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Friday, May 31, 2013

IOF Worldwide Conference of Osteoporosis Patient Societies opens in Helsinki

Public release date: 31-May-2013
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Contact: L. Misteli
info@iofbonehealth.org
41-229-940-100
International Osteoporosis Foundation

Distinguished women leaders open conference, urge 'strong bones for strong women' to reduce the growing burden of osteoporosis and fractures

More than 140 delegates from 45 countries have joined the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) and the Finnish Osteoporosis Association for the 14th IOF Worldwide Conference of Osteoporosis Patient Societies. The conference is being held until June 2nd at the Helsinki Congress Paasitorni.

Osteoporosis, known as the 'silent' disease, causes bones to become progressively weak, fragile, and easily prone to fracture even after a minor bump or fall. Worldwide, one in three women and one in five men over the age of 50 will suffer a broken bone related to osteoporosis. Fractures can have severe consequences, causing immobility, stooped spine, long-term disability and even premature death in seniors.

Under the motto 'Strong Bones for Strong Women', three distinguished women spoke at the opening session of the Conference. Baroness Judith Jolly, member of the House of Lords, UK; Barbara Lybeck, Finnish TV and radio host; and Sirpa Pietiknen, Finnish Member of the European Parliament, encouraged delegates to utilize their collective strengths to influence health policy, and to make use of media and public awareness in order to motivate women to take action for bone health.

"Osteoporosis is of particular concern for postmenopausal women, the population group at highest risk of suffering fractures due to osteoporosis. Women are the pillars of strength for their families and communities, and we must motivate them to follow bone-healthy lifestyles and ensure early diagnosis in order to set the foundation for strong bones in older age," said IOF President Judy Stenmark.

Organized by IOF since 1998, the IOF Worldwide Conference of Osteoporosis Patient Societies is the most important forum for the development of the global osteoporosis patient movement. Delegates attend sessions and interactive workshops that cover topics such as policy development, fundraising for NGOs, effective marketing for osteoporosis prevention and new developments in osteoporosis management. By exchanging ideas for successful campaigns, learning new skills and hearing about the latest clinical developments, the patient society delegates are able to improve their effectiveness at the national level.

Dr. Harri Sievnen, President of the Finnish Osteoporosis Association, stated, "Osteoporosis is a major health problem not just in Finland, but around the world. Patient societies play a critical role in raising awareness of osteoporosis within the general public and in giving patients the support and information they need to manage the disease. We at the Finnish Osteoporosis Association are honored to welcome other dedicated patient advocates from all regions of the globe and to assist the IOF in staging this important global meeting."

"The International Osteoporosis Foundation celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2013, and we congratulate the organization for their continued efforts in leading the global osteoporosis community," he said.

###

About IOF

The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) is the world's largest nongovernmental organization dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis and related musculoskeletal diseases. IOF members, including committees of scientific researchers, leading companies, as well as more than 200 patient, medical and research societies, work together to make bone, joint and muscle health a worldwide heath care priority. http://www.iofbonehealth.org

About FOA

The Finnish Osteoporosis Association (FOA) is a national association for public health, patients and physical education which acts as an umbrella organization for 19 member societies and 3600 members across the country. FOA aims to promote bone health and healthy lifestyle, prevent osteoporosis and fractures, promote research, and enhance the care and rehabilitation of patients with osteoporosis and fractures. For further information visit http://www.osteoporoosiliitto.fi/

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IOF Worldwide Conference of Osteoporosis Patient Societies opens in Helsinki

Public release date: 31-May-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: L. Misteli
info@iofbonehealth.org
41-229-940-100
International Osteoporosis Foundation

Distinguished women leaders open conference, urge 'strong bones for strong women' to reduce the growing burden of osteoporosis and fractures

###

About IOF

About FOA

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/iof-iwc053013.php

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Immigrant rights groups challenge post-9/11 state law | New Orleans ...

Immigrant rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, are challenging a state law that would place foreign workers and students at risk of a felony conviction for driving a car without legal proof of residence.

The law, called ?operating a vehicle without lawful presence,? makes it a felony for immigrants to drive a car without carrying proof of their legal status in the country.? The state legislature enacted the law shortly after 9/11 as an anti-terrorism measure.

The U.S. Supreme Court deemed a similar Arizona law unconstitutional in 2012 because it gave local law enforcement agencies the right to inquire about a person?s immigration status.

Immigrant rights advocates argue the law has not been used to prosecute terrorists but instead to oppress immigrants, even those with lawful status, and to harass U.S. citizens who appear to be foreign.

The Louisiana law gives local law enforcement a similar right, leaving people open to arrest and at risk of felony convictions.

The SPLC joined the National Immigration Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana in filing a friend-of-the-court amicus brief in the cases of State v. Bonifacio Ramirez and State v. Marquez filed at the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Reporter Maria Clark can be reached at maria.clark@nopg.com.

To sign up for free CityBusiness Daily Updates, click here.

Source: http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2013/05/29/immigrant-rights-groups-challenge-decade-old-state-driving-law/

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Rainforests take the heat, paleontologists show

May 30, 2013 ? South American rainforests thrived during three extreme global warming events in the past, say paleontologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in a new report published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. No tropical forests in South America currently experience average yearly temperatures of more than 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). But by the end of this century, average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0.6 C), leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem.

Carlos Jaramillo, Cofrin Chair in Palynology, and Andr?s C?rdenas, post-doctoral fellow, at the Smithsonian in Panama reviewed almost 6,000 published measurements of ancient temperatures to provide a deep-time perspective for the debate.

"To take the temperature of the past we rely on indirect evidence like oxygen isotope ratios in the fossil shells of marine organisms or from bacteria biomarkers," said Jaramillo.

When intense volcanic activity produced huge quantities of carbon dioxide 120 million years ago in the mid-Cretaceous period, yearly temperatures in the South American tropics rose 9 F (5 C). During the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, 55 million years ago, tropical temperatures rose by 5 F (3 C) in less than 10,000 years. About 53 million years ago, temperatures soared again.

According to the fossil record, rainforests prospered under these hothouse conditions. Diversity increased. Because larger areas of forest generally sustain higher diversity than smaller areas do, higher diversity during warming events could be explained by the expansion of tropical forests into temperate areas. "But to our surprise, rainforests never extended much beyond the modern tropical belt, so something other than temperature must have determined where they were growing," said Jaramillo.

