it appears the rebels are poised to strike again.
The rebels have reinforced their positions and are just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Goma airport. Rebel soldiers are visible along the road from Goma to Rutshuru, unbothered by the daily patrols of U. N. peacekeepers.
Little progress has been made in the negotiations between the rebels and the Kabila government that have been going on for two months in Kampala, Uganda, said Stanislas Baleke, an M23 official.
The M23's nearly one-year-old rebellion is led by fighters who defected from the Congolese army. They are from an earlier rebel group and complain that the Congo government did not properly implement a previous peace accord signed on March 23, 2009. The M23 take their name from the date of that accord.
Neither the rebels nor the Congolese government are willing to compromise on their demands. The rebels' insist that President Joseph Kabila must resign and be replaced by a transitional government that would run the country while new elections are organized, say experts following the talks.
"The M23 has political ambitions that Congo does not want to discuss. And the government wants the arrest of the top five M23 leaders, which is a completely unacceptable condition for the rebels. The talks will go nowhere," said Stearns, the author of "Dancing in the Glory of Monsters" and a Congo expert.
Last month several high-ranking M23 officers were called back from the Kampala negotiations to the rebels headquarter in Rutshuru, Congo, as the armed group is planning new operations, according to rebel sources.
When the M23 rebels seized Goma in November, the UN peacekeepers were harshly criticized because they failed to defend the city, the capital of North Kivu province. The U.N. has 17,000 troops in Congo, its largest mission in the world, but they do not have the authority to intervene to stop fighting, only to protect the civilian population.
Meanwhile, the Congolese army is enrolling new recruits throughout the country and has been forging new alliances with other militia forces in North Kivu province.
Since the creation of the M23 last year, many areas North Kivu have suffered from a security vacuum as the army has focused its forces on fighting the M23 and has ignored the several other militias operating in the area.
Aware that it cannot fight several fronts at once, and playing on the anti-Rwandan feelings of these militias, the army has forged alliances with them. The army has supplied the militias with weapons and ammunition, with the agreement they will fight alongside the regular forces, according to a Congolese colonel speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
"The M23's main problem is its lack of weapons and troops. So if the army can gather more men, they would have the upper hand," explained Congo analyst Stearns. "Militia proxys are a very crude tool for the Congolese army to use, but they are very efficient as well."
Armed by the Congolese army, the militias have started patrolling the muddy tracks running around the hills of Masisi, and are terrorizing the local population with impunity, according to residents. The undisciplined militias stir up ethnic rivalries, force children into their ranks and claim taxes, report residents.
"Our army is weak, they cannot protect us, and now they are letting the armed groups do their job. They have no discipline and they create trouble for us. They are drunk most of the time," said a Felicite, who would only give her first name because she feared reprisals.
North of Rutshuru, the M23's stronghold, the army is also using local militias to regain territory it had lost in recent months.
"The army sees us as cows. They push us ahead to regain territory and they come after us to settle in the areas we have retaken from our enemies," said Col. Moise Visika, the second-in-command of the Mai Mai Shetani, a local militia in the areas of Ishasha and Nyamilima.
The city of Goma remains vulnerable. Few government troops came back to Goma after the M23 rebels withdrew from the town, leaving the city susceptible to an M23 comeback despite the presence of U.N peacekeepers.
The result of all these factors is that, despite Sunday's peace agreement, eastern Congo remains threatened by a return to conflict, say experts.
"The overall situation is volatile and precarious," said Roger Meece, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, speaking to the Security Council on Friday. He said that eastern Congo "could break down at any time into large-scale conflict without much, if any, prior warning."
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Monday, February 25, 2013
Quantum algorithm breakthrough: Performs a true calculation for the first time
Feb. 24, 2013 ? An international research group led by scientists from the University of Bristol, UK, and the University of Queensland, Australia, has demonstrated a quantum algorithm that performs a true calculation for the first time. Quantum algorithms could one day enable the design of new materials, pharmaceuticals or clean energy devices.
The team implemented the 'phase estimation algorithm' -- a central quantum algorithm which achieves an exponential speedup over all classical algorithms. It lies at the heart of quantum computing and is a key sub-routine of many other important quantum algorithms, such as Shor's factoring algorithm and quantum simulations.
