Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a1bd91ba88f9ee049d9cff500415fe81
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Monday, October 31, 2011
Batteries on a Wind Farm Help Control Power Output
[unable to retrieve full-text content]A wind farm in West Virginia has been using big containers of batteries to make the electricity from 61 turbines more useful to the power grid.
Rio fights its drug war with library books
Rio de Janeiro is trying to fight drug crime with the construction of a library that it hopes will win 'hearts and minds.'
? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
Skip to next paragraphOn a recent holiday, school children rode bikes or stretched out on park tables around this pristine library complex. Inside, all ages can watch DVDs on flat-screen TVs, take art history courses with prestigious professors, and browse tables with books on Hinduism or travel in Turkey.
What?s less apparent under these bright, high-vaulted ceilings is that they?re surrounded by the city?s largest cracol?ndia ? where scores of crack addicts huddle near armed dealers ? known within Rio as the ?Gaza Strip? for the frequency of lethal shootouts between police and traffickers.
The year-old library is Rio?s most audacious attempt to follow a crime-fighting strategy from neighboring Colombia, which promoted constructing top-quality public works in its most desperate neighborhoods as a way of winning the ?hearts and minds? of residents living under drug traffickers? control. This Biblioteca Parque de Manguinhos ? a refurbished military warehouse ? still echoes with the crackling sound of gunfire as police raid drug holdouts.
Grandmotherly Sandra Gullino works in the library?s nursery, where children learn to fold origami creations and flush a modern toilet for the first time. She says she encourages each child to get a library card, ?even though the kid doesn?t know how to read.... This is a stimulus.?
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Australia labor tribunal seeks to get Qantas fleet (Reuters)
MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) ? Qantas Airways sparred with unions at a second labor tribunal on Sunday after Australia's prime minister called for an end to the industrial dispute that grounded the airline's entire fleet, stranding tens of thousands of passengers around the world.
Qantas grounded more than 100 aircraft on Saturday and said it had canceled 447 flights affecting more than 68,000 passengers by Sunday afternoon. It is seeking to bring to a head a prolonged, bitter battle with its unions over pay and working conditions and a strategy to set up two new airlines in Asia.
The national carrier, which made a pre-tax profit of $552 million in the year to June 30, plans to cut 1,000 jobs and order $9 billion worth of new aircraft as part of a makeover to salvage its loss-making international business.
The escalation in the dispute angered the government and came as an embarrassment for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was hosting a summit of Commonwealth leaders in the western city of Perth, 17 of them booked to fly out on Sunday with Qantas.
"There is no case for this radical over-reaction," Assistant Treasurer and former senior union official Bill Shorten told the Australia Broadcasting Corp. "Sixty-eight thousand Australians and the tourism industry have been grossly inconvenienced by this high-handed ambush of the passenger."
Gillard, criticized for not intervening earlier in the dispute, said the tribunal hearings in Melbourne were needed to quickly resolve the impasse.
"We took this action because we were concerned about the damage to the economy," she told reporters in Perth, where the dispute overshadowed the Commonwealth meeting. "The government is arguing for an end to the industrial action.
Most leaders, she said, had made alternate flight plans.
BOLD, UNBELIEVABLE DECISION
Joyce estimated the "bold decision, an unbelievable decision" to lock out workers and ground the fleet would cost the company A$20 million ($21.4 million) a day.
He said the tribunal, which reconvened after a late-night meeting on Saturday, would have to terminate all industrial action before the airline could resume flying.
"We're hoping a determination is made today and that will give us certainty about what we can do and start planning to get the airline back in the air," Joyce told Australia's Sky News, indicating the airline could be flying again on Monday if termination of industrial action was ordered.
Qantas and the unions would then have 21 days to negotiate a settlement before binding arbitration would be imposed.
Union lawyers grilled three Qantas executives for more than five hours. Questioning focused on when Qantas officials first knew Joyce was considering locking out Qantas employees and why the airline was unwilling to allow a suspension of industrial action for three to four months to negotiate further.
Qantas' under-performing shares could fall further after the escalation of hostilities with the unions.
"If they are not on a trading halt I would expect them to come under a bit of downward pressure, because it is going have financial impact and there has been a lot of talk about damage to the brand," said Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets.
Bringing the matter to a head, he said, was understandable.
"Its obviously proved unpopular with people stranded around the globe but in the long-run, and (Joyce) is looking beyond the next week, it's probably the right thing to do."
The lockout is the latest in a tide of industrial unrest as unions press for a greater share of profits amid tight labor markets and a boom in resource prices.
It threatens to become the most significant disruption to Australian aviation since a six-month 1989 dispute that had a significant impact on tourism and other business. Industrial action by engineers cost Qantas around A$130 million in 2008.
Qantas faced angry shareholders and workers at a shareholders' meeting on Friday when the company said the labor dispute since September was costing it A$15 million a week.
Shareholders backed hefty pay rises to Qantas executives, including a A$5 million package for Joyce.
The action sparked an angry response from Transport Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday.
"I'm extremely disappointed," he said. "What's more, I indicated very clearly to Mr Joyce that I was disturbed by the fact that we've had a number of discussions and at no stage has Mr Joyce indicated to me that this was an action under consideration."
Tony Sheldon of the Transport Workers Union said the lockout was cynical and pre-planned.
"It's a company strategy that shareholders should have been told about, that the Australian community should have been told about, not ambushed in the dead of night," he said.