Jaramillo and C?rdenas' report also refers to findings by Smithsonian plant physiologist Klaus Winter that leaves of some tropical trees tolerate short-term exposure to temperatures up to 122 F (5 C). When carbon dioxide concentrations double, trees use much less water, which is further evidence that tropical forests may prove resilient to climate change.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/nOoPdihMQC0/130530132435.htm

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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Ohio St president jabs Notre Dame, Catholics, SEC

In this Sunday, May 5, 2013 photo, Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee speaks during the Ohio State University spring commencement in Columbus, Ohio. Gee told a university committee last December that Notre Dame wasn?t invited to join the Big Ten because they?re not good partners while also jokingly saying that ?those damn Catholics? can?t be trusted. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

This photo made Sunday, May 5, 2013, shows Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee during the Ohio State University spring commencement in Columbus, Ohio. Gee told a university committee last December that Notre Dame wasn?t invited to join the Big Ten because they?re not good partners while also jokingly saying that ?those damn Catholics? can?t be trusted. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? The president of Ohio State University said Notre Dame was never invited to join the Big Ten because the university's priests are not good partners, joking that "those damn Catholics" can't be trusted, according to a recording of a meeting he attended late last year.

Gordon Gee also took shots at schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville, according to the recording of the December meeting of the school's Athletic Council that The Associated Press obtained under a public records request.

The university called the statements inappropriate and said Gee is undergoing a "remediation plan" because of the remarks.

Gee was on a long-planned family vacation and not available for comment, said Ohio State spokeswoman Gayle Saunders. He apologized in a statement released to the AP.

"The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for," he said in the statement. "They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate. There is no excuse for this and I am deeply sorry."

Gee, who has taken heat before for uncouth remarks, told members of the council that he negotiated with Notre Dame officials during his first term at Ohio State, which began more than two decades ago.

"The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they're holy hell on the rest of the week," Gee said to laughter at the Dec. 5 meeting attended by Athletic Director Gene Smith, several other athletic department members, professors and students.

"You just can't trust those damn Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday, and so, literally, I can say that," said Gee, a Mormon.

The Big Ten had for years courted Notre Dame, but the school resisted as it sought to retain its independent status in college football. In September, the school announced that it would join the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football but would play five football games each year against ACC teams.

In the recording, Gee referred specifically to dealing with the Rev. Ned Joyce, Notre Dame's longtime executive vice president, who died in 2004.

"Father Joyce was one of those people who ran the university for many, many years," Gee said.

Gee said the Atlantic Coast Conference added Notre Dame at a time when it was feeling vulnerable.

"Notre Dame wanted to have its cake and eat it, too," Gee said, according to the recording and a copy of the meeting's minutes.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown called the remarks regrettable, especially the reference to Joyce, "who served Notre Dame and collegiate athletics so well and for so long." Gee contacted Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, to offer an apology that was accepted, Brown said Thursday in an email, declining to say when the apology was made.

Notre Dame has a storied collegiate football history and is perhaps the nation's pre-eminent Roman Catholic university. Ohio State, with about 56,000 students on its main campus, is among the country's biggest universities, and it has its own long football tradition.

A message was left with Smith, the Ohio State athletic director who attended the December meeting, and who is also a 1977 Notre Dame graduate. NCAA President Mark Emmert declined to comment, saying he hadn't heard the remarks.

Ohio State's Athletic Council meets monthly during the fall, winter and spring and makes recommendations on athletic policy including ticket prices. December's meeting was at Ohio Stadium.

Gee was introduced by Athletic Council then-chairman Charlie Wilson, and Gee's name and introduction are included in written minutes of the meeting. His comments drew laughter, at times loud, occasionally nervous, but no rebukes, according to the audio.

Ohio State trustees learned of Gee's "offensive statements" in January, met with the president at length and created the remediation plan for Gee to "address his behavior," board president Robert Schottenstein said in a statement.

Comments by a university leader about "particular groups, classes of people or individuals are wholly unacceptable," Schottenstein said. "These statements were inappropriate, were not presidential in nature and do not comport with the core values of the university."

Gee has gotten in trouble before for offhand remarks, most recently during a memorabilia-for-cash and tattoos scandal under football coach Jim Tressel's watch.

Gee was asked in March 2011 whether he had considered firing Tressel. He responded: "No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear: I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me." Tressel stepped down three months later.

In November 2010, Gee boasted that Ohio State's football schedule didn't include teams on par with the "Little Sisters of the Poor." An apologetic Gee later sent a personal check to the real Little Sisters of the Poor in northwest Ohio and followed up with a visit to the nuns months later.

Last year, Gee apologized for comparing the problem of coordinating the school's many divisions to the Polish army, a remark that a Polish-American group called bigoted and ignorant.

In 1992, in a moment of frustration over higher education funding, Gee told a student newspaper reporter, "the governor's a damn dummy." Then-Gov. George Voinovich laughed it off and the two became allies.

Gee was named the country's best college president in 2010 by Time magazine, and he has one of the highest-profile resumes of any college leader in recent history. He has held the top job at West Virginia University, the University of Colorado, Brown University and Vanderbilt University. He was Ohio State president from 1990 to 1997, and returned in 2007.

Gee earns about $1.9 million annually in base pay, deferred and performance compensation and retirement benefits.

He is a prolific fundraiser and is leading a $2.5 billion campaign at Ohio State. He is omnipresent on campus, attending everything from faculty awards events to dormitory pizza parties. He is known for his bow ties ? he has hundreds ? and his horn-rimmed glasses.

During his comments to the Athletic Council, Gee also questioned the academic integrity of schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville.

The top goal of Big Ten presidents is to "make certain that we have institutions of like-minded academic integrity," Gee said. "So you won't see us adding Louisville," which is also joining the ACC.

After a pause followed by laughter from the audience, Gee added that the Big Ten wouldn't add the University of Kentucky, either.

Louisville spokesman Mark Hebert said the university accepted Gee's apology but planned to forward Gee information about the upward trajectory of its academic and athletic programs.

During the meeting, Gee also said he thought it was a mistake not to include Missouri and Kansas in earlier Big Ten expansion plans. Missouri has since joined the SEC.

"You tell the SEC when they can learn to read and write, then they can figure out what we're doing," Gee said, when asked by a questioner how to respond to SEC fans who say the Big Ten can't count because it now has 14 members.

Gee noted he was chairman of the SEC during his time as Vanderbilt University chancellor. He also told the audience that speculation about the SEC "remains right here," according to the recording.

Gee took a swipe at Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, one of the most powerful leaders in college athletics, when he answered a question about preserving Ohio State's financial interests in light of Big Ten revenue-sharing plans.

"No one admires Jim Delany more than I do. I chaired the committee that brought him here," Gee said. "Jim is very aggressive, and we need to make certain he keeps his hands out of our pockets while we support him."

