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Giveaway: A Disney Universe Video Game (a $40 Value!)
Enter for your chance to win a Disney Universe video game in our giveaway this week.
Nigeria: Breakaway Biafra leader Ojukwu dies at 78 (AP)
LAGOS, Nigeria ? Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a millionaire's son who led Nigeria's breakaway republic of Biafra during the country's civil war that left 1 million dead, died in a London hospital Saturday after a protracted illness following a stroke. He was 78.
The Biafran war brought the first televised images of skeletal, starving African children to the Western world, a sight repeated in the continent's many conflicts since. Leaders said the war's end would leave "No Victor, No Vanquished" ? a claim that has yet to be fulfilled as ethnic and religious tensions still threaten the unity of the oil-rich nation more than 40 years later.
Maja Umeh, a spokesman for Nigeria's Anambra state, confirmed Ojukwu's death Saturday. Anambra state, in the heart of what used to be the breakaway republic, had provided financial support for Ojukwu during his hospital stay.
Ojukwu's rise coincided with the fall of Nigeria's First Republic, formed after Nigeria, a nation split between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south, gained its independence from Britain in 1960.
A 1966 coup led primarily by army officers from the Igbo ethnic group from Nigeria's southeast shot and killed Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a northerner, as well as the premier of northern Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello.
The coup failed, but the country still fell under military control. Northerners, angry about the death of its leaders, attacked Igbos living there. As many as 10,000 people died in resulting riots. Many Igbos fled back to Nigeria's southeast, their traditional home.
Ojukwu, then 33, served as the military governor for the southeast. The son of a knighted millionaire, Ojukwu studied history at Oxford and attended a military officer school in Britain. In 1967, he declared the region ? including part of the oil-rich Niger Delta ? as the Republic of Biafra. The new republic used the name of the Atlantic Ocean bay to its south, its flag a rising sun set against a black, green and red background.
But instead of sparking pan-African pride, the announcement sparked 31 months of fierce fighting between the breakaway republic and Nigeria. Under Gen. Yakubu "Jack" Gowon, Nigeria adopted the slogan "to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done" and moved to reclaim a region vital to the country's coffers.
Despite several pushes by Biafran troops, Nigerian forces slowly strangled Biafra into submission. Caught in the middle were Igbo refugees increasingly pushed back as the front lines fell. The region, long reliant on other regions of Nigeria for food.
The enduring images, seen on television and in photographs, show starving Biafran children with distended stomachs and stick-like arms.
Despite the efforts of humanitarian groups, many died as hunger became a weapon wielded by both sides.
"Was starvation a legitimate weapon of war?" wrote English journalist John de St. Jorre. "The hard-liners in Nigeria and Biafra thought that it was, the former regarding it as a valid means of reducing the enemy's capacity to resist, as method as old as war itself, and the latter seeing it as a way of internationalizing the conflict."
The images fed into Ojukwu's warnings that to see Biafra fall would see the end of the Igbo people.
"The crime of genocide has not only been threatened but fulfilled. The only reason any of us are alive today is because we have our rifles," Ojukwu told journalists in 1968. "Otherwise the massacre would be complete. It would be suicidal for us to lay down our arms at this stage."
That final massacre never came. Ojukwu and trusted aides escaped Biafra by airplane on Jan. 11, 1970. Biafra collapsed shortly after. Gowon himself broke the cycle of revenge in a speech in which said there was "no victor, no vanquished." He also pardoned those who had participated in the rebellion.
Ojukwu spent 13 years in exile, coming home after he was unconditionally pardoned in 1982. He returned to politics, but lost a race for a senate seat. He was sent to a maximum-security prison for a year when Nigeria suffered yet another of the military coups that punctuated life after independence.
He later wrote his memoirs and lived the quiet life of an elder statesman until he unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Olusegun Obasanjo for the presidency in 2003. Obasanjo served as a colonel in the Biafran war and gave the final statement on rebel-controlled radio announcing the conflict's end.
Despite the long and costly civil war, Nigeria remains torn by internal conflict. Tens of thousands have died in riots pitting Christians against Muslims in the country. Militant groups attack foreign oil firms in the oil-rich Niger Delta while criminal gangs kidnap the middle class. Poverty continues to grind the country.
The Igbos, meanwhile, continue to suffer political isolation in the country. While an Igbo man recently became the country's top military officers, others say they've been locked out of higher office over lingering mistrust from the war.
Some in the former breakaway region still hold out hope for their own voice, even their own country despite the cataclysmic losses.
As did Ojukwu himself.
"Biafra," Ojukwu told journalists in 2006, "is always an alternative."
___
Associated Press writer Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
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রবিবার, ২৭ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
NASA launches super-size rover to Mars: 'Go, Go!'
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Backdropped by the Atlantic Ocean, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls toward the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Friday Nov. 25, 2011. Atop the rocket is NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover nicknamed Curiosity enclosed in its payload fairing. Liftoff is planned during a launch window which extends from 10:02 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EST on Saturday Nov. 26. Curiosity, has 10 science instruments designed to search for signs of life, including methane, and will help determine if the gas is from a biological or geological source. (AP Photo/NASA
In this 2011 artist's rendering provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of its arm, which extends about 2 meters (7 feet). The mobile robot is designed to investigate Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? The world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, NASA's Curiosity rover, rocketed toward Mars on Saturday on a search for evidence that the red planet might once have been home to itsy-bitsy life.
It will take 8? months for Curiosity to reach Mars following a journey of 354 million miles.
An unmanned Atlas V rocket hoisted the rover, officially known as Mars Science Laboratory, into a cloudy late morning sky. A Mars frenzy gripped the launch site, with more than 13,000 guests jamming the space center for NASA's first launch to Earth's next-door neighbor in four years, and the first send-off of a Martian rover in eight years.
NASA astrobiologist Pan Conrad, whose carbon compound-seeking instrument is on the rover, had a shirt custom made for the occasion. Her bright blue, short-sleeve blouse was emblazoned with rockets, planets and the words, "Next stop Mars!"
Conrad jumped, cheered and snapped pictures as the rocket blasted off a few miles away. So did Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist in charge of Curiosity's rock-zapping laser machine, called ChemCam.
Wiens shouted "Go, Go, Go!" as the rocket soared. "It was beautiful," he later observed, just as NASA declared the launch a full success.