MASSIVE DISRUPTIONS
Qantas check-in desks across Australia were largely empty. The airline, which usually flies more than 60,000 people a day, is paying for accommodation and expenses for stranded travelers and putting some on alternative flights.
Australian rival Virgin Australia said it was adding 3,000 seats on its domestic network on Monday, in addition to 3,500 seats on Sunday.
Virgin Australia's airline partners Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand said they were looking at options to increase capacity to and within Australia.
Qantas's decision left many passengers venting their anger after they were stranded in 22 cities around the globe.
"To resolve this at the expense of paying customers on one of the biggest flying days in Australia is quite frankly ... bizarre, unwarranted and unfair to the loyal customers that Australia has," a businessman, who gave his name only as Barry, told Sky TV at Melbourne airport.
This weekend is one of Australia's busiest for travel, with tens of thousands traveling to the hugely popular Melbourne Cup horse race on Tuesday, dubbed "the race that stops the nation."
In Hong Kong, staff at Cathay Pacific Airways were booking Qantas customers on flights bound for Australia.
Shares in Qantas have fallen almost 40 percent this year, underperforming the 8 percent fall in the benchmark index.
($1 = 0.933 Australian dollars)
(Additional reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram and Ed Davies in SYDNEY, Rebekah Kebede and Michael Perry in PERTH, James Grubel in CANBERRA, Ee Lyn Tan in HONG KONG; Editing by Ron Popeski)
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Romney friends give ammo to critics (Politico)
Mitt Romney is stacking his team with policy advisers from the George W. Bush administration ? and it has conservatives up in arms.
The Republican right cringes at some of the high-profile people Romney is leaning on for donations and advice, including three former Bush-era officials whose recent records include lobbying for Solyndra and advocating on behalf of cap-and-trade legislation and carbon taxes.
Continue ReadingRomney?s long-ago environmental associates are also causing him problems, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the conservative blogosphere reveling in 6-year-old news releases showing how two current Obama administration officials ? Environmental Protection Agency air chief Gina McCarthy and White House science adviser John Holdren ? once helped the former Massachusetts governor craft his climate change policies.
Most environmentalists don?t have pleasant memories of the Bush administration, but Republicans also recall how Bush signed into law a 2005 mandate requiring the nation to use billions of gallons of renewable fuels, or his buckling as a lame duck to the Democratic-controlled Congress by signing a 2007 law raising fuel economy standards.
Near the end of Bush?s second term, he?d even embraced a national goal for halting the growth of greenhouse gases.
Jim Connaughton, a key architect of the climate plan as chairman of the Bush White House Council on Environmental Quality, co-hosted a Romney fundraiser last month in Bethesda, Md., and Greg Mankiw, the chairman of Bush?s Council of Economic Advisers who later became an outspoken advocate for a carbon tax, helped craft Romney?s jobs agenda.
Another former Bush White House staffer, Alex Mistri, is also causing headaches for Romney. Mistri, now a?managing director of The Glover Park Group, registered earlier this year as a lobbyist for the now-infamous bankrupt solar company Solyndra.
?When you have people advising you who have supported a carbon tax, you can imagine that raises some concern,? said Dan Kish, a longtime Capitol Hill GOP energy aide who now works as senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research.
Of Romney, Kish added, ?It?s like a box of chocolates, you don?t know what you?re going to get. Frankly, there?s a bunch of people who are tired of getting a box of chocolates.?
On the campaign trail, Romney has said he?d reverse Obama-era environmental rules and would never back a unilateral cap-and-trade program. Speaking at a fundraiser Thursday in Pittsburgh, the GOP front-runner tried to plant himself in the global warming skeptics camp.
?My view is that we don?t know what?s causing climate change on this planet,? he said. ?And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.?
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Henry Waxman gets mad
Rep. Henry Waxman is at wit's end with the deficit reduction Congressional supercommitte, and maybe he has a point
I haven?t written much on the deliberations of the Congressional super-committee developed as part of the Budget Control Act?you remember; 6 D?s, 6 R?s tasked with coming up with another $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.
Skip to next paragraph Jared Bernstein?
Before joining the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as a senior fellow, Jared was chief economist to Vice President Joseph Biden and executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class. He is a contributor to MSNBC and CNBC and has written numerous books, including 'Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?'
Recent posts
They?re predictably stuck on revenue issues?D?s insist that revs be part of the package, as they must, R?s are resisting. This article will bring you up to date, should you care to go there.
But aside from all the (very important) bean counting, here?s the thing that really caught me eye.
?Rep. Henry Waxman [D-CA]?represents those who are at wits? end with the process.
The 36-year Washington veteran said he has ?no stake? in the committee and called it an ?outrageous process? that is ?not open and transparent.? He said the ?things put forward by Democrats ? I would never vote for.?
?I find it an outrageous process, that 12 people could rewrite the laws of the United States and come up with ideas just sitting there and getting into some mood that might influence them at the moment,? Waxman said in an interview.
Waxman added, ?They don?t lay out proposals for examinations. They don?t get direct input on ideas. They get a whole bunch of things from other people officially, who knows who unofficially, then they?re talking to themselves about a grand deal we won?t have a choice to discuss or amend. We?ll have to vote yes or no. That?s an offensive process.??
It?s easy to get swept up into the process of spending cuts and revenue fights?these are extremely important negotiations, and much depends on how the committee achieves the savings.