___

Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind., Janet Cappiello in Louisville, Ky., and Stephen Hawkins in Irving, Texas, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-05-30-Ohio%20State%20President/id-e86adabfb09e4a3d80ee45242fe8c5c6

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Top US tax breaks to cost $12 trillion over decade, benefit wealthy : CBO

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top ten U.S. tax deductions, credits and exclusions will keep $12 trillion out of federal government coffers over the next decade, and several of them mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans, a new study from the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The top 20 percent of income earners will reap more than half of the $900 billion in benefits from these tax breaks that will accrue in 2013, the non-partisan CBO said on Wednesday.

Further, 17 percent of the total benefits would go to the top 1 percent of income earners -- families earning roughly $450,000 or more. The same group that was hit with a tax rate hike in January.

The benefits of preferential tax rates on capital gains and dividends, a break worth $161 billion this year, go almost entirely to the wealthy, including 68 percent to the top one percent of earners.

House Democrats, who requested that Congress' budget referee conduct the study, argued that it backs up President Barack Obama's proposed approach to tax reform and deficit reduction: raise revenues by limiting the amount tax preferences for the wealthy.

"This shows that we could achieve a significant amount of deficit reduction by limiting the preferences to the highest income earners," said Representative Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Although the study did not provide income thresholds, U.S. Census Bureau data for 2011 shows the top 20 percent of household income extends to down to $101,582, a level that is considered middle-class in many parts of the United States. The lowest quintile topped out at $20,262 in the Census data.

MIDDLE-CLASS AID

But the study also showed that benefits for the largest of the tax preferences, the exclusion for employer-paid health benefits, worth $3.4 trillion over 10 years, are more evenly distributed, with well over half of the benefits going to the middle 60 percent of earners.

The middle 20 percent of earners also got the biggest benefit from excluding a portion of Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits, a perk worth $414 billion over 10 years.

Three other big tax breaks, the $2 trillion exclusion of net pension contributions and earnings over 10 years, the $1 trillion deduction for mortgage interest and the $1.1 trillion deduction for state and local taxes, also benefited the top 20 percent disproportionately.

Representative Sander Levin, the highest ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, the panel that is trying to advance tax reform this year, said the study shows that Republicans would have to greatly reduce tax breaks that benefit the middle class in order to achieve their goals of reducing tax rates and balancing the budget.

"The CBO report underscores the need to go beyond the rhetoric of lowering tax rates without indication of how that would be achieved or the implications for economic growth and tax equity," Levin said.

A spokesperson for Ways and Means Committee's Republican Chairman, Dave Camp, could not immediately be reached for comment on the study.

Republicans want to reform the tax code by eliminating certain deductions, credits and exclusions, but they do not want to divert any resulting revenues toward deficit reduction. Instead they want to use the savings to lower rates, which they say will accelerate economic growth and increase revenue collection.

Democrat Van Hollen said his favored approach would be to limit the total amount of deductions for the top 2 percent of income earners, or families earning $250,000 or more, while leaving intact much of the top 10 tax breaks, which also include deductions for charitable contributions and tax credits for earned income and children.

These latter two tax breaks, which are largely aimed at the working poor, provide two thirds of their $118 billion in 2013 benefits to the lowest 40 percent of wage earners, the CBO said in the study. Over 10 years, these two credits will cost $1.2 trillion.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/top-us-tax-breaks-cost-12-trillion-over-230339087.html

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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

RSVP now for the Talk Mobile 2013 party in NYC on June 6!

** TICKET UPDATE **

We have maxed out our RSVP limit for today. Please come back to the site tomorrow at 12 Noon ET and we will be releasing a second wave of tickets. They're going fast, so if you missed out today be there tomorrow at 12 Noon ET. Can't wait to see you in NYC!

RSVP right now to reserve the hottest ticket in tech!

Mobile Nations, iMore, and the entire network have just announced Talk Mobile 2013 and while that's exciting, this might just be even more exciting -- we're throwing a giant launch party in New York City on Thursday June 6 and we want you to be there!

This is it, iMore nation, meet up time! I'll be there along with Georgia, as well as Kevin, Phil, Daniel, Marcus and a bunch of other Mobile Nations luminaries, and our special guests Cali Lewis and John P of GeekBeat.TV, and we want to see you there!

DJ MIA MORETTI will be supplying the music, and we'll be supplying an open bar (meaning this one's 21-and-up), snacks, and all the fun you can handle! Tickets are free, of course, but there is one catch...

They're going to go fast. Super fast. So fast that if you want to come, you really need to RSVP now as in NOW! Seriously, you don't want to miss this!

http://talkmobile2013.eventbrite.com/

Not in the NYC area but still want to attend?

If you're not in NYC, we have a contest happening right now where you and a guest can win a trip for two to NYC to attend the event. All you have to do is jump over to talkmobile2013.com and enter your email address to sign up for updates. That's it. We need to get the winner booked this weekend, so the deadline for the contest is this Friday night at Midnight PT.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/EBaCZbiCDNg/story01.htm

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Disappearance of stromatolites, earliest visible manifestation of life: Ancient enigma solved?

May 28, 2013 ? The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera.

The findings, by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Connecticut; Harvard Medical School; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, were published online the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Stromatolites ("layered rocks") are structures made of calcium carbonate and shaped by the actions of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and other microbes that trapped and bound grains of coastal sediment into fine layers. They showed up in great abundance along shorelines all over the world about 3.5 billion years ago.

"Stromatolites were one of the earliest examples of the intimate connection between biology -- living things -- and geology -- the structure of the Earth itself," said WHOI geobiologist Joan Bernhard, lead author of the study.

The growing bacterial community secreted sticky compounds that bound the sediment grains around themselves, creating a mineral "microfabric" that accumulated to become massive formations. Stromatolites dominated the scene for more than two billion years, until late in the Proterozoic Eon.

"Then, around 1 billion years ago, their diversity and their fossil abundance begin to take a nosedive," said Bernhard. All over the globe, over a period of millions of years, the layered formations that had been so abundant and diverse began to disappear. To paleontologists, their loss was almost as dramatic as the extinction of the dinosaurs millions of years later, although not as complete: Living stromatolites can still be found today, in limited and widely scattered locales, as if a few velociraptors still roamed in remote valleys.

While the extinction of the dinosaurs has largely been explained by the impact of a large meteorite, the crash of the stromatolites remains unsolved. "It's one of the major questions in Earth history," said WHOI microbial ecologist Virginia Edgcomb, a co-author on the paper.

Just as puzzling is the sudden appearance in the fossil record of different formations called thrombolites ("clotted stones"). Like stromatolites, thrombolites are produced through the action of microbes on sediment and minerals. Unlike stromatolites, they are clumpy, rather than finely layered.

