Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b02cc71114307ce418a0eefd96ee5915
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Latest violence could signal new phase in Syria conflict
By Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News correspondent
With fighting now encroaching the suburbs of the Syrian capital, the conflict is entering into a new dimension for the first time in nearly 10 months.
Ayman Mohyeldin / NBC News
President Bashar Assad's regime is intensifying its violent crackdown on Syrian protesters, despite international pressure. NBC News' Ayman Mohyeldin is one of the few Western journalists to have been granted permission inside Syria in recent weeks, click to see some of his photos.
The Syrian military has regained control of the Damascus suburbs after rebel fighters over the weekend made strong advances around the capital, threatening the grip of President Bashar al Assad. The Syrian News Agency say security forces attacked "terrorist hideouts" in the Damascus countryside -- a loosely veiled acknowledgment that the fighting is now on the doorsteps of the capital.
But the attention on the capital and its outlying areas is a sign that rebel fighters who are part of the loosely knit Free Syrian Army have grown more brazen in their attacks as they go on the offensive against government troops. The fighting near the capital comes as a spike in violence has left several hundreds of people dead over the past?five days. Both the government and opposition activists continue to blame each other for the violence that only seems to be escalating.
Syrian opposition fighters say the spike in violence is a sign that?Assad's regime?is desperate and launching whatever counter offensive it can to crush a stubborn uprising against his rule. Syrian analysts say with the international community convening at the U.N. to discuss the Syria crisis, the regime sees a window of opportunity in which it?can resort to violence before pressure and possibly action is ratcheted up against Damascus rendering it impossible to continue on the same path.
An Arab League monitoring mission tasked with making sure Syria complies with an Arab peace plan to end the violence has been suspended. Syrian opposition says this has given Assad the greenlight to crack down in the blackout of media and monitors.
Read more: Gunfire 'everywhere': Street battles rage in Damascus suburbs
Some Syrians say the Free Syrian Army has grown in strength as more supporters and defectors join its ranks buoyed by its will to fight on despite being overpowered and outnumbered. As their numbers grow, the Syrian military is increasingly fatigued and weary,?according to?opposition members. Time is the regime's enemy, they say.
But Syria's fault lines are now spilling over into the international arena. U.N. Security Council members are convening in New York?on Tuesday to discuss endorsing an Arab League plan that calls on Assad to hand over power immediately. The biggest objection so far has come from Russia which sees such attempts as interference in Syrian domestic affairs.
Russia instead has gone on its own diplomatic offensive, offering to host negotiations between the Assad government and all of the opposition forces. But a member of the Syrian opposition tells me Russia's efforts are only so that it does not appear as an obstacle to the will of the international community without offering an alternative. The Syrian opposition will not enter into any dialogue with?Assad's government?without preconditions. At the top of?its list of demands??The President must agree to step down from power immediately.
President Bashar Assad's regime has slaughtered thousands of people since March, according to the United Nations. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 owners coping with Siri envy can find several good apps in Apple's App Store that replicate some?but not all?of Siri's functions. Bing's iPhone app offers excellent voice-controlled Web searches, for example, while Dragon Go! listens to the commands you speak for other Web functions, like using specific online sites and services such as OpenTable, Wolfram Alpha, and Yelp. From the same maker of Dragon Go!, Nuance Communication, comes another voice-controlled app designed to increase productivity and take the stress off your typing fingers: Dragon Dictation for iPhone (free). As a simple dictation app, Dragon transcribes whatever you speak. End of story. The app does have some shortcut buttons to push the transcribed text through to Facebook, a new email message, and a few other places, but Dragon Dictate doesn't actually store any notes in the app itself.
As far as free apps go, Dragon Dictation for iPhone does a good job in its core mission: transcribing what you say aloud. But it doesn't go much beyond that.
What Dragon Dictation Can Do
Dragon Dictation is relatively accurate and fast, although users should have reasonable expectations for what that means in a lightweight app. When you press the button that tells Dragon to start listening to your speech, a "Recording" screen appears, with moving indicator bars to show that it can hear you. When you finish speaking, Dragon can (if you enable this setting) automatically detect the end of your speech, but you can press the "Done" button instead if you prefer. The app then needs a moment or two, depending on how much you just said, to process the language before spitting out typed text. When the text appears on screen, you can select any word to delete or revise. If Dragon has a second guess at what the word or words are supposed to say, it will suggest the alternate, which you can pick without having to key it in.
Check out The Best iPhone Apps
At the bottom of the screen are two selections, one to pop open the keyboard and one that offers you these options: copy, email, send via SMS text message, post to Twitter, post to Facebook, and settings.
If you stop after speaking a few lines, check the transcription, and then start up again, the Dragon iPhone app will pick up where you left off, so long as you haven't moved the cursor.
In terms of accuracy, the app isn?t as clever as the full desktop dictation software, like Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium for Windows ($199.99, 4.5 stars), but it's pretty good. And it works even better if you turn on a setting Recognize Names, which uses names from your Contacts list to inform Dragon on spelling.
It also handles homonyms fairly well because it looks for clues in which other words are commonly used nearby; in testing, the most common errors I saw were with similar-sounding words rather than homonyms per se. Some examples are: "we'll" and "well"; "in a" and "and a"; "endure" and "indoor."
What Dragon Dictation Cannot Do
A few of the app's limitations really bothered me. In particular I was frustrated by the inability to shake to undo, a standard feature in iOS that I use often because I am forever accidentally deleting large swathes of text. You also can't train this little app to learn special words, like proper names of places and people that might not be in your Contacts list.