But it?s also easy to lose sight of the dysfunctionality underlying this process. Of course, Congress will vote on the committee?s recommendations, if they get that far, and the President can veto, etc. But Rep Waxman?s comments capture something fundamentally undemocratic about the process.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on jaredbernsteinblog.com.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/4l21gWka5zY/Henry-Waxman-gets-mad
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Friday, October 28, 2011
Snow coming to Northeast 'is just wrong'
It may still be October, but the Northeast is facing a wintry weekend blast of up to 12 inches in higher areas and several inches along the coast.
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"This is just wrong," said Dee Lund of East Hampton, Conn., who was getting four new tires put on her car before a weekend road trip to New Hampshire.
October snowfall records could be broken in parts of southern New England, especially at higher elevations. The October record for southern New England is 7.5 inches in Worcester, Conn., in 1979.
The most snow will likely hit the Massachusetts Berkshires, the Litchfield Hills in northwestern Connecticut, and southwestern New Hampshire, said National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson.
The storm could bring more than 6 inches of snow to parts of Maine beginning Saturday night. In Pennsylvania, 6 to 10 inches could fall at higher elevations, including the Laurel Highlands in the southwestern part of the state and the Pocono Mountains in the northeastern part. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh could see a coating.
"This is very, very unusual," said John LaCorte, a National Weather Service meteorologist in State College, Pa. "It has all the look and feel of a classic midwinter Nor'easter. It's going to be very dangerous."
The last major widespread snowstorm in Pennsylvania this early was in 1972, LaCorte said.
The heaviest snowfall was forecast north and west of the I-95 highway corridor, where about six to 12 inches of heavy, wet snow could down tree limbs and power lines from Allentown, Pa., to Worcester, Mass., according to The Weather Channel.
Even New York City was taking precautions, readying salt spreaders and snow staff earlier in the season than in any of the previous 40 years, nbcnewyork.com reported.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia from Friday night through Saturday afternoon.
Temperatures were expected to drop into the 30s across much of the Northeast by Friday morning with snow starting to accumulate Saturday morning and piling up during the day before ending by Sunday.
Albany, N.Y., saw 1.6 inches on Thursday and Boston got its first dusting late Thursday night.
Even some mid-Atlantic areas could see snow.
Residents of the Washington, D.C., area can expect rain and snow to begin late Friday night, News4 meteorologist Tom Kierein reported.
Accumulation of snow was predicted west of D.C. on Saturday ? especially in areas with elevations above 1,500 feet ? but any snow likely will melt on roadways at lower elevations.
Slideshow: Editorial cartoonists poke fun at snow so soon (on this page)The D.C. area has not had any October snow since 1979, according to News4.
Forecasters warned that the early snow from the Nor'easter moving up the coast could bring down tree limbs ? something that Colorado got a dose of this week.
About 9,000 homes and businesses along Colorado's Front Range were still without power Friday afternoon following a fall snowstorm that downed trees and power lines. Outages were in metro Denver and Boulder and in Greeley, Fort Collins and Loveland to the north. The storm Tuesday and Wednesday brought about six inches of snow to Denver and about a foot to Greeley.
PhotoBlog: Brrr! Occupy Wall Street protesters brace for cold weatherEven Occupy Wall Street activists ? from New York to Colorado ? have been preparing for a tough season of snow, sleet and cold.
The Colorado activists got a round of snow and frost this week, while in New York City police confiscated generators used to heat the activists' camp there.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45075876/ns/weather/
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Bipartisan plea for $4 trillion in deficit cuts: why it could work (Christian Science Monitor)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
North Korea's Kim calls for nuclear talks, doubts on uranium (Reuters)
BEIJING (Reuters) ? North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il told Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang that a stalled 2005 deal should be the basis for fresh talks about the North's nuclear program, Chinese media reported, leaving unanswered the key question of uranium enrichment.
The United States and South Korea insist that the North must immediately halt its uranium enrichment program, which it unveiled last year, as a precursor to restart talks that offer economic aid in return for denuclearization.
Kim's latest offer of fresh nuclear negotiations came as the United States said it had narrowed differences with North Korea on issues standing in the way of a new round of multilateral nuclear talks.
In his meeting with Li, Kim repeated that North Korea was willing to return to the six-party talks -- also involving Russia and Japan -- that it walked out of more than two years ago.
But his published comments did not address North Korea's uranium enrichment activities, a key obstacle to talks.
"Kim said the DPRK hopes the six-party talks should be restarted as soon as possible," China's Xinhua news agency said in a report on Tuesday of the meeting between Kim and Li in North Korea on Monday night.
The DPRK is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- the North's official name.
"All the six parties should fully implement the September 19 joint statement, signed by them in 2005 in Beijing, on the principle of simultaneous action," Kim said, according to Xinhua.
Under the 2005 agreement, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives to be provided by the other parties involved in the negotiations.
But the embryonic agreement, which was a diplomatic triumph for China, was never implemented.
North Korea walked out of the negotiations more than two years ago after the United Nations imposed fresh sanctions for a long-range missile test. The following month it conducted a second nuclear test.
SCEPTICAL
The North's uranium enrichment program, which opens a second route to make an atomic bomb along with its plutonium program, is not specifically referred to in the 2005 agreement.
However, South Korea and the United States argue uranium enrichment falls under the broader term "existing nuclear programs," which the 2005 deal says must be stopped.
North Korea states it is willing to discuss the issue once the six-party talks resume, but South Korea and the United States say there will be no talks until uranium enrichment is stopped, and verified by international nuclear inspectors.