The 1-ton Curiosity ? as large as a car ? is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot. There's a drill as well as the laser-zapping device.
It's "really a rover on steroids," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's an order of magnitude more capable than anything we have ever launched to any planet in the solar system."
The primary goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether cold, dry, barren Mars might have been hospitable for microbial life once upon a time ? or might even still be conducive to life now. No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.
Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras. No previous Martian rover has been so sophisticated or capable.
With Mars the ultimate goal for astronauts, NASA also will use Curiosity to measure radiation at the red planet. The rover also has a weather station on board that will provide temperature, wind and humidity readings; a computer software app with daily weather updates is planned.
The world has launched more than three dozen missions to the ever-alluring Mars, which is more like Earth than the other solar-system planets. Yet fewer than half those quests have succeeded.
Just two weeks ago, a Russian spacecraft ended up stuck in orbit around Earth, rather than en route to the Martian moon Phobos.
"Mars really is the Bermuda Triangle of the solar system," Hartman said. "It's the death planet, and the United States of America is the only nation in the world that has ever landed and driven robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, and now we're set to do it again."
Curiosity's arrival next August will be particularly hair-raising.
In a spacecraft first, the rover will be lowered onto the Martian surface via a jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.
Curiosity is too heavy to use air bags like its much smaller predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, did in 2004. Besides, this new way should provide for a more accurate landing.
Astronauts will need to make similarly precise landings on Mars one day.
Curiosity will spend a minimum of two years roaming around Gale Crater, chosen as the landing site because it's rich in minerals. Scientists said if there is any place on Mars that might have been ripe for life, it would be there.
"I like to say it's extraterrestrial real estate appraisal," Conrad said with a chuckle earlier in the week.
The rover ? 10 feet long and 9 feet wide ? should be able to go farther and work harder than any previous Mars explorer because of its power source: 10.6 pounds of radioactive plutonium. The nuclear generator was encased in several protective layers in case of a launch accident.
NASA expects to put at least 12 miles on the odometer, once the rover sets down on the Martian surface.
This is the third astronomical mission to be launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA since the retirement of the venerable space shuttle fleet this summer. The Juno probe is en route to Jupiter, and twin spacecraft named Grail will arrive at Earth's moon on New Year's Eve and Day.
NASA hails this as the year of the solar system.
___
Online:
NASA: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
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UConn beats James Madison 3-0 in NCAA soccer tournament
STORRS (AP) ? Carlos Alvarez and Tony Cascio each scored a goal and added an assist as Connecticut moved into the quarterfinals of the NCAA soccer tournament Sunday with a 3-0 win over James Madison.
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Alvarez scored the game winner for UConn (19-3-2) in the first half, finding the upper left corner of the net on a pass from Cascio for his sixth goal of the season.
The shutout was the 16th for the Huskies this season, a new school record.
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Johanna Demetrakas: Crazy Wisdom: A Portrait of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
From the first seminar, called "The Battle of Ego" in Los Angeles, to filming his cremation on a cloudless but rainbow-filled day in Vermont, Chogyam Trungpa blew my mind. Being in his presence was like being suddenly aware of an oncoming truck -- it put every cell in your brain SMACK! -- into the present moment. And in that moment you could be outraged, moved to tears, or inspired ... usually all at once. It was 1971 and I had never met a Tibetan Buddhist high lama before (who had?).
He wore suits, spoke precise English and openly enjoyed women (in spite of being married). At the time, I was married with little kidlets and although I didn't practice it, open marriage wasn't such a shockingly big deal back in the 70s. To quote Pema Chodron, "Sexuality didn't bother people in those days, drinking didn't bother people, but put on a suit and tie? Forget about it." With Trungpa, nothing was hidden; it was up to each person to make their own judgments about the behavior of the teacher. So it took years of practice and study to understand that in Tibetan Buddhism, his outrageous "crazy wisdom teaching style" was just another tradition. Take it or leave it.
There was an urgency about him that was difficult to resist but exhausting to experience. In the film, I begin with phrases from a liturgy he wrote where he warned of the destructive power of the "... thick, black fog of materialism." This is set against a montage of images of contemporary wars, disease, pollution and economic frenzy. Trungpa's words from back in 1968 predicted the state of the world we're living in today. Yet he had complete confidence that humanity was basically good and could reverse the materialistic trend. He dedicated his life toward that goal.
As soon as Trungpa landed in the U.S. in 1970, he began to magnetize some of the country's prominent spiritual teachers and intellectuals -- including R.D. Laing, John Cage, Ram Dass, Anne Waldman, Gregory Bateson and Pema Chodron. Poet Allen Ginsberg considered Trungpa his guru; Catholic priest Thomas Merton wanted to write a book with him; music icon Joni Mitchell wrote a song about him called, "Refuge for the Road." Humor was always a vital part of his teaching -- "Enlightenment is better than Disneyland," he quipped, and he warned us of the dangers of the "Western spiritual supermarket."
In the five years plus of active filmmaking it's taken to make this film, the greatest challenge has been to not be seduced by putting Trungpa into the simplistic categories of sinner or saint. What inspired me was the daunting possibility of creating an experience for the audience to catch a glimpse of the unconditional brilliance of an enlightened mind, Tibetan Buddhist style.
Crazy Wisdom Trailer from Kate Trumbull on Vimeo.
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শনিবার, ২৬ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
Black Friday 2011: The Nuts And Bolts Of America's Biggest Shopping Day
NEW YORK -- Ready. Set. Shop.
The day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday, kicks off the holiday shopping season. Each year, retailers open their doors early and offer shoppers deals of up to 70 percent off on everything from electronics to clothes. And shoppers typically turn out in droves.
Before you head out to the stores this year, there a few things you should know about Black Friday:
Q: How did the day get its name?
A: Accounts differ on the origin of the term. One theory is that it had roots in the 1960s in Philadelphia where it was used to describe the heavy pedestrian and car traffic on the day after Thanksgiving. The most common theory, though, is that the day got its name because it's usually when retailers turn a profit for the year, or operate in the "black."
Q. Is Black Friday the biggest shopping day of the year?
A. ShopperTrak, which monitors customer traffic and sales at 25,000 stores nationwide, says that Black Friday has been the top sales day every year but one since it started monitoring holiday data in 2002; the only exception was in 2004, when the busiest day was the Saturday before Christmas.
