WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats and Republicans are spending millions of dollars and airing thousands of TV commercials as they battle for the House's 435 seats. But the Election Day result is likely to look familiar.
Democrats may erode the GOP majority slightly but they seem unlikely to gain the 25 additional seats they need to take control of the chamber.
Republicans have a money advantage and are using it to link Democratic candidates to President Barack Obama's economic stimulus and health care laws.
Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to dismantle Medicare and use the savings to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
Both sides are trying to figure out the impact GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent campaign struggles will have on House races. So far that seems limited.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In this Sept. 18, 2008 photo, Danny Bonaduce poses as he arrives at NBC's Fall Premiere Party, in Los Angeles. Former child TV star Danny Bonaduce says a crazed fan bit him during an event at a Washington state casino. The former "Partridge Family" actor tells The News Tribune of Tacoma that the woman asked him if she could kiss him and then sank her teeth into his cheek for about a minute until others pulled her off. Bonaduce, who works these days as a radio disc jockey in Seattle, said the woman was taken into custody Friday, Sept. 28, 2012, but he doesn't plan to press charges. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
In this Sept. 18, 2008 photo, Danny Bonaduce poses as he arrives at NBC's Fall Premiere Party, in Los Angeles. Former child TV star Danny Bonaduce says a crazed fan bit him during an event at a Washington state casino. The former "Partridge Family" actor tells The News Tribune of Tacoma that the woman asked him if she could kiss him and then sank her teeth into his cheek for about a minute until others pulled her off. Bonaduce, who works these days as a radio disc jockey in Seattle, said the woman was taken into custody Friday, Sept. 28, 2012, but he doesn't plan to press charges. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) ? Former child TV star Danny Bonaduce says a crazed fan bit him during an event at a Washington state casino.
The former "Partridge Family" actor tells The News Tribune of Tacoma (http://is.gd/u3wfjM ) the woman asked him if she could kiss him and then sank her teeth into his cheek for about a minute until others pulled her off.
Bonaduce, who works these days as a radio DJ in Seattle, said the woman was taken into custody Friday, but he doesn't plan to press charges.
His face had a bright red mark a day later, when he said what he was thinking during the attack, "Bath salts," he said, referencing a designer drug linked to bizarre and violent behavior in users.
Bonaduce's wife, Amy, says her husband was treated with antibiotics.
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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com
A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled that Google's Motorola Mobility unit cannot enforce a patent injunction that it obtained against Microsoft in Germany, diminishing Google's leverage in the ongoing smartphone patent wars.
The injunction would have barred Microsoft from "offering, marketing, using or importing or possessing" in Germany some products including the Xbox 360 and certain Windows software.
The ruling against the German injunction came from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard said the company was pleased with the ruling. A representative for Google's Motorola unit declined to comment.
Brian Love, a professor at Santa Clara Law school in Silicon Valley, said the decision helps Microsoft counteract a favorable dynamic for Google in Germany.
"To some extent Germany has a reputation as place you can go and get an injunction relatively easy," Love said.
The current Xbox 360 is the market-leading console in the United States. Microsoft is expected to unveil its next generation Xbox video game console in 2013.
Microsoft has said that Motorola's patents are standard, essential parts of its software and that Motorola is asking far too much in royalties for their use. Google closed on its $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition this year.
Microsoft sued Motorola in the United States in 2010, and Motorola then filed a lawsuit in Germany. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans to move its European distribution center to the Netherlands from Germany ahead of a possible injunction.
After a court in Mannheim issued the sales ban, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle granted Microsoft's request to put the German order on hold earlier this year. According to Robart, the ruling would remain in effect until he could determine whether Motorola could appropriately seek a sales ban based on its standard essential patents.
In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge 9th Circuit unanimously upheld Robart's order. Since Microsoft had already brought a lawsuit against Motorola for breach of contract in the United States, U.S. courts have the power to put the German injunction on hold, the 9th Circuit said.
"At bottom, this case is a private dispute under Washington state contract law between two U.S. corporations," the court ruled.
European regulators are investigating claims that Motorola over-charged Microsoft and Apple Inc for use of its patents in their products and thereby breached antitrust rules.
The case in the 9th Circuit is Microsoft Corporation vs. Motorola Inc, Motorola Mobility Inc and General Instrument Corporation, 12-35352.
(Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak in San Francisco and Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Gary Hill and Richard Chang)?
(c) CopyrightThomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at:?http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp?
The full list of deals during Future Shop?s After Hours Sale won?t be posted until the sale actually begins, but we do know a few of the deals that will be starting tomorrow:
10% off all pre-orders
20% off all used games
20% off all accessories (Excludes Time Cards)
Xbox 360 250GB Console with Gears of War 2, Halo Reach, Fable 3, Bioshock 2, Assassin?s Creed, LA Noire ? $299.99 (save $40)
No matter which way you cut it, the Android-based Wikipad gaming tablet -- dubbed as much despite not having any connection to Wikipedia -- is unusually expensive. As a 10.1-inch Android tablet, it's comparably priced with the leaders of the market (of the Apple and Samsung variety). The obvious problem comparatively with the big dogs: visibility. What is Wikipad, anyway? And who made it?
