Kyrgyzstan votes to end US lease of airbase

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) ? Kyrgyzstan has voted to end the United States' lease on an airbase key to supplying military operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Lawmakers in the mountainous Central Asian republic voted 91-5 Thursday in favor of ending the agreement in June 2014 to lease the Manas Transit Center. The bill will come into force when it is signed by President Almazbek Atambayev, who has repeatedly pledged to end the lease.

The move comes despite U.S. expectations that the base would remain in exchange for higher rent. The United States pays $60 million annually for the base.

All U.S. troops moving in and out of Afghanistan travel through Manas. Large numbers of troops are set to flow through the facility as part of the withdrawal of most international troops next year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kyrgyzstan-votes-end-us-lease-airbase-102146318.html

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Home Price Rise 'Unsustainable,' Realtors Report ... - AOL Real Estate

By Diana Olick

For six straight months, home prices have been leaping in double digits from a year ago. In May, the median existing home sale price was 15.4 percent higher nationally than May of 2012, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.

The Realtors themselves say that kind of jump is "unsustainable."

"Some of the increases can be explained by the fact that it is recovering from an over-corrected situation," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors. "But with people's income rising at only 1 or 2 percent and prices rising in double digits, it cannot continue. "Part of the steep rise in the median home price can be attributed to a change in the mix of homes that are selling. Sales of homes priced below $100,000 were down 9 percent from a year ago, while sales of homes priced at more than $500,000 were up 33 percent.

Distressed properties, that is short sales and foreclosures, are also a diminishing share of total home sales. They are down to just 18 percent, the lowest since the Realtors began tracking these sales in 2008. That share, however, is far higher in some of the formerly hard-hit markets, where another new phenomenon is playing out.

"We noticed in some of the markets where we were either buying or selling properties, that the price discounts on REOs [bank-owned homes] appeared to be vanishing rapidly," said Rick Sharga of Carrington Mortgage Holdings, a fund that has invested in distressed properties.

In many of the markets that took a beating during the real estate meltdown, such as California, Arizona and Florida, prices of distressed homes are rising faster than traditional home prices. These markets are also seeing the highest volume of home sales, therefore having an outsized effect on the national number.

"You can at least make an argument that part of the dramatic increase in median home prices can be attributed to the foreclosure discount evaporating. That suggests that overall home price increases may be slightly overstated," said Sharga.

Also weighing on home prices are rising mortgage rates. May's existing home sales report from the Realtors represents closed sales, so contracts and interest rates would have been signed and locked in March or April, before rates began to rise.

Based on the change in mortgage rates from early May to today, the average buyer would have to pay 13 percent more in monthly payments, including taxes and insurance, according to Mark Hanson, a California-based analyst. They also have to earn 10 percent more in income to qualify for a loan based on a typical qualifying debt-to-income ratio of 45 percent.

"These are huge moves especially considering -- when purchasing a house using a mortgage -- most people buy based on 'monthly payment and the maximum allowable debt-to-income ratio.' This means first-timer share will fall even further. They are already at a multiyear low even with record-low rates," said Hanson.

First-time homebuyer participation was at just 29 percent, according to the Realtors, a five-year low. Without these buyers, as investors pull back and prices rise, home sales will likely lose steam. June's report on pending home sales, or signed contracts in May, will tell just how much rising rates are impacting sales. That report will be released Thursday, June 27.

More from CNBC:
Rising Rates Will Not Impact Housing
Soaring Interest Rates Send Mortgage Apps Reeling
Link Between Government and Housing

More on AOL Real Estate:
Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
Find homes for sale in your area.
Find foreclosures in your area.
Find homes for rent.

Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook.

Source: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/06/20/home-price-rise-unsustainable-realtors-report-says/

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Compromise among senators eyed on border security

WASHINGTON (AP) ? After secretive talks, key senators expressed optimism Wednesday night that they were closing in on a bipartisan agreement to dramatically toughen the border security requirements in immigration legislation that also offers a path to citizenship to millions living in the country illegally.

Lawmakers and aides alike said the goal was to assure passage of the sweeping legislation by a large bipartisan vote within a matter of days.

Under the emerging compromise, the government would grant legal status to immigrants living in the United States unlawfully at the same time the additional security was being put into place at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. Green cards, which signify permanent residency status, would be withheld until the security steps were complete.

Several officials said late Wednesday the Border Patrol would roughly double in size with the addition of 20,000 agents over a decade as part of a so-called border surge. The government also would complete hundreds of miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and purchase new surveillance drones to help apprehend would-be illegal border crossers. The cost of the additional agents alone totals $30 billion over a decade.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

If agreed to, the change has the potential to give a powerful boost to the immigration bill that is at the top of President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda.

The developments came as Democrats who met with House Speaker John Boehner during the day quoted him as saying he expects the House to pass its own version of an immigration bill this summer and for Congress to have a final compromise by year's end. Boehner, R-Ohio, has already said the legislation that goes to the House in the next month or two will not include a pathway to citizenship for those in the United States illegally.

Precise details of the pending agreement in the Senate were unavailable, but Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said it involved a major increase of resources to the border, including more manpower, fencing and technology. The underlying legislation already envisions more border agents; additional fencing along the U.S-Mexico border; surveillance drones; a requirement for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers; as well as a biometric system to track foreigners who enter and leave the United States at air and seaports and by land.

"Our whole effort has been to build a bipartisan group that will support the bill," said Hoeven, who has not yet stated a position on the legislation. "That's what this is all about, and it's focused on border security."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the bill's most prominent supporters, said discussions with Republicans "have been really productive. We've made a lot of progress in the last 24 hours. Now we have some vetting to do with our respective allies."

The potential compromise came into focus one day after the Congressional Budget Office jolted lawmakers with an estimate saying that as drafted, the legislation would fail to prevent a steady increase in the future in the number of residents living in the United States illegally.

The estimate appeared to give added credibility to Republicans who have been pressing Democrats to toughen the border security provisions already written into the bill. Schumer and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., met at midday with Hoeven, and Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The Democrats, McCain and Graham are part of the so-called bipartisan Gang of Eight that drafted the bill.

If ratified, the compromise would mark concessions on both sides.

Some Republicans have been unwilling to support a bill that grants legal status to immigrants in the country illegally until the government certifies that the border security steps have achieved 90 percent effectiveness in stopping would-be border crossers.

On the other hand, Democrats have opposed Republican proposals to make legalization contingent on success in closing the border to illegal crossings. Under the legislation as drafted, legalization could begin as soon as a security plan was drafted, but a 10-year wait is required for a green card.

One plan to change that was sidetracked during the day on a vote of 61-37.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said his proposal would require Congress to vote annually for five years on whether the border is secure. If lawmakers decide it is not, "then the processing of undocumented workers stops until" it is, he said. The decision would be made based on numerous factors, including progress toward completion of a double-layered fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and toward a goal of 95 percent capture of illegal entrants. A system to track the border comings and goings of foreigners is also required.

