Sunday, December 18, 2011

3 sentenced in terror plot on Australian army base (AP)

SYDNEY ? Three men who plotted a suicide attack against an Australian army base because they believed Islam was under threat from Western nations were sentenced Friday to more than 13 years in prison.

The men ? Australian citizens originally from Somalia or Lebanon ? were convicted last year of conspiring to plot a terrorist attack against Holsworthy Barracks, an army base on the outskirts of Sydney. Officials said the group planned to send a team of men with automatic rifles into the base in a bid to kill as many soldiers as possible.

Police said the men were motivated by a belief that Islam was under attack from the West, and planned to keep on shooting until they were killed.

On Friday, Victoria state Supreme Court Justice Betty King sentenced Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, 35, Saney Edow Aweys, 28, and Nayef El Sayed, 27, to 18 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 13-and-a-half years. They had faced a sentence of up to life in prison.

"Your plans were evil," King told the trio.

During the trial, prosecutors said the men were upset about Australia's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Officials said one of the men visited Somalia in the hopes of gaining approval for the attack from an Islamic cleric. The men were accused of having ties to Somalia-based al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaida.

Terrorism in Australia is extremely rare and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus has said the attack would have been the most serious ever carried out in the country had it been successful.

The men refused to stand for the judge when she entered the courtroom and Fattal was thrown out of court after he later stood and shouted, "This is corruption!"

King said the three men should be ashamed for plotting an attack against a country that had embraced them.

As El Sayed and Aweys were led out of the courtroom, El Sayed said to the judge: "Allah gives us justice ? not these courts."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oceania/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_as/as_australia_terror_plot

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Video: Save yourself from dry, tired skin this winter

Lingering shortage of ADHD drugs unravels lives

??A nationwide shortage of life-saving cancer drugs and anesthesia medications has drawn most attention, but an ongoing dearth of ADHD drugs has taken a toll on millions of adults and children who need them daily to focus. Kate Skinn and her son, Markus, both take the drugs.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3041426/vp/45697055#45697055

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Penicillin doses for children should be reviewed, say experts

ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2011) ? A team of scientists and clinicians, led by researchers at King's College London and St George's, University of London, are calling for a review of penicillin dosing guidelines for children, that have remained unchanged for nearly 50 years.

The call comes as a study published in the British Medical Journal indicates some children may not be receiving effective doses, which could potentially lead to failed treatment and contribute to antibiotic resistance.

Oral penicillins (such as amoxicillin) account for nearly 4.5 million of the total 6 million annual prescriptions for antibiotics given to treat childhood bacterial infections each year in the UK.

Current dosing guidelines for penicillin are provided by the British National Formulary for Children (BNFC) and are mainly based on age bands. The doses given have not changed in almost 50 years. But the dose of penicillin needed is determined by a child's weight, and the guidelines have not taken into account the increase in the average weight of children over time. The experts say reviewing these guidelines is essential, to ensure all children who require penicillin are receiving effective doses.

The review was led by Dr Paul Long from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at King's College London and Professor Mike Sharland at St George's, University of London on behalf of the improving Children's Antibiotic Prescribing Research Network (iCAP).

The team carried out a literature review of evidence, including all the historic archives of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the British Medical Association, to understand the origins of the current dosing guidelines. They found that prescribing based on age bands had first been suggested in the early 1950s, based on the results of oral dosing studies. Following these findings, a general recommendation to use age banding for all antibiotics in children was published in the BMJ in 1963, and these same recommendations remain in use today.

The researchers found that the age band guidelines set in 1963 were accompanied by average weights, and doses are based on fractions of the widely used adult doses. The BNFC structured dosing bands are: birth to 1 year (10kg); 2 years (13kg); 5 years (18kg); and 10 years (30kg). However, according to the Health Survey for England 2009, the average weight today of a 5 year old is 21kg and a 10 year old is 37kg, indicating that average weights today are up to twenty percent higher than in 1963.

Under-dosing is potentially a problem for children, as this could lead to sub-therapeutic concentrations.

The researchers also noted that adult penicillin recommendations have been re-evaluated taking modern weights into consideration, and penicillin doses have consequently increased. But UK recommendations for children have not been reassessed in the same way.

Dr Paul Long, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacognosy at King's College London, said: 'We were surprised at the lack of evidence to support the current oral penicillins dosing recommendations for children, as it is such a commonly used drug. Children's average size and weight are slowly but significantly changing, so what may have been adequate doses of penicillin 50 years ago are potentially not enough today.