Dragon Dictation is a dictation app, and not a note-taking app, so you can't save notes inside the app. I really wish the next update would add this feature, because having it would make it so much more valuable. As it is, you can copy your transcriptions and paste them into another note app, but that's clunky. I want to save the notes I make quickly and in the app where I created them. Or, better, I'd love to see a partnership with a note-taking app so that all Dragon notes I make are automatically saved to a service such as Evernote or Awesome Note (+ToDo).
Another clumsy feature in the otherwise simple and clean Dragon Dictation iPhone app rears its ugly head when you try to scroll through a long note. Six sentences into the "Gettysburg Address," it became very difficult for me to get to the bottom of the note. Every time I touched the app to scroll, words would highlight for correction. Getting the cursor where I needed it became a painstaking task.
Dragon for Dictation
In sampling speech-recognition and voice-command software, I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences with Nuance's Dragon family of products. For accuracy and speed, the Dragon Dictation iPhone app meets the standards of the brand. The usability could be improved, however, and it wouldn't take too much heavy-lifting to elevate it from being a "very good app for some" to "very good app, even if you don't think you need it." Dictation is a time-saver over typing, but Dragon Dictation needs to make it easier for users to put their words to work, adding an ability to save notes in the app or automatically save them to a third-party app, as well as cut out some of the tapping needed to send a message to email, text, Facebook, and Twitter, with a few simple voice commands.
More iPhone App Reviews:
??? Pageonce (for iPhone)
??? Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
??? AntiCrop (for iPhone)
??? Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 (for iPhone)
??? CameraBag 1.93 (for iPhone)
?? more
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/OUtBBAEaEqQ/0,2817,2399543,00.asp
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Games Decreasing In Popularity On Android, Entertainment Apps On The Rise
The mobile app ecosystem is growing so quickly - exponentially, even - that sometimes it's hard to see the larger trends occurring in the space. To really gain insight, it helps to look back over a longer period of time, like a year for example, in order to take stock of the changes taking place. To that end, I reached out to mobile app search company Chomp, who kindly obligated my curiousity by packaging together its first ever annual app search analytics report.?The report digs into the data from Chomp's 1 million app searches per month, to reveal trends in app prices, category share, top apps and more.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iVR8-SvbHow/
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Marshall's monster day leads AFC
Dolphins receiver catches 6 passes for 176 yards and 4 TDs in 59-41 win
By JAYMES SONG
updated 1:00 a.m. ET Jan. 30, 2012
HONOLULU - While everyone was playing at half-speed and ready to extend their Hawaiian vacation, Brandon Marshall played as if it was his last game.
The Miami Dolphins wide receiver caught six passes for 176 yards and a Pro Bowl-record four touchdowns, and the AFC used a second-half surge to beat the NFC 59-41 on Sunday.
"You never know when you're going to be back," Marshall said, "and I wanted to go all out today because it could be my last Pro Bowl."
Marshall had a touchdown catch in each quarter, including an early 74-yarder and a 3-yarder in the fourth, in a game filled with highlight-reel grabs.
He was selected the game's MVP, and his name now will join the likes of Walter Payton and Jerry Rice on the MVP banners at Aloha Stadium.
"You know what? I wanted it," he said. "It's a Pro Bowl. Some guys are playing 100 (percent), some guys are playing 90, some guys aren't playing at all, but it means a lot to be up in the rafters with some of these guys."
The 59 points by the AFC set a Pro Bowl mark, and the 100 points scored by the teams combined was the second highest, a touchdown shy of the 107 scored in 2004.
But it was clear from the start it was Marshall's day. He hauled in a deflected, go-ahead 47-yard TD pass from Andy Dalton, while on his back, to give the AFC a 38-35 lead late in the third quarter. It was Marshall's third TD catch of the game, tying Jimmy Smith's Pro Bowl record set in 2004.
"It was the most unathletic highlight I ever had," he said. "Andy put it up there for me to make a play. I saw the ball, got nervous, fell, saw the ball, kicked it up and it just fell in my hands."
Marshall, making his third Pro Bowl appearance, then nabbed a 3-yard TD pass from Dalton that gave the AFC a 52-35 lead with 8:25 left and put the game away.
"People were saying throw to him. I saw the matchup I had and he's a great receiver, so I knew he could make the play," Dalton said.
Hawaii has been kind to Marshall, who also won MVP honors at Aloha Stadium in his final game at Central Florida in the 2005 Hawaii Bowl, where he caught 11 passes for 210 yards and three touchdowns.
Marshall noted he had six TDs this season, but four this game.
"It says a lot when you're playing with these type of quarterbacks," Marshall said. "They just put it in the right place and I just made the play. Hats off to those guys throwing me the ball."
The game featured 36 first-timers, including rookie quarterbacks Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers and Dalton of the Cincinnati Bengals, who replaced Super Bowl quarterbacks Eli Manning and Tom Brady. Their selection made this Pro Bowl the first to feature two rookie signal callers.
Dalton and Newton played the entire second half.
While Dalton looked composed, Newton played horribly ? struggling to move the ball, stay in the pocket and find his targets, which drew some boos from the sun-splashed, sellout crowd of 48,423.
"No excuses," Newton said. "When you hang the ball up there, against these kind of players, that's what you get," Newton said. "It's the good and the bad of playing in a Pro Bowl. I learned a lot."
Newton finished 9 of 27 for 186 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Dalton, meanwhile, was 7 of 9 for 99 yards and two TDs.