"This is our first product into the market," consummate salesman and Wikipad CEO James Bower told us in an interview earlier this week -- yes, the company's name is shared with its first product. "We've self-funded the whole concept to this point with a couple of us founders. No VC money or anything," he said (the company did, however, just close its first round of venture capital funding for marketing costs, post-development). Bower's company took the idea of an Android-based gaming tablet with a proprietary, physical (and removable) gamepad from concept to reality in the last year, first revealing the tablet at CES 2012. "We've been able to accomplish a lot very efficiently and very effectively to this point," Bower said, in reference to the approximately 80 people who created the device.
That said, despite our positive hands-on time with the Wikipad (even in its prototype state), $500 is a heck of a lot of money to plunk down on an unproven device from an unproven company. The argument gets harder when you remember Sony's PlayStation Vita -- an arguably much nicer device with a far larger library of gaming content that costs half the Wikipad's price at $249.99. Bower doesn't see the logic in this argument. "It's double the price, but it's also double the size," he pointed out. "If you buy a tablet that's seven inches, you can get a $199 tablet -- it's called a Google Nexus or a Kindle Fire. If you're gonna get a full 10-inch tablet, a tablet to this quality, you're gonna spend $499 to $749 ... if we were talking about a 7-inch device or a 5-inch device, and we were at this price point, then it'd be a different story." Admittedly, the tablet -- as a standalone device -- isn't too shabby. But will it woo consumers away from the likes of Apple and Samsung? Bower hopes as much, but we're not so sure.
The green building industry needs green attitudes from occupants to be effective. Image: SIEW.
Green buildings may have risen in popularity in Singapore in the past few years, but such buildings are ?green? only if their users are too.
This is why the local green building movement is moving beyond physical walls to reach out to the man in the street, Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) president Tai Lee Siang told Eco-Business in a recent interview.
Strong government leadership here has enabled building owners to adopt newfangled green technology to make their buildings more efficient. ?But the industry is mindful that if the people who occupy them do not have a ?green attitude? to conserving energy and resources, such buildings will not function well,? he said.
The SGBC, an industry association with more than 300 members, is thus focusing its efforts to include engaging the wider community, so that ?green lifestyles can complement green buildings to achieve greater results?, he said.
For example, SGBC is collaborating with technology giant IBM and the Ministry of Education on ?Project Green Insights?, which will raise awareness of energy efficiency with schools in Singapore. Education is important, said Mr Tai, as green attitudes are best adopted from a young ageand the youth will become the future generation of building users.
SGBC?s industry members, such as property developers Lend Lease, are also developing green leases where tenants have to agree to certain environmental targets when they lease a retail space.
This focus on the community will be the main theme at this year?s upcoming International Green Building Conference (IGBC), organized by SGBC, which will feature activities that reach out to tenants, consumers and the youth.
To be held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre from 10 to 12 October, the conference will convene more than 50 international experts from 25 countries to speak on green buildings and sustainable lifestyles.
National building regulator, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), is also set to unveil new Green Mark schemes for big users of energy such as supermarkets, retailers and data centresat the conference.
The Green Mark is a system developed by the BCA to rate buildings on their environmental performance. Singapore currently has more than 1,200 Green Mark buildings.
Director of BCA?s technology development group, Mr Tan Tian Chong noted in statement that since its launch in 2005, the Green Mark scheme has ?provided a meaningful differentiation of buildings in the real estate market.?
?Indeed, a Green Mark building is internationally recognized as having best practices in environmental design and performance. This can have positive value-add for building owners as well as end-users as they will be living and working in energy-efficient, greener and healthier environments. We will extend the Green Mark scheme to new frontiers to make Singapore an even greener and healthier place,? he said.
BCA also plans to introduce a web-based carbon calculator that will help building professionals determine the footprint of major construction materials and energy used in buildings.
To ensure that the industry is held to high standards, the SGBC will announce at the conference a new Green Services Certification Scheme, which will cover related sectors such as architectural design, mechanical and electrical services, energy management and consultancy, and contractors.
It is an extension of an existing Green Building Product Certification, launched in 2010, which certifies green building products. SGBC has certified a total of 144 green products to date.
Mr Tai noted that products are only one aspect of what makes a building green. Service providers, who help create such buildings, are also important. ?So the new scheme will create a certain benchmark? on which these providers can be certified,? he said.
Some 10,000 people are expected to attend October?s conference. It will be held together with Bex Asia 2012, an annual regional building expo focusing on eco-friendly products and solutions. Both events are part of the annual Singapore Green Building Week.
Some notable figures due to speak include Professor Jacqueline Cramer, Director of Utrecht Sustainability Institute and former Minister of Housing, Social Planning and the Environment of the Netherlands, Ms Jane Henley, chief executive of the World Green Building Council and the founder of Earth Hour, Mr Andy Ridley.
To register for the upcoming International Green Building Conference 2012, click here.
This is just a very good video about the Skywalker Family Tree, in case you need one:
Video Description: A classic family tree with parallel/perpendicular lines indicating relationships between people represented by "100% authentic and recognized" headshots, detailing the Skywalker family history, set to pieces of John Williams' iconic Star Wars score.
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2012) ? Routine screening for psychiatric, cognitive and social problems could enhance the quality of care and quality of life for children and adults with epilepsy, according to a study by UC Irvine neurologist Dr. Jack Lin and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Amedeo Avogadro University in Italy.
Physicians who treat those with epilepsy often focus on seizures, Lin said. However, patients show an increased prevalence of psychiatric issues (mood, anxiety or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders), cognitive disorders (in memory, language or problem solving) and social difficulties (involving employment or personal interactions). The relationship between epilepsy and these complications is complex and poorly understood. Lin said they may present greater problems for a patient if left untreated.