Dr Xiao-Qi Zhou, who led the project, said: "Before our experiment, there had been several demonstrations of quantum algorithms, however, none of them implemented the quantum algorithm without knowing the answer in advance. This is because in the previous demonstrations the quantum circuits were simplified to make it more experimentally feasible. However, this simplification of circuits required knowledge of the answer in advance. Unlike previous demonstrations, we built a full quantum circuit to implement the phase estimation algorithm without any simplification. We don't need to know the answer in advance and it is the first time the answer is truly calculated by a quantum circuit with a quantum algorithm."
Professor Jeremy O'Brien, director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics at the University of Bristol said: "Implementing a full quantum algorithm without knowing the answer in advance is an important step towards practical quantum computing. It paves the way for important applications, including quantum simulations and quantum metrology in the near term, and factoring in the long term."
The research is published in Nature Photonics.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Xiao-Qi Zhou, Pruet Kalasuwan, Timothy C. Ralph, Jeremy L. O'Brien. Calculating unknown eigenvalues with a quantum algorithm. Nature Photonics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2012.360
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/lS3QlmN33kQ/130224142829.htm
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Armani, Dior rack up fashion wins at Oscars
Actress Jessica Chastain arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Invision/AP)
Actress Jessica Chastain arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Invision/AP)
Actress Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Actress Quvenzhane Wallis arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Actress Zoe Saldana arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Amy Adams arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Forget Jessica Chastain vs. Jennifer Lawrence. The most heated contest on the Oscars red carpet could be the one between Giorgio Armani and Dior Haute Couture.
Giorgio Armani could claim some big wins: the designer dressed Chastain, Naomi Watts and Quvenzhane Wallis on Sunday night. Dior dressed Lawrence and Charlize Theron ? both are spokesmodels ? who hit it right in white.
Chastain, in a glistening copper-tone strapless gown with mermaid hem, looked like an old-world glamorous movie star, especially with her oversized vintage Harry Winston diamond earrings and bright red lipstick.
"I chose it because to me it was a throwback to old Hollywood," she said. "It's a very 'Happy birthday, Mr. President' dress."
Watts wore a gunmetal beaded gown with a geometric cutout on the bodice, also by Armani.
Quvenzhane (kwuh-VEHN'-juh-nay), with a silver headband in her hair and carrying a bedazzled puppy purse, wore an Armani Junior navy-blue dress with black, navy and silver jewels scattered on the skirt and a big bow on the back. She had another Armani dress, a pink one, ready for the afterparty. "I liked it because it was sparkly and puffy."
Lawrence was the belle of the ball in a white-and-pale pink strapless gown with fitted bustier and poufy hemline, sophisticated pulled-back hair, diamond-ball earrings and a delicate long necklace that hung down in back. Theron was sleek in an angular strapless dress with a fashion-right peplum and a buzz-cut hairdo.
Christos Garkinos, longtime red-carpet watcher and owner of Decades vintage store in Los Angeles, said, "You could have turned the TV off right when Charlize Theron came on. She was perfect."
The more interesting chatter, however, could be about the Jane Fondas and Sally Fields of the world. Fonda wore bright taxicab yellow Versace and Sally Field was in bright red.
"Women of a certain age almost gave the feeling that the older you get, the bolder you get," Garkinos said.
Hal Rubenstein, editor at large of InStyle magazine, was pretty impressed by 86-year-old Emmanuelle Riva in Lanvin. "Jane Fonda looks amazing because she's Jane Fonda, but Emmanuelle Riva was so elegant."
Another look that had people talking was Anne Hathaway's pale pink Prada dress. Rubenstein called the dress and Tiffany & Co. necklace "an Audrey Hepburn moment."
Garkinos wasn't as kind. Thanks to some awkwardly placed darts in the bust, he said it was more like Gwyneth Paltrow's big Academy Awards moment, when she wore a lovely Ralph Lauren pink dress but the fit wasn't quite right.
Hathaway, before the show, said her dress with a seemingly sweet vibe but with a strategically open back and sexy sides, was a last-minute choice. "It fit my mood and place where I'm at right now."
It almost seemed there were two routes to the red carpet, said Rubenstein: incredibly beaded and eye-catching, worn by Nicole Kidman in L'Wren Scott, Halle Berry in Versace, and Stacy Keibler in Naeem Khan; or a simple color with a great silhouette. He puts Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon in a strapless royal-blue Louis Vuitton gown with a black strip at the bustline and Jennifer Aniston in a Valentino red strapless gown in that camp.
"For some, there was a pull back to not do a lot, and that's where fashion is as well," Rubenstein said.
