Asian stocks up ahead of U.S. fiscal cliff talks

BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets rose Friday, hours before President Barack Obama and key lawmakers were to meet at the White House to try to hammer out an 11th-hour budget compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. Wall Street also appeared set for a session of gains.

Lawmakers have until Monday night to reach a deal before hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax increases and deep cuts to government spending kick in. Such a drastic reshuffling of money could throw the U.S. into another recession, economists have warned.

However, failure to avoid the fiscal cliff doesn't necessarily mean tax increases and spending cuts would become permanent, since the new Congress could pass legislation canceling them retroactively after it begins its work next year.

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial futures were marginally higher at 13,005. S&P 500 futures gained nearly 0.1 percent to 1,411.80. European shares were mixed in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.1 percent to 5,959.89. Germany's DAX was nearly flat at 7,653.34. France's CAC-40 shed 0.1 percent to 3.670.03.

The day's market strength was in Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.7 percent to 10,395.18, its highest level since March 10, 2011, the day that a mammoth earthquake and tsunami pummeled Japan's northeastern cost. Export shares posted big gains as the country's currency continued to recoil against the dollar. Mazda Motor Corp. jumped 4.8 percent and Isuzu Motors Ltd. surged 4.5 percent.

Investors have been cheering newly named Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his calls for more public works spending to reinvigorate the economy. He also wants the Bank of Japan to raise its inflation target from 1 to 2 percent to drag the country out of two decades of deflation, or steadily declining prices that have deadened economic activity.

But Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong, said he was skeptical that the new prime minister's roadmap would prove effective in the long run.

"He will increase the deficit, print more money and try to spend out of the recession. If you print or borrow money, you give the economy a sense of false hope," he said. "It's like taking opium. You feel good but eventually you have to come down."

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.2 percent to 22,666.59, while South Korea's Kospi added 0.5 percent to 1,997.05. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 percent to 4,671.30.

"The fiscal cliff seems to have lost its negative influence on global markets," said Lun. "Even if it falls into the fiscal cliff, you will only reduce the deficit by about $100 billion. In Chinese terms, it's like trying to douse a fire with a cup of water. They should do what Europe has done and try to impose austerity."

Markets got some lift from optimistic data out of the U.S. on Thursday and a statement from the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said in an interview that the worst of the debt crisis in the 17 European Union countries that use the euro appears to be over.

In the U.S., the average number of people seeking unemployment benefits over the past month fell to the lowest level since March 2008, a sign that the job market is healing.

Benchmark oil for February delivery rose 24 cents to $91.11 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 11 cents to finish at $90.87 per barrel.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3180 from $1.3240 late Thursday in New York. The dollar gained to 86.12 yen from 86.02 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-stocks-ahead-us-fiscal-cliff-talks-035809449--finance.html

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China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

8 hrs.

Reuters

China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

"Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities," the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Li Fei, deputy head of parliament's legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.

"When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society ... or other citizens," he told a news conference.

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.

"So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?" complained one user.

"We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom," wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/china-tightens-internet-controls-legalizes-post-deletion-1C7755876

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Community Computers Project Brings Technology to an African ...

by Whitefish Bay Patch

A Whitefish Bay woman is leading an initiative between Alverno College and the Milwaukee School of Engineering to provide computers to students in Cameroon. Tracy Stockwell, Associate Professor of Professional Communication and Chair of the Communication & Technology Department at Alverno College, leads the initiative with colleague, professor Jill Moore, and MSOE students. Members of MSOE?S Community Computers work with Alverno as well as non-profit organizations to provide computers to families, and organizations in need. Community Computers has also worked across several continents and within the Milwaukee area to provide computers to schools. The joint venture works on taking computers, refurbishing them, installing open-source (free) software, and donating them to schools in Cameroon that would otherwise not be able to afford them.

http://whitefishbay.patch.com/articles/computer-donation-drive-benefits-students-in-africa

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2012 at 12:27 am and is filed under Educational Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Source: http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=5896

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Cave dwelling nettle discovered in China

Dec. 28, 2012 ? South West China, Myanmar and Northern Vietnam contain one of the oldest exposed outcrops of limestone in the world. Within this area are thousands of caves and gorges. It is only recently that botanists have sought to explore the caves for plants. This exploration is yielding many new species new to science, that are known only from these habitats.

The current study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Kew botanist and nettle expert Alex Monro says, "When my Chinese colleague Wei Yi-Gang from the Guangxi Institute of Botany first mentioned cave-dwelling plants to me, I thought that he was mis-translating a Chinese word into English. When we stepped into our first cave, Yangzi cave, I was spell-bound. It had an eerie moonscape look to it and all I could see were clumps of plants in the nettle family growing in very dark condition."