On his first series, Newton overthrew a wide-open Tony Gonzalez over the middle, with the ball sailing into Eric Weddle's hands. The San Diego Chargers safety popped up to his feet and returned it 63 yards to the NFC 23, leading to a 37-yard FG by Sebastian Janikowski, which gave the AFC its first lead of the game at 31-28.
Newton recovered on the next series, airing out a 55-yard go-ahead touchdown pass to Panthers teammate Steve Smith, making it 34-31. But he was intercepted again on the next series.
Weddle also intercepted another pass by Newton late in the game. After picking off the deep pass, he pitched it to teammate Derrick Johnson, who rumbled 60 yards for the AFC's final score.
"None of us want to go out and lose, so we picked it up and went out and made some plays," Weddle said. "Got the 'W,' that's the main thing."
With the Pro Bowlers unable to get out of third gear ? particularly on the offensive and defensive lines ? and hitting each other as though they were having a pillow fight, the Pro Bowl featured some good, bad and real ugly ? sometimes on the same play. For example, Aaron Rodgers caught a pass from himself. His throw was deflected at the line and he leaped to catch the ball and backpedaled for a 15-yard loss.
Rodgers was 13 of 17 for 141 yards and two TDs, giving him a quarterback rating of 139.6, higher than his NFL record 122.5 rating during the season. But he was watching late in the game as Newton struggled.
Rodgers said it's easier to play in the first quarter when the game isn't as intense.
"It's tough to be the last guy in, when it's the fourth quarter and money becomes an issue," he said. "Guys are playing a little bit harder. They come at you."
The NFC had three players with 100-yard yard receiving: Gonzalez (seven for 114), Larry Fitzgerald (6 for 111) and Smith (5 for 118).
The AFC and NFC traded score after score, and turnover after turnover in the first half.
Rodgers and Fitzgerald connected for a pair of scores on back-to-back plays to put the NFC up 14-0 early in the game.
After stopping the AFC on fourth down at midfield, Rodgers drove the NFC down the field and threw a 10-yard TD toss to Fitzgerald. Six seconds later, Rodgers aired a 44-yard rainbow in the end zone to Fitzgerald for another score after the NFC got the ball back with a surprise onside kick.
The reception was Fitzgerald's sixth career TD catch in the Pro Bowl, tying Gonzalez's record. He would break the record with the game's last touchdown, on a 36-yard pass from Newton.
The AFC came right back and tied it up on two deep TD passes on the right side by Ben Roethlisberger. He threw a 34-yarder to rookie A.J. Green, and then connected with Marshall on a 74-yarder.
But Drew Brees and the NFC kept the scoring going. Just like in the regular season, Brees and Saints teammate Jimmy Graham hooked up to give the NFC a 21-14 lead in the second quarter. On fourth-and-goal, Brees zipped a pass to Graham for a 6-yard score and would later find Greg Jennings for an 11-yard TD. Brees finished 10 of 14 for 146 yards and two touchdowns.
Antonio Gates pulled in a 27-yard TD from Chargers teammate Rivers as time expired in the half to tie it at 28.
Each AFC player earned a record $50,000 for the win, while the NFC players received $25,000.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Getty ImagesMarshall's monster day leads AFC
??Brandon Marshall caught six passes for 176 yards and a Pro Bowl-record four touchdowns and the AFC used a second-half surge to beat the NFC 59-41 on Sunday.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46185221/ns/sports-nfl/
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Guns N' Roses Announce Six U.S. Tour Dates
Axl Rose and company to revisit NYC venue where they performed their 'Live at the Ritz' concerts 24 years ago.
By Andrea Duncan-Mao
Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose
Photo: Evan Agostini/Getty Images
All that's old is new again. Axl Rose and his revamped Guns N' Roses will revisit their beloved New York when they launch their Northeast tour in February.
In 2011, the band completed a sold-out international tour and will kick off 2012 with a series of intimate shows in the States, starting with New York. Beginning February 10, they will perform a three-show series in the city, the cornerstone of which will be at the club Webster Hall, which was originally called the Ritz. This is where GN'R played one of their most famous concerts, "Live at the Ritz," in 1998. For their return, the venue will revert to its original name, complete with new signage and marquee, and fans can wax nostalgic about the days when Guns were the biggest band on the planet.
Additional cities include Chicago; Silver Spring, Maryland; and Atlantic City, New Jersey. No word yet if more dates will be announced.
The stark difference this time around is that the original members of the group — namely Duff McKagan, Slash and Izzy Stradlin — will not be there. Axl remains the only original member in this latest incarnation of GN'R, and the latest crew has yet to release a new album. The last Guns N' Roses release was back in 2008 with Chinese Democracy.
McKagan currently lives in Seattle and has had success with his bands Velvet Revolver and Loaded, while the top-hat-wearing Slash, who was also in Velvet Revolver, has guested on tracks from Michael Jackson and Rihanna and is a major figure in the "Guitar Hero" video games.
Guns N' Roses tour dates, according to a press release:
» 2/10 - New York, NY @ Roseland Ballroom
» 2/12 - New York, NY @ Terminal 6
» 2/15 - New York, NY @ The Ritz (Webster Hall)
» 2/19 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blue
» 2/23 - Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
» 2/24 - Atlantic City, NJ @ House of Blues
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678152/guns-roses-us-tour-six-dates.jhtml
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Scrapbooking Our Pets
Growing up I had dogs, cats, birds, fish and even a turtle. Right now I have two cats. They?re brothers that we adopted years ago when they were kittens. Since they are a big part of our family, it makes sense to scrapbook them.