"Screening for psychiatric, cognitive and social comorbidities is essential not only in established cases but also with newly diagnosed epilepsy," Lin said. "By doing so, we can ensure that these issues are treated and that patients have a better quality of life."
He emphasized that screening should also be conducted prior to any new drug treatment.
Problems that occur in conjunction with childhood and adult epilepsy are referred to by doctors as comorbidities, meaning that they have a greater than coincidental chance of appearing alongside each other though there is not necessarily a causal relationship between them.
The study suggests a number of possible factors responsible for these comorbidities, including the characteristics of epilepsy and its medication protocol, underlying brain disorders, and epilepsy-related disruptions of normal neurodevelopment and aging.
While experts have begun to recognize the effects of psychiatric, cognitive and social comorbidities in epilepsy, Lin noted, gaps remain in the early detection, treatment and prevention of these issues.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Irvine.
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Journal Reference:
Jack J Lin, Marco Mula, Bruce P Hermann. Uncovering the neurobehavioural comorbidities of epilepsy over the lifespan. The Lancet, 2012; 380 (9848): 1180 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61455-X
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
All gamers should play multiplayer mode, says Black Ops II design director
It is no secret that the Call of Duty franchise owes a great of its success to its multiplayer mode, which is robust to say the least.
However, it turns out that there are still some gamers out there who are content with going through and sticking to the single-player campaign instead of taking a plunge into the mode that has allowed the franchise to maintain its reputation of being one
of the best and most enjoyable first-person shooters out there in the market.
The design director of Call of Duty: Black Ops II David Vonderhaar is not pleased to come across this fact and expects the players to at least give the multiplayer experience a try instead of stopping at the solitary experience.
In order to entice players, especially newcomers, to the multiplayer mode, the latest offering the Call of Duty franchise will see the return of the Combat Training mode.
The mode has a number of new features that will have the players spending a lot of time in there instead of simply going through the campaign.
One of the most attractive features of the Combat Training mode, as revealed by Vonderhaar, is that the training progress of the player will be transferred to his ?real? multiplayer rank, thus giving him a lot of incentive to spend hours in the mode.
He further conceded that the players beyond level 10 will be able to earn experience (XP) through the objective-based game-types in the Combat Training, though the experience earned will be at a significantly reduced rate of 50 percent.
One more feature of the mode is that it will allow players to take on bots, thus making the experience rewarding.
All these features are bound to help the players improve their skills and create a desire within them to try them out against fellow human players via the multiplayer mode.
It remains to be seen how the fans react to the latest offering in the Call of Duty franchise, a brand that has the industry analysts really annoyed because its commercial success is discouraging its publisher Activision from trying out new and creative
things.
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? There was a time when a Vatican trial could end with a heretic being burned at the stake. Paolo Gabriele doesn't risk nearly as a dire fate, but he and the Holy See face a very public airing over the gravest security breach in the Vatican's recent history following the theft and leaking of the pope's personal papers.
Gabriele, the pope's once-trusted butler, goes on trial Saturday, accused of stealing the pope's documents and passing them off to a journalist ? a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Gabriele is charged with aggravated theft and faces six years in prison if convicted by the three-judge Vatican tribunal. He has already confessed and asked to be pardoned ? something most Vatican watchers say is a given if he is convicted ? making the trial almost a formality.
To be sure, trials are nothing new at the Vatican: In 2011 alone, 640 civil cases and 226 penal cases were processed by the Vatican's judiciary, 99 percent of which involved some of the 18 million tourists who pass through the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's Basilica each year. And that's not counting the marriage annulments, clerical sex abuse cases and other church law matters that come before the Vatican's ecclesial courts.
Yet this most high-profile case will cast an unusually bright spotlight on the Vatican's legal system, which is based on the 19th century Italian criminal code, and the rather unique situation in which the pope is both the victim and supreme judge in this case.
The Vatican is an elective absolute monarchy: The pope has full executive, legislative and judicial authority in the Vatican city state. He delegates that power through executive appointments, legislative commissions and tribunals, but by law he can intervene at any point in a judicial proceeding.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has said he believes the trial will run its course without papal interference. But he has acknowledged the likelihood of a papal pardon.
Gabriele was arrested May 24 after Vatican police found what prosecutors called an "enormous" stash of documents from the pope's desk in his Vatican City apartment. Many of those documents appeared in the book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's secret papers," by Gianluigi Nuzzi, an Italian journalist whose earlier book on the Vatican bank caused a sensation.
Three days before the arrest, the pope's secretary convened a meeting of the handful of people who make up the "papal family" ? the pope's two secretaries, four housekeepers, a longtime aide and the butler Gabriele ? and asked if any of them had leaked the papers. Gabriel firmly denied it at the time, prosecutors said.
Gabriele later confessed to passing the documents off to Nuzzi, hoping to expose what he considered the "evil and corruption" in the church, according to prosecutors. They described Gabriele as a devout but misguided would-be whistle-blower who believed the Holy Spirit had inspired him to protect and inform the pope about the problems around him.
"I was sure that a shock, even a media one, would have been healthy to bring the Church back on the right track," prosecutors quoted Gabriele as saying during a June interrogation.
Gabriele is being tried along with a co-defendant, Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer expert in the Secretariat of State who is charged with aiding and abetting Gabriele.