Only a day earlier, the CBO had cheered supporters of the bill with an estimate that it would help the economy and reduce deficits in each of the next two decades.

Now it was the skeptics' turn to crow.

"Illegality will not be stopped, but it will only be reduced by 25 percent," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., referring to the prediction by the non-partisan CBO.

While the public debate was taking place, lawmakers involved in the private talks expressed optimism.

"We're on the verge of doing something dramatic on the border," Graham told reporters. "What we're trying to do is put in place measures that to any reasonable person would be an overwhelming effort to secure our border. This is a key moment in the effort to pass the bill."

Across the Capitol, House Republican leaders sought to present a friendlier face to Hispanics ? a group that gave Obama more than 70 percent support in last year's presidential election.

Boehner met with the Democratic-dominated Congressional Hispanic Caucus, while rank and file members of his party reviewed areas of agreement with faith-based Latino leaders.

"It's a conversation Republicans want to have," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said later at a news conference outside the Capitol.

At the same time, though, anti-immigration protesters moved across the Capitol plaza into range of television cameras, raising signs that said, "Do Not Reward Criminals" and "No Amnesty for Illegal Aliens."

Separately, the House Judiciary Committee worked on legislation creating a program allowing farm workers to come to the United States to take temporary jobs in the United States.

The measure is one of several that the panel is considering in the final weeks of June as part of a piece-by-piece approach to immigration rather than the all-in-one bill that Senate is considering.

In addition to border security measures and a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally, the Senate bill provides more visas for highly-skilled workers prized by the technology industry, a guest worker farm program and a new program for lower-skilled workers to come to the United States.

___

Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/compromise-among-senators-eyed-border-security-225125834.html

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'Hoff' crab's oceanic 'road trip'

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'Hoff' crab's oceanic 'road trip'
A hairy crab named after US actor David Hasselhoff hitched a ride on an ocean "super-highway" to colonise deep sea vents in the Atlantic.

Source: BBC News
Posted on: Wednesday, Jun 19, 2013, 8:58am
Views: 12

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128700/_Hoff__crab_s_oceanic__road_trip_

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Freiman's 18th-inning single lifts A's over Yanks

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) ? Maybe a game-winning, broken-bat hit against baseball's career saves leader in the 18th inning will get Nate Freiman in a nice groove again.

Freiman singled home the winning run against Mariano Rivera, lifting the Oakland Athletics to a 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees on Thursday for a three-game sweep.

"It was his deal," Freiman said of the cut fastball he saw. "That one he always throws."

As a day game after a night game turned into a night game after a day game, John Jaso singled off Preston Claiborne (0-1) to start the decisive rally and went to third on Seth Smith's soft single to shallow left field against Rivera.

Rivera issued only the 39th intentional walk of his 19-year career to Jed Lowrie before Freiman ended the 5-hour, 35-minute game on New York's getaway day to Anaheim for a weekend series with the Angels.

"A little broken-bat blooper over the third baseman, and the other one the same place," Rivera said. "You can't do anything about it."

Freiman knew he had it, raising his right arm in triumph.

"I knew that was not getting to the left fielder. I knew it was falling," he said.

Moments later, Freiman received a celebratory whipped cream pie in the face following his first career game-ending hit ? and Oakland's fifth of 2013 after compiling a major league-best 14 walk-off wins last year. He had entered the game in the top of the 16th.

The AL West-leading A's (41-27) won their 11th in a row at home, 21st in 26 overall, and moved a season-best 14 games above .500 to extend their best start since 1990. They became the first American League team to play two 18-inning games in one season since Oakland and the Washington Senators did so in 1971.

Freiman's wife, LPGA golfer Amanda Blumenherst, quickly congratulated her husband on Twitter: "Ahhh!! Nate just ended the 18 inning game! Bases loaded, single!! Pie in the face! Athletics win!"

Each team used seven pitchers and threw 255 pitches. In all, 137 batters came to the plate ? short of the season high of 156 during Oakland's 19-inning win over the Angels in April and also the 20-inning game between the Marlins and Mets last Saturday.

"It was very taxing even winning the game. To lose could have been demoralizing," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "These are awful games to lose."

New York made a dramatic play in the bottom of the 15th to keep the game going.

Pinch-hitter Coco Crisp singled to left with one out and Vernon Wells made a perfect throw to catcher Chris Stewart, who blocked the plate and absorbed a collision to prevent Brandon Moss from scoring the winning run.

The A's had already begun streaming out of the dugout to celebrate.

The Yankees had runners in scoring position in each of the extra innings through 14, stranding 11 baserunners. They left 13 on base in all while dropping their seventh in a row at the Oakland Coliseum.

Pitching for the first time in eight days, Jesse Chavez (1-0) struck out seven in 5 2-3 scoreless innings.

Chavez fanned Kevin Youkilis and Wells with two on to end the 13th, then Travis Hafner and Wells in the 15th.

Jerry Blevins escaped a bases-loaded jam in the top of the 11th with two strikeouts. Pat Neshek worked out of trouble with runners on first and second in the 12th.

Robinson Cano hit a two-run homer in the first as New York ended a season-long five-game stretch without a long ball, but the Yankees didn't score again on another day of missed opportunities.

"I think it's probably a little more frustrating because you can look at how you had an opportunity here and an opportunity there," manager Joe Girardi said. "A lot of guys probably look at that, but it doesn't change the result."

It was the longest day game in Coliseum history.

Neither A' starter Jarrod Parker nor New York counterpart Hiroki Kuroda got a decision after a nice pitchers' duel hours before the game ended.

After Smith's tying, two-out double in the third, Oakland didn't reach base again until Jaso's bloop single leading off the ninth.

Oakland won the season series 5-1 for its second-best mark against the Yankees in franchise history. The 1990 club went 12-0.

The A's tied it at 2 in the third on a close play at the plate. Smith doubled off the wall in right and the relay throw was on target to Stewart, who tagged Jaso with his glove but had the ball in his bare hand.

Jaso was called safe by plate umpire CB Bucknor, drawing an argument from Girardi.

Earlier in the inning, Derek Norris' RBI groundout scored Chris Young, who drew a leadoff walk. Eric Sogard followed with a single before the A's pulled off a double steal.

Parker, riding a three-start winning streak, was helped by a pair of double plays in the first four innings.

Kuroda's winless stretch reached five starts since he beat Toronto on May 17. He became the third Japanese-born pitcher with 1,000 innings in the majors, joining Hideo Nomo and Tomo Ohka.

Girardi bumped Jayson Nix up to the No. 2 spot in the batting order from eighth a night earlier to shake things up and get the Yankees going, but Nix went 1 for 5 with a strikeout to end the 12th.