The United States, South Korea and their allies have been skeptical of North Korea's recent assertions that it stands ready to return to the six-party talks, saying it has reneged on past disarmament pledges.
China has not taken a firm stance on the enrichment issue. At a briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu would not say whether Li raised it in Pyongyang.
"As for the issue of North Korean uranium enrichment, this should be appropriately resolved through discussions under the framework of the six-party talks," said Jiang.
The North says its uranium enrichment program is designed to produce power, and argues that the 2005 agreement respects its right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
In Geneva, Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, said the two sides "narrowed some differences but we still have differences that we have to resolve."
Throughout the regional turbulence, Beijing has stood by its ally, North Korea, which it sees as a buffer against the influence of the United States and its allies. But China has also tried to preserve ties with South Korea, and to revive the stalled talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament.
Li, 56, is the favorite to become premier from early 2013, when Wen Jiabao will step down. He will visit South Korea after his trip to the North.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Jeremy Laurence in SEOUL; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Jobs says Bill Gates "unimaginative" in his biography (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Steve Jobs called long-time rival and Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates as "unimaginative" and not really a product person, according to a biography of the deceased Apple Inc chief executive.
"Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology," Jobs told author Walter Isaacson. "He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."
"He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger," Jobs added.
The biography "Steve Jobs" by Isaacson hits bookstores on Monday, but was released earlier-than-expected on Apple's iBooks and Amazon.com's Kindle late Sunday.
Gates, for his part, was slightly envious of Jobs' mesmerizing effect in people but found the technology icon "weirdly flawed as a human being."
But Gates, despite his differences with Jobs, enjoyed his frequent visits to Apple's office in Cupertino, especially when he got to watch Jobs' interaction with his employees, according to the biography.
"Steve was in his ultimate pied piper mode, proclaiming how the Mac will change the world and overworking people like mad with incredible tensions and complex personal relationships," Gates said.
Isaacson's biography reveals that Jobs refused potentially life-saving cancer surgery for nine months, was bullied in school, tried various quirky diets as a teenager, and exhibited early strange behavior such as staring at others without blinking.
The book paints an unprecedented, no-holds-barred portrait of a man who famously guarded his privacy fiercely but whose death ignited a global outpouring of grief and tribute.
Isaacson, in an interview with "60 Minutes" on CBS on Sunday, provided more insight on Jobs' personality and character traits.
While Jobs revolutionized multiple industries with his cutting-edge products, he was not the world's best manager, Isaacson said.
Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints at Apple and then brought a revolution to the mobile market but the inspiring genius is known for his hard edges that have often times alienated colleagues and early investors with his my-way-or-the-highway dictums.
"He's not warm and fuzzy," Isaacson said in the interview. "He was not the world's greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the world's worst managers."
"He could be very, very mean to people at times," he added.
Jobs loved to argue but not everyone around him shared that passion, which drove some of his top people away. While his style had yielded breakthrough products, it didn't make for "great management style," Isaacson said.
In one of the more than 40 interviews that Jobs gave the biographer, the technology icon said he felt totally comfortable being brutally honest.
"That's the ante for being in the room. So we're brutally honest with each other and all of them can tell me they think I'm full of shit, and I can tell anyone I think they're full of shit," Jobs said. "And we've had some rip-roaring arguments where we're yelling at each other."
'FEW OTHER VISIONS'
Jobs, who has revolutionized the world of personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet, digital publishing and retail stores, would have liked to conquer television as well, Isaacson said.
"He had a few other visions. He would love to make an easy-to-use television set," said Isaacson, speaking of Job's last two-and-a-half years of life. "But he started focusing on his family again as well. And it was a painful brutal struggle. And he would talk, often to me about the pain."
Jobs, in his final meeting with Isaacson in mid-August, still held out hope that there might be one new drug that could save him. He also wanted to believe in God and an afterlife.
"Ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about (God) more. And I find myself believing a bit more. Maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear," Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying.
"Then he paused for a second and he said 'yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone," Isaacson said of Jobs. "He paused again, and he said: And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices."
(Editing by Anshuman Daga and Derek Caney)
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011
New Capacitive Touchscreens Recognize Your Gloved Fingers [Displays]
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Monday, October 24, 2011
Turkey quake death toll reaches over 200, set to rise (Reuters)
ERCIS, Turkey (Reuters) ? More than 200 people were confirmed killed and hundreds more feared dead on Monday after an earthquake hit parts of southeast Turkey, with rescue teams working until morning to free survivors crying out for help from under rubble.
Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said the 7.2 magnitude quake on Sunday killed 100 in the city of Van and 117 in the badly hit town of Ercis, 100 km (60 miles) further north. The death toll was expected to rise.
Overseeing emergency operations in Ercis, Sahin said a total of 1,090 people were known to have been injured. Hundreds remain unaccounted for.
Rescue efforts struggled to get into full swing following the quake, with electricity cut off as darkness fell on the towns and villages on the barren Anatolian steppe near the border with Iran.
Survivors and emergency service workers searched frantically through broken concrete, using hands, shovels and torches or working under floodlights powered by mobile generators.
As dawn broke the scale of devastation became clearer.
At one crumpled four-storey building in Ercis, a team of firemen from the largest southeastern city of Diyarbakir were trying to reach four children believed trapped deep in an apartment block as concerned bystanders looked on.