While the Vatican legal system will be on display during the trial, so too will be the peculiarities of the Vatican city state itself, the world's smallest sovereign state. Gabriele is both a Vatican citizen and resident of a Vatican City apartment (one of 595 citizens of whom 247 are residents). So the pope is not only Gabriele's former boss, he is also his landlord, his spiritual head as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and his head of state, not to mention the authority who appointed the prosecutor and the three lay judges who will hear Gabriele's case.
When it was first published in May, "His Holiness" became the most-talked about book in Italy and the Vatican, 273 pages of secrets about one of the most secretive institutions in the world. It included letters from a Vatican official detailing corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts, finger-pointing about who was to blame for leaking accusations about homosexual liaisons, and the like.
None of the documents threatened the papacy. Most were of interest only to Italians, as they concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican and a few local scandals and personalities. But their very existence and the fact that they were taken from the pope's own desk provoked an unprecedented reaction from the Vatican, with the pope naming a commission of cardinals to investigate alongside the Vatican magistrates.
Clerics have since lamented how the episode shattered the trust and discretion that characterize day-to-day life in the Vatican, with bishops now questioning whether to send confidential information to the pope for fear it may end up on the front page of a newspaper.
Journalist Nuzzi, for his part, remains calm despite his role as the other key protagonist in the case.
"The only thing I can say is that I strongly hope that the trial will unveil the motives and convictions that compelled Paolo Gabriele to bring to light documents and events described in the book," he told The Associated Press this week.
Gabriele, a 46-year-old father of three, is being represented by attorney Cristiana Arru after his childhood friend, Carlo Fusco, quit as his lead attorney last month over differences in defense strategy.
The Vatican had said the trial would be open to the public, though access is limited and no cameras or audio is allowed. Eight journalists will attend each session and brief the Vatican press corps afterward.
There is no indication how long the trial will last, how many witnesses will be called or what Gabriele's defense will be given that he has, according to prosecutors, confessed to taking the documents. One tantalizing potential witness is the pope's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, one of the few named witnesses in the indictment who first confronted Gabriele.
Prosecutors did order a psychiatric evaluation and determined that Gabriele was conscious of his actions, although they quoted the psychiatrists as saying he was unsuited for his job, was easily manipulated and suffered from "a grave psychological unease characterized by restlessness, tension, anger and frustrations."
Despite the peculiarities of the Vatican's legal system and the pope's absolute authority over all things legislative, executive and judicial, at least one outside authority has deemed it credible and fair: A federal judge in New York last year dismissed a lawsuit against the Vatican concerning rights to reproduce images from the Vatican library, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show they couldn't get a fair hearing in the Vatican courts.
There has been no such vote of confidence for the Vatican's onetime Congregation for the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, the commission created in 1542 that functioned as a tribunal to root out heresy, punish crimes against the faith and name Inquisitors for the church.
One of its more famous victims was Giordano Bruno, burned in Rome in 1600 after being tried for heresy.
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Pop star Madonna said on Tuesday she was being deliberately ?ironic on stage? when she erroneously referred to President Barack Obama during her concert in the nation?s capital as a ?black Muslim.?
A video clip posted on YouTube by audience members at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington captured the 54-year-old singer delivering a rousing, profanity-laced political speech about freedom during her show on Monday.
Read also: Madonna Calls Obama a ?Black Muslim? (VIDEO)
?Now, it?s so amazing and incredible to think that we have an African-American in the White House ? we have a black Muslim in the White House ? it means there is hope in this country, and Obama is fighting for gay rights, so support the man,? Madonna said.
Obama, campaigning to be re-elected on November 6, is widely known to be a practicing Christian.
Responding to a media furor unleashed by the YouTube video, Madonna issued a statement on Tuesday through her spokeswoman saying her reference to Obama?s religion was facetious.
?I was being ironic on stage. Yes, I know Obama is not a Muslim ? though I know that plenty of people in this country think he is. And what if he were?
?The point I was making is that a good man is a good man, no matter who he prays to. I don?t care what religion Obama is ? nor should anyone else in America,? she said.
Since Obama?s first presidential run in 2008, fringe groups and a smattering of opponents have espoused rumors that he is secretly a Muslim, similar to persistent but unfounded assertions by some political foes that he was born outside the United States.
Madonna has been outspoken in her support of the president, going so far as to rip off her shirt during recent concerts to reveal the word ?OBAMA? inked across her lower back.
On the North American leg of a concert tour in support of her latest studio album, ?MDNA,? the singer has been grabbing headlines with a recent series of onstage antics.
Read also: France?s National Front to sue Madonna over Le Pen swastika
During one of her Paris concerts in July, Madonna landed in hot water with France?s far right National Front party after screening footage of party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika superimposed on her face. The National Front said it would sue the star.
In August, Madonna spoke out at concerts in Russia in support of gay rights and the jailed members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Steve Gorman and Stacey Joyce)
Read also: Madonna explains use of swastika during MDNA tour
Sichuan Chuangang Gas, of which Kunlun Energy is the holding company, collaborated with the Nanchong Transportation Department of Chuan Zhong Oil-Gas-Mining of South-West Oil and Gas filed on the modification work of LNG vehicles.
Two diesel powered crude oil tankers went through modification process to be successfully powered by LNG as single fuel. It took twenty days to run road tests on different road sections and loading capacities for about 6,000 kilometers in total. After modification, the crude oil tankers powered by LNG as single fuel demonstrate satisfactory performance in the areas, such as power performance, economical efficiency, and stabilization. This symbolizes the successful modification of the first batch of LNG crude oil tankers domestically.