NOTES: Yankees captain Derek Jeter had his surgically repaired left ankle examined by Dr. Robert Anderson in Charlotte, N.C., and was cleared to resume baseball activities and running. ... Crisp (bruised heel) and LF Yoenis Cespedes (tight left hamstring) were held out of the starting lineup. ... Rivera received a surfboard and a bottle of white wine from Napa Valley from the A's in a pregame ceremony, along with a $10,042 donation to his foundation. ... The A's are 7-0-2 in their last nine series. ... New York agreed to contract terms with Notre Dame 3B Eric Jagielo, who signed for $1,839,400. He was the 26th overall pick in last week's draft and one of three first-round selections by the Yankees.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/freimans-18th-inning-single-lifts-over-yanks-012542842.html

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Detecting homemade explosives, not toothpaste

June 14, 2013 ? Sandia National Laboratories researchers want airports, border checkpoints and others to detect homemade explosives made with hydrogen peroxide without nabbing people whose toothpaste happens to contain peroxide.

That's part of the challenge faced in developing a portable sensor to detect a common homemade explosive called a FOx (fuel/oxidizer) mixture, made by mixing hydrogen peroxide with fuels, said Chris Brotherton, principal investigator for a Sandia research project on chemiresponsive sensors. The detector must be able to spot hydrogen peroxide in concentrations that don't also raise suspicions about common peroxide-containing products.

"Hydrogen peroxide explosives are a challenge because they are dangerous, but there are so many personal hygiene products that have hydrogen peroxide in them that the false positive rate is very high," Brotherton said.

Hydrogen peroxide is found in everyday products ranging from soap, toothpaste and hair color to laundry bleach, carpet cleaners and stain removers.

Brotherton's Early Career Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project proved a sensor could identify relatively high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and differentiate that from a common interfering substance such as water, he said. The next step, Brotherton said, would be to work with an industrial partner to design an overall system that works faster and can be mass produced.

His work is built on field-structured chemiresistor technology developed at Sandia more than a decade ago by researchers James Martin and Doug Read. Chemiresistors are resistance-based sensors for volatile organic compounds, and the material developed by Martin and Read, who published several papers on their work, allows users to tailor the sensors' response range and sensitivity.

A major challenge was distinguishing between hydrogen peroxide and water, which exhibit similar behavior in chemiresistors. The key was choosing certain molecules in a polymer matrix, suggested by Brotherton's Sandia technical mentor, polymer chemistry expert David Wheeler. When exposed to peroxide, those molecules react in a different way than when exposed to water.

The idea is to engineer the polymer to be as similar to the target material as possible, relying on the undergraduate rule that like dissolves like. For example, Wheeler said, if the target is a substance that's not very polar, you'd choose a polymer with nonpolar groups. If the target has a lot of polarity, like water does, you'd develop polymers that could hydrogen-bond with water.

The tiny sensor incorporates the polymer and chains of miniscule conductive metal beads. The polymer reacts when it's exposed to the substance being analyzed.

"We tried to include specific molecules that would react with the peroxides," Brotherton said.

Exposure to water also changes the polymer, but it returns to its previous state once the water is removed. Exposing the polymer to concentrated hydrogen peroxide, however, is irreversible.

"So once you've done this to the polymer you've permanently changed it," Brotherton said. "Instead of being a reusable sensor, it's more of a disposable dosimeter."

It's also a detector that doesn't react to toothpaste and other common peroxide products, he said.

Manager Paul Smith said the sensor has other potential uses, such as monitoring underground water, looking for plumes of contamination or monitoring industrial processes.

The sensor isn't a silver bullet, but Brotherton said the technology has shown good results.

"It has some challenges that have to be overcome, but we think it's worth pursuing to the next level," he said.

Researchers need to reduce the chemical reaction time so the sensor doesn't take too long to be useful at a checkpoint, he said. The detector also must be incorporated into a larger unit that includes equipment to gather a sample for analysis.

The sensor doesn't need a significant amount of electronic processing or power supplies, Brotherton said. "This technology would be easier to integrate into other detection technologies without impacting them too significantly," he said.

It wouldn't have to be a large unit. Various detectors on the market today are about the size of a small, handheld vacuum cleaner, Smith said.

The support equipment would suck up a sample of air and the detector would test it.

"You'd need to know where the fumes were coming from," Brotherton said. "It's not enough to open up the whole room and suck in all the air and say, 'There are peroxides somewhere in here, watch out.' What we'd like to do is go up and down luggage, or be next to some sort of industrial process so we know this is most likely the source and it's above a level we care about."

Although a detector package could target a single type of vapor, a manufacturer could add it to a unit that detects several substances. That way, a checkpoint could have one sensing system rather than separate units for every material of concern, Brotherton suggested.

"Maybe it's a suite of sensors to try to hedge our bets," he said. "We've focused on a very specific application, but there's no reason you couldn't take this concept and use different polymers and look at multiple substances at the same time."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/dm-zT6fkCBk/130614100715.htm

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North Korea fires short-range missiles for two days in a row

By Jane Chung

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired a short-range missile from its east coast on Sunday, a day after launching three of these missiles, a South Korean news agency said, ignoring calls for restraint from Western powers.

Launches by the North of short-range missiles are not uncommon but, after recent warnings from the communist state of impending nuclear war, such actions have raised concerns about the region's security.

"North Korea fired a short-range missile as it did yesterday into its east sea in the afternoon, " South Korea's news agency Yonhap reported, citing a military official.

A South Korean defense ministry official confirmed the Yonhap report, but did not provide any details.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was concerned about North Korea's launch of short-range missiles, urging Pyonyang to refrain from further launches and return to stalled nuclear talks with world powers.

Ban, who spoke to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti during a visit to Moscow, called Saturday's launch a "provocative action".

Tension on the Korean peninsula has subsided in the past month, having run high for several weeks after the United Nations Security Council imposed tougher sanctions against Pyongyang following its third nuclear test in February.

The North had for weeks issued nearly daily warnings of impending nuclear war with the South and the United States.

South Korea's Unification Ministry criticized the missile tests as deplorable and urged the North to lower tensions and hold talks over a suspended inter-Korean industrial park in the North's border city of Kaesong.

South Korea pulled out all of its workers from the industrial zone early this month after North Korea withdrew its 53,000 workers as tensions mounted.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel in MOSCOW; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-fires-short-range-missiles-two-days-101918143.html

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NYPD to increase presence after bias killing

NEW YORK (AP) ? A spate of anti-gay attacks in New York City is prompting police to increase their presence in some gay-friendly neighborhoods heading into what's usually a time for celebration.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Monday that the NYPD has pledged to station command vehicles in Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen through the end of June, which is Gay Pride Month.

The decision comes after a man walking with a companion was shot dead Saturday. Police say the gunman made homophobic remarks.