Q. What's new?
A. Black Friday mania is seeping into Thanksgiving Day. Nearly 1,000 Gap stores will be open on Thanksgiving. Toys R Us will open at 9 p.m. And several other stores will open at midnight that evening, including Target, Best Buy, Kohl's and Macy's. Wal-Mart, whose supercenters already operate around the clock, also is opening most of its other stores by 10 p.m. Thanksgiving evening.
Q. Will you get the best deals of the season on Black Friday?
A. Not necessarily. Stores have discounts that are just as good throughout the holiday season. And there are even better deals to be had after Christmas Day. But the problem is if you wait too long, you might not get exactly what you want since stores have kept their inventories lean this year.
Q: Do I have to stand in a long line to get good deals?
A: No, many Black Friday deals are available online as well.
Q. What are some of the best deals stores will be offering on Black Friday?
A: Wal-Mart will offer deals on toys, home accessories and clothing starting at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. It also will sell Barbie, Disney Princess and Bratz dolls for $5 each on Black Friday. Macy's is offering $65 Justin Bieber limited-edition holiday fragrance gift sets, which include the singer's new holiday CD and an exclusive downloadable track. Toys R Us will be discounting many toys up to 50 percent, including Lego construction sets.
Q. What's the best strategy to get those deals?
A. Plan, plan, plan. Most stores already have their hours and Black Friday deals posted on their website, so you can figure out where you want to go and what you want to buy. Wal-Mart's website even has maps of each of its stores and highlights where the advertised specials will be located. And you can even plan where to park: Mall of America, the largest mall in North America, will be tweeting updates on where to find parking spaces. It will also be opening at midnight following Thanksgiving.
If you can't make it to every retailer, you can ask family and friends to go to stores for you. Additionally, follow your favorite stores on Twitter and Facebook to get any alerts on shortages or special offers while you're shopping. And, lastly, wear comfortable shoes.
The best Black Friday deal this year: Specializing in electronics, Best Buy will offer big savings on technology starting at 12am Friday. Here are some highlights: -Sharp 42-inch 1080p LCD TV for $200 down from $499 -Nikon Coolpix S8100 with CMOS Digital camera $150 down from $300 Specializing in electronics, Best Buy will offer big savings on technology starting at 12am Friday. Here are some highlights:-Sharp 42-inch 1080p LCD TV for $200 down from $499
-Nikon Coolpix S8100 with CMOS Digital camera $150 down from $300
MORE SLIDESHOWS
Best Buy
Specializing in electronics, Best Buy will offer big savings on technology starting at 12am Friday. Here are some highlights: -Sharp 42-inch 1080p LCD TV for $200 down from $499 -Nikon Coolpix S8100 with CMOS Digital camera $150 down from $300 '; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/black-friday-2011-nuts-bolts_n_1112456.html
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Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Thursday, November 24, 2011When seeking a physician, you should look for one with experience. Right? Maybe not. Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment.
"We found that all the physicians in the study included irrelevant criteria in their decisions," said Read Montague, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. "Notably, however, the most experienced doctors were the poorest learners."
The research is published in the Nov. 23 issue of PLoS One, the Public Library of Science open-access journal, in the article, "Neural correlates of effective learning in experienced medical decision-makers," by Jonathan Downar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital; Meghana Bhatt, Ph.D., assistant research professor at Beckman Research Institute, the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, Calif.; and Montague, who is also a professor of physics in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brain activity of 35 experienced physicians in a range of non-surgical specialties as they made decisions.
The doctors were instructed to select between two treatments for a series of simulated patients in an emergency room setting. "First they had a chance to learn by experience which of two medications worked better in a series of 64 simulated heart-attack patients, based on a simplified history with just six factors," said Bhatt.
Unknown to the test subjects, of the six factors, only one was actually relevant to the decision: diabetes status. One medication had a 75 percent success rate in patients with diabetes, but only a 25 percent success rate in patients without diabetes. The other had the opposite profile. The physicians had 10 seconds to select a treatment. Then they were briefly presented with an outcome of "SUCCESS: (heart attack) aborted" or "FAILURE: No response."
"After the training, we tested the physicians to see how often they were able to pick the better drug in a second series of 64 simulated patients," said Bhatt. "When we looked at their performance, the doctors separated into two distinct groups. One group learned very effectively from experience, and chose the better drug more than 75 percent of the time. The other group was terrible; they chose the better drug only at coin-flipping levels of accuracy, or half the time, and they also came up with inaccurate systems for deciding how to prescribe the medications, based on factors that didn't matter at all."
In fact, all the doctors reported including at least one of the five irrelevant factors, such as age or previous heart attack, in their decision process.
"The brain imaging showed us a clear difference in the mental processes of the two groups," said Montague. "The high performers activated their frontal lobes when things didn't go as expected and the treatments failed." Such activity showed that the doctors learned from their failures, he said. These physicians gradually improved their performance.
In contrast, the low performers activated their frontal lobes when things did go as expected, said Bhatt. "In other words, they succumbed to 'confirmation bias,' ignoring failures and learning only from the successful cases. Each success confirmed what the low performers falsely thought they already knew about which treatment was better." The researchers termed this counterproductive learning pattern "success-chasing."
"The problem with remembering successes and ignoring failures is that it doesn't leave us any way to abandon our faulty ideas. Instead, the ideas gain strength from each chance success, until they evolve into something like a superstition," said Downar.
The fMRI showed that a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens "showed significant anticipatory activation well before the outcome of the trial was revealed, and this anticipatory activation was significantly greater prior to successful outcomes," Montague said. "Based on the outcome of the training phase, we were actually able to predict results in the testing phase for each low-performing subject's final set of spurious treatment rules."
The authors state in the article that the formation of spurious beliefs is universal, such as an athlete's belief in a lucky hat. "But the good news is that physicians can probably be trained to think more like the high performers," said Downar. "I tell my students to remember three things: First, when you're trying to work out a diagnosis, remember to also ask the questions that would prove your hunches wrong. Second, when you think you have the answer, think again and go through the possible alternatives. Third, if the treatment isn't going as expected, don't just brush it off ? ask yourself what you could have missed."
"These findings underscore the dangers of disregarding past failures when making high-stakes decisions," said Montague. "'Success-chasing' not only can lead doctors to make flawed decisions in diagnosing and treating patients, but it can also distort the thinking of other high-stakes decision-makers, such as military and political strategists, stock market investors, and venture capitalists."