Amanda Seyfried's metallic halter dress by Alexander McQueen with a keyhole opening was three months in the making, and Berry said she trusted Donatella Versace to dress her like the Bond girl that she has been on the big screen. She ended up in a silver beaded-and-black gown with long sleeves and V neck.
Jennifer Hudson's shiny, second-skin blue Roberto Cavalli almost looked like an animal print.
Kristen Stewart had on an even paler blush gown; hers a hand-beaded strapless with tulle inserts by Reem Acra. She accentuated her gown with a 19th-century Fred Leighton necklace with 91 graduated diamonds.
Jennifer Garner chose a violet-colored Gucci with cascading ruffles in the back. Her 200-carat diamond-and-dark platinum necklace from the Neil Lane archives was a big statement.
Beaded gowns had a strong presence, worn by Sandra Bullock, in a fully embroidered Elie Saab; Renee Zellweger, in sleek Carolina Herrera; and Adele in Jenny Packham. Catherine Zeta-Jones was statuesque in an all-gold Zuhair Muhad. Queen Latifah's white V-neck tank dress by Badgley Mischka had a lot of sparkle on the straps.
Salma Hayek's midnight-blue velvet Alexander McQueen gown had a gold embellished collar, and she carried a gold skull box clutch.
Helen Hunt wore a little bit of her conscience along with her blue column gown. It was from fast-fashion retailer H&M. She chose it because it was both accessible and because the company has launched a substantial green initiative. She did wear it, however, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of borrowed jewels.
For the men, the trend was beards, with George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones, among them.
___
Associated Press Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.
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Source: http://aviku.com/why-is-it-important-to-conduct-research-before-doing-international-business/
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South Korea's new president demands North drop nuclear ambitions
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's new president Park Geun-hye urged North Korea on Monday to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and to stop wasting its scarce resources on arms development, less than two weeks after the country carried out its third nuclear test.
Park, 61, the daughter of South Korea's former military ruler Park Chung-hee, is the first female president of prosperous South Korea and one of her campaign promises was to engage with the North if it halted its nuclear weapons plans.
"I urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay and embark on the path to peace and shared development," Park said after being inaugurated on Monday.
North Korea is ruled by Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to hold power in Pyongyang and the grandson of a man who tried to assassinate Park's father.
Park's father seized power in a 1961 coup and ruled for 18 years until he was gunned down by his security chief in 1979. He helped transform South Korea from a poverty-stricken country where income was just $100 a year into what is now Asia's fourth largest economy and an industrial powerhouse whose cars, telephones and ships are sold worldwide.
Park also urged South Koreans to recreate the drive of a country that was once dubbed "the Miracle on the Han River", as she prepared to return the presidential mansion 33 years after her father's assassination.
In December's presidential poll, one of the most hotly contested elections for years, Park won about 52 percent of the vote, compared with 48 percent for her liberal opponent.
Park served as First Lady to her father Park Chung-hee after her mother was gunned down by a North Korean-backed assassin in 1974. She has been a top legislator since 1998 and has been dubbed "The Queen of Elections" for her ability to score victories for her conservative party.
Park has promised "economic democracy" and to increase "national happiness" in a country where income differentials between the poorest and the richest have soared in recent years.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by David Chance and Michael Perry)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-koreas-president-demands-north-drop-nuclear-ambitions-021645592.html
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Flipping the 'off' switch on cell growth: Protein uses multiple means to help cells cope when oxygen runs low
Feb. 22, 2013 ? A protein known for turning on genes to help cells survive low-oxygen conditions also slows down the copying of new DNA strands, thus shutting down the growth of new cells, Johns Hopkins researchers report. Their discovery has wide-ranging implications, they say, given the importance of this copying -- known as DNA replication -- and new cell growth to many of the body's functions and in such diseases as cancer.
"We've long known that this protein, HIF-1?, can switch hundreds of genes on or off in response to low oxygen conditions," says Gregg Semenza, M.D., Ph.D., a molecular biologist who led the research team and has long studied the role of low-oxygen conditions in cancer, lung disease and heart disorders. "We've now learned that HIF-1? is even more versatile than we thought, as it can work directly to stop new cells from forming." A report on the discovery appears in the Feb. 12 issue of Science Signaling.
With his team, Semenza, who is the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Cell Engineering and Institute for Genomic Medicine, discovered HIF-1? in the 1990s and has studied it ever since, pinpointing a multitude of genes in different types of cells that have their activity ramped up or down by the activated protein. These changes in so-called "gene expression" help cells survive when oxygen-rich blood flow to an area slows or stops temporarily; they also allow tumors to build new blood vessels to feed themselves.