The killing happened in Greenwich Village, where the gay rights movement crystallized in the 1960s.

Several other gay bashings have been reported in Manhattan recently.

Quinn and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott also say public schools will soon have assemblies or other discussions on bullying and hate crimes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-increase-presence-bias-killing-180717050.html

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Very Fine Art: 6 Stunningly Beautiful Nanoscale Sculptures [Slide Show]

Researchers coax self-assembling materials into flowers, corals and other complex shapes

By Luciana Gravotta

Image: Wim L. Noorduin, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

• 

  Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

  Read More??

Artists and material scientists alike bend, melt and mold materials into useful and aesthetically pleasing forms. But nothing human hands have made can match the intricacy of convoluted corals or the delicate and unique geometry of a snowflake. In a study published yesterday in Science researchers exploited nature?s sculpting methods to create visually stunning 3-D structures that may change the way nano- and micro-materials are made.

Organisms alter their growth patterns in response to changes in their environments. For example, a seashell may switch from a spotted to a striped pattern if there is a change in the temperature, acidity or carbon dioxide level of the water. Wim L. Noorduin, a materials science engineer at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), used the same concept to coax self-assembling materials to ripple, spiral and bend into structures that resemble leaves, stems, flowers, vases and corals.

The fantastic micro-bouquets showcased in this slide show are not sculpted, but rather grown by design. Noorduin and his colleagues built these crystal structures in a stepwise fashion: first grow the vase, then the stems and finally the petals. The original images are black and white but the researchers false-colored each structure according to the sequence in which it was formed.

? View the Nanosculptured Flora Slide Show

Many nanostructures such as silicon memory cells are etched using lithography, a precise but expensive and labor-intensive technique that can only be used on flat surfaces. ?There is nothing now to create 3-D structures,? says professor of material science at SEAS, Joanna Aizenberg, who is principal investigator of the study and a pioneer in biomimetics (the use of biological systems as templates for creating materials or designing machines). The new technique is the first that can design and build 3-D structures. It is simple, cheap and efficient, as a whole forest of micro-flowers can assemble themselves simultaneously.

Although the structures created in this study are just for show, the technique has potential for future applications. The folds of these 3-D microstructures pack a large amount of surface area into a tiny space?an important consideration for the production of chemicals that depend on catalysts, substances that speed up chemical reactions. The more surface area available, the more catalysts you can add?and the more efficient the reaction.

The process can also be used to make nonsymmetrical (chiral) structures that may be useful for microcircuits, because chirality plays a role in conductivity.

? View the Nanosculptured Flora Slide Show

The technique still needs to be refined before it can be used in these types of applications. The team has developed a mathematical model that maps how the structures evolve, which is important for designing new shapes. Noorduin says they are now working on devices that will allow them to very precisely control the environmental conditions in order to standardize shapes and sizes. They will also need to figure out how to maintain the same level of control for other materials such as carbon, which is used for nanotubes.

Three years after having initiated the project, Noorduin says he still goes back to admire some of his favorite samples. He sits in front of the scanning electron microscope and peers through the lens: ?It feels like diving into a strange coral reef,? Noorduin says. ?You can spend hours looking at them.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a901b72df7e56c42c557e243b80ee50e

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Politics, bribery charges swirl around Ugandan oil

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) ? Even before the first drops flow, Uganda's oil sector is beset by bribery allegations against officials, tax-related cases abroad that cost the government millions in legal fees, and the alleged interference of a president whose firm control of the sector worries transparency campaigners.

Uganda, which has confirmed oil deposits of about 3.5 billion barrels, wants to extract at least 1.2 billion barrels over the next three decades. That figure could rise when more oil blocks are put up for exploration later this year, potentially making Uganda one of Africa's top oil producers.

But some experts and analysts worry that the country got off to a false start and remains too politically unstable to avoid some of the mistakes made by other oil-rich but otherwise poor countries.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has reserved for himself the right to have the final say before any deals are signed with oil companies, saying that policy is to ensure the country's interests are always protected. But some critics say the president's close involvement is unhelpful to a country that needs to focus on building credible, transparent institutions to manage its oil wealth whether or not Museveni is around.

In a session of parliament that sparked public uproar, an independent lawmaker fingered three government ministers he believed had been bribed by foreign oil companies seeking contracts with Uganda's government. The charges, denied by the three officials, forced lawmakers across the political spectrum to order an investigation that many here hoped would be swift and decisive.

Almost two years later, that investigation is still ongoing and Gerald Karuhanga, the lawmaker who first alleged bribery, says he no longer looks forward to seeing the investigators' report, if it ever comes out.

"It's taking forever," he said. "It's really unfortunate. I don't think they are serious about what they are doing. We are no longer enthusiastic about its release."

Uganda has not had a single peaceful transfer of power since independence in 1962, and Museveni himself, in charge since 1986, faces growing pressure to retire. The East African country, which announced that it had commercially viable quantities of oil in 2006, hopes to become a producer of crude by 2016. That's about the time Museveni's current term expires, and many believe he will run again.

Museveni's "interference" in oil matters makes Uganda less attractive in the eyes of foreign investors, according to Eurasia Group, a political risk think tank with headquarters in New York.

"Rising internal party discord in the ruling (party) ? younger members are pushing for new leadership ? has triggered increased patronage payments by the president, especially over oil sector development," the group said in a report last month.

A new law gives the energy minister, a presidential appointee, the authority to issue and revoke oil contracts. Some say that, while it may have reduced officials' opportunities for corruption, the president's close involvement undermines the development of institutions such as a planned national oil company.

"The primary risk we have is that the decision-making has been largely controlled by Museveni," said Angelo Izama, a Ugandan analyst who is researching the political economy of Uganda's oil wealth as an Open Society Foundations fellow in New York. "But he won't be around as an effective leader in the next 15 years. The question remains, 'How will this kind of narrow decision-making fare once you have another president?' The risk is that the political transition in Uganda is unpredictable."

The global intelligence think tank Stratfor said in a recent report that "Museveni's system of patronage going forward will have to be based on oil revenue. The increasingly fractious nature of Museveni's support base means patronage will become even more important, making securing oil revenue even more vital."

Museveni has said he wants oil revenue to be spent on developing infrastructure ? especially roads ? across the country, raising expectations here. It may be years before the government earns any royalties from oil, but these days Uganda's parliament frequently receives petitioners presenting alternative ways to spend the cash. Tribes that live near the oil-producing areas want more.

Uganda and three foreign companies reached a deal last month that includes the construction of a pipeline to transport Ugandan crude for export through Kenya. Accordingly, France's Total and the Chinese offshore oil company CNOOC, which last year acquired two thirds of British explorer Tullow Oil's Ugandan assets for $2.9 billion, will build a refinery with the capacity to process 30,000 barrels each day. But a final deal has not been signed, in part because of what the president's office called a disagreement on how to develop the pipeline and refinery.