Nearby, aid teams handed out parcels of bread and food, while people wrapped in blankets huddled around open fires after spending a cold night on the streets.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said there were an unknown number of people unaccounted for under the collapsed buildings of the stricken towns, and he feared the worst for villagers living in outlying rural areas, who had still to be reached.
"Because the buildings are made of adobe, they are more vulnerable to quakes. I must say that almost all buildings in such villages are destroyed," Erdogan told a televised news conference in Van shortly after midnight on Sunday.
More than 100 aftershocks have jolted the region in the hours since the quake struck for around 25 seconds at 1041 GMT on Sunday.
"BE PATIENT"
In Van, a bustling and ancient city on a lake ringed by snow-capped mountains and with a population of 1 million, cranes shifted rubble off a collapsed six-storey apartment block where bystanders said 70 people were trapped.
Erdogan visited Ercis earlier by helicopter to assess first hand the scale of the disaster. With 55 buildings flattened, including a student dormitory, the level of destruction in Ercis, a town of 100,000, was greater than in Van, where fewer came down.
"We don't know how many people are in the ruins of collapsed buildings, it would be wrong to give a number," he said.
Reuters television images from Ercis showed rescuers trying to free one young boy, aged about 10, pinned beneath a concrete slab.
"Be patient, be patient," they pleaded as the boy whimpered. The lifeless hand of an adult, with a wedding ring, was visible just a few centimetres (inches) in front of his face.
The Red Crescent said a team of about 100 expert personnel had arrived at the earthquake zone to coordinate operations. Some 4,000 tents and 11,000 blankets, stoves and food were being distributed to help fight off the cold.
A tent city was being set up at the Ercis sports stadium. Access to the region was made more difficult as the earthquake caused the partial collapse of the main road between Van and Ercis, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.
The military issued a statement saying two battalions had been sent to assist the relief operations.
Soldiers were deployed in the town to help rescuers and digging machines had also arrived to help. There was a constant wail of ambulance sirens ferrying the injured to hospitals.
Dogan news agency reported that 24 people were pulled from the rubble alive in the two hours after midnight.
Reuters photographer Osman Orsal earlier described seeing dead body after body being pulled from the debris.
"Ambulances, soldiers, emergency teams everywhere now, working on getting people out of collapsed buildings. I have seen many dead bodies being taken out, the teams are trying to find people alive," Orsal said.
One nurse told CNN Turk news channel the town's hospital was so badly damaged that staff were treating injured in the garden, and bodies were being left outside the building,
After visiting the quake zone, Erdogan returned to Ankara, where he is expected to chair a cabinet meeting to discuss the response to the disaster.
He said Turkey was able to meet the challenge itself, but thanked countries that had offered help, including Armenia and Israel, two governments that have strained relations with Ankara.
In Van province officials scrambled to provide shelter for people rendered homeless or too afraid to go home while the aftershocks continued with alarming regularity.
"We are working on supplying people with places to spend the night, find shelter. One hundred tents are being erected in the city stadium now, and 700 more will be put up in the municipality stadium," Sahin told Reuters in Ercis.
(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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Sunday, October 23, 2011
Senate rejects GOP effort on terrorist trials (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The Senate voted early Friday to reject a Republican effort to prohibit the United States from prosecuting foreign terrorist suspects in civilian courts, handing a victory to President Barack Obama.
By 52-47, senators turned aside a proposal by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (AY-aht), R-N.H., that would have forced such trials to occur before military tribunals or commissions. The Obama administration has fought to continue bringing such cases in federal courts, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Attorney General Eric Holder writing Senate leaders on Thursday that the measure would deprive them of a potent weapon against terrorism and increase the risk of terrorists escaping justice.
Obama has had numerous clashes with Congress over the handling of war on terror detainees. Congress has voted to prevent the transfer of detainees from the naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S. Obama has sought to close that detention facility but has been opposed by Republicans and some Democratic lawmakers.
Ayotte said it would be dangerous to let terrorists exercise the protections against self-incrimination and other rights of civilian courts that they might use to avoid surrendering critical information to investigators. Republicans cited last November's acquittal by a federal jury in New York of all but one of hundreds of charges brought against Ahmed Ghailani for his role in destroying two U.S. embassies in Africa, in which 224 people were killed.
"Enemy combatants are not common criminals who just robbed the liquor store," she said, adding, "The priority has to be on gathering information to protect Americans."
Democrats said since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 10 years ago, 300 terrorist cases have been successfully prosecuted in federal courts, compared to just three before military commissions. They also pointed to last week's guilty plea in a federal court in Detroit by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for trying to destroy a jetliner with a bomb in his underwear and the FBI's successful interrogation of Abdulmutallab.
"Give the president the power he needs to keep America safe," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
Ayotte fell well short of the 60 votes she needed for her amendment to prevail. The vote came as the Senate debated deep into the night over a wide-ranging spending bill that it will not complete until it returns next month after a one-week recess. .
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Legal Gets, Global Reports: Greta Van Susteren Marks FNC's 15th ...
By Chris Ariens on October 21, 2011 10:25 AM
Last but not least. Greta Van Susteren took her show on the road last night as Fox News wraps up its 15th anniversary road trip. A relative newbie to Fox News, Van Susteren joined FNC from CNN in 2002. From interviews with Joran and OJ to reporting trips that took her from North Korea to Lambeau Field, the pride of Appleton brought her show to Phoenix, Arizona last night. Here?s a look back:
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Saturday, October 22, 2011
Analysis: Will Obama's foreign policy success help? (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama delivered on another foreign policy promise on Friday with plans to pull the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But in a re-election campaign all about the weak U.S. economy, he may not get much credit.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi -- these are all dead U.S. opponents that Democrat Obama can claim a measure of credit for getting.