'It is important to point out that this study does not provide any clinical evidence that children are receiving sub-optimal penicillin doses that lead to harm, and we want to reassure parents of that. But what we are saying is that we should ensure that children with severe infections who need these antibiotics the most are still receiving an effective dose.

'In the long-term we are concerned that under-dosing could lead to penicillin-resistance in both individuals and wider communities, which is a very serious issue, given the number of prescriptions of this medicine given every year for common childhood infections.

'If we want to be sure that we are treating childhood bacterial infections effectively, the evidence base behind these prescribing guidelines needs to be improved, and the recommended doses reviewed accordingly.'

Professor Mike Sharland from St George's, University of London, and co-author of the study said: 'Although there is now a very formal process of determining the right dose for new drugs being licensed for use in children, we also need to check more carefully that the guidelines are still correct for older drugs that have been used for a long time. We are not saying the current doses are wrong or unsafe and parents should always give the medicine at the doses prescribed by their GP. We are saying that we need to develop a clearer system to check the doses used for older medicines.'

Simon Keady, Royal Pharmaceutical Society spokesperson on children's medicines, said: 'This research and its outcomes clearly demonstrates the importance of continued work in the field of paediatrics as further evidence and experience is gathered. The use of penicillins over many years for a wide variety of conditions should not stop us from continuing to identify the most appropriate dose which gives us the most effective outcomes. The work clearly shows that the focus should not always be about new drugs but also looking at where we have historically centred dosing around age bands.'

NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) guidance on Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTIs) suggests that the majority of minor URTI's in children are viral and will resolve on their own without the need for antibiotics. Therefore, the authors also suggest that not only do the effective doses for children of all ages and weights need to be determined, but there is the need to target more clearly which children will really benefit most from antibiotics.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by King's College London.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. U. Ahmed, N. Spyridis, I. C. K. Wong, M. Sharland, P. F. Long. Dosing of oral penicillins in children: is big child=half an adult, small child=half a big child, baby=half a small child still the best we can do? BMJ, 2011; 343 (dec15 1): d7803 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d7803

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.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111215232559.htm

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Friday, December 16, 2011

Amelia: An Unremarkable Holiday

When people think about LGBT stories and the holidays, some imagine scenes of argument and strife or -- sometimes worse -- tension and polite-acting relatives. Well, this story isn't like that at all. This is the Christmas story of Ryan and Eddie.

The love story started in college. Ryan grew up in a small, rural community in Canada and had always dated women. Eddie was dapper, gay exchange student from England. After a night of (cough) lowered inhibitions, the two started dating. It was a confusing time for Ryan. He'd never dated a man before, and the only person he knew from his small town community who came out of the closet was immediately disowned by her family. But there was something about Eddie he just couldn't give up.

They dated in secret, only "friends" to everyone else, until Eddie had to return home to England. It didn't take long for Ryan to follow Eddie across the Atlantic, but despite being in a different country, they still kept their relationship quiet, to everyone, friends and family alike, for nearly two years, because Ryan just wasn't ready.

And, OK, this is where I got stuck. Eddie's family is completely open and accepting, and he came out of the closet when he was 16, with little fanfare and no drama.

"Two years?" I asked Ryan, kind of horrified. "And Eddie just put up with it? Didn't he get pissed off?"

"No," Ryan assured me. "He knew I needed to take my time."

I found that answer really unsatisfying, and I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Eddie backed up the story. "I was never frustrated with him. I was frustrated with the world, but not with him."

My astonished "really?" was probably a little harsh and more than a little rude.

"He was worth it," Eddie insisted... and it might just be his adorable accent that did it, but I was convinced.

So after two years, Ryan and Saint Eddie moved back to Canada, and on the top of Ryan's to-do list was coming out to his parents. He was nervous, really nervous, and he had reason to be. His parents were conservative, church-going people, and homophobic jokes and ignorance were not unheard of at family functions.

And those family functions, like the holidays that were quickly approaching, were one of the things Ryan worried about most. He has an large extended family, and Christmas was always a loud and chaotic affair full of laughter, food, and games. He was scared that being open about his relationship Eddie would end it all. His parents would be uncomfortable, his cousins (many of whom are good country boys) would be worse, and the holiday he loved would become a tension-filled nightmare -- that is, if he didn't get disowned himself.

But Ryan charged forward and came out to his parents. And the world absolutely failed to end. There was surprise and a very small amount of drama that ended with his father stating plainly, "I want you to be happy." Ryan introduced his parents to Eddie that same day, and everything went great. The whole episode actually left Ryan feeling embarrassed at just how much he had underestimated his parents.