To learn how HIF-1?'s own activity is controlled, the team looked for proteins from human cells that would attach to HIF-1?. They found two, MCM3 and MCM7, that limited HIF-1?'s activity, and were also part of the DNA replication machinery. Those results were reported in 2011.
In the new research, Semenza and his colleagues further probed HIF-1?'s relationship to DNA replication by comparing cells in low-oxygen conditions to cells kept under normal conditions. They measured the amount of DNA replication complexes in the cells, as well as how active the complexes were. The cells kept in low-oxygen conditions, which had stopped dividing, had just as much of the DNA replication machinery as the normal dividing cells, the researchers found; the difference was that the machinery wasn't working. It turned out that in the nondividing cells, HIF-1? was binding to a protein that loads the DNA replication complex onto DNA strands, and preventing the complex from being activated.
"Our experiments answered the long-standing question of how, exactly, cells stop dividing in response to low oxygen," says Maimon Hubbi, Ph.D., a member of Semenza's team who is now working toward an M.D. degree. "It also shows us that the relationship between HIF-1? and the DNA replication complex is reciprocal -- that is, each can shut the other down."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- M. E. Hubbi, Kshitiz, D. M. Gilkes, S. Rey, C. C. Wong, W. Luo, D.-H. Kim, C. V. Dang, A. Levchenko, G. L. Semenza. A Nontranscriptional Role for HIF-1? as a Direct Inhibitor of DNA Replication. Science Signaling, 2013; 6 (262): ra10 DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.2003417
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/XQflXj1NWK4/130223111517.htm
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Boosting Efficiency Could Double Energy Productivity
Researchers with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), one of the?U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) labs, say that the United States can double its energy productivity by 2030 ? and do so in ways that bolster the nation's economy.
Unveiling their recommendations at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., ?NREL Director Dan Arvizu and a blue-ribbon panel of 20 energy experts drove that message home, declaring that the United States and other members of the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy said that doubling energy productivity could create a million new jobs, while saving the average household $1,000 a year and reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by one-third.
"Serving on the Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy over the past year has been a unique and rewarding experience," Arvizu said. "The commission's recommendations provide a bold yet attainable roadmap for revolutionizing our nation's use of energy, and boosting our economy and improving our environment along the way." The commission was organized and sponsored by the ASE, and the full report is available on the ASE website.
The commission said its ambitious goals can be accomplished by unleashing investments in energy efficiency concepts and technologies throughout the economy, modernizing our energy infrastructure, reforming regulatory measures to promote efficiency, and educating consumers and business leaders on ways to reduce energy waste.
In December, Arvizu testified on the importance of greater energy efficiency before the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure.?
"Perhaps the most compelling evidence that energy efficiency measures can have dramatic effects in the future is the often-overlooked fact that they already have produced so many benefits for our nation," Arvizu noted in his testimony. To the same point, a report by the commission showed that the nation would be using fully 50% more energy than we currently use today had we not taken advantage of all the energy efficiency opportunities we have developed and deployed over the past three decades.
The NREL director's work on the commission and his testimony before Congress are but two illustrations of how NREL has been a leader in cutting-edge energy efficiency solutions.
A wealth of NREL experience and research knowledge was included in Arvizu's contribution to the commission's report. Dick DeBlasio, NREL's chief engineer for renewable electricity ande use applications, Austin Brown, a Washington, D.C., analyst in NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis Center, and Gary Schmitz, NREL senior manager for government relations, worked closely with Arvizu and ASE staff to ensure the recommendations reflected the latest in energy efficiency analysis and R&D concepts from NREL programs.
In addition to NREL's R&D on renewable energy generation technologies such as solar and wind, the laboratory has major programs to improve energy efficiency in the nation's two largest sectors of energy use: buildings and transportation.
More Efficient Buildings
This is a photo of several NREL employees working in the library. In the background are large windows that stream sunlight into the workspace. Enlarge image
The library in NREL's Research Support Facility is designed with energy-saving appliances and recycled materials, and utilizes available light to create a comfortable space for employees.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Forty percent of the nation's energy is used in buildings ? from hospitals to factories, restaurants to office complexes.
NREL is helping the nation's architects and engineers find ways to reduce by 50% the energy intensity of large hospitals, schools, and retail buildings. NREL created the modeling and optimized the software for the Advanced Energy Design Guidelines (AEDGs) that spearhead the effort.