Uganda is pressing for the "unconditional expansion of the refinery size of 30,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day when the demand increases in future," according to the president's office.

Uganda's biggest risk is rushing to sign deals with foreign oil companies that are vastly more experienced, said Fred Muhumuza, an economist with a local think tank called the Economic Policy Research Center. Uganda, which is locked in disputes with oil companies over outstanding taxes, must gain full knowledge of its oil wealth before production starts, he said.

"As a country, Uganda needs to build the capacity to understand what's going on," he said. "Are we going to be able to know how much oil has been exploited and then tax the revenues appropriately?"

Current estimates of Uganda's oil wealth are based on about 40 percent exploration of an ecologically sensitive area around Lake Albert on the border with Congo. In the coming weeks Ugandan authorities are expected to invite oil companies to bid for at least 13 oil blocks in a new round of licensing that campaigners hope will be more transparent than the last time.

"I am hopeful that the government will go for open bidding," said Godber Tumushabe, who heads the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment, a local governance think tank. "If they go and cherry-pick which company gets which block, then that will be a fundamental mistake in terms of building the systems that will protect the country against the oil curse."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/politics-bribery-charges-swirl-around-ugandan-oil-143136133.html

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All-day kindergarten approved in education bill (Star Tribune)

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Judge delays decision on Holmes insanity plea

Family members and victims are escorted to the courtroom in Centennial, Colo., for a hearing where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, May 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Family members and victims are escorted to the courtroom in Centennial, Colo., for a hearing where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, May 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Special prosecutor Dan Zook arrives at the courthouse in Centennial, Colo., for a hearing where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, on Monday, May 13, 2013. Zook was hired by the district attorney to handle the Holmes prosecution. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

James Holmes mother Arlene Holmes, left, is escorted by a member of the defense team as she arrives for a hearing in Centennial, Colo., where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, May 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

District Attorney George Brauchler, right, and assistant DA Mark Hurlbert arrive for a hearing in Centennial, Colo., where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, May 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Arlene Holmes, right, the mother of James Holmes leaves the courthouse in Centennial, Colo., with a member of his defense team after a hearing where Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes asked to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, May 13, 2013.(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) ? Lawyers for the Colorado theater shooting suspect told a judge Monday he wants to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge won't immediately rule on whether to allow it.

Attorney Daniel King made the request in court, saying the defense now has a diagnosis for James Holmes, though he didn't specify what it was.

Holmes, with bushy hair and beard, didn't speak during the hearing after entering the courtroom with his eyes downcast.

Before deciding whether to accept a new plea, Judge Carlos Samour said, he would consider arguments about constitutional questions the defense has raised about Colorado's insanity and death penalty laws.

He isn't expected to announce his decision until May 31, when another hearing is scheduled.

At the heart of the dispute is a list of cautions Samour has prepared advising Holmes of the ground rules of an insanity defense.

It includes an advisory that Holmes must cooperate with doctors during a mandatory mental health evaluation or he won't be able to present mitigating evidence about his mental state if he is convicted and a jury considers whether he should be executed. Just how much cooperation is required hasn't been tested in court since the laws were changed in the late 1990s.

A not guilty by reason of insanity plea is widely seen as Holmes' best hope ? perhaps his only hope ? of avoiding the death penalty. But his lawyers have held off until now, fearing a wrinkle in the law could cripple their ability to raise his mental health as a mitigating factor during the sentencing phase.

Two judges, including Samour, have previously refused to rule on the constitutionality of the law, saying the attorneys' objections were hypothetical because Holmes had not pleaded insanity. The defense had little choice but to have Holmes enter the plea and then challenge the law.

Holmes' lawyers announced last week that Holmes would ask to change his plea at the hearing.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. They say Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, spent months acquiring weapons and ammunition, scouting a theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora and booby-trapping his apartment.

Then on July 20, dressed in a police-style helmet and body armor, he opened fire during a packed midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises," prosecutors say. Twelve people died and 70 were injured.

No motive has emerged in nearly 10 months of hearings, but Holmes' attorneys have repeatedly said their client is mentally ill. He was being treated by a psychiatrist before the attack.

The insanity plea carries risks for both sides. Holmes will have to submit to the mental evaluation by state-employed doctors, and prosecutors could use the findings against him.

"It's literally a life-and-death situation with the government seeking to execute him and the government, the same government, evaluating him with regard to whether he was sane or insane at the time he was in that movie theater," said attorney Dan Recht, a past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

Among the risks for prosecutors: They must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Holmes was sane. If they don't, state law requires the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity.

"That's a significant burden on the prosecution," Recht said.

If acquitted, Holmes would be committed to the state mental hospital indefinitely.

A judge entered a standard not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf in March, and he needs court permission to change it.

The mental evaluation could take weeks or months. Evaluators would interview Holmes, his friends and family, and if Holmes permits it, they'll also speak with mental health professionals who treated him in the past, said Dr. Howard Zonana, a professor of psychiatry and adjunct professor of law at Yale University.

Evaluators may give Holmes standardized personality tests and compare his results to those of people with documented mental illness. They will also look for any physical brain problems.

Zonana estimates he has conducted around 200 mental evaluations of criminal defendants, including some death penalty cases.

"All cases are tough," he said.

Meticulous planning, as in the scenario prosecutors laid out against Holmes, doesn't necessarily mean a defendant is sane, Zonana said.

___

Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-13-Colorado%20Shooting/id-25dbd9115de14568bf7e77a1bc028c60

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Project aims to track big city carbon footprints

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Every time Los Angeles exhales, odd-looking gadgets anchored in the mountains above the city trace the invisible puffs of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that waft skyward.

Halfway around the globe, similar contraptions atop the Eiffel Tower and elsewhere around Paris keep a pulse on emissions from smokestacks and automobile tailpipes. And there is talk of outfitting Sao Paulo, Brazil, with sensors that sniff the byproducts of burning fossil fuels.

It's part of a budding effort to track the carbon footprints of megacities, urban hubs with over 10 million people that are increasingly responsible for human-caused global warming.

For years, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants have been closely monitored around the planet by stations on the ground and in space. Last week, worldwide levels of carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million at a Hawaii station that sets the global benchmark ? a concentration not seen in millions of years.

Now, some scientists are eyeing large cities ? with LA and Paris as guinea pigs ? and aiming to observe emissions in the atmosphere as a first step toward independently verifying whether local ? and often lofty ? climate goals are being met.

For the past year, a high-tech sensor poking out from a converted shipping container has stared at the Los Angeles basin from its mile-high perch on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains that's home to a famous observatory and communication towers.