A few weeks later, when Christmas rolled around, Ryan brought Eddie into the family holiday craziness. Everyone treated Eddie just like they did everyone else's boyfriends and girlfriends. No one had any fits, outrageous or passive episodes of homophobia, or tense uncomfortable moments. It was Ryan's wildest dream come true.

When Ryan recounted the tale, one thing he said in particular really struck me: "Last year's Christmas will always have a place in my heart for being truly unremarkable."

And that is what makes me love this story. What makes it unremarkable is just what makes it remarkable. It is a story of love and acceptance trumping the fear and hate gay people in our society have come to expect.

So, this Christmas, I wish for all our holidays to be unremarkable. I think it could be a really good time.

?

Follow Amelia on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Amelia_blogger

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Amelia/an-unremarkable-holiday_b_1147445.html

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Apple's founding documents pull in $1.6 million at auction

Over two weeks ago, the internets were abuzz with talk of Apple's founding documents hitting the auction block. Word was, they'd rake in a sizable $150,000 on the high-end, but it appears even Sotheby's underestimated the power of paperwork. The three sheets of dead tree in question, signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne (Apple's often forgotten third founder) fetched a whopping $1.6 million today. The documents originally belonged to Mr. Wayne, who reportedly received just $2,300 after relinquishing his stocks and agreeing to forfeit claims against the big Apple. According to Bloomberg, Sotheby's identified the winning bidder as Eduardo Cisneros, CEO of the Cisneros Corp.
Over two weeks ago, the internets were abuzz with talk of the Apple's founding documents hitting the auction block. Word was, they'd rake in a sizable $150,000 on the high-end, but it appears even Sotheby's underestimated their value. The three pieces of paper in question, signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, Apple's short-lived third founder, fetched a whopping $1.6 million dollars today. The documents originally belonged to Mr. Wayne, who reportedly received just $2,300 after relinquishing his stocks and agreeing to forfeit claims against the big Apple. According to Bloomberg, Sotheby's identified the winning bidder as Eduardo Cisneros, CEO of the Cisneros Corp.

Apple's founding documents pull in $1.6 million at auction originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink 9to5Mac  |  sourceSotheby's  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/lc__2YboLLg/

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Using Toads to Predict Earthquakes

I don't know about Virginia, but Florida has been overpumping for decades now, killing coastal forests with saltwater intrusion and killing wet-dry swampy areas by keeping them wet year round with ag runoff.

In Sarasota county, they impose no-car-wash and alternate Thursday lawn watering restrictions, and still the tomato farmers use more water than then entire residential and commercial population. (No, tomato farming is not a major component in Sarasota County's economy, just it's water problems.)

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/s6gjoBZ_nYo/using-toads-to-predict-earthquakes

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Friday, December 2, 2011

Congo's Kamerhe withdraws call to annul elections (Reuters)

KINSHASA (Reuters) ? Congolese opposition candidate Vital Kamerhe on Wednesday withdrew his call for the November 28 presidential and parliamentary elections to be annulled on the grounds of widespread irregularities.

The move means that both Kamerhe and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, the other serious rival standing against President Joseph Kabila, appear happy to allow the ballot count to go ahead.

Kabila's camp meanwhile accused its rivals of pre-empting official results and said security measures were being taken to contain trouble.

Three opposition candidates have called for the vote, which was plagued by delays and isolated outbreaks of violence, to be cancelled. African observer missions on Wednesday praised the poll while the U.S.-based Carter Center raised some concerns but said it too early to make a judgement.

In a letter on Monday addressed to senior Congolese and international officials Kamerhe had called for the poll to be annulled due to irregularities.

However, two days later and after results had started being published, Kamerhe, a former speaker of parliament and minister of Kabila's, told journalists there had been improvements in voting conditions during election day.

"At this moment, we are not calling for the cancellation of the results," Kamerhe said, adding that results should be widely published as they are collated, to avoid fraud.

Kamerhe said he and Tshisekedi had considered joining others calling for the poll to be cancelled but had decided against it because witnesses had been allowed into polling stations and voters themselves controlled alleged efforts at ballot-stuffing.

Monday's elections were accompanied by violence in which at least eight people died, shortages of voting materials and confusion over voter lists.

The African Union on Wednesday urged candidates to accept the outcome, saying they were well managed despite technical problems and violence. The AU and other African observer missions have rejected the calls for the vote to be cancelled.

Tshisekedi's camp has said early indications from polling stations suggest he is in the lead, and Tshisekedi conspicuously failed to join the call of other candidates for an annulment.