Prior to modification, each vehicle consumes 22 liters of diesel per kilometer. After modification, based on comprehensive tests on different roads and traveling speeds, each vehicle consumes only 24 cubic meters of natural gas per kilometer, which could save over 30% of diesel fuel in total.
Such successful modification of crude oil tankers bolstered the confidence of both parties in promoting the modification technology for LNG as single fuel. Based on such result, both parties plan to modify 60 LNG vehicles within the related businesses regarding oil industry in Nanchong and Suining this year, targeting at aggressive promotion of the new LNG technology to trigger the effects driving by regional demonstration of LNG utilization.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Climb the rickety ladder through the Emir Omar bin Saud Palace courtyard in crumbling Diriyah and the image of old Saudi Arabia suddenly appears in an adobe roofscape set against dark green palms.
The caramel tones of the mud walls, the smell of dust mingling with water and the muffled clanging of hammer on stone belong not to the kingdom's impoverished past, however, but a restoration project costing at least $133 million.
It was in Diriyah that the ruling al-Saud family first rose to power, and in memorializing its ruins, the authorities are celebrating a telling of national history that puts the dynasty and its clerical allies front and centre.
As capital of the first state built by the al-Saud in alliance with the revivalist cleric Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab around 270 years ago, Diriyah is the Saudi Camelot.
"Diriyah is symbolic. It's about going back to your roots. The whole idea of the Saudi state started in Diriyah," said Khaled al-Dakhil, a political science professor in Riyadh.
In school text books, national day posters and programs on state television, the alliance and its revival under the modern kingdom's founder Abdulaziz ibn Saud is portrayed as delivering the nation from centuries of infighting and superstition and bringing unity, religious enlightenment and oil wealth.
It's a version of events that, while perhaps not applauded by some critics of the government and people from parts of the country that were conquered by the al-Saud, nevertheless has solid roots in history.
The partnership of princes and clerics survived Ottoman invasion, tribal feuding and a transformative oil boom to become the political fulcrum of a country many times larger than the remote desert emirate it succeeded.
LIGHT TOUCH
While the al-Saud and their Wahhabi creed gained recognition and influence internationally, Diriyah fell to ruin.
By the early nineteenth century, it was the largest town of the central Arabian Peninsula, its stout walls enfolding grand palaces for its princes, a treasury, a bath house and a large mosque.
But it was bombarded and burnt to the ground in 1818 by the cannons of an Ottoman army sent to crush Wahhabi fighters who had captured Mecca and Medina and raided southern Iraq.
Its wells were filled up and its palms cut down. Every archaeological dig uncovers a layer of ash, said Ali al-Moghanam, a historian working as an adviser on the project for the government body carrying it out.
The Saudi family and its followers trudged a few miles down Wadi Hanifa to resettle at Riyadh and Diriyah slowly melted into the desert. Today it is almost a suburb of northwest Riyadh.
Behind the ruins are a large pit where workers are making some of the one million mud bricks needed for the project. UNESCO accorded Diriyah world heritage status in 2010.
"Authenticity is very important to UNESCO - making sure the modern intervention is well marked," said Thomas Ciolek, senior project manager on Diriyah for the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA), the government's overseeing body.
The restorers envisage that Diriyah will become an open-air museum, with elevated steel walkways that will guide visitors through the shaded alleyways and towering palace walls that survived the Ottomans.
Abdullah Arrukban, director of urban development at the ADA, was not able to say exactly how much the restoration cost, but estimated that it was more than 500 million rials ($133 million).
Ruins have been strengthened with internal titanium rods and freshly plastered using traditional methods, but have not been rebuilt, retaining the jagged silhouettes moulded by cannon shot and centuries of erosion.
When the project is complete - probably in early 2015 - it will use exhibits to detail the political history of the first Saudi state and its destruction, and of the life or normal people before the oil boom.
"It is important to make Saudis aware of their history and proud of their history," said Ciolek.
NATIONAL IDENTITY
From the replastered and crenellated walls of old Diriyah, visitors can clearly see the 99-storey Kingdom Tower in central Riyadh, built by a billionaire prince and direct descendent of the old town's original rulers.
Modern Saudi Arabia is a nearly absolute monarchy, with no national elections or political parties. The al-Saud family hold most top government positions, ruling with the backing of Wahhabi clerics.
Senior clerics and big religious institutions are lavishly financed by the state, spreading Abd al-Wahhab's message across the world.
The clerics describe their movement as "reformist", and those reforms will also be memorialized in a large exhibit in restored Diriyah.
"It's not only a local reform movement. This is for the Muslim countries. The reform movement is to free people in their faith. To make people more than they are," said the historian, Moghanam.
For Saudi critics and some people outside Najd, the arid central part of the Arabian Peninsula where Diriyah is situated, the careful preservation of these ruins is starkly contrasted to the treatment of other parts of the kingdom's heritage.
Some historic buildings in Mecca, for example, which was conquered by the al-Saud in 1924, have been allowed to decline or even in some cases been razed to make way for modern buildings.
"This historical focus undermines two important dimensions: first the contribution of many people in Saudi Arabia towards this state project, and also the role of conquest in it," said Madawi al-Rasheed, the author of "A History of Saudi Arabia" and a critic of the government at London's King's College university.