###
Virginia Tech: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu
Thanks to Virginia Tech for this article.
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Video: Amateur hour from the GOP
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Cadillac seeks to regain lost luxury turf
Rebecca Cook / Reuters
Cadillac is betting that it can regain its once-lofty standing with the launch of a series of new products that includes the big XTS sedan that made its debut earlier this month at the annual Los Angeles auto show.
By Paul A. Eisenstein
Once known as the ?standard of the world,? Cadillac has been anything but a benchmark for carmakers in recent years as imported brands such as Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have dominated the U.S. luxury market.
But now Cadillac is fighting back, betting that it can regain its once-lofty standing with the launch of a series of new products that includes the big XTS sedan that made its debut earlier this month at the annual Los Angeles auto show.
Cadillac will follow up next year with the addition of the compact ATS, and it has more new models on the drawing board.
A few years ago it might have seemed ?a stretch? for Cadillac to even imagine a comeback in the U.S., admits Don Butler, general marketing manager for the?General Motors division.
In the ?new (luxury) world old formulas don?t apply, so we had to start over? with the XTS, a premium luxury sedan that replaces two slow-selling Cadillac models, the STS and DTS, Butler said.
Caddy isn?t the only upscale domestic car brand that?s hoping to convince car show visitors in Los Angeles -- the nation's largest luxury car market -- that it can become relevant again.
Slide show: Images from the 2011 Los Angeles auto show
At this year?s show, Ford?s Lincoln division showed off updates to two of its own products, the big MKS sedan and MKT crossover. The two 2013 models get revised fascias and grilles, new wheels and modest improvements in performance and fuel economy. They?re also getting the updated version of the MyLincolnTouch systems designed to address recent criticism of the brand?s infotainment technology.
?This is truly marking the beginning? of Lincoln?s design renaissance, said Max Wolff, the brand?s chief designer, although he also hinted that the big news for Lincoln won?t be revealed until January when Detroit plays host to the North American International Auto Show -- generally thought to be the most important show in the auto show calendar.
There, the automaker plans to unveil a concept version of its next-generation Lincoln MKZ, the most popular sedan in its portfolio. The concept vehicle will introduce an all-new ?face? for the luxury brand that will abandon Lincoln?s time-tested ?waterfall grille? and move to a series of horizontal slats that are almost wing-like in appearance. The show car version will also feature an all-glass roof that will be able to open like a hard-top convertible.
The revised grille will reappear on a production version of the MKZ debuting at the New York auto show next April, although it?s not clear if the glass roof idea will be carried into production.
But the dramatic changes coming to Lincoln underscore the concerns Ford has for the Lincoln division, which has become little more than an also-ran in a market where it once vied with Cadillac for dominance.
Cadillac hasn?t stumbled quite so badly, but it has been struggling in recent years after what appeared to be a significant turnaround early in the new millennium. The maker scored big with the first generation of the compact CTS sedan, which introduced Caddy?s distinctively edgy ?art and science? design theme.
In a segment of the car market where manufacturers have traditionally opted for softer designs, the ?art and science? design ?language? was a bold standout. But after hitting a market home run with the CTS, Cadillac failed to score with the next run of offerings, like the STS, the DTS and the XLR sports coupe.
The products simply fell short of the competition in terms of interior refinement, ride and features, analysts contend.
Cadillac won?t make those mistakes again, insists Mark Reuss, president of GM?s North American operations. The goal, he insists, ?is to win in the intensely competitive luxury market, not just compete.?
Besides offering a striking exterior shape and a much more refined interior, the new XTS will introduce Cadillac?s new CUE -- an infotainment system that can be programmed using normal speech rather than requiring users to learn a complex and often confusing series of rigid commands.
These high-tech features have become a critical differentiator in the luxury market, notes Derek Kuzak, Ford?s global product development czar.
Lincoln thought it had a leg up on the competition with the MyLincolnTouch infotainment system, but, underscoring the risks of relying on high technology, the Ford luxury brand was slammed for problems with the touch-sensitive system. Indeed, influential Consumer Reports magazine lifted its sought-after ?Recommended Buy? rating from several Lincoln products this year.
The carmaker hopes to win back that endorsement with the updated MyLincolnTouch, and then show that its styling and performance are also relevant with the product offensive it is kicking off in Los Angeles this month.
But both Lincoln and Cadillac won?t have an easy time of it. Even established luxury brands such as Lexus, BMW and Mercedes are ramping up their own efforts. Lexus, in particular, is expected to be especially aggressive in the months ahead, hoping to recover the momentum it lost due to product shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March.
And second-tier players such as Audi, and also Nissan?s Infiniti brand, are hoping to gain ground with their own expanding line-ups.
Then there?s the Koreans, and Hyundai in particular.
It scored an unexpected coup a few years back when its first luxury offering, the Genesis sedan, was named North American Car of the Year. The even bigger and more lavish Equus has so far this year handily beaten the company?s sales expectations, and Hyundai?s own new offering at the Los Angeles show, the big Azera, will target entry-luxury buyers who might have gone for more traditional offerings like the Lexus ES350.
Based on initial reviews, Cadillac and Lincoln are gaining visibility and credibility. But whether they can win back luxury car buyers is another matter entirely.
What is your favorite luxury nameplate?
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শুক্রবার, ২৫ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
This 26 Pound Gummy Bear Deserves More Than Just Its Own Music Video [Video]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/WREp6rwwKCU/
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Yandex To Become Default Search Engine On Windows Phone In Russia
Yandex, the Russian online search and advertising giant, has teamed up with Microsoft, Nokia, HTC and Samsung to become the default search engine on the latest - and upcoming - Windows Phone smartphones in Russia. Yandex?s search engine is currently installed on Samsung's ?mnia W, which is already on sale in Russia, as well as on Nokia?s Windows Phone-powered Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 smartphones, which will hit stores in December.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/qkp8S_LXBcc/
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৪ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
Life Insurance Term Verses Whole ? Is Term Life Insurance Better ...