Evariste Boshab, secretary general of the ruling PPRD party, accused Tshisekedi's camp of pre-empting results. "My smile, my confidence, is that not enough for you?" he said to Reuters, when asked how Kabila had fared in the vote.

"The reason that Tshisekedi and Kabila are going ahead with the process is clear: They both think they can win. Obviously, there will only be one president ... Neither side appears ready to step down without a fight," said Congo analyst and author Jason Stearns on his blog, http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/

The George Soros-funded OSISA and Congolese observer group AETA said in a joint statement the population had voted in large numbers but there were shortcomings with organization.

The group blamed the election commission for the problems and called for a cancellation of results and/or a re-vote in places where there were problems.

The Carter Center said it was too early to give an overall verdict on the vote or turnout.

Voting entered the third day on Wednesday in some areas. The election commission confirmed that an unspecified number of new ballot papers had been flown in from South Africa on Tuesday but rejected opposition suspicion that they would be used for fraud.

BRISK TRADE IN "INFORMAL RESULTS"

Kabila's move this year to sign off on constitutional changes making the vote a single-round election was widely seen as giving him the edge against a split field of 10 rivals. It means that a simple majority is needed for victory.

Both Twitter and Congo's "Radio Trottoire" rumour mill were alive with snippets of reported results or projections.

Street vendors who usually sell newspapers to motorists on the boulevard in central Kinshasa were doing brisk trade in sheets of paper claiming to be "informal results."

Adolphe Lumanu, Congo's security minister, said the government was already bracing for a contested result. Kabila would accept losing but his rivals must do the same, he added.

Results are starting to be transferred from over 60,000 polling stations for compilation but the Carter Center warned that preparations had been inadequate.

"CENI must intensify its efforts to ensure that the voice of the Congolese people is respected, recorded and communicated in a manner that is secure and transparent," it said.

Late on Tuesday the main centre in Kinshasa was still under construction, with votes being left in piles outside. The parliamentary count will take 45 days but the presidential results are expected on December 6.

Kamerhe called on the international community, led by the U.N., to take advantage of the lull to ward off trouble that may come from parties simultaneously declaring themselves winner.

"It will lead either to challenges or troubles if there are no preparations now," he said.

The complaints of fraud have led to concerns that Congo could see a post-election dispute like that in Ivory Coast, which this year descended into four months of conflict when incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gbagbo and transferred him to The Hague on Wednesday to face charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged part in a conflict which claimed at least 3,000 lives.

(Writing by Mark John and Bate Felix; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111130/wl_nm/us_congo_democratic_elections

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Thursday, December 1, 2011

[OOC] Matchups: Girl-Demon

Forum rules
This forum is for OOC discussion about existing roleplays.

Please post all "Players Wanted" threads in the Roleplayers Wanted forum!

This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Shrouded in Darkness?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
Just post who you would like to be with. The demons should definintly get a say in this because they are supposed to be interested in you from the beginning and love you. But the girls should post who they would like to be with too because you should be with a person you enjoy posting with.

I would like to be with Zero_Reaper if that's okay with you. :)

My Music Ratings-
Paramore= Awesomeness
Fall Out boy= Head banging time!
Justin Beiber= I'm Deaf
Cody Simpson= Somebody kill me now

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Bitdefender officially releases Mobile Security app for Android (Digital Trends)

Bitdefender Mobile Security

After five months of beta testing, Bitdefender?s Mobile Security app for Android devices is officially a number of recent reports, malware makers have been flooding the Android Market left and right, making it increasingly dangerous for unsuspecting users.

Originally launched in June, Mobile Security has been receiving tweaks and upgrades almost constantly, but now the company says the app is ready for the big leagues, offering both a free version and a paid version, which costs $9.95, and comes with a number of additional protections for Android users.

With the free version, you?ll get:

? Malware scanner: This feature will automatically scan any new app you download to see if it could ruin your life. You can also initiate an on-demand scan anytime you like. Your device?s SD card will be scanned, as well as the on-board storage.

? Application audit: This feature checks to see what kinds of permissions the apps on your device allow, and tells you if any of them are suspicious. The audit includes checking whether apps require access to the Internet; whether they require access to personal information, like contacts, messages or photo gallery; and whether any apps will cost you money by automatically sending out messages, or initiating phone calls.

? Remote geolocation: Enables users to track the location of their device on Google Maps, in real-time. (Note: GPS must be enabled for this feature to work, of course.)