Now add to that Obama's announcement on Friday that the eight-year war in Iraq is ending, fulfilling a campaign goal he made in 2008 when he declared the conflict a misguided mistake by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
In any other year, Obama might be able to ride these accomplishments to re-election in November 2012. But with the economy teetering and Americans hungry for jobs, the national security successes may only inoculate him from Republican criticism of his foreign policy.
Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said Obama has shown a decisiveness and coolness of character that will help him in 2012, when Obama is seeking a second term. And he called it proof that Obama was able to do the job that his chief opponent for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, said he could not with a famous TV ad.
"We now know the answer to the question of whether he's good at answering the phone when it rings at 3 a.m. to tell him there's a crisis," said Shrum, who was 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign manager.
But will voters care?
For clues, look at what happened to Republican President George H.W. Bush two decades ago. He saw his approval ratings rise above 90 percent after U.S. forces won the first Gulf War against Iraq, only to see his popularity tumble due to an anemic economy.
Bush lost the 1992 election to Democrat Bill Clinton, whose campaign mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid."
APPROVAL RATING
Now look at some numbers: Obama's job approval rating was at 42 percent on Friday with 74 percent saying the economic outlook was getting worse, according to a Gallup poll.
The biggest number he faces is the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
"The debate this year and next year is going to be overwhelmingly focused on the economy, on jobs," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. "Foreign policy and international affairs are really going to be sort of pushed to the background."
As political experts attest, however, it is never easy to oust an incumbent president who has the advantages of the office to make his case and ample campaign funds to portray his opponent in a negative light.
Much about politics is about positioning, and Republicans were reluctant to cede much ground to Obama on foreign policy.
Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for George W. Bush, said Obama's announcement has to be seen in context, that it was Bush who had established the end of this year as the timetable for a U.S. pullout from Iraq, a date he declared when he visited Iraq in 2008 and just missed being hit by a shoe thrown by an Iraqi.
Still, he said, Obama deserves some credit. "Unlike Jimmy Carter who was vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy, Barack Obama heading into this election will not be as vulnerable on foreign policy," Fleischer said.
Carter, a Democrat, lost his re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Republicans raised questions about Obama's Iraq announcement because he had failed to reach an agreement with Iraqi leaders to leave several thousands U.S. troops there as a counter-weight against Iran.
"It's very unfortunate," Republican Senator John McCain told Reuters. "I think that it can have serious implications for Iraq and also the region. It also I think certainly has political reasoning behind it."
And Michael Goldfarb, a Republican national security expert, said Republicans have plenty of ground to make a foreign policy case against the president.
"The mix of it makes it very difficult to attack Obama on war-on-terror policies. Republicans will have a compelling foreign policy argument against the president on Russia, China and the Middle East. Those are not bright spots," Goldfarb said.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
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Friday, October 21, 2011
Gilad Shalit's release: Did Israel get a bad deal? (The Week)
New York ? Although Israelis are elated to see the young soldier come home, some contend that the 1,000-to-1 prisoner swap is a huge victory for Hamas
Hamas released Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Tuesday after holding him captive for five years. In exchange, Israel freed 477 Palestinian prisoners, most of them to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. It was just the first stage in a swap that will result in the eventual release of 1,027 Palestinians, some of whom have spent decades behind bars for violent attacks against Israel. Was it smart for Israel to make such a lopsided trade?
No. Israel handed a huge victory to Hamas: It was a relief to see Shalit, who was just 19 when he was captured, finally released, says Melanie Phillips at Britain's Daily Mail. But Israel paid too high a price by agreeing to free more than 1,000 "Arab terrorists." This "deal with the devil" weakens the moderate Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, strengthens Hamas, and may mark "the collapse of the peace process."
"Shalit's release marks the collapse of the peace process"
At least Israel is trying to limit the damage: The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is well aware that this was a risky move, says Karl Vick at TIME. Relatives of terrorism victims were appalled, and Israeli officials calculate that 60 percent of the released terrorists may resume their attacks. But Israel is trying to prevent future problems this time around by sending most of the former prisoners to Gaza, "which is sealed off from Israel," while exiling the worst offenders to Turkey, Qatar, or Syria.
"Gilad Shalit release: Israel's joy tempered by memories of an Intifada"
Actually, Israel got the better deal: This swap may boost Hamas' stature, says M.K. Bhadrakumar at Asia Times, but "Israel has won hands down." This painful bargain could patch recently frayed relations with Turkey (which reportedly consulted with both Israel and Hamas on the swap). But Israel's "most precious gain is going to be that it is back in business with Egypt," which actively brokered the deal. After the upheaval of the Arab Spring, Israel has reestablished the trust of "the one Arab neighbor it simply can't do without."
"Shalit: Israel wins, but it's only half-time"
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New caution for US universities overseas (Providence Journal)
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Art Loft: Space Station Artwork on Display in New York City [Slide Show]
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Technology
More than two dozen works of art ferried to and from (as well as created on) the International Space Station went on exhibit to benefit learning centers inspired by space shuttle Challenger
?| October 20, 2011?|
When Richard Garriott blasted into orbit three years ago, following in the footsteps of his astronaut father, he didn't go empty-handed. He brought with him 20 paintings and photographs to put on temporary display within the cramped confines of the International Space Station (ISS). That artwork, which Garriott brought home 12 days later, along with six more pieces he created on board the ISS, was on display recently on Manhattan's Lower East Side as part of an exhibit called Celestial Matters, organized to benefit a group of learning centers created in memory of space shuttle Challenger's tragic final mission.