It's not known whether stromatolites became thrombolites, or whether thrombolites arose independently of the decline in strombolites. Hypotheses proposed to explain both include changes in ocean chemistry and the appearance of multicellular life forms that might have preyed on the microbes responsible for their structure.

Bernhard and Edgcomb thought foraminifera might have played a role. Foraminifera (or "forams," for short) are protists, the kingdom that includes amoeba, ciliates, and other groups formerly referred to as "protozoa." They are abundant in modern-day oceanic sediments, where they use numerous slender projections called pseudopods to engulf prey, to move, and to continually explore their immediate environment. Despite their known ability to disturb modern sediments, their possible role in the loss of stromatolites and appearance of thrombolites had never been considered.

The researchers examined modern stromatolites and thrombolites from Highborne Cay in the Bahamas for the presence of foraminifera. Using microscopic and rRNA sequencing techniques, they found forams in both kinds of structures. Thrombolites were home to a greater diversity of foraminifera and were especially rich in forams that secrete an organic sheath around themselves. These "thecate" foraminifera were probably the first kinds of forams to evolve, not long (in geologic terms) before stromatolites began to decline.

"The timing of their appearance corresponds with the decline of layered stromatolites and the appearance of thrombolites in the fossil record," said Edgcomb. "That lends support to the idea that it could have been forams that drove their evolution."

Next, Bernhard, Edgcomb, and postdoctoral investigator Anna McIntyre-Wressnig created an experimental scenario that mimicked what might have happened a billion years ago.

"No one will ever be able to re-create the Proterozoic exactly, because life has evolved since then, but you do the best you can," Edgcomb said.

They started with chunks of modern-day stromatolites collected at Highborne Cay, and seeded them with foraminifera found in modern-day thrombolites. Then they waited to see what effect, if any, the added forams had on the stromatolites.

After about six months, the finely layered arrangement characteristic of stromatolites had changed to a jumbled arrangement more like that of thrombolites. Even their fine structure, as revealed by CAT scans, resembled that of thrombolites collected from the wild. "The forams obliterated the microfabric," said Bernhard.

That result was intriguing, but it did not prove that the changes in the structure were due to the activities of the foraminifera. Just being brought into the lab might have caused the changes. But the researchers included a control in their experiment: They seeded foraminifera onto freshly-collected stromatolites as before, but also treated them with colchicine, a drug that prevented them from sending out pseudopods. "They're held hostage," said Bernhard. "They're in there, but they can't eat, they can't move."

After about six months, the foraminifera were still present and alive -- but the rock's structure had not become more clotted like a thrombolite. It was still layered.

The researchers concluded that active foraminifera can reshape the fabric of stromatolites and could have instigated the loss of those formations and the appearance of thrombolites.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/JlG8Y15h1UI/130528143756.htm

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TestFairy Opens Its Android App Testing Platform To All, Making Even Bad Beta Testers Useful

Beta testing mobile apps becomes only more challenging as the crop of devices and mobile OS versions continues to expand, and Israel-based TestFairy, a new startup launching its product to the public today, is trying to tackle an aspect of the process that often results in beta users not being very useful to developers, thanks to a platform that gathers crucial feedback even if a user isn't supplying it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5g7D-iB58RE/

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Fight Bad Breath and Bathroom Clutter With This Toothbrush Cup

Counter clutter can be even worse in a bathroom which is typically a lot smaller than a kitchen. And if you find yourself constantly battling to find room to store things around the sink, you'll immediately see the genius behind this flippable cup that doubles as a way to rinse your mouth and a convenient spot to store a toothbrush.

Available in a small selection of decor-friendly colors, the $11 Flip Cup also features a contoured rim that allows air to get in when flipped upside-down so it dries quickly preventing germs and bacteria from finding a home. So say goodbye to halitosis and goodbye to awkwardly trying to rinse your mouth directly from the faucet.

Fight Bad Breath and Bathroom Clutter With This Toothbrush Cup

[Soda Home via Fancy]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/fight-bad-breath-and-bathroom-clutter-with-this-toothbr-509995347

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Cat Does Battle with Cardboard Cat: It's On!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/cat-does-battle-with-cardboard-cat-its-on/

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Monday, May 27, 2013

How can Chuck Hagel fix military sexual assault epidemic?

On consecutive days, President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have told the next generation of military leaders that sexual assault is threatening the dignity and effectiveness of the force.

Though the war in Afghanistan continues, the Obama administration has, in many ways, already begun to turn the Pentagon toward a new set of challenges. Mr. Obama's address to the National Defense University Thursday spoke to the strategic parts of that shift ? from stricter rules for drone strikes to new rules for the detention facility at Guant?namo Bay.

But the president's speech the next day to graduates of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., stressed that stamping out an epidemic of sexual assault within the military must also be a primary goal. Secretary Hagel made the same point Saturday in a speech to graduates at the US Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

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But what can be done?

There is ample evidence to suggest that no solution will be easy or quick. A survey released earlier this month suggests that 26,000 people in the military were sexually assaulted in the previous year ? a rate of 70 a day. Moreover, only 3,400 incidents were reported, suggesting a widespread lack of confidence in the military justice system on the issue.

Due to a lack of research, the trend line is unclear. The current number is up from the previous year (19,000) but down from 2006 (34,000).

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Meanwhile, recent weeks have brought a flood of troubling allegations. This month, two members of military sexual-assault prevention units ? one for the Air Force and one at the Army's Fort Hood in Texas ? have been accused of sexual assault. And last week, a sergeant at West Point was charged with secretly videotaping female cadets in the shower.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) of Missouri has introduced a bill to ensure that ?never again will a victim have to salute an assaulter," according to NBC News. It would require a member of the military who has been found guilty of sexual assault to be dismissed or dishonorably discharged. While it would also prohibit a commander from nullifying or changing a sexual-assault conviction, it would not remove sexual-assault cases from the chain of command entirely.

That has been a point of contention for critics, who note that commanders often reduce or eliminate punishments resulting from sexual-assault investigations. To address this, a competing bill by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York would create a separate procedure for dealing with sexual-assault cases.

But Pentagon officials strongly resist the idea of taking control out of the hands of commanders, saying such a move would undermine unit cohesiveness and discipline. Hagel, too, has said he is against removing sex-assault cases from the chain of command.

Yet experts say it is crucial to change the way the Pentagon looks at sexual assault. Currently, the military treats sexual assault as a women's issue, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Shadley tells The Washington Post. Instead, it should treat the charges as a "force protection issue."