Like a satellite gazing down on Earth, it scans more than two dozen points from the inland desert to the coast. Every few minutes, it rumbles to life as it automatically sweeps the horizon, measuring sunlight bouncing off the surface for the unique fingerprint of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

In a storage room next door, commercially available instruments that typically monitor air quality double as climate sniffers. And in nearby Pasadena, a refurbished vintage solar telescope on the roof of a laboratory on the California Institute of Technology campus captures sunlight and sends it down a shaft 60 feet below where a prism-like instrument separates out carbon dioxide molecules.

On a recent April afternoon atop Mount Wilson, a brown haze hung over the city, the accumulation of dust and smoke particles in the atmosphere.

"There are some days where we can see 150 miles way out to the Channel Islands and there are some days where we have trouble even seeing what's down here in the foreground," said Stanley Sander, a senior research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What Sander and others are after are the mostly invisible greenhouse gases spewing from factories and freeways below.

There are plans to expand the network. This summer, technicians will install commercial gas analyzers at a dozen more rooftops around the greater LA region. Scientists also plan to drive around the city in a Prius outfitted with a portable emission-measuring device and fly a research aircraft to pinpoint methane hotspots from the sky (A well-known natural source is the La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of LA where underground bacteria burp bubbles of methane gas to the surface.)

Six years ago, elected officials vowed to reduce emissions to 35 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 by shifting to renewable energy and weaning the city's dependence on out-of-state coal-fired plants, greening the twin port complex and airports and retrofitting city buildings.

It's impractical to blanket the city with instruments so scientists rely on a handful of sensors and use computer models to work backward to determine the sources of the emissions and whether they're increasing. They won't be able to zero in on an offending street or a landfill, but they hope to be able to tell whether switching buses from diesel to alternative fuel has made a dent.

Project manager Riley Duren of JPL said it'll take several years of monitoring to know whether LA is on track to reach its goal.

Scientists not involved with the project say it makes sense to dissect emissions on a city level to confirm whether certain strategies to curb greenhouse gases are working. But they're divided about the focus.

Allen Robinson, an air quality expert at Carnegie Mellon University, said he prefers more attention paid to measuring a city's methane emissions since scientists know less about them than carbon dioxide release.

Nearly 58 percent of California's carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 came from gasoline-powered vehicles, according to the U.S. Energy Department's latest figures.

In much of the country, coal ?usually as fuel for electric power ? is a major source of carbon dioxide pollution. But in California, it's responsible for a tad more than 1 percent of the state's carbon dioxide emissions. Natural gas, considered a cleaner fuel, spews one third of the state's carbon dioxide.

Overall, California in 2010 released about 408 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air. The state's carbon dioxide pollution is greater than all but 20 countries and is just ahead of Spain's emissions. In 2010, California put nearly 11 tons of carbon dioxide into the air for every person, which is lower than the national average of 20 tons per person.

Gregg Marland, an Appalachian State University professor who has tracked worldwide emissions for the Energy Department, said there's value in learning about a city's emissions and testing techniques.

"I don't think we need to try this in many places, but we have to try some to see what works and what we can do," he said.

Launching the monitoring project came with the usual growing pains. In Paris, a carbon sniffer originally tucked away in the Eiffel Tower's observation deck had to be moved to a higher floor that's off-limits to the public after tourists' exhaling interfered with the data.

So far, $3 million have been spent on the U.S. effort with funding from federal, state and private groups. The French, backed by different sponsors, have spent roughly the same.

Scientists hope to strengthen their ground measurements with upcoming launches of Earth satellites designed to track carbon dioxide from orbit. The field experiment does not yet extend to China, by far the world's biggest carbon dioxide polluter. But it's a start, experts say.

With the focus on megacities, others have worked to decipher the carbon footprint of smaller places like Indianapolis, Boston and Oakland, where University of California, Berkeley researchers have taken a different tack and blanketed school rooftops with relatively inexpensive sensors.

"We are at a very early stage of knowing the best strategy, and need to learn the pros and cons of different approaches," said Inez Fung, a professor of atmospheric science at Berkeley who has no role in the various projects.

___

Follow Alicia Chang at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/project-aims-track-big-city-carbon-footprints-135809903.html

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Future heads of family farms dig into financials

In this Wednesday, April 17, 2013 photo, Jake Anderson stands in an equipment shed on his family's farm in Williamsburg, Mo. Anderson didn?t have to delve too deep into the University of Missouri?s agricultural economics program before realizing he was destined to return to the 1,500-acre family farm. After all, that?s been the Anderson family trade since 1891. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

In this Wednesday, April 17, 2013 photo, Jake Anderson stands in an equipment shed on his family's farm in Williamsburg, Mo. Anderson didn?t have to delve too deep into the University of Missouri?s agricultural economics program before realizing he was destined to return to the 1,500-acre family farm. After all, that?s been the Anderson family trade since 1891. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

In this Wednesday, April 17, 2013 photo, Jake Anderson poses for a photo in an equipment shed on his family's farm in Williamsburg, Mo. Anderson didn?t have to delve too deep into the University of Missouri?s agricultural economics program before realizing he was destined to return to the 1,500-acre family farm. After all, that?s been the Anderson family trade since 1891. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) ? Jake Anderson didn't have to delve too deep into the University of Missouri's agricultural economics program before realizing he was destined to return to the 1,500-acre family farm. After all, that's been the Anderson family trade since 1891, when his great-great grandfather came to Callaway County from Sweden.

What the self-described "farm kid" was less certain of was how to manage a volatile business where market price fluctuations are common, the weather is unpredictable and long-term planning ? at least for his parents and their parents ? often meant scratching out financial estimates on a yellow legal pad or the back of an envelope. So, each Wednesday in the just-concluded spring semester, Anderson and a dozen other Missouri students crunched numbers in a campus computer lab, the male students' agrarian roots betrayed only by baseball caps sporting farm equipment logos.

The focus on data is intentional: While other classes teach ag students how to repair combines or learn the proper chemical mixes of common fertilizers, students in agricultural economist Kevin Moore's "Returning to the Farm" class create business plans using financial information from their own family farms. It's an approach more commonly found at the county agricultural extension office or in community college classrooms rather than flagship public research universities.

Moore says the skills are essential for the next generation of farmers for whom technology is second nature, but bringing their elders on board remains a challenge.

"For a lot of the students, the first time they actually get exposed to the real financial numbers on the farm may be through this class," Moore said. "Generally, Mom and Dad try to make everything rosy for the kids. ... For many, it's really their first honest exposure to the complete financial side of things."

The necessity of having those conversations will only increase. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the number of U.S. farmers older than 65 grew by nearly 22 percent between 2002 and 2007. Farmers 75 and older outnumber those under 25 in the country 5-1.

Anderson, a 21-year-old junior, returns to the farm that's 30 miles east of campus on the weekends to help out. When it's time to harvest the rows of soybeans and corn, he makes the same trip three to four times weekly. He also sells corn from his own small patch of land at a roadside stand in front of the family home, a part-time summer job he's done since he was nine that helps pay for college.