Here are a few pages that I have made about my pets:
My daughter is five years old now and loves to ?read? our family scrapbook. Some of her favourite pages are about our pets. She especially finds it interesting and almost unbelievable that they were a part of the family before she was!
If you are interested in scrapping about your pets, I put together a list of journaling prompts to get your creativity flowing:
- How did you adopt your pet?
- How did you name your pet?
- What pets did you have as a child?
- What was your pet like as a kitten/puppy/etc.?
- Do you have any funny training stories to tell?
- Does your pet have any neat tricks?
- What?s a typical day like for your pet?
- How does your pet fit into your family?
- Does your pet have any quirky habits?
- Does your pet have a special toy or blanket?
- Who takes care of your pet? What chores are required to look after it?
- Does your pet go on vacation with you?
- How does your pet participate in your holiday celebrations? Does your dog get a special treat at Thanksgiving? Does your cat cozy up under the Christmas tree?
Pet Supplies
There is almost no end to the digital supplies you could use for pet pages because almost any all-purpose kit in your digi stash would work. There is also a plethora of amazing pet themed kits you can consider for your pages:
(PS ? Clever Monkey Graphics also has a Dog version of these felt element!)
Inspiration Pages
Pet pages can be sweet or funny! Take a look at these great pages. (All the pages are linked to their gallery posts with credits.)
I hope you found some inspiration to help you scrap your family pets!
Happy scrapping!
About Heddy
Heddy is a team member and contributing writer at The Daily Digi. Read more about Heddy here. This entry was posted in Topics to Scrap. Bookmark the permalink.Source: http://thedailydigi.com/scrapbooking-our-pets/
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
"So You Think You Can Dance" Salsa Instructor Sentenced For Rape: Alex Da Silva Gets 10 Years
LOS ANGELES ? A salsa dance instructor who worked on the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance" has been sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years in prison for raping one woman and assaulting another.
Prosecutors say Alex Da Silva gave dance lessons at salsa clubs where he met aspiring dancers he assaulted.
He was convicted of raping a 22-year-old woman in 2002 and attacking another woman with intent to commit rape in 2009.
The jury deadlocked on four other counts, including two more alleged rapes. Those counts were dismissed.
A defense attorney says the women who accused Da Silva were not telling the truth.
Da Silva will be required to register as a sex offender for life.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
France, Karzai want faster NATO Afghanistan exit
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, welcomes Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, welcomes Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, welcomes Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, waits prior to welcoming Afghan President Hamid Karzai, unseen, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PARIS (AP) ? France and Afghanistan agree NATO should speed up by a year its timetable for handing all combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday, raising new questions about the unity of the Western military alliance.
Sarkozy also announced a faster-track exit for France, the fourth-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan ? marking a distinct break from previous plans to adhere to the U.S. goal of withdrawing combat forces by the end of 2014. The proposal comes a week after four unarmed French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier described as a Taliban infiltrator.
Sarkozy, alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was in Paris for a previously planned visit, said France had told the U.S. of its plan, and will present it at a Feb. 2-3 meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He said he would call President Barack Obama about it Saturday.
"We have decided in a common accord with President Karzai to ask NATO to consider a total handing of NATO combat missions to the Afghan army over the course of 2013," Sarkozy told reporters.
A sense of mission fatigue has been growing among some European contributors to the 10-year allied intervention in Afghanistan. The new idea floated by Sarkozy would accelerate a gradual drawdown of NATO troops that Obama has planned to see through until the end of 2014.
France's announcement could step up pressure in other European governments like Britain, Italy and Germany, which also have important roles in Afghanistan ? even if the U.S. has the lion's share by far. But the leaders of those European nations don't face elections anytime soon: Sarkozy does.
Sarkozy said France will withdraw combat troops by the end of 2013, a reversal from his repeated commitment in recent months to stick with other allies on a U.S.-led schedule.
At the same time, he said France will restart its training missions of Afghan troops Saturday. After the shootings Jan. 20, he immediately suspended the training and joint French military patrols with Afghan forces.
In Washington, the White House offered no criticism of Sarkozy's remarks.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor noted the NATO coalition had agreed to Karzai's goal of completing the transition to Afghanistan by 2014.
"That transition has begun, and we have made considerable progress toward this goal over the past year, thanks to the gains of the military surge and the development of Afghan security forces," he said.
NATO reacted tersely to Sarkozy's statement.
"We have taken note of the statement," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in Brussels.
Sarkozy said France will speed up its withdrawal timetable, pulling out 1,000 of its current 3,600 soldiers by year-end ? the previous target was 600 ? and bring all combat forces out by the end of 2013.
Karzai had said previously that the goal was to have Afghan security forces in charge of security across the entire nation by the end of 2014. Afghan forces started taking the lead for security in certain areas of the country last year and the plan has been to add more areas, as Afghan police and soldiers were deemed ready to take over from foreign forces.
According to drawdown plans already announced by the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations, the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan will shrink by an estimated 40,000 troops at the close of this year. Washington is pulling out the most ? 33,000 by the end of the year. That's one-third of 101,000 U.S. troops that were in Afghanistan in June, the peak of the U.S. military presence in the war, Pentagon figures show.
Sarkozy also said France would hand over authority in the strategic province of Kapisa east of Kabul, where nearly all French troops are deployed, to the Afghans in March.