Posted by TabaresDingle955 | November - 22 - 2011 | Comments Off
There has been an on-going battle in the life insurance industry involving term life insurance and whole life insurance. The industry has survived the battle but the consumer is still asking the same question. Which one is better? The question is flawed because these two policies serve two different purposes. The real battle comes over the concept of buying term and investing the difference or the purchase of permanent life insurance. The proponents of buy term and invest the difference surmise that the policyholder would do better investing the difference in premium costs that you save by purchasing a term policy rather than a whole policy. Permanent life insurance was never created to be an investment. It was created to take care of permanent life insurance needs. The cash value accumulation within permanent life insurance is an added benefit and not an investment feature. The best life insurance portfolio is a combination of both permanent and term life insurance.
Permanent Life Insurance ? Permanent life insurance should be purchased for permanent needs. Final expenses and life insurance for retirement are two basic permanent life insurance needs. Life insurance at retirement is critical because it gives you more options to use your retirement benefits for income rather than life insurance.
Term Life Insurance ? Term life insurance is for temporary needs. Term life insurance will compliment your permanent base of life insurance. Decreasing term and level term riders can be added to your permanent policy to take care of temporary needs like mortgage protection and short term debt.
It is important to understand why you are purchasing life insurance. You will be much more content when you establish in your own mind the reasoning behind the purchase. Do a little mini-need analysis. Think about what is important to you and who is important to you. Life insurance is a gift of love.
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San Jose city clerk says pot referendum qualifies then says 'not so fast' (San Jose Mercury News)
Deere earnings rise 46 percent, beat estimates (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Deere & Co (DE.N), reported a 46 percent increase in fiscal fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday due to continued strong demand for farm equipment, and the company said it "expects substantial growth" in 2012.
The Moline, Illinois, company posted net income of $669 million, or $1.62 per share, for the fourth quarter that ended October 31, compared with $457 million, or $1.07 per share, a year earlier.
Wall Street analysts had expected Deere to earn $1.47 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Deere, the world's largest maker of farm equipment, said revenue rose 20 percent during the quarter to $8.61 billion.
For the year, Deere posted $2.8 billion in net income, slightly higher than the company's recent full-year forecast for net income of $2.7 billion.
The company said it expects equipment sales to rise about 15 percent in 2012, and to be up 16 to 18 percent in the first quarter. Net income is anticipated to be about $3.2 billion.
Deere's shares were up 4 percent in premarket trading.
(Reporting by John D. Stoll in Detroit, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/bs_nm/us_deere
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বুধবার, ২৩ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
'The Muppets' stage a comeback (AP)
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. ? Jason Segel is balancing a bowling pin atop his noggin.
The jolly actor-screenwriter is perched on the stage of a makeshift Muppet Theater that's been erected inside a mammoth Universal Studios soundstage. He's nervously grimacing while the furry blue daredevil Gonzo the Great winds his arm up in preparation to launch a bowling ball toward Segel for a stunt the pair are filming for "The Muppets."
Segel, who co-wrote the movie with "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" director Nicholas Stoller, is balancing more than just a bowling pin on his head these days: The Walt Disney Co., which acquired The Muppets franchise from The Jim Henson Co. in 2004, has entrusted him with the first big-screen adventure starring the felt-covered performance troupe in 12 years.
"I think at some point, The Muppets changed a little bit," said Segal during a break from filming earlier this year. "Our goal with this movie is to reintroduce The Muppets to kids in a way that's reminiscent of the movies from the late `70s and early `80s. The great thing about those movies and what Pixar does now is they don't pander or condescend to children."
Segel, a hardcore Muppet fan best known for his R-rated roles in such movies as "Knocked Up" and "I Love You, Man," petitioned Disney brass to resurrect The Muppets with Stoller in a way that would appeal to both nostalgic adults who grew up watching "The Muppet Show" and children more familiar with computer-generated 3-D animation than big-eyed puppets.
In the film, out Wednesday, Segel and Amy Adams play a small-town couple named Gary and Mary who ? along with Gary's puppet brother Walter (portrayed by Peter Linz) ? work to reunite The Muppets. It seems the felt ones have found themselves irrelevant in an entertainment landscape dominated by such over-the-top fictional game shows as "Punch Teacher."
The musical's storyline mirrors The Muppets' own reality. They haven't starred in a film together since the 2005 made-for-TV movie "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" and have been absent from theaters since 1999's "The Muppets in Space."
"It's funny that the success of the movie might undue the story itself," said director James Bobin. "That's what actually drew me to the story. I was struck by how honest it was and with real artistic license portrayed how people perceive The Muppets at this time. One of the great emotional drives in any story is getting the band back together."
The new movie finds The Muppets off doing their own thing: Fozzie Bear is languishing in a tribute band called The Moopets, Miss Piggy is sashaying around Paris as a fashion editor, Animal is treating his anger management issues at rehab, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem are performing in the New York subway and Scooter is working at Google.
The filmmakers, most of who have never worked with puppets, let alone The Muppets, closely collaborated with the puppeteers who have been portraying these characters for years. One particular meeting with them led Segel and Stoller to axe any self-referential jokes and puns about The Muppets being puppets. "I wonder how that felt," for example, was a goner.
"We're all partners on this movie," said producer Todd Lieberman. "We grew up on The Muppets, but these guys have been living it for 20 years. They know these characters better than any of us possibly could because they've been doing it for 20 years. They know the characters, and they know the style. They know what to do and what not to do for the brand."
Adams, who ran the award show gauntlet earlier this year for her role in "The Fighter," found it more difficult to switch between flashy gowns at night and Mary's conservative ensembles by day during production than working with puppets. She said acting opposite puppets like Walter wasn't any more difficult than working opposite actors like Mark Wahlberg.
"Once you accept that the puppet that you're working with is an actual character, it really is no different from working with another human actor," said Adams. "The puppeteers are geniuses at disappearing. I don't know how they do it, but they do it. I see Peter and Walter as two completely separate beings. Peter is Peter, and Walter is Walter."
The immersive set design helped, too. For the new Muppet Theater that's supposed to look like it's abandon until The Muppets give it a makeover, production designer Steve Saklad and his team incorporated the towering theater set built in 1924 for "Phantom of the Opera," which is still standing inside a soundstage on the Universal Studios backlot.
"We were originally going to shoot the parts of the Muppet Theater scenes that face the audience in a historic downtown Los Angeles theater, but it would've been limiting for the director to split everything up," said Saklad. "I think it worked out for the best because now we've got this huge, luscious theater covered in a thousand coats of paint."