After graduation, he hopes to add 50 to 100 head of cattle and grow the family operation by another 500 acres, as well as sell seeds for supplemental income. He said Moore's class has given him the financial tools to support that decision.

"In high school, I didn't expect to get back on the farm. It seemed like times were getting tough," Anderson said. "And at Mizzou, I saw all these other farm kids who couldn't come back. But this is what I've grown up doing, it's what I have a passion for."

Dale Nordquist, associate director of the Center for Farm Financial Management at the University of Minnesota, said Missouri's practical approach to understanding farm finances is relatively uncommon at large, land-grant universities where both students and professors are more likely to concentrate on theoretical approaches as opposed to practical solutions, and the use of personal data can still be seen as an intrusion.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of finances, he said such training can serve an equally valuable purpose: It forces farm families to prepare their sons and daughters to take over the business.

"You certainly hear the stories about the older generation that never really wants to let go of the reins," Nordquist said. "Even though they might be going through the motions of letting go of the kids, they never release (control) of management. So they keep on doing the same thing ... Maybe they don't ever step back."

Garrett Riekhof, a Higginsville farmer and 2003 Missouri graduate who took the class a decade ago, said the course marked the first time he took a hard look at the business side of his family's operation.

"A farm is more than how many dollars of seed you have in the ground each year," he said. "These are business practices that any small business needs to go through to assess their health. I like to run my farm just like any small business would."

For some, the statistical approach could lead to a disheartening conclusion: The family farm may not survive another generation. And other students' parents remain resistant to opening the family's books ? even to their own progeny. In those cases, Moore encourages his students to "use me as a scapegoat."

Anderson's parents, though, were more than happy to hand over the books, and now their son shares his newfound insights into estate planning, asset transfer and other financial management details.

"I'm very proud he wants to come back, but I wanted it to be his decision," said his father, John Anderson, 53, whose three daughters also attended Missouri but pursued other professions.

"Technology is taking over agriculture just like it's taking over the world," John Anderson said. "And he's getting it firsthand."

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier .

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-11-Food%20and%20Farm-Inherit%20the%20Farm/id-02b73f2004f347258a8925bf1103869d

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The Real Housewives of New York City Settle Contract Dispute

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/the-real-housewives-of-new-york-city-settle-contract-dispute/

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CyanogenMod 10.1 RC2 builds rolling out

Second release candidate appears as CM 10.1.0 approaches

A quick heads-up for anyone running one of the recently-released CyanogenMod 10.1 RC1 builds -- RC2 is now rolling off the servers, and builds are available for a few dozen devices at the time of writing. These include the current crop of Nexuses, U.S. Galaxy S3 models, the original Galaxy S, international LG Optimus G and HTC One X (Tegra 3), first and second-gen Kindle Fire, various Galaxy Tab 2 models, the original RAZR, Droid RAZR and Bionic, and Sony's Xperia Z and Xperia V. As this is a jump from one release candidate to another, we can probably expect fixes for any outstanding issues or bugs. On Wednesday the CM team said it expected RC1 to be one of the last builds before CM 10.1 goes stable with a 10.1.0 release.

To see if RC2 is available for your device, check the official download repository at get.cm, linked below.

Source: CyanogenMod Downloads

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/ubq5-rkypCo/story01.htm

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Watchmakers fret over China sales slump

By Silke Koltrowitz

BASEL (Reuters) - Luxury watchmakers expect sales growth to slow this year as a recovery in the United States and buoyant Middle East demand fail to offset a China slump more deep-rooted than a temporary blip caused by anti-corruption moves.

The heads of Swatch Group's biggest brand Omega and LVMH flagship brand TAG Heuer as well as high-end independents Patek Philippe and Ulysse Nardin all said demand in Greater China had tumbled, particularly for high-end models.

A weaker gold price, which hit a two-year low this month after gaining 52 percent over the last three years, was no help as most manufacturers had hedged their purchases.

"I bought my gold a year in advance," Walter von Kaenel, head of Swatch's midrange brand Longines told Reuters at the Baselworld watch fair this week.

Omega chief Stephen Urquhart said a lower gold price also made gold watches less appealing, particularly for those consumers who were buying them as an investment.

Luxury watch makers have expanded at breakneck speed in recent years in Greater China, which includes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as the mainland - and enjoyed double-digit sales growth rates there until last summer.

But their latest comments reinforce the view that the region, to which luxury group Richemont is the most exposed, is being hit by more than the government's crackdown on gifts for favours, which often involve watches, and is feeling the draught from a wider slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.

"All watches costing more than 1,800 francs are having difficulties in China at the moment," said TAG Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Christophe Babin, soon to be head of LVMH's jewelery brand Bulgari.

TAG Heuer's watches sell for an average price of 4,500 Swiss francs and Omega's and Patek's price tags are well above that.

"We have felt the impact of the anti-corruption campaign in China," Patek Philippe's Thierry Stern said in an interview.

He said Patek had introduced new models at lower prices in Asia to address the drop in demand for pricey items.

But the head of Omega, one of the most popular luxury watches in China, said he was confident sales to Chinese customers worldwide would grow in 2013 - albeit at a slower pace than in 2012 - as they still bought a lot of watches abroad.

One bright note, Urquhart said, was that consumer confidence in mainland China had picked up after this year's leadership transition, meaning single-digit growth should be possible.

Patrik Schwendimann, analylst at Zuercher Kantonalbank, said: "It's a positive surprise that Omega still expects sales growth in single digits in mainland China this year."

Longines's von Kaenel said the midrange price category -- Longines is leader in the 800-3,000 franc segment-- was not affected by China's current frugality and slower sales in mainland China were compensated by strong demand in Hong Kong.

Swiss watch exports to China fell by more than 25 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Sales to Hong Kong, the biggest market for Swiss watches where mainland Chinese buy timepieces to avoid high taxes, were down 9.1 percent.

"We believe China's new President Xi Jinping's tough stance on corruption practices and extravagant spending are likely to limit the recovery of the illegitimate component of luxury demand this year ("gifting")," Citi said in a note.

"This is perhaps likely to have a greater impact on high-end watches as compared to the mid-range segment."

Consultancy Bain & Co is confident about demand for watches costing over 10,000 Swiss francs, forecasting their exports to rise about 9 percent annually until 2015 but high inventories in Greater China may hold back exports this year.

"We did interviews in China with retailers and it seems that in 2012 the sell-out (sales to end customers) rates were growing more slowly than the exports rates from Switzerland," said Gyorgy Konda, a partner at Bain & Co in Milan.

Longines' von Kaenel said Chinese retailers had excessive stock levels for some brands, but not for Longines, whose more affordable watches were not targeted by the anti-corruption drive.