U.S. hospitals spend more than $5 billion annually on energy, equaling about 2% of a typical hospital's operating budget. NREL Senior Research Engineer and AEDG Project Chairman Shanti Pless said: "Our job is to develop those best practices, along with the professionals in the industry, and put them together in an easy-to-implement guide."
Schools Finding Big Energy Savings
NREL researchers helped New Orleans build 40 new schools and renovate 38 others in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation ? demonstrating an average energy savings of 30%. Among cost-saving measures, the blueprints called for pretreatment of humid air rather than overcooling the entire airflow; aligning the new schools on an east-west axis, with large, efficient, south-facing windows; and smart monitors to assure that only the lights that are needed are turned on.
The potential savings are monumental, amounting to some $75,000 per year, per school. In the United States there are about 100,000 public schools. This year, $14 billion will be spent constructing about 750 new schools and renovating others, according to School Planning&Management magazine. If all the new and renovated schools followed green-school designs, the savings would be more than $50 million the first year, compounded each succeeding year. And the average school is built to endure 50 to 100 years.
Green Is the Color of Disaster Relief
In this photo, light is streaming through flat and curved windows to illuminate round tables in a school cafeteria. Enlarge image
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Andrew Wilson Elementary School in New Orleans was built to ensure that there is plenty of daylight streaming through the windows in common areas and classrooms.
Credit: Joe Ryan
In the aftermath of Katrina, NREL researchers helped city officials develop the Energy Smart New Orleans Plan, which includes residential energy audits, incentives for energy efficiency, low-income weatherization, commercial and industrial programs, pilot programs for photovoltaic arrays, solar domestic hot water systems, and education outreach. In a city in which 55,000 houses were abandoned, NREL worked with builders to achieve 15% to 30% energy savings on homes for middle-class and lower-income residents.
In 2007, a tornado leveled nearly the entire town of Greensburg, Kansas. Town leaders invited NREL scientists, and together they rebuilt a town that achieved 50% energy savings. The farm-supply town formerly tried to attract tourist dollars with the largest hand-dug well in the country. Now, it is a mecca for architects, planners, and vacationers who want to see how wind and solar energy can combine with energy efficiency to create a vibrant, attractive community.
NREL's Living Laboratory of Energy Efficiency
Last year, Construction Digital, a monthly online magazine, named NREL's Research Support Facility (RSF) ? a 326,000-square-foot building housing 1,300 employees ? the top net-zero energy building in the world. A net-zero building uses no more fossil-fuel-based energy than it produces via renewables. In all, the RSF has received more than 30 awards for sustainable design and construction.
The "SolarWall" transpired collector, light louvers, electrochromic and thermochromic windows, thermal storage walls, and NREL's Open Studio software tools that simplify optimal energy design, are getting friendly receptions in the marketplace.
NREL's Golden, Colorado, campus now has several buildings that have achieved lofty LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status, and it hosts visitors from around the country and the world who want to replicate the energy efficiencies on display at NREL.
Don't Forget the Parking Garage
This photo shows a four-story parking structure at dawn with minimal lighting and energy use. Enlarge image
NREL's new parking garage attracts builders and architects because it is mostly daylit and performs 90% above code. For every watt saved in the building or garage, that's $33 worth of photovoltaics a company doesn't have to buy to achieve net-zero energy.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Parking garages are opportunities to save a lot of energy because, while they are often an afterthought, they typically use 15% of the energy used by the buildings they are designed to support.
NREL's new parking garage attracts builders and architects because it is mostly daylit, performs 90% above code, and has enough solar panels on its roof to help the 1,300-employee RSF achieve net-zero energy. For every watt saved in the building or garage, that's $33 worth of photovoltaics a company doesn't have to buy to achieve net-zero energy.
Cooling Efficiently in All Climates
Nothing runs up the energy bill like air conditioning. Air conditioning currently accounts for 15% of all electricity use in the United States, and can be as much as 70% of use during hot summer days.
NREL researchers borrowed ancient cooling ideas and combined them with outside-the-box thinking to come up with a radically new kind of air conditioning. NREL's Desiccant-Enhanced Evaporative (DEVAP) system first dehumidifies the air, and then sends it through an evaporative cooler to produce cool, dry air in any climate. The keys are paper membranes that separate the air from the water and the liquid desiccant, and a re-routing mechanism that uses a thermal cycle to refresh the desiccant and vent moisture away. The technology has the chance to lower air-conditioning energy bills by 40% to 80%, because it uses water rather than electricity to perform most of the process.