Saklad said the new Muppet Theater set was put in storage after production on "The Muppets," just in case it's required for a sequel, and he's hoping that no one paints over the "Phantom of the Opera" walls. However, the prospect of The Muppets as a rejuvenated franchise featuring Segel is one the actor-screenwriter can't seem to fathom.
"That would certainly be amazing," said Segel sheepishly. "It's not something I'm even thinking about right now. I'm still focused on this movie. My big goal was just to re-establish The Muppets where they belonged. From there, everything else is gravy. I just wanted to see The Muppets again the way I remembered them."
___
Online:
http://disney.go.com/muppets/
___
AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang/.
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American spies outed, CIA suffers in Lebanon (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.
Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted on television in June that he had rooted out at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group closely allied with Iran. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon officially denied the accusation, current and former officials concede that it happened and the damage has spread even further.
In recent months, CIA officials have secretly been scrambling to protect their remaining spies ? foreign assets or agents working for the agency ? before Hezbollah can find them.
To be sure, some deaths are to be expected in shadowy spy wars. It's an extremely risky business and people get killed. But the damage to the agency's spy network in Lebanon has been greater than usual, several former and current U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about security matters.
The Lebanon crisis is the latest mishap involving CIA counterintelligence, the undermining or manipulating of the enemy's ability to gather information. Former CIA officials have said that once-essential skill has been eroded as the agency shifted from outmaneuvering rival spy agencies to fighting terrorists. In the rush for immediate results, former officers say, tradecraft has suffered.
The most recent high-profile example was the suicide bomber who posed as an informant and killed seven CIA employees and wounded six others in Khost, Afghanistan in December 2009.
Last year, then-CIA director Leon Panetta said the agency had to maintain "a greater awareness of counterintelligence." But eight months later, Nasrallah let the world know he had bested the CIA, demonstrating that the agency still struggles with this critical aspect of spying and sending a message to those who would betray Hezbollah.
The CIA was well aware the spies were vulnerable in Lebanon. CIA officials were warned, including the chief of the unit that supervises Hezbollah operations from CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the head of counterintelligence. It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster or whether the incident will affect the CIA's ability to recruit assets in Lebanon.
In response to AP's questions about what happened in Lebanon, a U.S. official said Hezbollah is recognized as a complicated enemy responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before September 2001. The agency does not underestimate the organization, the official said.
The CIA's toughest adversaries, like Hezbollah and Iran, have for years been improving their ability to hunt spies, relying on patience and guile to exploit counterintelligence holes.
In 2007, for instance, when Ali-Reza Asgari, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, disappeared in Turkey, it was assumed that he was either killed or defected. In response, the Iranian government began a painstaking review of foreign travel by its citizens, particularly to places like Turkey where Iranians don't need a visa and could meet with foreign intelligence services.
It didn't take long, a Western intelligence official told the AP, before the U.S., Britain and Israel began losing contact with some of their Iranian spies.
The State Department last year described Hezbollah as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world," and the Defense Department estimates it receives between $100 million and $200 million per year in funding from Iran.
Backed by Iran, Hezbollah has built a professional counterintelligence apparatus that Nasrallah ? whom the U.S. government designated an international terrorist a decade ago ? proudly describes as the "spy combat unit." U.S. intelligence officials believe the unit, which is considered formidable and ruthless, went operational in about 2004.
Using the latest commercial software, Nasrallah's spy-hunters unit began methodically searching for spies in Hezbollah's midst. To find them, U.S. officials said, Hezbollah examined cellphone data looking for anomalies. The analysis identified cellphones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then it came down to old-fashioned, shoe-leather detective work: Who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the enemy?
The effort took years but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government, began making arrests. By one estimate, 100 Israeli assets were apprehended as the news made headlines across the region in 2009. Some of those suspected Israeli spies worked for telecommunications companies and served in the military.
Back at CIA headquarters, the arrests alarmed senior officials. The agency prepared a study on its own vulnerabilities, U.S. officials said, and the results proved to be prescient.
The analysis concluded that the CIA was susceptible to the same analysis that had compromised the Israelis, the officials said.
CIA managers were instructed to be extra careful about handling sources in Lebanon. A U.S. official said recommendations were issued to counter the potential problem.
But it's unclear what preventive measures were taken by the Hezbollah unit chief or the officer in charge of the Beirut station. Former officials say the Hezbollah unit chief is no stranger to the necessity of counterintelligence and knew the risks. The unit chief has worked overseas in hostile environments like Afghanistan and played an important role in the capture of a top terrorist while stationed in the Persian Gulf region after the attacks of 9/11.
"We've lost a lot of people in Beirut over the years, so everyone should know the drill," said a former Middle East case officer familiar with the situation.
But whatever actions the CIA took, they were not enough. Like the Israelis, bad tradecraft doomed these CIA assets and the agency ultimately failed to protect them, an official said. In some instances, CIA officers fell into predictable patterns when meeting their sources, the official said.
This allowed Hezbollah to identify assets and case officers and unravel at least part of the CIA's spy network in Lebanon. There was also a reluctance to share cases and some files were put in "restricted handling." The designation severely limits the number of people who know the identity of the source but also reduces the number of experts who could spot problems that might lead to their discovery, officials said.
Nasrallah's televised announcement in June was followed by finger-pointing among departments inside the CIA as the spy agency tried figure out what went wrong and contain the damage.
The fate of these CIA assets is unknown. Hezbollah treats spies differently, said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies who's writing a book about the terrorist organization
"It all depends on who these guys were and what they have to say," Levitt said. "Hezbollah has disappeared people before. Others they have kept around."
Who's responsible for the mess in Lebanon? It's not clear. The chief of Hezbollah operations at CIA headquarters continues to run the unit that also focuses on Iranians and Palestinians. The CIA's top counterintelligence officer, who was one of the most senior women in the clandestine service, recently retired after approximately five years in the job. She is credited with some important cases, including the recent arrests of Russian spies who had been living in the U.S. for years.
Officials said the woman was succeeded by a more experienced operations officer. That officer has held important posts in Moscow, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Balkans, important frontlines of the agency's spy wars with foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations.
___
Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org
Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc
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মঙ্গলবার, ২২ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
Analysis: Afghan mines no solution for economic woes (Reuters)
KABUL (Reuters) ? The Afghan government, struggling to rebuild one of the world's poorest countries, believes it holds a trump card in its estimated $3 trillion in natural resources. But minerals in the ground are very different to cash in the bank.