?This is not a women?s rights issue, it?s an abuse of power," says General Shadley, who presided over the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland during a sex-assault scandal in the 1990s. "We should have the same person who?s worried about protecting soldiers from enemy attack in charge of protecting soldiers from sexual predators. Until you make prevention of sexual assault a part of everyday life of the organization, it?s going to be considered a secondary thing.?

His proposed solution is to put sexual-assault prevention in the hands of each unit's chief operations officer. At the moment, these efforts are handled by specialized units, which has the effect of marginalizing the issue, he says. "This has got to be an operational issue.?

Others suggest that the prohibition against women in combat also has a corrosive effect. For one, in an organization built on the premise of warfighting, those who are barred from serving in combat zones are seen as second-class citizens and lose a degree of respect.

"That reinforced the traditional notion [among men in uniform] that there are differences between men and women: 'Women are not our equals,' " David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, tells USA Today. " 'They're not allowed to be 100 percent soldiers. They're not part of our culture.' "

But the ban on women in combat might also have another effect. Without being able to serve in combat, women in the military face a glass ceiling. Obama could appoint more women to Pentagon posts, but women's ability to rise through the ranks in the military itself is affected by the ban.

?Quite frankly, we need to have people like [Obama adviser] Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama in the room,? Ana Cruz, a Democratic strategist, told Politico. ?You can?t have a bunch of men sitting around a table talking about this issue when it clearly goes to the heart of violating women?s rights.?

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Raw Five-Point Preview: May 27, 2013

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Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-05-27/five-point-preview

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Researchers identify genetic suspects in sporadic Lou Gehrig's disease

May 27, 2013 ? Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified mutations in several new genes that might be associated with the development of spontaneously occurring cases of the neurodegenerative disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the progressive, fatal condition, in which the motor neurons that control movement and breathing gradually cease to function, has no cure.

Although researchers know of some mutations associated with inherited forms of ALS, the majority of patients have no family history of the disease, and there are few clues as to its cause. The Stanford researchers compared the DNA sequences of 47 patients who have the spontaneous form of the disease, known as sporadic ALS, with those of their unaffected parents. The goal was to identify new mutations that were present in the patient but not in either parent that may have contributed to disease development.

Several suspects are mutations in genes that encode chromatin regulators -- cellular proteins that govern how DNA is packed into the nucleus of a cell and how it is accessed when genes are expressed. Protein members of one these chromatin-regulatory complexes have recently been shown to play roles in normal development and some forms of cancer.

"The more we know about the genetic causes of the disorder, the greater insight we will have as to possible therapeutic targets," said Aaron Gitler, PhD, associate professor of genetics. "Until now, researchers have primarily relied upon large families with many cases of inherited ALS and attempted to pinpoint genetic regions that seem to occur only in patients. But more than 90 percent of ALS cases are sporadic, and many of the genes involved in these cases are unknown."

Gitler is the senior author of the study, which will be published online May 26 in Nature Neuroscience. Postdoctoral scholar Alessandra Chesi, PhD, is the lead author. Gitler and Chesi collaborated with members of the laboratory of Gerald Crabtree, MD, professor of developmental biology and of pathology. Crabtree, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is also a co-author of the study.

Chesi and Gitler combined deductive reasoning with recent advances in sequencing technology to conduct the work, which relied on the availability of genetic samples from not only ALS patients, but also the patients' unaffected parents. Such trios can be difficult to obtain for diseases like sporadic ALS that strike well into adulthood when a patient's parents may no longer be alive. Gitler and Chesi collaborated with researchers from Emory University and Johns Hopkins University to collect these samples.

The researchers compared the sequences of a portion of the genome called the exome, which directly contributes to the amino acid sequences of all the proteins in a cell. (Many genes contain intervening, non-protein-coding regions of DNA called introns that are removed prior to protein production.) Mutations found only in the patient's exome, but not in that of his or her parents', were viewed as potential disease-associated candidates -- particularly if they affected the composition or structure of the resulting protein made from that gene.

Focusing on just the exome, which is about 1 percent of the total amount of DNA in each human cell, vastly reduced the total amount of DNA that needed to be sequenced and allowed the researchers to achieve relatively high coverage (or repeated sequencing to ensure accuracy) of each sample.

"We wanted to find novel changes in the patients," Chesi said. "These represent a class of mutations called de novo mutations that likely occurred during the production of the parents' reproductive cells." As a result, these mutations would be carried in all the cells of patients, but not in their parents or siblings.

Using the exome sequencing technique, the researchers identified 25 de novo mutations in the ALS patients. Of these, five are known to be in genes involved in the regulation of the tightly packed form of DNA called chromatin -- a proportion that is much higher than would have been expected by chance, according to Chesi.

Furthermore, one of the five chromatin regulatory proteins, SS18L1, is a member of a neuron-specific complex called nBAF, which has long been studied in Crabtree's laboratory. This complex is strongly expressed in the brain and spinal cord, and affects the ability of the neurons to form branching structures called dendrites that are essential to nerve signaling.

"We found that, in one sporadic ALS case, the last nine amino acids of this protein are missing," Gitler said. "I knew that Gerald Crabtree's lab had been investigating SS18L1, so I asked him about it. In fact, they had already identified these amino acids as being very important to the function of the protein."

When the researchers expressed the mutant SS18L1 in motor neurons isolated from mouse embryos, they found the neurons were unable to extend and grow new dendrites as robustly as normal neurons in response to stimuli. They also showed that SS18L1 appears to physically interact with another protein known to be involved in cases of familial, or inherited, ALS.

Although the results are intriguing, the researchers caution that more work is necessary to conclusively prove whether and how mutations in SS18L1 contribute to sporadic cases of ALS. But now they have an idea of where to look in other patients, without requiring the existence of patient and parent trios. They are planning to sequence SS18L1 and other candidates in an additional few thousand sporadic ALS cases.

"This is the first systematic analysis of ALS triads for the presence of de novo mutations," Chesi said. "Now we have a list of candidate genes we can pursue. We haven't proven that these mutations cause ALS, but we've shown, at least in the context of SS18L1, that the mutation carried by some patients is damaging to the protein and affects the ability of mouse motor neurons to form dendrites."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/oJUAdu-WC-s/130527100632.htm

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Hezbollah, Syrian government forces push for advance in Qusair

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah launched a fierce campaign to seize more rebel territory in the border town of Qusair on Saturday, sources on both sides of the conflict said.

Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad said additional tanks and artillery had been deployed around opposition-held territory in Qusair, a Syrian town close to the Lebanese border.