The initial 20 pieces of art?works by 10 different artists?were selected for Garriott's mission based on each piece's interpretation of space and the impact it could have on astronauts living and working there. The cargo also included five watercolors that came from the brush of Helen Garriott, Richard's mother. Richard Garriott's own artistry?an interpretation of the "action painting" made famous by Jackson Pollock?took advantage of the ISS's microgravity environment. Instead of splashing paint on a canvas, Garriott built a paint box that allowed droplets of paint to form spheres that would float over and stick to the paper inside the box.
Photographer Melinda Fager submitted one of her photos?"Cornish Cow"?in 2008 after hearing about the competition to have artwork displayed in the orbiting outpost. Fager's photo and the other artwork ferried to and from the station was later auctioned off to benefit the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, founded in 1986 just three months after the post-liftoff accident that claimed the lives of seven NASA crew members. Fager liked that the proceeds would go to help the Challenger Center's network of 48 learning facilities. "And I thought it was a kick that the cow went up over the moon"?so to speak?she says.
"It was not an obvious choice, but it was so homey," Garriott says of "Cornish Cow." "In space you're trying to create a homelike environment. It's the antithesis of the mechanical surroundings of the space station in orbit."
See a slide show of Garriott's space mission and the artwork displayed on the ISS.
Garriott, son of Skylab astronaut/scientist Owen Garriott, flew to the ISS as part of Space Adventures, Ltd., a Vienna, Va., company in which he has invested. He entered orbit not as a tourist but rather as a civilian astronaut whose to-do list included snapping nearly 500 pictures of Earth and participating in a series of experiments to test spaceflight's impact on his immune system, sleep patterns and eyes. (His vision was corrected by laser surgery more than a decade ago.)
Garriott has been an avid support of the Challenger Center network, noting that they offer a place where students, teachers and other curious people can learn more about the science and technology involved in space travel. Plans are underway to expand the centers into the virtual world within the next year and a half. The online effort will include Web-based educational games, simulated space missions and other opportunities to bring the center's content to a wider audience, says Steven Kussmann, the organization's acting president. This is particularly important for students in grades five through eight to nurture their interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) as the curriculum becomes more sophisticated.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b46b8c3e5c1c121c1254d1e85936a93b
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Yahoo's 3Q shows company remains in financial funk
Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo Executive Vice President of Americas, speaks at the Web. 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Oct. 17, 2011. Yahoo Inc., releases quarterly financial results Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011, after the market close.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo Executive Vice President of Americas, speaks at the Web. 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Oct. 17, 2011. Yahoo Inc., releases quarterly financial results Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011, after the market close.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Yahoo keeps losing ground in the fast-moving Internet market, increasing the pressure on the struggling company to abandon its perpetual turnaround attempts and negotiate a sale with one of several prospective bidders.
The latest signs of Yahoo Inc.'s malaise surfaced Tuesday in its third-quarter earnings report. The lackluster results for the July-September period extended a streak of financial mediocrity that culminated in Yahoo's abrupt firing of Carol Bartz as CEO last month.
Although cost-cutting measures imposed by Bartz helped boost Yahoo's earnings after stripping out one-time gains, the company is still selling less advertising at a time when the overall Internet market has been growing.
After subtracting ad commissions, Yahoo's third -quarter revenue stood at $1.07 billion ? a 5 percent drop from the same time last year.
That performance looks even feebler next to the 37 percent increase in net revenue that Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. enjoyed during the third quarter. Analysts believe Facebook, the owner of the Web's most popular hangout, is growing at an even quicker pace, although there is no way of knowing for certain because the privately held company isn't required to reveal its finances.
Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., doesn't anticipate an upturn in the final three months of the year ? typically the busiest time for online advertising because it coincides with the holiday shopping season.
If it hits the mid-range of management projections, Yahoo's net revenue in the fourth quarter will fall by about 6 percent from the same time last year.
Normally, Yahoo's stock price would fall after a ho-hum quarter that offered little hope for better times ahead.
But that didn't happen Tuesday, largely because many investors are betting that Yahoo's struggles will make it more likely the company will sell itself as a whole or in part. The company's stock price already has climbed by more than 20 percent since Bartz's Sept. 6 ouster.
Yahoo shares gained 42 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $15.89 in Tuesday's extended trading.
Tim Morse, who is filling in as Yahoo's interim CEO while also working as chief financial officer, told analysts Tuesday that he couldn't discuss what the company's next step might be or when it might take it.
"The board is actively looking at the full range of options available to return the company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation," Morse said. "The objective is to deliver on the company's potential and create value for employees, advertisers, users and shareholders."
Even before the third-quarter report came out, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Jordan Rohan issued a report putting the odds of Yahoo being sold at 80 percent.
Most of Yahoo's attraction lies in its Internet investments in Asia and a worldwide audience of about 700 million people each month. Before taxes, the value of Yahoo's 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan now stands at $6.4 billion while its 43 percent stake could be worth about $14 billion, Morse said
That appraisal implies Wall Street is putting little or no value on Yahoo's U.S. assets, given the company's market value is $20 billion.