"A new phase is starting with the Afghans in which civilian and development projects will progressively take the handoff from our military presence," Sarkozy said, adding Afghan security "is the business of Afghans."
Karzai, who praised the role of France and other NATO allies, didn't object when Sarkozy said the 2013 timetable was sought by the two countries.
But the Afghan leader appeared to suggest that it was a high-end target.
"Yes, Mr. President, it is right that Afghanistan has to provide for its own security and for the protection of its own people, and for the provision of law and order," Karzai said.
"We hope to finish the transition ? to complete this transition of authority to the Afghan forces, to the Afghan government, by the end of 2013 at the earliest ? or by the latest as has been agreed upon ? by the end of 2014," Karzai said.
The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan has been steadily handing over responsibility for security to the government's army and police ever since the alliance's last summit in Lisbon in 2010. There, NATO leaders decided to move the Afghans into the lead role in fighting the Taliban by 2014 and end the coalition's combat role.
Afghan forces have started a process of taking the lead in over half of the country's population of 30 million in terms of security, and the transition remains on track.
Britain and Germany said France's announcement didn't change their pullout plans.
Britain said it's keeping to plans to withdraw all its 9,500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
"We set out our long-term plans for no combat role by the end of 2014," a Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. "We have already set out plans for some withdrawals in 2012."
Prime Minister David Cameron will hold talks with Karzai on Saturday. The Foreign Office said their meeting "is about long-term partnership and commitment beyond 2014 and the need for progress on the political track."
In Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Germany's government had recently affirmed its troops' mandate "with a wide majority."
"We are in agreement with the international goal to hand over security responsibility fully by the end of 2014 and withdraw combat troops," the spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.
Germany's Cabinet recently approved a plan to start cutting back the country's troop contingent in Afghanistan. The one-year troop deployment mandate to take effect at the beginning of February allows for a maximum 4,900 soldiers to serve in Afghanistan ? down from 5,350 at present.
During Karzai's stop Thursday in Italy as part of his European tour, Premier Mario Monti said his country would give economic and civilian support after a 2014 withdrawal. The two signed a long-term cooperation agreement.
Sarkozy's government has been under political pressure to withdraw French troops before the United States' pegged pullout in 2014. Polls show most French want an early pullout ? and he may soon be up for re-election.
Francois Heisbourg, an analyst at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think tank, told The Associated Press this week that a quick exit would also pose logistical problems for French forces, who hope to bring home much of the heavy equipment they have deployed in Afghanistan.
Francois Hollande, the Socialist nominee for France's presidential elections, repeated on French TV on Thursday his hope to bring all French forces home this year. Polls show him leading the conservative Sarkozy, who has not formally announced whether he will run in the two-round election in April and May ? though most political observers believe he will.
Nick Witney, a senior policy fellow at the Paris-based European Council on Foreign Relations, said public support of the war in Europe started sliding fast after the coalition agreed to end the combat mission in 2014.
"It has become more and more difficult to justify every single casualty, since it's now clear that these are wasted lives," said Witney, a former head of the European Defense Agency.
"Most European policymakers realize that on a purely cost-benefit assessment, we would all leave Afghanistan tomorrow," Witney said, adding that "it's difficult for any single government to break with its allies without being accused of lack of solidarity."
At the news conference with Karzai, Sarkozy didn't respond to a reporter's question about whether he believed France's announcement could weaken the alliance.
___
Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Jill Lawless in London, David Rising in Berlin, Colleen Barry in Rome, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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Report: Electronic health records still need work
WASHINGTON (AP) ? America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system's conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue.
Hospitals and doctors' offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report released Friday. But there's been little progress getting the computer systems to talk to one another, exchanging data the way financial companies do.
"The level of health information exchange in the U.S. is extremely low," the report says.
At the consumer level, few people maintain a personal health record on their laptop or electronic tablet, partly due to concerns about privacy, security and accuracy that the government hasn't resolved.
"How will sensitive health data be kept confidential and secure in digital data-sharing environments?" the report asks. "Many consumers ... are waiting for a reassuring answer to this question."
The report offers a window on progress toward a goal set by President Barack Obama, and President George W. Bush before him, that everyone in the United States should have an electronic medical record by 2014.
While making no predictions, the report offers a collection of details indicating that the goal is a long shot at best.
"Will 100 percent of our nation have electronic health records by 2014?" asked Janet Marchibroda, who directs the center's health technology initiative. "I would say getting to that last mile is difficult." She expects the majority of hospitals and doctors to meet the goal, but it's another matter when it comes to consumers.
In politically polarized Washington, the center tries to tackle national problems from a pragmatic perspective. The report, more than six months in the making, was produced by a panel representing hospitals, doctors, insurers, consumers and technology companies. The review was led by two former senators with ties to the health care industry, Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Republican Bill Frist of Tennessee.
Electronic medical records are seen as a crucial component in creating a system that's more efficient and less prone to error. The government has committed up to $30 billion to encourage this shift, mostly through incentive payments to hospitals and doctors that were authorized in 2009 under Obama's economic stimulus law. Payments started flowing last year.
The report found that 5 percent of eligible doctors received payments last year, while about 33 percent had registered with the government that they intend to qualify.
Overall, about one-third of doctors' offices had some form of electronic records last year, compared with one-fourth in 2010.
Among hospitals, 32 percent received the incentive payments last year, the report said, while 61 percent notified the government they intend to qualify.
Those are signs of momentum, but the report found little progress in devising ways for the different computer systems to communicate with each other.
Part of the problem is that there isn't much financial incentive for competing health care providers to share information.