"The idea is to revolutionize cooling, while removing millions of metric tons of carbon from the air," said NREL mechanical engineer Eric Kozubal, principal investigator of the DEVAP cooling system. DEVAP uses no environmentally damaging working fluids, such as the chlorofluorocarbons used in vapor compression systems.
Energy Efficiency Starts at Home
TV blasting, air conditioner humming ? that's no time to start the dishwasher, do laundry, or bake a cake.
NREL's Automated Home Energy Management (AHEM) Laboratory uses real plugs, panels, and appliances to study how consumers can save energy by running their appliances at the optimal time of the day ? or have smart monitors do it for them. The "smart" home of the near future will communicate with the electricity grid to know when power is cheap, tell appliances when to turn on or off, and even alert when renewable energy resources are available to offset peak demand.
"We are very cognizant of the fact that every home is part of a larger energy system," NREL Senior Engineer Dane Christensen said. "We've modeled the AHEM Lab around a real home. The idea is that eventually our appliances and homes are going to be able to 'talk' to the grid."
The goal of the DOE Building America program is to reach 50% energy savings for new construction and 40% savings for building retrofits.
Energy Efficiency Spreads to the Grid
NREL's new Energy Systems Integration Laboratory (ESIF) helps optimize energy efficiency by hosting companies and utilities large and small that want to test how their products can integrate renewables onto the grid in a seamless way.
In its electrically interconnected laboratories, research partners can literally plug in and test new energy technologies on real and simulated power systems before hooking them up to the grid.
"We help utilities and companies that want to design new equipment that will increase the penetration of renewables into the energy grid," Acting Group Manager for Distributed Energy Systems Integration Bill Kramer said. "We can also test natural gas field generators. If you don't take into consideration the overall system and only work on a component at a time, you will never come up with the optimal solution."
Testing the Energy Efficiency of Battery-Powered Cars
In this photo, three NREL employees work on a battery calorimeter. Enlarge image
NREL researchers Matthew Keyser, John Ireland, and Dirk Long attach the cover on the calorimeter that the group designed and built to conduct advanced research on batteries at NREL's Thermal Test Facility.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
NREL's Large-Volume Battery Calorimeter (LVBC) is helping put more energy-efficient automobiles on the road. It precisely measures the heat generated by batteries for electric drive vehicles, analyzes temperature's effects on systems, and helps pinpoint ways to manage battery temperatures for the best performance and maximum life.
Affordable, long-lasting, high-performing batteries are keys to consumer acceptance of automobiles that can get the equivalent of 100-plus miles per gallon.
The Military Reaches for Energy Efficiency
NREL teamed with the U.S. Army on the Army Vision for Net Zero program, an ambitious effort to increase energy productivity and to get 25% of energy from renewables by 2025. Army bases responded enthusiastically, dozens accepting the challenge to reach net-zero energy, or to reduce water use and waste by 30% to 50%. Strategies include solar daylighting, photovoltaics, and turning waste into energy.
NREL is helping in war zones, too, where Army bases are replacing bottled water and barrels of diesel with solar systems that purify water and heat barracks. The changes don't just boost energy productivity; they mean fewer dangerous truck rides to forward bases ? and that saves lives.
Converting Waste Gas into Usable Energy
The amount of natural gas simply flared or vented from oil wells globally is enormous ? equal to one-third of the amount of petroleum used in the United States each year. And every molecule of methane vented to the atmosphere in that process has the global-warming capacity of 12 molecules of carbon dioxide.
NREL biofuels scientists working with industrial and university partners are developing microbes that convert methane found in natural gas into liquid diesel fuel. The novel approach could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower dependence on foreign oil.
Their proposal ? to develop a microbe that eats the methane in the gas ? won a $4.8 million Advanced Research Projects Agency ? Energy (ARPA-E) award from DOE. If the wasted gas can be turned into a liquid, then it can be piped along with the petroleum to refineries, where it can be turned into diesel suitable for trucks and cars, or even jet fuel for use in planes.
"The direct conversion of methane to diesel has the potential to dramatically increase energy supply while mitigating greenhouse gas impact," said Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO at LanzaTech, NREL's manufacturing partner in the consortium.
Source: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/boosting_efficiency_could_double_energy_productivity-104211
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