"I've never seen a day like this since the battle started," said Malek Ammar, an activist speaking from the town by Skype. "The shelling is so violent and heavy. It's like they're trying to destroy the city house by house."

More than 22 people in opposition-held areas were killed by Saturday afternoon, most of them rebels, and dozens were injured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rebels are largely surrounded in Qusair, a town of 30,000 that has become a strategic battleground. Assad's forces want to take the area to secure a route between the capital Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, effectively dividing rebel-held territories in the north and south.

The opposition has been fighting back, seeing it as critical to maintain cross-border supply routes and stop Assad from gaining a victory they fear may give him the upper hand in proposed U.S.-Russia led peace talks next month.

Syria's two-year uprising against four decades of Assad family rule began as peaceful protests but devolved into an armed conflict that has killed more than 80,000 people.

Assad's forces are believed to have seized about two-thirds of Qusair, but the price has been high and rebels insist they are preventing any further advances.

An official close to Hezbollah told Reuters that the fighters' advances in Qusair were happening at a very slow pace.

"We are in the second phase of our plan of attack but the advance has been quite slow and difficult. The rebels have mined everything, the streets, the houses. Even the refrigerators are mined."

Assad and Hezbollah forces have also been working to capture territory in areas surrounding Qusair. Manar TV, Hezbollah's media wing, said the Syrian army recaptured the Dabaa airport near the town, which rebels had seized several weeks ago.

SECTARIAN FIGHTING THREATENS REGION

The fighting in Qusair has also highlighted the increasingly sectarian tone of Syria's political struggle, which is not only overshadowing the revolt but threatening to destabilize the region. Israel has launched two air strikes in Syria, and Lebanon, which fought its own sectarian-fuelled 15-year civil war, has seen a rise in Syria-linked violence.

Syria's Sunni Muslim majority has led the struggle to topple Assad, and has been joined by Islamist fighters across the region, some of them linked to the militant group al Qaeda.

Assad comes from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and has relied on an army led mostly by Alawite forces. He has been bankrolled by regional Shi'ite power Iran, a longtime ally, and now increasingly by the country's Lebanese proxy, Shi'ite Hezbollah, founded as a resistance movement to Israel.

Syrian rebels now say that whatever the outcome, they will plot sectarian revenge attacks on Shi'ite and Alawite villages on either side of the border.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, said Assad forces led by Hezbollah were trying to advance from three directions in the city.

"Every area they didn't have a foothold in, they are trying to gain one now," Rami Abdelraham, head of the Observatory, told Reuters by telephone.

Rebels from across Syria say they have sent some of their units into Qusair.

Colonel Abdeljabbar al-Okaidi, the Aleppo-based regional leader of a moderate, internationally-backed Supreme Military Council said he and the Islamist brigade al-Tawheed had sent forces to the outskirts of the town to help the Qusair fighters.

But activist Malek Ammar said no forces had arrived yet and insisted the rebels locked in Qusair were still on their own.

"No one is helping Qusair other than its own men," he said.

(This story has been corrected to change source of Hezbollah information to official, paragraph nine)

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hezbollah-syria-government-forces-push-advance-qusair-112749533.html

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Suspected killer of British soldier was held in Kenya

By Peter Griffiths and Drazen Jorgic

LONDON/NAIROBI (Reuters) - One of two men arrested over the murder of a British soldier in a London street was detained in Kenya in 2010 on suspicion of seeking to train with an al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, Kenyan police said on Sunday.

Confirmation that Michael Adebolajo was held in Kenya and deported to London will intensify calls for Britain's spy agencies to explain what they knew about the suspect and whether they could have done more to prevent Lee Rigby's killing on Wednesday.

The British parliament's security committee will next week investigate the security services' actions in the run-up to a killing that has put pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to take a harder line on radicals.

The Nairobi government initially said Adebolajo had never visited Kenya. But on Sunday, Boniface Mwaniki, head of Kenya's anti-terrorism police, said Adebolajo was arrested in November 2010 and deported to Britain.

"He was arrested with a group of five others trying to travel to Somalia to join militant group al Shabaab," he told Reuters.

The Islamist force, which is linked to al Qaeda, wants to impose a strict version of Islamic law across Somalia.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman in London confirmed the arrest and said consular officials had provided assistance.

Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospital after being shot and arrested after the murder of the 25-year-old Afghan war veteran. They have not been charged.

Spy agencies have come under scrutiny after uncorroborated allegations by a friend of Adebolajo on Friday that intelligence officers tried to recruit him six months ago.

Asked whether the security services had contacted the men, Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May told the BBC: "Their job is about gathering intelligence. They do that from a variety of sources and they will do that in a variety of ways. And yes, they will approach individuals from time to time."

A source close to the investigation told Reuters this week that both suspects were known to the MI5 domestic security service. However, neither was thought to pose a serious threat.

'POISONOUS NARRATIVE'

The government also said it is forming a group to combat radical Muslim preachers and others whose words could encourage violence.

Prime Minister David Cameron's office said the group aimed to fight radicalism in schools and mosques, tighten checks on inflammatory internet material, and disrupt the "poisonous narrative" of hardline clerics.

Rigby's killing fuelled public anger about radical Islam. It has also raised questions over whether more could have done more to prevent the attack and put pressure on Cameron to tackle suspected militants more forcefully.

Witnesses said the soldier's killers shouted Islamist slogans during the attack. Bystanders filmed one of the suspects saying it was in revenge for Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Successive British governments have wrestled with how to prevent people from becoming radicalized without alienating the wider population with draconian measures.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair tried to tighten rules against hate preachers after the London bombings in 2005 that killed 52 commuters. The measures stirred a long debate over how to balance free speech and civil rights with a strong counter-terrorism strategy.

Britain's two-party coalition government is divided over a planned new law that would allow police and spy agencies to monitor people's use of the internet and mobile phones.

The Muslim Council of Britain, a religious umbrella group, said new government measures risked "making our society less free, divided and suspicious of each other".

(Additional reporting Nicolas Bertin in Paris and Joseph Akwiri and Humphrey Malalo in Kenya; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britain-target-radical-muslim-preachers-soldiers-killing-115616337.html

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Thousands of bridges at risk of freak collapse

SEATTLE (AP) ? Thousands of bridges around the U.S. may be one freak accident or mistake away from collapse, even if the spans are deemed structurally sound.

The crossings are kept standing by engineering design, not supported with brute strength or redundant protections like their more modern counterparts. Bridge regulators call the more risky spans "fracture critical," meaning that if a single, vital component of the bridge is compromised, it can crumple.