If an emergency room orders a test on a patient that a family doctor had run a week ago, the hospital gets paid for it. If the emergency room doctor relies on the test results from the family doctor, that's less revenue for the hospital.
"Health information exchange will not occur at optimal levels ... without a viable, sustainable business model," the report said.
Only from 7 percent to 11 percent of individuals have a personal electronic medical record. Some early adopters still run into problems with basic tasks such as downloading test results, renewing prescriptions online or scheduling appointments.
The report also says the government must address gaps in privacy protections. For example, a federal health privacy law that applies to hospitals, doctors, insurers and data transmission companies doesn't apply to companies that market electronic medical records directly to the public.
"This uneven coverage of federal health privacy law can be confusing for consumers and contributes to reluctance," the report said.
____
Online:
Bipartisan Policy Center report: http://tinyurl.com/86vgum3
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Summary Box: Dow slips; first losing week in 2012 (AP)
STOCK SLUMP: Stocks mostly fell after the government said the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the last three months of 2011. The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 each fell less than 1 percent. The biggest losers were utility stocks, down 1.3 percent.
BAD WEEK: The fall in the Dow capped a down week for the blue-chip index, the first weekly loss in 2012.
THE GOOD NEWS: Nearly two stocks rose for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, suggesting investors may still be bullish. And despite the drop for the day, the Dow is still up nearly 4 percent this year. The Russell 2000 index of riskier small stocks is up nearly 8 percent.
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Highlights of Federal Reserve actions Wednesday (AP)
WASHINGTON ? In an unusual burst of activity Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said it will probably keep interest rates low for nearly three years, provided an inflation target for the first time, updated its economic projections and began providing interest-rate forecasts.
Chairman Ben Bernanke held a news conference to explain it all.
Some highlights of the Fed's actions:
? It pushed back the date for any likely increase in the interest rate it controls to late 2014 at the earliest. That's roughly 18 months later than its previous forecast. It's intended to assure businesses and consumers that they can keep borrowing cheaply.
? Bernanke cautioned that late 2014 is merely the Fed's "best guess" as to when it might have to start raising rates. Its timetable is subject to revision, he said. The Fed has limited ability to forecast out as far as three years, he added.
? The change in its rate forecast shows the Fed expects the economic recovery to remain slow. It lowered its estimate of the economy's growth this year to up to 2.7 percent, compared with up to 2.9 percent estimated in November. That's barely enough to reduce the unemployment rate, which the Fed estimates could fall as low as 8.2 percent this year. It's now 8.5 percent.
? The Fed said after a two-day meeting that inflation is "subdued" and likely to remain in check. That gives it room to take further steps to support growth, such as buying more Treasury bonds or other assets. Such purchases help keep interest rates low.
? The Fed's tepid outlook for the economy may lead it to do more to try to help. It said it's prepared to adjust its investments, if necessary, to strengthen the recovery.
? Bernanke noted some encouraging recent data, such as better hiring and rising consumer confidence. But they haven't been enough to suggest the U.S. recovery is accelerating. He pointed to Europe's debt crisis, which is slowing the global economy and likely to drag on U.S. growth.
? For the first time, the Fed provided an official target for inflation ? 2 percent. It didn't set a formal target for unemployment. But it said unemployment of between 5.2 percent and 6 percent would be consistent with a healthy economy.
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Newt, We Knew Ye Too Damn Well! (Powerlineblog)
Hyperactive sun clears space junk ? for now
Low Earth orbit just got a free spring-clean, thanks to the sun. It turns out that increased solar activity in recent years has removed some of the satellite debris that clogs this region
, making it temporarily safer for other satellites and astronauts.
The sun will hit an 11-year peak in its activity ? the solar maximum ? in 2013. As this approaches, small increases in solar radiation warm the outer layer of Earth's atmosphere, called the thermosphere, forcing it to expand into space. This places atmospheric molecules in the path of low orbiting debris, which brake their orbital velocity and cause them to re-enter the atmosphere sooner than expected, where they usually burn up.
In the latest edition of NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News, the agency's chief scientist Nicholas Johnson notes that the billowing thermosphere has accelerated the rate of burn up of debris from Fengyun-1C, a satellite China destroyed in an anti-satellite missile test in 2007, and from the 2009 collision between Russia's Kosmos 2251 and the US Iridium 33. This is a "welcome, albeit brief, respite from an otherwise growing orbital debris population", he says.
It's a short-lived respite since, in the long term, climate change will warm the planet while cooling the thermosphere ? and so keep junk aloft longer ? says space debris researcher Hugh Lewis at the University of Southampton, UK.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Charges drag down J&J 4Q profit, but sales rebound (AP)
A slew of charges for recalls, product liability, litigation and an acquisition dragged Johnson & Johnson's fourth-quarter profit down to barely a tenth of what the health care giant made a year ago, and some recalled products won't be back till year's end. But higher sales overseas boosted revenue enough to end an unprecedented two-year decline.
After an embarrassing series of product recalls and other problems overshadowed the past two years, the maker of Tylenol, prescription drugs and medical devices managed to beat Wall Street's forecast for adjusted profit and came in just below its revenue forecast.
The New Brunswick, N.J.-based company said Tuesday that net income was $218 million, or 8 cents per share, down from $1.94 billion, or 70 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding charges totaling $2.9 billion, net income was $3.13 billion, or $1.13 per share.
Revenue rose 4 percent to $16.26 billion, up from $15.64 billion in 2010's fourth quarter.