The plants do not grow in complete darkness but do grow in extremely low light levels, deep within the entrance caverns of the caves (sometimes, in as little as 0.04% full sunlight). The British and Chinese authors have been collecting plants from the Nettle family in this limestone landscape for several years and have just published a paper describing three new species, one from a cave and another two from deep gorges.

The cave-dwelling nettle species in question, was found growing in two caves in the Guangxi province of China. Of the species discovered in gorges, one is known from an unusual and striking rock mineral formation called petaloid travertine. Petaloid travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs that over time forms large petals of rock, in this case clinging to the vertical walls of a gorge.

These plants are members of a genus of Nettles known as Pilea, that is believed to have over 700 species Worldwide, up to one third of which may remain undescribed.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Pensoft Publishers, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Alex Monro, Y.G. Wei, C.J. Chen. Three new species of Pilea (Urticaceae) from?limestone?karst in China. PhytoKeys, 2012; 19 (0): 51 DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.19.3968

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/0NpLQoSf1pw/121228133732.htm

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One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Just over one in 12 U.S. service members who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had plaque buildup in the arteries around their hearts - an early sign of heart disease, according to a new study.

None of them had been diagnosed with heart disease before deployment, researchers said.

"This is a young, healthy, fit group," said the study's lead author, Dr. Bryant Webber, from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

"These are people who are asymptomatic, they feel fine, they're deployed into combat," he told Reuters Health.

"It just proves again the point that we know that this is a clinically silent disease, meaning people can go years without being diagnosed, having no signs or symptoms of the disease."

Webber said the findings also show that although the U.S. has made progress in lowering the nationwide prevalence of heart disease, there's more work that can be done to encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle and reduce their risks.

Heart disease accounts for about one in four deaths - or about 600,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members' families of how they died.

The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time.

"Earlier autopsy studies... were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people," said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health.

The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained.

Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span.

Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members who'd been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage.

Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More than 98 percent of the service members included were men.

"This study bodes well for a lower burden of disease lurking in young people," Levy, who wrote an editorial published with the report, told Reuters Health.

"Young, healthy people are likely to have a lower burden of disease today than their parents or grandparents had decades ago."

That's likely due, in part, to better control of blood pressure and cholesterol and lower rates of smoking in today's service members - as well as the country in general, researchers said.

However, two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked.

"Obesity is the one that has not trended in the right direction," Levy said.

"Those changes in obesity and diabetes threaten to reverse some of the dramatic improvements that we are seeing in heart disease death rates," he added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 25, 2012.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/one-12-military-clogged-heart-arteries-203415783.html

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India gang-rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Indian gang-rape victim whose assault in New Delhi triggered nationwide protests died in hospital on Saturday of injuries suffered in the attack, a Singapore hospital treating her said.

"We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (11:45 a.m. ET Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission of India were by her side," Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

The 23-year-old, who was severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi, was flown to Singapore by the Indian government on Wednesday for specialist treatment.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women's rights activists say. But the brutality of the assault on December 16 triggered public outrage and demands for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. The woman has not been identified but some Indian media have called her "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure".

Earlier on Friday, the hospital had reported that the young woman's condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said that her family had been informed and were by her side.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry and heavy-handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

"SIGNIFICANT BRAIN INJURY"

The Singapore hospital said earlier that the woman had suffered "significant brain injury" and was surviving against the odds. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before being flown to Singapore.

Demonstrations over the lack of safety for women erupted across India after the attack, culminating last weekend in pitched battles between police and protesters in the heart of New Delhi.

New Delhi has been on edge since the weekend clashes. Hundreds of policemen have been deployed on the streets of the capital and streets leading to the main protest site, the India Gate war memorial, have been shut for long periods, causing commuter chaos in the city of 16 million.

Political commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration that many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.

Many protesters have complained that Singh's government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata and Kevin Lim; Writing by Kevin Lim in Singapore and Ross Colvin in New Delhi; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/indian-rape-victim-surviving-against-odds-singapore-hospital-061357017.html

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The Renaissance Man Who Got It All Wrong

In A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, John Glassie writes of 17th-century Jesuit priest and scientist Athanasius Kircher, a renaissance man who studied magnetism, Mount Vesuvius, even the blood of plague victims. The only problem? His theories were often wrong.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/28/168203193/the-renaissance-man-who-got-it-all-wrong?ft=1&f=1007

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