Those vulnerable crossing carry millions of drivers every day. In Boston, a six-lane highway 1A near Logan airport includes a "fracture critical" bridge over Bennington Street. In northern Chicago, an I-90 pass that goes over Ashland Avenue is in the same category. An I-880 bridge over 5th Avenue in Oakland, Calif., is also on the list.

Also in that category is the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle, which collapsed into the water days ago after officials say an oversized truck load clipped the steel truss.

Public officials have focused in recent years on the desperate need for money to repair thousands of bridges deemed structurally deficient, which typically means a major portion of the bridge is in poor condition or worse. But the bridge that collapsed Thursday is not in that deficient category, highlighting another major problem with the nation's infrastructure: Although it's rare, some bridges deemed to be fine structurally can still be crippled if they are struck hard enough in the wrong spot.

"It probably is a bit of a fluke in that sense," said Charles Roeder, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington.

While the I-5 truck's cargo suffered only minimal damage, it left chaos in its wake, with two vehicles catapulting off the edge of the broken bridge into the river below. Three people involved escaped with non-life threatening injuries.

The most famous failure of a fracture critical bridge was the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis during rush hour on Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100 others. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the cause of the collapse was an error by the bridge's designers ? a gusset plate, a key component of the bridge, was too thin. The plate was only half of the required one-inch thickness.

Because the bridge's key structures lacked redundancy, where if one piece fails, there is another piece to prevent the bridge from falling, when the gusset plate broke, much of the bridge collapsed.

Mark Rosenker, who was chairman of the NTSB during the I-35W bridge investigation, said the board looked into whether other fracture critical bridges were collapsing. They found a few cases, but not many, he said.

"Today, they're still building fracture critical bridges with the belief that they're not going break," Rosenker said.

Fracture critical bridges, like the I-5 span in Washington, are the result of Congress trying to cut corners to save money rather than a lack of engineering know-how, said Barry B. LePatner, a New York real estate attorney and author of "Too Big to Fall: America's Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward."

About 18,000 fracture critical bridges were built from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s in an effort to complete the nation's interstate highway system, which was launched under President Dwight Eisenhower, LePatner said in an interview. The fracture critical bridge designs were cheaper than bridges designed with redundancy, he said.

Thousands of those bridges remain in use, according to an AP analysis.

"They have been left hanging with little maintenance for four decades now," he said. "There is little political will and less political leadership to commit the tens of billions of dollars needed" to fix them.

There has been little focus or urgency in specifically replacing the older "fracture critical" crossings, in part because there is a massive backlog of bridge repair work for thousands of bridges deemed to be structurally problematic. Washington state Rep. Judy Clibborn, a Democrat who leads the House transportation committee, has been trying to build support for a tax package to pay for major transportation projects in the state. But her plan wouldn't have done anything to revamp the bridge that collapsed.

National bridge records say the I-5 crossing over the Skagit River had a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100 ? a score designed to gauge the ability of the bridge to remain in service. To qualify for federal replacement funds, a bridge must have a rating of 50 or below. A bridge must have a sufficiency rating of 80 or below to qualify for federal rehabilitation funding.

Hundreds of bridges in Washington state have worse ratings than the one that collapsed, and many around the country have single-digit ratings.

Clibborn said the Skagit River crossing wasn't even on the radar of lawmakers because state officials have to prioritize by focusing on bridges with serious structural problems that are at higher risk of imminent danger.

Along with being at risk of a fatal impact, the I-5 bridge was deemed to be "functionally obsolete," which essentially means it wasn't built to today's standards. Its shoulders were narrow, and it had low clearance.

There are 66,749 structurally deficient bridges and 84,748 functionally obsolete bridges in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, according to the Federal Highway Administration. That's about a quarter of the 607,000 total bridges nationally. States and cities have been whittling down that backlog, but slowly. In 2002, about 30 percent of bridges fell into one of those two categories.

Spending by states and local government on bridge construction adjusted for inflation has more than doubled since 1998, from $12.3 billion to $28.5 billion last year, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. That's an all-time high.

"The needs are so great that even with the growth we've had in the investment level, it's barely moving the needle in terms of moving bridges off these lists," said Alison Premo Black, the association's chief economist.

There is wide recognition at all levels of government that the failure to address aging infrastructure will likely undermine safety and hinder economic growth. But there is no consensus on how to pay for improvements. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which provides construction aid to states, is forecast to go broke next year. The fund gets its revenue primarily from federal gas and diesel taxes. But revenues aren't keeping up because people are driving less and there are more fuel-efficient cars on the road.

Neither Congress nor the White House has shown any willingness to raise federal gas taxes, which haven't been increased since 1993. Many transportation thinkers believe a shift to taxes based on miles traveled by a vehicle is inevitable, but there are privacy concerns and other difficulties that would preclude widespread use of such a system for at least a decade.

Transportation spending got a temporary boost with the economic stimulus funds approved by Congress after President Barack Obama was elected. Of the $27 billion designated for highway projects under the stimulus program, about $3 billion went to bridge projects, Black said.

States are looking for other means to raise money for highway and bridge improvements, including more road tolls, dedicating a portion of sales taxes to transportation and raising state gas taxes. Clibborn, the Washington state lawmaker, has proposed a 10-cent gas hike to help pay for projects, though the effort has been held up by a dispute over how to rebuild the Columbia River bridge connecting Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore.

"We can't possibly do it all in the next 10 years," Clibborn said. "But we're going to do the first bite of the apple."

___

Lowy reported from Washington, D.C. AP Writers Manuel Valdes and Gene Johnson contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-bridges-risk-freak-collapse-145103945.html

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Balloons bring smiles in war-weary Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Artists and activists have handed out 10,000 pink balloons to residents in Afghanistan's war-weary capital, bringing smiles to surprised Kabul residents a day after a major Taliban siege on an international compound in the city.

Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda organized the "We Believe in Balloons" day. He says each balloon contains a written message of peace from volunteers around the world.

Afghan volunteers were up before dawn Saturday to put the messages inside and fill the balloons with helium. Then they took to the streets of downtown Kabul's riverfront to distribute them to passers-by.

The colorful spectacle clearly delighted many Afghans eager for a chance to smile as the war with Taliban insurgents grinds on.

The Taliban assault the day before killed four people plus the six attackers.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/balloons-bring-smiles-war-weary-afghan-capital-090318923.html

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Saturday, May 25, 2013

Kerry makes sub-Saharan Africa visit

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) ? Making his first official trip to sub-Saharan Africa, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday demanded that Nigeria respect human rights as it cracks down on Islamist extremists and pledged to work hard in the coming months to ease tensions between Sudan and South Sudan.