Analysts on average expected earnings per share of $1.09 and revenue of $16.28 billion.
"In the last five years, we've never felt better about our business coming out of one year and going into the next," CEO Bill Weldon told analysts during a conference call.
But he said he doesn't expect significant improvement this year in macroeconomic conditions, with escalating government pricing pressures in the U.S. and Europe and slower growth in the emerging markets that medical product makers are targeting as their best chance for expansion.
Weldon said the slump in elective surgeries, due to unemployed and uninsured people delaying them, continues. That affects sales of J&J's artificial joints and surgical implements and supplies.
"You can only put off procedures for so long," he added.
Revenue fell 3.4 percent in the U.S., to $6.99 billion, but jumped 10.2 percent in foreign countries, to $9.27 billion. The U.S. decline was mostly due to an 8 percent drop in sales of prescription drugs, as two big sellers ? the powerful antibiotic Levaquin and Concerta for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ? got generic competition late last spring.
Revenue rose 2.7 percent to $6.49 billion for medical devices, and 6.7 percent to $6.09 billion for prescription drugs. Consumer product sales edged up 1.6 percent to $3.67 billion.
Analysts were not impressed.
Erik Gordon, an analyst and professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, called the results "mediocre," adding that they were "saved, as has become typical for big pharma, by non-U.S. sales."
He said the "slow pace of consumer product sales trying to recover from" more than two dozen recalls of products due to quality problems is disappointing.
Since September 2009, J&J has recalled a host of prescription and nonprescription medicines, as well as replacement hip joints, contact lenses and diabetes test strips. Among the recalls were tens of millions of bottles of children's and adult Tylenol and Motrin, Benadryl, Zyrtec, Rolaids and Simply Sleep pills. The prescription drug recalls have included HIV medicine Prezista and epilepsy pill Topamax.
Reasons for the recalls have ranged from contamination with metal shards and glass particles, to nauseating odors and inaccurate levels of active drug ingredients.
Weldon said in an interview that J&J has eliminated some low-volume products made by its McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit and should have most of the others back by the middle of the year, with the rest returning by year's end.
Analyst Steve Brozak of WBB Securities called the results lackluster. Like Gordon, he's concerned about profit margins declining due to multiple factors, including the costs of factory upgrades and litigation related to product recalls and increasing pricing pressures from government health programs.
Excluding one-time items, J&J's operating margin fell 2 full percentage points for the year, to 24.9 percent, and dropped to 20.3 percent in the fourth quarter. Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso said he expects that will almost bounce back in 2012, when he expects earnings of $5.05 to $5.15 per share, excluding special items, and revenue of about $68 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $5.20 per share and revenue of $68.45 billion, according to FactSet.
J&J said analysts likely had not updated their forecast to account for the recent surge of the dollar against the euro, which the company said will cut earnings per share by about 13 cents.
For the full year, J&J reported net income of $9.67 billion, or $3.49 per share, down from $13.33 billion, or $4.78 per share, in 2010. Revenue rose 5.6 percent to $65.03 billion, from $61.59 billion in 2010.
Shares of the company closed unchanged at $65.
___
Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Study Fails to Confirm Existence of Arsenic-Based Life
News |
More Science
A new analysis by open-science advocates present a 'clear refutation' of a controversial finding that appears to undermine assumptions about how essential phosphorus is for life
?| January 23, 2012?|
A scanning electron micrograph of GFAJ-1, the bacterium at the centre of the controversy.
Image: Science/AAAS
A strange bacterium found in California?s Mono Lake cannot replace the phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic, according to researchers who have been trying to reproduce the results of a controversial report published in Science in 2010.
A group of scientists, led by microbiologist Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have posted data on Redfield's blog that, she says, present a ?clear refutation? of key findings from the paper.
?Their most striking claim was that arsenic had been incorporated into the backbone of DNA, and what we can say is that there is no arsenic in the DNA at all,? says Redfield.
But the authors of the Science paper are not retreating from their conclusions. ?We are thrilled that our results are stimulating more experiments from the community as well as ourselves,? first author Felisa Wolfe-Simon, now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, wrote in an e-mail to Nature. ?We do not fully understand the key details of the website experiments and conditions. So we hope to see this work published in a peer-reviewed journal, as this is how science best proceeds.?
Open criticism
In the Science paper, Wolfe-Simon and her co-workers reported that they had found a bacterium called GFAJ-1 that can use the element arsenic in place of phosphorus in molecules essential to life (see Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life). This was surprising because phosphorus is thought to be essential for life, whereas arsenic is usually toxic.
But after Redfield and others raised numerous concerns (see Microbe gets toxic response), many of which were published as technical comments in Science, Redfield put the results to the test, documenting her progress on her blog to advance the cause of open science.
Redfield grew GFAJ-1 bacteria in arsenic and a very small amount of phosphorus, as had Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues. She then purified the DNA from the cells and sent it to Marshall Louis Reaves, a graduate student at Princeton University in New Jersey. Reaves used a caesium chloride gradient to separate the cells' DNA into fractions of varying densities, then used a mass spectrometer to identify the elements present in each fraction of DNA. He found no arsenic in any of the DNA.
But Redfield?s methods might leave defenders of the arsenic life hypothesis some wiggle room. For instance, Redfield was unable to grow any cells without adding a small amount of phosphorus. Because it is not clear how much phosphorus was used to grow the bacteria in the original paper, its authors could argue that Redfield's cells were not sufficiently phosphorus-starved to be forced to use arsenic in its place.