Some other Saudis say the fact that Diriyah is still relevant to the modern kingdom underscores a divergence between the comparatively rapid pace of social and economic change and the much slower rate of political reform.
"Diriyah for the population does not seem to be very long ago, even though it's 250 years. That's because the relationship between the people and the ruling family didn't change very much. But this idea of government cannot remain because society itself has changed," said Dakhil, the political scientist.
'Sometimes it will go over their heads and it will not be as commercially successful,' 'Voice' judge tells MTV News of upcoming album. By James Montgomery
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were flat on Wednesday as investors took a break from the previous day's sharp decline, which was the S&P's worst day since June.
Market participants have been seeking new catalysts to keep pushing shares higher since the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank announced stimulus measures earlier this month. The S&P is up almost 6 percent so far this quarter, with much of those gains coming on expectations for such announcements from the central banks.
Further gains may be hard to come by amid concerns over the impact that slowing global growth could have on companies. Tuesday's sell-off came as Caterpillar Inc became the latest high-profile company to cut its outlook, joining FedEx Corp.
In another discouraging sign for corporate America, Jabil Circuit late Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations and forecast weak first-quarter results.
S&P 500 futures fell 1.2 point but remained above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 5 points and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 4.25 points.
The S&P 500 is up 2.5 percent so far in September, historically a difficult month for the market, and recently hit the highest level in nearly five years.
The last session of the third quarter is Friday, and the quarter's strongest performers could see some additional upside on "window dressing," when money managers add the latest outperforming stocks to their portfolios before the end of the quarter. MetroPCS and Sprint Nextel are the top two gainers quarter-to-date.
Yahoo Inc's new chief executive Marissa Mayer laid out broad goals for the Internet giant in her first companywide address Tuesday. The company also named a new chief financial officer.
Investors are also looking ahead to August new home sales, due out at 10 a.m. (1400 GMT) Analysts expect 380,000 units sold in the month, up modestly from 372,000 in August.
While the housing market has shown signs of strengthening, and homebuilders have reported strong results recently, the July Case-Shiller report on home prices, released on Tuesday, came in weaker than expected.
U.S. stocks tumbled on Tuesday, pressured by Caterpillar's outlook and weakness in Apple Inc shares. It was the S&P 500's biggest percentage daily loss since June 25 and the biggest for the Nasdaq since July 20.
The RCMP long suspected corruption in the construction industry involving the Montreal Mafia and dirty politicians but ignored possible leads in order to target the Rizzuto clan's drug trafficking business during its five-year investigation dubbed Project Colis?e according to Corporal Vinicio Sebastiano who testified yesterday before the Charbonneau Commission as reported by Monique Muse for The Gazette.?
Sebastiano testified that the potential evidence included video surveillance of some construction-linked people seemingly dropping off cash payments at social clubs from which the Rizzuto clan conducted its business, and recorded conversations discussing construction companies and political parties.? However, "it was usually dismissed as 'non-pertinent' evidence" said Sebastiano:? "when construction or political parties came up, the tapes kept rolling but 'we weren't listening.'"? Those tapes will be played for the Charbonneau Commission in the coming days.
Although Sebastiano identified several big players in the construction trade he claims visited the social clubs he "did not point the finger at any specific company executives who handed over the cash" as reported by CBC.
Large 2012 earthquake triggered temblors worldwide for nearly a weekPublic release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
8.6 magnitude quake primed some distant faults to rupture days later
This year's largest earthquake, a magnitude 8.6 temblor on April 11 centered in the East Indian Ocean off Sumatra, did little damage, but it triggered quakes around the world for at least a week, according to a new analysis by seismologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The April 11 quake was unusually large the tenth largest in the last 100 years and, similar to a few other recent large quakes, triggered small quakes during the three hours it took for seismic waves to travel through Earth's crust.
The new study shows, however, that some faults weren't rattled enough by the seismic waves to fail immediately, but were primed to break up to six days later.
The findings are a warning to those living in seismically active regions worldwide that the risk from a large earthquake could persist -- even on the opposite side of the globe -- for more than a few hours, the experts said.
"Until now, we seismologists have always said, 'Don't worry about distant earthquakes triggering local quakes,'" said Roland Burgmann, professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley and coauthor of the study. "This study now says that, while it is very rare it may only happen every few decades it is a real possibility if the right kind of earthquake happens."
"We found a lot of big events around the world, including a 7.0 quake in Baja California and quakes in Indonesia and Japan, that created significant local shaking," Burgmann added. "If those quakes had been in an urban area, it could potentially have been disastrous."
Burgmann and Fred F. Pollitz, Ross S. Stein and Volkan Sevilgen of the USGS will report their results online on Sept. 26 in advance of publication in the journal Nature.
Burgmann, Pollitz, a research seismologist, and their colleagues also analyzed earthquake occurrences after five other recent temblors larger than 8.5 including the deadly 9.2 Sumatra-Andaman quake in 2004 and the 9.0 Tohoku quake that killed thousands in Japan in 2011 but saw only a very modest increase in global earthquake activity after these quakes. They said this could be because the East Indian Ocean quake was a "strike-slip" quake that more effectively generates waves, called Love waves, that travel just under the surface and are energetic enough to affect distant fault zones.
Burgmann explained that most large quakes take place at subduction zones, where the ocean bottom sinks below another tectonic plate. This was the origin of the Sumatra-Andaman quake, which produced a record tsunami that took more than 200,000 lives. The 2012 East Indian Ocean quake involved lateral movement referred to as strike-slip, the same type of movement that occurs along California's San Andreas Fault and was the largest strike-slip quake ever recorded.