Assessment, extraction, processing, transportation and sales will take a lot of investment, and a long time -- bad news for a country that says it expects a $5 billion annual security bill after a pullout of foreign troops is completed in 2014.
Even if production does crank up fast enough to pay the army and police salaries without foreign assistance, mining income is unlikely to assuage the economic woes of a country riven by insurgency with broken infrastructure, dismal education levels and unemployment believed to run as high as 40 percent.
"Mining is seen as a silver bullet, not only by the Afghan government but also by the international community," said Thomas Ruttig, co-founder of the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts' Network.
"It is very welcome that Afghanistan has mining on the horizon... (but) extraction of mineral wealth does not necessarily produce an improvement of life for the local population. Very often, mining under a weak state which cannot control it is a recipe for more conflict."
Afghan officials claim its deposits -- including copper and iron ore, oil and gas, niobium, cobalt, gold, molybdenum, silver and lithium -- could generate $3.5 billion a year.
Mineral wealth is attractive in a year when prices of metals like gold and copper have hit record highs. But there are many bridges to be crossed before the country can capitalize on its riches.
Much information now available on the country's deposits dates from the Soviet era, and geologists say more evaluation is necessary before their potential can accurately be assessed.
"Until (it) is ascertained that the mineralisation exists, it is only a potential resource which may or may not be there," said Hassan Alief, an Afghan-American geologist who has worked extensively in Afghanistan.
WESTERN MINERS CAUTIOUS
After decades of conflict, Afghanistan lacks vital infrastructure and has little hope of changing that fast. The United Nations said this year that violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban regime was toppled 10 years ago.
"The smallest projects cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the larger projects cost in the billions," said Richard Lachcik, a mining lawyer with Macleod Dixon in Toronto.
"People just aren't going to invest that level of capital in a country like Afghanistan. It's just not stable enough."
Western mining firms are predictably reluctant to invest, analysts say.
"I'd be most surprised if a company like Rio Tinto, Anglo American or BHP Billiton went into such a risky area, and there are plenty of other places for the juniors to operate," said Neil Buxton, an analyst at metals consultancy GFMS.
However, companies from resource-hungry China -- the world's biggest consumer of copper and iron ore -- and India have wasted no time moving into Afghanistan.
A consortium led by the Metallurgical Corp of China won the country's first big mining contract to develop the Aynak copper deposits in 2008, and Indian firms are currently bidding billions of dollars to develop the Hajigak iron ore concession.
But despite sizeable payments to governments, their self-sufficient operating methods in other countries often bring very limited benefits to the wider local economy. There are fears Afghanistan may also see few trickle-down effects.
BENEFITS FOR ALL
Bidders for the Aynak project were expected to show a commitment to Afghan social development as part of the tender process. While details of the MCC contract are unforthcoming, analysts say it has so far generated few jobs for Afghans.
"MCC and all the (bidding) companies said they would be hiring Afghans locally and had a timetable for when Afghans would be in technical and management positions," says James Yeager, an adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Mines during the Aynak tender process.
"Take a look at what MCC have since done. They brought in their own people, they buy their own goods from China and have them shipped in. The large capital investments by MCC are not benefitting the Afghan people like they should."
Neither MCC nor the Ministry of Mines responded to questions on current and planned employment of Afghans at Aynak.
Managing its mineral resources is particularly critical for Afghanistan, given how narrow the country's economic base is after decades of conflict.
Other mineral-rich countries like Nigeria have shown that, poorly managed, such resources can bring in billions of dollars while making little impact on the poverty levels of most of the population.
Sayed Massoud, an economist at Kabul University, warns that mistakes made now in monetizing the mineral wealth could cost the country dearly in future, when it tries to balance its budget.
"There are only two sources which can provide this budget. One is the finance ministry (from taxes), another is mines.
"Today, with Afghanistan full of corruption and insecurity, we can earn hundreds of millions of dollars from these mines. But if we (develop) them in the next few years, through partnerships, we will earn billions of dollars."
(Reporting by Jan Harvey; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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One-Minute Physics: How to weigh money with your mind
Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV
Imagine you're stuck on a desert island with no measurement tools or computers and need to find out how much a million dollars weighs. How can you quickly get a reliable ballpark figure?
In our latest One-Minute Physics video, animator Henry Reich shows how to use known quantities to make quick calculations and obtain an accurate estimation.
If you enjoyed this video, check out our previous episodes, for example why GPS is just a big clock in space or why light slows down in glass.
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The Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Culture, Kum. Selja addressing at the inauguration of ?The embodied Image Krishna Reddy ? A Retrospective?, in New Delhi on November 19, 2011.
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Source: http://pib.nic.in/release/phsmall.asp?phid=37714
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Pressure for fast action after Spain election win (Reuters)
MADRID (Reuters) ? Prime Minister elect Mariano Rajoy was under pressure on Monday to give rapid details of his policies to overcome the worst economic crisis for generations, after his center-right party won Spain's biggest election victory in 30 years.
The euro zone debt crisis claimed its fifth government victim in Sunday's election as voters savagely punished the outgoing Socialists for a crisis that has pushed unemployment to the highest rate in the European Union at 21 percent.
Under Spain's long transition process, Rajoy will not take power until around December 20 but he will have little time to bask in the huge victory for his People's Party.
There is pressure for him to calm jittery markets with some word on what are expected to be deep and painful austerity measures. Since his victory he has only said that there will be no miracles to fix the crisis.
Spaniards are resigned to a battery of measures to resuscitate the economy that could make things worse before they get better and at least initially increase unemployment, with 5 million people already out of work.
Spain, the euro zone's fourth largest economy, has been pushed closer to the kind of bailout claimed by Ireland, Greece and Portugal as its borrowing costs soared last week to untenable levels.
Rajoy has so far pointed to labor market and a financial reform as well as sweeping changes in the public sector, but has not given clear policy lines, relying instead on voter anger against the Socialists to rocket him into power.
"It will not only be demanded that Rajoy fix the economy but that he also renews political life," said right-leaning newspaper El Mundo in an editorial.
"He will have to adopt unpopular measures which will probably not be accepted either by unions or by the Socialist opposition," it added.