Wolfe-Simon also says she would not expect to find arsenic in DNA analysed on a caesium chloride gradient, because the arsenic-containing DNA might be so fragile that it would break apart and appear only in very faint bands separate from the bulk of the cell's DNA.
However, Redfield says that Reaves analysed all of the DNA purified on the gradient, so he would have detected any arsenic. Redfield also analysed the size of DNA from cells that had been stored for two months in her lab refrigerator. The DNA fragments from cells that had been grown with and without arsenic were similar sizes, indicating that DNA from arsenic-grown cells is not unstable.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b22e908d1de3f73a622079be9c067a60
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Obama's State of the Union: Jobs, re-election time (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Vilified by the Republicans who want his job, President Barack Obama will stand before the nation Tuesday night determined to frame the election-year debate on his terms, using his State of the Union address to outline a lasting economic recovery that will "work for everyone, not just a wealthy few."
As his most powerful chance to make a case for a second term, the prime-time speech carries enormous political stakes for the Democratic incumbent who presides over a country divided about his performance and pessimistic about the nation's direction. He will try to offer a stark contrast with his opponents by offering a vision of fairness and opportunity for everyone.
In a preview Saturday, Obama said in a video to supporters that the speech will be an economic blueprint built around manufacturing, energy, education and American values.
He is expected to announce ideas to make college more affordable and to address the housing crisis still hampering the economy three years into his term, people familiar with the speech said. Obama will also propose fresh ideas to ensure that the wealthy pay more in taxes, reiterating what he considers a matter of basic fairness, the officials said.
His policy proposals will be less important than what Obama hopes they all add up to: a narrative of renewed American security with him at the center, leading the fight.
"We can go in two directions," Obama said in the campaign video. "One is toward less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few."
That line of argument is intended to tap directly into concerns of voters who think America has become a nation of income inequality, with rules rigged to help the rich. The degree to which Obama or his eventual Republican opponent can better connect with millions of hurting Americans is expected to determine November's presidential election.
Obama released his video hours ahead of the South Carolina primary, where Republican candidates fought in the latest fierce contest to become his general election rival.
The White House knows Obama is about to get his own stage to outline a re-election vision, but carefully. The speech is supposed to an American moment, not a campaign event.
Obama didn't mention national security or foreign policy in his preview, and he is not expected to break ground on either one in his speech.
He will focus on the economy and is expected to promote unfinished parts of his jobs plan, including the extension of a payroll tax cut that is soon to expire.
Whatever Obama proposes is likely to face long odds in a deeply divided Congress.
More people than not disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, and he is showing real vulnerability among the independent voters who could swing the election. Yet he will step into the moment just as the economy is showing life. The unemployment rate is still at a troubling 8.5 percent, but at its lowest rate in nearly three years. Consumer confidence is up.
By giving a sneak peek to millions of supporters on his email list, Obama played to his Democratic base and sought to generate an even larger audience for Tuesday's address. He is unlikely to getter a bigger stage all year.
More people watched last year's State of the Union than tuned in to see Obama accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver in 2008.
The foundation of Obama's speech is the one he gave in Kansas last month, when he declared that the middle class was at a make-or-break moment and he railed against "you're on your own" economics of the Republican Party. His theme then was about a government that ensures people get a fair shot to succeed.
The State of the Union will be the details to back that up.
But even so, the speech will still be a framework ? part governing, part inspiration.
The details will be rolled out in full over the next several weeks, as part of Obama's next budget proposal and during his travels, which will allow him more media coverage.
On national security, Obama will ask the nation to reflect with him on a momentous year of change, including the end of the war in Iraq, the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the Arab Spring protests, with people clamoring for freedom. He is expected to note the troubles posed by Iran and Syria without offering new positions about them.
Despite low expectations for legislation this year, Obama will offer short-term ideas that would require action from Congress. For now, the main looming to-do item is an extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, both due to expire by March.
His travel schedule following his speech, to politically important regions, offers clues to the policies he was expected to unveil.
Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been hard hit by foreclosures. Denver is where Obama outlined ways of helping college students deal with school loan debt. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Detroit are home to a number of manufacturers. And Michigan was a major beneficiary of the president's decision to intervene to rescue the American auto industry.
Republican leaders in Congress say Obama has made the chances of cooperation even dimmer just over the last several days. He enraged Republicans by installing a consumer watchdog chief by going around the Senate, which had blocked him, and then rejected a major oil pipeline project the GOP has embraced.
Obama is likely, once again, to offer ways in which a broken Washington must work together. Yet that theme seems but a dream given the gridlock he has been unable to change.
The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year. The White House website will offer a live stream of the speech, promising extra wrinkles for people who watch it there, and then invite people to send in questions to administration officials through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
Obama's campaign is also organizing and promoting parties around the nation for people to watch the speech.
__
AP deputy director of polling Jennifer Agiesta and Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
__
Online:
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov
___
Follow Ben Feller at http://twitter.com/BenFellerDC
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Nigerian police find bomb-filled cars in Kano (Reuters)
KANO/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) ? Nigerian police said they found cars and vans filled with explosives in the northern city of Kano Monday, three days after Islamist sect Boko Haram carried out a deadly attack there.
Security in Nigeria's second largest city has been beefed up since Friday when bomb attacks and fierce gun battles between the sect and police killed at least 178 people.
(Reporting by Ibrahim Mshelizza; Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja and Mike Oboh in Kano; Writing by Joe Brock, editing by Robert Woodward)
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