Kerry, attending the African Union's 50th anniversary, backed the Nigerian government's efforts to root out Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-linked radical sect. But he said there is no excuse for abuses by armed forces in Nigeria's long neglected north, where President Goodluck Jonathan has declared emergency rule.

"We defend the right completely of the government of Nigeria to defend itself and to fight back against terrorists," Kerry said. He added, however, that he has raised his concerns with Nigerian officials to insist on the military "adhering to the highest standards and not itself engaging in atrocities."

"One person's atrocities do not excuse another's," Kerry said. "Revenge is not the motive. It's good governance, it's ridding yourself of a terrorist organization so that you can establish a standard of law that people can respect."

Speaking to reporters alongside Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Kerry also blamed Sudan's government for much of the tension along its volatile border with South Sudan. He says residents in the contested areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan don't want to be subjected to strict Islamist rules.

Both areas border the new nation of South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011 under an agreement that ended decades of civil war. Many residents are sympathetic to the South, and both areas have experienced regular violence in recent years.

"There are very significant border challenges, but they're bigger than that," Kerry said. "You have people who for a long time have felt that they want their secular governance and their identity respected."

"They don't want independence; they are not trying to break away from Sudan," he said. But he said the response from Sudan's government has been to "press on them through authoritarian means and violence an adherence to a standard that they simply don't want to accept with respect to Islamism."

"That's the fundamental clash," Kerry said.

He acknowledged, however, the North's concerns that the South is fueling rebels in the areas and said the U.S. would try to work with Ethiopia and other international partners to ease tensions. He said he'd soon appoint a new American envoy to both countries.

Kerry meets the foreign ministers of both Sudans later Saturday.

His meetings in Ethiopia's capital also include the U.N. and African Union chiefs and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-makes-sub-saharan-africa-visit-065921088.html

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Q&A: On Turkey's proposed alcohol restrictions

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? A look at legislation passed in Turkey's parliament early Friday that would ban all alcohol advertising and tighten restrictions on the sale of such beverages, and how such a law could affect tourists and liquor companies in the mainly Muslim but secular country.

Q: What happened?

A: Tempers flared and scuffles broke out during an all-night legislative session that passed a bill proposed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party to ban all forms of advertising of alcohol ? including the promotion of brands and logos ? and the sale of alcoholic drinks in shops between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The legislation would prohibit alcohol sales within 100 meters (yards) of mosques and schools. Booze ads already are banned on television in Turkey, but the new law would force TV stations to blur the images of drinks shown anywhere on the screen, even during movies and soap operas. All liquor bottles would display warning signs about the harms of alcohol, and there would be stricter penalties on drunken driving.

The government says the measure would shield Turkey's youth from the harms of booze, but secular opponents charge it's another example of the governing party's encroachment on personal freedoms. The party has a majority in Parliament, and a walkout by the opposition allowed the bill to pass 193 to 4. President Abdullah Gul generally acts in accordance with the government, and he is expected to sign the bill into law.

Q: How would this affect tourists?

Probably not very much. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Turkey's booming economy, with more than 30 million foreigners visiting the country last year. In a bow to the industry, the bill makes clear that the ban on the sale of alcohol near schools and mosques wouldn't apply to establishments with tourist certificates. Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said that while shops couldn't sell alcohol between 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., the ban wouldn't affect bars and restaurants, including the many located in hotels that tourists use. Open air bars and restaurants would continue to serve alcohol. As in many Muslim countries, nobody would walk down a street, or sit on a park bench, drinking booze in public and expect to get away with it. But drinking in the privacy of one's home or hotel room is common.

Q: Will the companies selling alcohol be affected?

A: Diageo, the London-based spirits company, acquired Turkey's drinks company, Mey Icki, in 2011, and it already has voiced concerns. In a statement released Thursday, Diageo said it is seeking talks with government officials for "fair, balanced and responsible" regulation, and that it bought the Turkish company believing it was investing in a country that encouraged foreign investments.

Q: What's the government's rationale?

A: Erdogan is a devout Muslim whose governing party is rooted in Turkey's Islamic movement. He insists he has no intention of banning alcohol, just to curtail its consumption, especially by youths. He insists he is committed to Turkey's secular policies and its goal of joining the European Union. He frequently quotes the Constitution as saying the nation is responsible for safeguarding young people from alcohol, drugs and gambling. "We don't want a generation walking around drunk night and day. We want a youth that is sharp and shrewd and full of knowledge," Erdogan said Friday in defense of the legislation.

Q: Why did secular parties oppose the legislation?

A: Secularists accuse the government of increasingly meddling in their lifestyles and imposing its conservative values on society. Some believe that Erdogan is trying to gradually impose an Islamic agenda. They claim that Turkey does not have an alcoholism problem and that only 1? bottles of spirits are consumed per person, per year in Turkey on average, compared to 15 bottles in the West. They say that youths should instead be educated about the harms that alcohol can cause.

Q: What other legal changes have alarmed secularists?

Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan's party has imposed high taxes on alcoholic beverages, banned all alcohol ads on TV, and barred alcohol consumption in parks and university campuses. Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, recently stopped serving alcoholic drinks on some of its flights.

The government also has repealed strict bans on the wearing of Islamic headscarves, lifted restrictions on religious schools and Quran courses, and said it aims to build "a generation" of devout Muslims. Last month, secularists criticized a court for punishing a pianist and composer for re-tweeting comments deemed to be insulting to religion by giving him a suspended prison sentence. An Armenian-Turkish journalist faces possible imprisonment for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammad.

Q: How do the restrictions compare to those in other Muslim nations?

A: Policies about alcohol vary widely from a complete ban in Saudi Arabia to relatively liberal rules in other countries.

In the United Arab Emirates, many resorts and hotels serve alcohol, and it is widely promoted in airport duty free shops and at public events. Non-Muslim residents of the UAE can buy liquor at special shops with a government-issued identity card.

The sale and consumption of alcohol in Egypt is legal but is allowed only to licensed dealers and tourist areas such as hotels, restaurants and bars. Egyptians are prohibited from buying alcoholic drinks anywhere during the holy month of Ramadan. The government of Mohammed Morsi, the country's first Islamist president, is considering a ban on the sale of alcohol in places such as airport duty-free stores.

In Libya, the sale and consumption of alcohol is banned, but Libyans turn to black market dealers.

Alcohol is also strictly banned in Afghanistan but smuggling is rife.

In Yemen, it is forbidden to sell or consume alcohol except for some places in the south that were former communist areas such as the port city of Aden.

___

AP correspondents Brian Murphy in Dubai, Maggie Michael in Cairo, and Kay Johnson in Kabul contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/q-turkeys-proposed-alcohol-restrictions-123758412.html

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