Omega, Longines and Hublot executives agreed a healthy recovery in the United States and buoyant growth in the Middle East, particularly Dubai, would generate single-digit growth this year, a marked slowdown versus 11 percent growth in 2012.

(Editing by Astrid Wendlandt and David Cowell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/watchmakers-fret-over-china-sales-slump-154932919--sector.html

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Sheriff: 5 snowboarders killed in Colo. avalanche

GEORGETOWN, Colo. (AP) ? Authorities have recovered the bodies of five snowboarders who were killed in a backcountry avalanche on Colorado's Loveland Pass.

Clear Creek County Sheriff Don Krueger said multiple search and rescue crews located the bodies Saturday. A sixth snowboarder was caught in the slide. That person's condition was unknown.

Krueger said authorities are pretty certain the snowboarders triggered the avalanche, which he said was about 600 yards wide and eight feet deep.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sheriff-5-snowboarders-killed-colo-avalanche-223833422.html

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'Married To Jonas' Doesn't Gloss Over Kevin And Danielle's 'Tough Times'

'I think the show itself has really taught us how to connect,' Kevin told MTV News.
By Christina Garibaldi

Joe and Kevin on "Jonas Brothers: Live From MTV"
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705993/married-to-jonas-new-season-preview.jhtml

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Some Calgary Families Are Finding the Mental Health Care System ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://mental-health.fitnessthroughfasting.com/sexual-gender-disorders/some-calgary-families-are-finding-the-mental-health-care-system-for-youth-hard-to-navigate.php

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Local Business Video Marketing Myth Busting | My Local Business ...

We Brits are continuing our love affair with video.? With 323 million hours watching online videos in February 2013, I?m surprised our eyes aren?t square!

When I discuss creating videos and video marketing with local businesses, I often get the same replies?

• Video marketing is too expensive
• My business doesn?t lend itself well to video
• I don?t have the equipment or technical know-how
• I don?t look good on camera (I can relate to that!)
• Oh, we?ll get a video made when? (insert event that never comes off here)

Let?s address the two main issues and look at how easily you can use video in your business.

1. Creating a video is expensive

The cost of video creation is perhaps the number one reason many businesses do not use video in their local online marketing mix.? I?m not saying that you shouldn?t save for a professional video shoot.? Often, small businesses are on a very tight budget ? do shop around.

The great thing is that viewers aren?t looking for something that looks like a multi-million pound blockbuster.? Your potential customers are looking for basic information about your products or services such as:

• before and after examples,
• testimonials,
• your product in action,
• how-to?s
• the people behind your business

All simple stuff.? By using video as well as images, you can connect with your potential customer on a much deeper level.

You can do that with a smartphone?

Even basic video cameras cost less than ?200 these days ? I have my eye on this Kodak Pocket Video Camera when I get over myself and talk on camera!? Oh, and if you go down buying a camera route, do get one that accepts an external mic.

You don?t need a video camera to create videos for your business.? I get traffic from YouTube daily from my screencast videos.? Ok, I?m not specifically a local business. Any consultant, coach or similar service can use the same technique.

I use Camtasia (admittedly not to its full potential!) and you can try it free for 30 days.? If the budget isn?t stretching to Camtasia, there is free screencast software available.? Try Camstudio or Ezvid.

You can take things even simpler and produce video slideshows of your images set to music.? You don?t even need to speak!? Windows has Movie Maker bundled in or if you want drag and drop, click a few buttons simple, try Animoto.

And, if you want some eye candy, well you can always do something like this?

Try Sparkol free for 7 days.

I think the key take away is don?t let a limited budget stop you from tapping into the video market.

?2.? My Business Isn?t Suited To Video

This excuse makes me chuckle.? I honestly can?t think of a business that could not use video as part of their marketing mix (if you can, please shout out in the comments!)

Video isn?t just about ads and how-to?s.? It can be used in so many ways and really humanises your business.

Entertainment

I think we?ve all heard of the ?Will it blend? videos from Blendtec.? It?s a blender ? can?t get much more unexciting.?

Yet, for six years they?ve been producing ?Will it blend? videos, destroying everything from glow sticks to iPhones and Justin Beiber to show how good their blenders are.? A bit of fun that caught the imagination of many and no doubt put their blender in front of people who wouldn?t have previously considered it.

Take a look at some of their early videos, they?re not as swishly produced as this Blending of Beiber?

Staying in the fun mode, down the road from me Warrington Market jumped in on the Harlem Shake craze and produced their own.? It even got them air-time on local TV too, that?s free publicity.? In the midst of a horse meat crisis, it tickled me to spot the panto horse dancing by the butchers?

Improve communication

On a more serious note, video can really help with your customer service and inspire trust in your business.? I watched a webinar by SEOMoz a few weeks back about using video in local marketing.? The example they gave was so simple, yet effective.

It was a construction based company, they installed windows, fascias and the like.? With an iPhone and an app to draw arrows (no fancy production) the contractor kept the client informed of where work was up to.? Just simple shots of their house and him chatting ? today we did this and this, tomorrow we?re finishing off that?

The videos were uploaded to YouTube, and the company has built a nice video portfolio of work that can be found in local searches as well as highlighting their communication.? How simple is that?? Watch the webinar here.

Support your clients

A couple of months ago, I was looking up some info on grief and I came across a video series on a funeral directors website.? It took a little while for me to dig the site back out.? Chandler Funeral Services Ltd are in Liverpool, Nova Scotia ? that explains how I found the site in the first place, obviously looking for something in Liverpool down the road?

On their website they have a grief video series, which provides a support service to their clients.? What I also discovered when I found the site again last night were the videos on the obituary pages.? They were really simple, tasteful slideshows of photos, ?Remembering the life of??? I thought it was a lovely touch.

Whatever line of business you?re in you can use simple videos to entertain, educate, inform and support.? These are not ads.? You?re not directly selling anything.

You are expanding your reach, providing information in a format people want to see and driving targeted traffic to your website.

Video Marketing Helps Sell Too

The Experian stats referred to right at the beginning of this blog post also found that online retailers benefited most from our love of video.? 16% of video viewers left to go directly to a transactional page.

Even a local business can expand reach by selling online, either through your own website or building a store on large sites such as Amazon, eBay, Folksy or Etsy and more.

Citation Building

As part of my Google Local package, I create a short slideshow video for my clients and upload it to a YouTube channel (also created for them).?

Both the video description and the channel have the business name, address and telephone details ? providing another simple citation source ? not to mention the videos also rank well in video search and with a bit of a prod rank well in local searches too.

Find out more about my Google Local packages

Local business video marketing needn?t be difficult or overwhelming. Simple videos really work well to drive traffic to your website and are fairly straight-forward to rank locally too.? I?ll cover that in another post.

Over to you?

Do you use video to expand your online reach and drive traffic to your website?? I?d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Source: http://www.mylocalbusinessonline.co.uk/local-business-video-marketing/

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