Although it's still recognized around the world, Yahoo's brand has been losing its luster as people increasingly embrace social networks such as Facebook and short-messaging service Twitter to keep track of what's going on instead of relying on a media hub like Yahoo's website.
"Yahoo isn't at the forefront of the Internet anymore," said Benchmark Co. analyst Clayton Moran. "Its assets have grown duller."
That hasn't discouraged opportunistic buyout firms from circling Yahoo like vultures hovering over a wounded animal.
The list of firms believed to be considering a run at Yahoo includes KKR & Co., the Blackstone Group, and Silver Lake. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz's name also has popped up as a potential bidder. There is even talk of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who remains one of the company's largest shareholders, teaming up with one of the bidders in a leveraged buyout. Yang already took one unsuccessful stab at fixing Yahoo during an 18-month stint as CEO that ended with Bartz's hiring in January 2009.
Then there is this wild card: Microsoft Corp., Yahoo's jilted suitor, rival and now Internet search partner.
If Microsoft were to return with another bid for Yahoo, it would be at a much lower price than the $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, that it offered in May 2008. Microsoft walked away when Yang didn't immediately jump at the chance to sell at such a high price. Now, Yahoo would be fortunate to fetch as much as $20 per share or about $27 billion, in a sale of the entire company, Moran said.
Microsoft has less incentive to pursue a deal now because Yahoo now relies on Microsoft to process the search requests on its website. That arrangement, negotiated by Bartz, gives Microsoft the traffic and user insights it was seeking when it tried to buy Yahoo three years ago. The alliance so far isn't producing as much money as Yahoo envisioned, prompting it to persuade Microsoft to guarantee a certain amount of revenue through March 2013 ? a year longer than the original promise.
In a late Tuesday appearance at an Internet conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said it was a good thing the attempt to buy Yahoo in 2008 didn't pan out because the economy later descended into its deepest recession since World War II.
"Sometimes, you're lucky in life," Ballmer said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. "With that said, there are a lot of great things at Yahoo." He wasn't asked if Microsoft is mulling another takeover attempt.
The only company that has publicly said it may make a bid for Yahoo this time around is the Alibaba Group, a Chinese Internet giant that has a testy relationship with Yahoo. The two companies are already linked through a 43 percent stake that Yahoo owns in Alibaba, but Alibaba CEO Jack Ma wants to find a way to turn the tables. Ma recently told a Silicon Valley audience that he is very interested in buying Yahoo. A Chinese news service reported this week that Ma says he has lined up $20 billion to mount a bid.
But even if Yahoo and Alibaba could agree on a price, they would still have to persuade U.S. regulators to allow a Chinese-owned company to buy a high-profile American company involved in communications.
Even if Alibaba doesn't make a bid on its own, Ma will likely be a key figure in any takeover attempt because his company is such a vital piece of the Yahoo puzzle, Moran said.
If Yahoo's board decides a sale doesn't make sense, then its next job will be picking a new CEO. The top internal candidates are believed to be Morse and Ross Levinsohn, the company's executive vice president of Americas. Recruiting an outsider could be daunting because of all the uncertainty and challenges still facing Yahoo.
"There is still some appeal in Yahoo, but it is going to require a lot of work to get them back on track," said S&P Capital IQ equity analyst Scott Kessler.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Fresh iPhone Apps for Oct. 17: iTunes Movie Trailers, BiteHunter update, Corona Indie Bundle, Get the Flock Out (Appolicious)
Check out the latest in new releases and upcoming theater fodder with iTunes Movie Trailers, one of Apple?s new free apps that allows you to stream HD movie trailers and purchase tickets when you want to go out. Use iTunes Movie Trailers to figure out the movie portion of your next date, and BiteHunter?s updated app to handle the ?dinner? part. It aggregates meal deals in your area by drawing on tons of sources, which now include services such as Groupon. In games, you can continue to save money with the help of the Corona Indie Bundle, an app that includes five games for the price of one. And finally, you can practice dealing with stupidity in Get the Flock Out, a game that?s about herding ?artificially stupid? sheep as you take on the role of a sheepdog.
There?s more than just watching trailers on offer in iTunes Movie Trailers, though. The app also allows you to check out a calendar of new movie releases, buy tickets for local theaters and see a list called ?Top 25,? showing the most popular trailers and films in theaters. You can mark trailers as your favorites to watch them again and share them using email and Twitter as well.
A big update to the app brings in deals from more than 200 new sources, including Groupon and Yelp, to help make sure you?re getting the cheapest meals possible. A new ?BiteNow? feature has been added that lets you make use of limited-time deals from Groupon and Living Social, great for finding deals when you?re looking for a meal right away. The app has also been redesigned to be more accessible, and you can create and set up a profile that lets you customize the experience.
Corona Indie Bundle offers a point-and-click item search game in The Secret of Grisly Manor and casual titles like Float, in which you have to keep balloons in the air and from popping. There?s Robot 99, a game that?s all about saving falling robots from destruction; a top-down puzzler called Walkabout; and Chicken?s Quest, in which you?ll make a path for chickens to keep them out of danger until they reach a goal in each level.
Get the Flock Out! includes 38 levels and, as developer Wooji Juice Ltd. puts it, ?artificial stupidity,? in that the sheep are designed to act, well, like sheep. The game also includes all kinds of obstacles and puzzle solutions you?ll use to get sheep where they?re going ? including cannons to fire them.
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