"This was one of the weirdest earthquakes we have ever seen," Burgmann said. "It was like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a strike-slip event, but it was huge 15 times more energetic. This earthquake and an 8.3 that followed were in a very diffuse zone in an oceanic plate close to the Sumatra subduction zone, but it wasn't a single fault that produced the quake, it was a crisscrossing of three or four faults that all ruptured in sequence to make such a big earthquake, and they ruptured deep."
The seismologists analysis found five times the expected number of quakes during the six days following the April 11 quake and aftershock. An unusually low occurrence of quakes during the 6-12 days before that 8.6 quake may have accentuated the impact, possibly because there were many very-close-to-failure faults sensitive to a triggering shock wave, Pollitz said.
One possible mechanism for the delayed action, Burgmann said, is that the East Indian Ocean quake triggered a cascade of smaller, undetectable quakes on these faults that led to larger ruptures later on.
Alternatively, large quakes could trigger nearly undetectable tremors or microquakes that are a sign of slow slip underground.
"One possibility is that the earthquake immediately triggers slow slip in some places, maybe accompanied by detectable tremor, and then that runs away into a bigger earthquake," Burgmann speculated. "Some slow slip events take days to a week or more to evolve."
###
The work was supported by the USGS.
[ | 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.
Large 2012 earthquake triggered temblors worldwide for nearly a weekPublic release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
8.6 magnitude quake primed some distant faults to rupture days later
This year's largest earthquake, a magnitude 8.6 temblor on April 11 centered in the East Indian Ocean off Sumatra, did little damage, but it triggered quakes around the world for at least a week, according to a new analysis by seismologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The April 11 quake was unusually large the tenth largest in the last 100 years and, similar to a few other recent large quakes, triggered small quakes during the three hours it took for seismic waves to travel through Earth's crust.
The new study shows, however, that some faults weren't rattled enough by the seismic waves to fail immediately, but were primed to break up to six days later.
The findings are a warning to those living in seismically active regions worldwide that the risk from a large earthquake could persist -- even on the opposite side of the globe -- for more than a few hours, the experts said.
"Until now, we seismologists have always said, 'Don't worry about distant earthquakes triggering local quakes,'" said Roland Burgmann, professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley and coauthor of the study. "This study now says that, while it is very rare it may only happen every few decades it is a real possibility if the right kind of earthquake happens."
"We found a lot of big events around the world, including a 7.0 quake in Baja California and quakes in Indonesia and Japan, that created significant local shaking," Burgmann added. "If those quakes had been in an urban area, it could potentially have been disastrous."
Burgmann and Fred F. Pollitz, Ross S. Stein and Volkan Sevilgen of the USGS will report their results online on Sept. 26 in advance of publication in the journal Nature.
Burgmann, Pollitz, a research seismologist, and their colleagues also analyzed earthquake occurrences after five other recent temblors larger than 8.5 including the deadly 9.2 Sumatra-Andaman quake in 2004 and the 9.0 Tohoku quake that killed thousands in Japan in 2011 but saw only a very modest increase in global earthquake activity after these quakes. They said this could be because the East Indian Ocean quake was a "strike-slip" quake that more effectively generates waves, called Love waves, that travel just under the surface and are energetic enough to affect distant fault zones.
Burgmann explained that most large quakes take place at subduction zones, where the ocean bottom sinks below another tectonic plate. This was the origin of the Sumatra-Andaman quake, which produced a record tsunami that took more than 200,000 lives. The 2012 East Indian Ocean quake involved lateral movement referred to as strike-slip, the same type of movement that occurs along California's San Andreas Fault and was the largest strike-slip quake ever recorded.
"This was one of the weirdest earthquakes we have ever seen," Burgmann said. "It was like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a strike-slip event, but it was huge 15 times more energetic. This earthquake and an 8.3 that followed were in a very diffuse zone in an oceanic plate close to the Sumatra subduction zone, but it wasn't a single fault that produced the quake, it was a crisscrossing of three or four faults that all ruptured in sequence to make such a big earthquake, and they ruptured deep."
The seismologists analysis found five times the expected number of quakes during the six days following the April 11 quake and aftershock. An unusually low occurrence of quakes during the 6-12 days before that 8.6 quake may have accentuated the impact, possibly because there were many very-close-to-failure faults sensitive to a triggering shock wave, Pollitz said.
One possible mechanism for the delayed action, Burgmann said, is that the East Indian Ocean quake triggered a cascade of smaller, undetectable quakes on these faults that led to larger ruptures later on.
Alternatively, large quakes could trigger nearly undetectable tremors or microquakes that are a sign of slow slip underground.
"One possibility is that the earthquake immediately triggers slow slip in some places, maybe accompanied by detectable tremor, and then that runs away into a bigger earthquake," Burgmann speculated. "Some slow slip events take days to a week or more to evolve."
###
The work was supported by the USGS.
[ | 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.
The number of tourists continues to rise in the summer each in Ukraine. Usually the first visit Ukraine and enjoy amazing architecture, stunning scenery and rich history! The next step visiting Odessa, located on the Black Sea Coast where you can not only rest, but to do business too! And the main task of the first visitors were finding a place to stay. For the first stay in Ukraine, visitors prefer to rent an apartment or house.