Spaniards blame the Socialists for reacting too late to manage a collapsed housing boom which has left the nation sliding toward its second recession in two years.
"There will be no miracles, we haven't promised them, but we have seen in other times that when things are done well, they produce results," Rajoy, 56, told rapturous supporters in his victory speech on Sunday night.
"Spain's voice must be respected again in Brussels and Frankfurt... We will stop being part of the problem and will be part of the solution," said Rajoy.
FIFTH VICTIM
Spaniards were the fifth European nation to throw out their leaders because of the spreading euro zone crisis, following Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Italy.
The People's Party (PP), formed from other rightist parties in the 1980s after Spain returned to democracy at the end of the Franco dictatorship, won the biggest majority for any party in three decades.
The PP took 186 seats in the 350-seat lower house, according to official results with all the vote counted.
The Socialists slumped to 111 seats from 169 in the outgoing parliament, their worst showing in 30 years.
MARKET FRIENDLY
Spain's stock and bond prices may initially react positively to the vote because Rajoy, a former interior minister, is seen as market friendly and pro-business, although the landslide victory was anticipated for months in opinion polls.
The nation's borrowing costs are at their highest since the euro zone was formed and yields on 10-year bonds soared last week to close to 7 percent, a level that forced other countries like Portugal and Greece to seek international bail-outs.
The Spanish Treasury heads back to the markets with debt auctions on Tuesday and Thursday this week, the first key tests of confidence in Rajoy's leadership.
"The spectre of recession and an unavoidable commitment to reduce the public deficit will stitch a straight jacket to restrict the hand of the new economy minister," said newspaper Expansion in an editorial.
Economic gloom dominated the election campaign, with more than 40 percent of young Spaniards unable to find work and a million people at risk of losing their homes to the banks.
TREASURED INSTITUTIONS
Many leftist voters are concerned Rajoy will cut back Spain's treasured national health and education systems.
Fed up with the Socialists, they turned to smaller parties or stayed away from the polls and the abstention rate was higher than in the last election in 2008.
The United Left, which includes the former communist party, won 11 seats in the lower house, its best showing since the mid-1990s and way up from the previous legislature when it had only two seats.
Small parties doubled their presence in the lower house of parliament, taking 54 seats compared with 26 in the last legislature.
When the Socialists took power in 2004 Spain was riding a construction boom fueled by cheap interest rates, infrastructure projects and foreign demand for vacation homes on the country's warm coastlines.
But the government, consumers and companies were engulfed in debt when the building sector collapsed in 2007, leaving the landscape dotted with vacant housing developments, empty airports and underused highways.
"Something's got to change here in Spain, with 5 million people on the dole, this can't go on," said Juan Antonio Fernandez, 60, a jobless Madrid construction worker who switched to the PP from the Socialists.
(Additional reporting by Tomas Cobos, Nigel Davies, Martin Roberts and; Carlos Ruano in Madrid; Editing by Barry Moody)
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সোমবার, ২১ নভেম্বর, ২০১১
Ethiopian troops move into Somalia: witnesses (Reuters)
MOGADISHU (Reuters) ? Scores of Ethiopian military vehicles pushed at least 80 km (50 miles) into neighbouring Somalia on Saturday, residents said, five weeks after Kenya entered Somalia to fight Islamist militants it blames for a wave of kidnappings on its soil.
"The Ethiopian troops, which are in convoys of armoured vehicles, come to us today, crossing from Balanbale district on the border," Gabobe Adan, an elder in the central town of Guriel told Reuters.
"They were in about 28 trucks and armed battle wagons - the armed vehicles are very big."
Other residents told Reuters that the Ethiopians had set up a base in Guriel and moved troops to other towns nearby.
Residents and officials in northeast Kenya later told Reuters that Ethiopian troops had also crossed through their towns and taken up positions near bases from where the Kenyan military is launching its offensive.
"We have seen Ethiopian troops. They are clearly known to us," a local named Lesamow Said told Reuters. "They arrived this evening at Damasa. Some of the soldiers crossed over to the Somalia side and started patrolling immediately."
People in the Kenyan town of Mandera, which is near both Somalia and Ethiopia, said the Ethiopians had passed through there in a convoy of 10 trucks and several armoured vehicles.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government, Shimeles Kemal, would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
Another Ethiopian official told Reuters that an Ethiopian move to support the Kenyan assault on the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group was likely.
"There is a strong possibility that we will be sending troops to Somalia soon to support Kenya's operation against the al Shabaab extremists," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Our deployment could either be implemented under the umbrella of AMISOM or under another form, such as a separate operation alongside Kenya," he said.
FINAL ASSAULT ON AL SHABAAB?
AMISOM is an African Union force of Ugandan and Burundian troops that has been largely responsible for keeping al Shabaab from ousting the internationally backed government.
The intention of the Ethiopian troops was not immediately clear and one local elder who did not want to be named said that they would train Somali fighters loyal to the government.
Senior Kenyan government ministers have shuttled around the east Africa region this week and travelled to the Gulf to drum up political and financial support for a coordinated campaign to rout the rebels.
Some analysts say Ethiopia may want to take advantage of al Shabaab's withdrawal from the capital Mogadishu in August to wipe out a group it sees as a threat to its stability.
Since that pullout, the militants, who want to introduce a strict version of sharia law, have resorted to suicide attacks and guerrilla-style tactics against African Union troops.
Although Ethiopian troops regularly cross the border with Somalia, and it has admitted opening "humanitarian corridors" into the country that it says are for food relief, residents said the numbers and locations of the troops were unusual.
"I have seen about 30 Ethiopian military vehicles myself. They have entered," another Guriel resident, Farah Hussein, told Reuters. "We are very happy to see them -- it is a sign of putting an end to al Shabaab."
Other people in the area, including some Ethiopian businessmen, told Reuters that Ethiopian army officers had been meeting elders in central Somalia for weeks.
Ethiopia entered Somalia in 2006, with tacit U.S. backing, to oust another Islamist movement that had taken control of the capital Mogadishu and large swathes of the country.
Its army set up a base in Guriel during that operation.
The presence of the Ethiopian troops was hugely unpopular with Somalis, and with some analysts saying it was fanning support for new militant groups, they withdrew in early 2009.
(Writing by Barry Malone; Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa, Sahra Abdi in Nairobi and Noor Ali in Garissa)
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