Hire an apartment in Odessa become more and more popular among foreign tourists who visit. Only about 10% of the tourists prefer hotels, the rest chose to rent a comfortable apartment in the center suggest. For employers who are observant, this is a very promising opportunity in the property.
Getting real estate in Ukraine is a wise decision for several reasons, First, convenient for visiting the city and each time did not think where you will be staying. Secondly, buying property in Ukraine is a good investment option.
If you want to get information on apartments for sale in Odessa, Ukraine, you can visit http://realty-odessa.com, to get more information.
?I love Keadworks. ?Besides helping out greatly with our marketing strategy, they provide outstanding customer service. ?My company needed some well designed brochures for an EXPO and with a very short turnaround time. ?They sat with me, planned out a very effective brochure design, designed it and had it printed in due time. ?Best of all, they surprised me and hand delivered it to my doorstep.?
Irene Dele, Chief Creative Director of FRUIT ART USA
This has got to be the icing on the Japanese cake. The otherwise bland website of the Japanese Ministry of Finance, more specifically the FAQ page on government bonds, has been catapulted to stardom on Facebook and Twitter. Not in a good way. As you flip through the MoF?s website, page after page, you will mostly see zero Facebook likes and zero tweets. Social media and the MoF ignore each other.
But go to the FAQ page, skip down past the categories of Budget, Taxation, and Tariffs to item 4, Government bonds. Under the second group, skip past Tax questions for individuals, Miscellaneous (Is it a crime if I make a copy?), Price and yield questions, and Coupons to the infamous question 5: ?In case Japan becomes insolvent, what will happen to government bonds??
Tweeted 1,645 times, liked on Facebook 3,733 times!
The MoF website isn?t some blog to be ignored (at your own risk) but the official voice of the most important ministry of the most indebted country in the world, whose debt will reach 240% of GDP by the end of this fiscal year. The country borrows over 50% of every yen it spends, and it spends more every year. With no solution in sight. Other than more borrowing. Certainly not cutting the budget, which would be too painful. It wouldn?t be enough anyway. Even cutting the budget in half would leave a deficit. And the recently passed consumption tax increase? It will raise the tax from its current 5% to 8% in 2014 and to 10% in 2015, way too little to deal with the gigantic problem, and years too late. Yet it won?t kick in unless GDP grows at least 2% per year?which has practically no chance of happening.
No, there is no longer a good solution. And everyone knows it.
About 95% of Japan?s debt is held within Japan by government-owned institutions, the Bank of Japan, banks, companies, pension funds, and directly or indirectly by individuals. Hence the question??In case Japan becomes insolvent, what will happen to government bonds???is of primordial importance to just about all Japanese adults.
The question and its answer weren?t decided by some underling. Each word was carefully weighed by experts in the highly hierarchical bureaucracy of the MoF. As these words were polished and examined for every nuance, they were passed up the ladder until they landed on the desk of an official at the very top who approved not only the wording, but also whether or not that question should even be on the website. And the official answer is:
??Rest assured that the Japanese government will redeem the bonds responsibly.??
Here is a screen shot of the question and answer:
?Rest assured!? How bondholders can possibly rest assured under these circumstances remains a mystery, in particular since the MoF then proceeds to tell them exactly how they will get kicked in the groin: bonds will be redeemed ?responsibly.?
Not when they mature, but responsibly.
Thus, we have the MoF?s official action plan for the moment when the big S hits the fan, the moment when Japan with its declining wages and shrinking working-age population can no longer save enough to mop up all the government bonds necessary to keep the government afloat [read.... Japan?s Slow-Motion Tsunami].
A selective default. Bonds will retain their ?value,? but the government won?t redeem them when they mature. It will redeem them in bits and pieces, stretched into all eternity, as it sees fit.?You?ll die before you?ll see your money.
This is THE answer, the official answer we?ve been looking for all along, and now we find it on the MoF website where it would have remained hidden in plain sight had not some enraged Japanese spread the word via Twitter and Facebook.
And they filled the ether with caustic FB comments:
?LOL!?
?Isn?t it called ?insolvent? because you can?t pay??
?This is absolutely nothing but mocking the general public. How dare they say such gibberish!??
?Should be a joke.?
?Isn?t it supposed to go, ?Rest assured that the Japanese people will redeem the bonds responsibly???
?Yeah, the only thing they could rely on is the people?s savings....?
When the legendary savings of the Japanese are drying up, as they?re in the process of doing, the word responsibly will take on a new meaning within the context of one of the greatest recent acts of governmental irresponsibility: creating that debt monster in the first place.
John Mauldin of Mauldin Economics sees similar issues in the EU and the US. The EU, he says, is only left with choices that are now between very bad and disastrous. In the US, he says, Republicans and Democrats will have to hold hands and walk off the cliff together. And he throws in an intriguing tax plan. Read the excellent interview.... John Mauldin's Prescription for Avoiding Economic Catastrophe.
And here is my first foray into Japan?a ?funny as hell nonfiction book about wanderlust and traveling abroad,? a reader tweeted. Read the first few chapters for free.... BIG LIKE: CASCADE INTO AN ODYSSEY, at Amazon.
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Public release date: 26-Sep-2012
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?I love Keadworks. ?Besides helping out greatly with our marketing strategy, they provide outstanding customer service. ?My company needed some well designed brochures for an EXPO and with a very short turnaround time. ?They sat with me, planned out a very effective brochure design, designed it and had it printed in due time. ?Best of all, they surprised me and hand delivered it to my doorstep.?