The paid version includes all the features listed above, and adds the following features:

? Web security: Scans any website requested by the default browser on the device to see if it points to any known phishing or fraudulent URLs, or if the site contains malware or other types of viruses. Those pages are then temporarily blocked, or an alert is shown.

? Remote lock: Lock your device via your online Bitdefender account.

? Remote wipe: Delete all the data from your device from your Bitdefender account. Note: This even deletes the Mobile Security app, so use this one only as a last resort

? Message/sound alert: Display a message or play a sound on your device via your Bitdefender account.

We must note that, even if you have the Mobile Security app, or a similar app, installed, it?s always important to be discerning when installing any app on your device. Check the permissions an app requires before downloading; if it seems strange that a particular app needs a certain permission, don?t download it.

Bitdefender?s Mobile Security app is available from the Android Market here. Anyone who has already installed Mobile Security can simply update their app to receive the final version.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

More from Digital Trends

Most smartphone owners are indifferent about phone security

Android Developers Union wants to take on Google

Rogue Android app will run up your bill

This week in apps: Thanksgiving edition

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/security/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111130/tc_digitaltrends/bitdefenderofficiallyreleasesmobilesecurityappforandroid

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

HBT: Signs point to Pujols staying with Cards

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! spoke with an MLB executive who says?he?s ?100 percent certain? Albert Pujols will re-sign with the Cardinals. ?The reason: no one else is really showing interest. At least no one with the kind of money to outbid St. Louis.

I?ve kinda assumed this for a while. It was just bad timing for Pujols to hit the market, with with the Yankees and Red Sox both committing to top-notch first basemen in recent years. ?That left the occasional-spenders out there. Texas. Los Angeles. Detroit. Washington. Maybe the Cubs. Those teams either have a first baseman already or just don?t seem to want to pony up this year.

Albert is going to stay with the Cardinals. He?ll still be very rich. His legacy will be much better for it. And the Cardinals will be a much better team for it, at least for the next several years.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/28/report-its-100-percent-certain-that-pujols-will-stay-with-the-cardinals/related/

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Road to recovery in Afghanistan goes through the countryside

As NATO troops prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014, donor countries must rethink their aid to that war-torn country. Edward Girardet, who has reported on Afghanistan for more than 30 years, writes that they must focus on rural areas, where most Afghans live.

When the West first intervened in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, experienced aid coordinators, journalists, and diplomats had some simple advice:

Skip to next paragraph

Don?t get carried away with wasteful military campaigns or a Sisyphean anti-narcotics drive. They contribute little to long-term peace. To help Afghanistan, focus instead on modest but doable development initiatives in the countryside, where nearly 80 percent of Afghans live.

This largely ignored advice still holds, as high-level delegations gather in Bonn, Germany, on Dec. 5 to consider the way forward in Afghanistan, which has suffered from more than three decades of war. It?s a critical time as NATO-led security forces seek to transition toward 2014, when most troops are expected to leave.

Western and Afghan leaders first met in this German town a decade ago to kick-start a proposed ?Marshall Plan? for the reconstruction of this largely impoverished mountainous and desert country.

And yet, at their peril, many nations involved in the ?Bonn process? often sought to impose their own agendas ? through arrogance or a poor understanding of the situation on the ground. These agendas largely failed to take into account the interests of Afghans.

They have led not only to a disastrous war but also a recovery effort with only limited impact. Afghanistan has reached ?a permanent condition of rottenness,? says Anders Fange, the respected former head of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.

The question now is whether the international community will have the imagination ? and commitment ? to remedy the situation. As it stands, the coalition death toll ? more than 2,800 ? is fast approaching the number of people who perished in 9/11, while insurgents are operating in areas where they never did before.

True, the donors have helped bring about improvements, such as schooling for 7 million children, one third of them girls. Another 7 million, however, have yet to benefit from education. In many areas, health care is far better than 10 years ago, but many Afghans still don?t have even basic health services.

Various initiatives, such as paved roads and 24-hour electricity, have enhanced life in Kabul and other cities, and urban women can study at university or work outside the home. More than a quarter of the country?s parliament now consists of women, one of the highest ratios in the world.

However, for the majority of Afghans, especially in rural areas where many suffer from malnutrition and hunger, there is enormous frustration, even anger. Many wonder where the billions of dollars of aid money have gone. In certain parts, change has been brought about by cross-border trade and private investment, not development support.

Washington has yet to recognize that by allowing US military interests to dictate policy for the past decade, it has heavily undermined the recovery process. Numerous Afghans regard NATO forces as the ?new occupation.? But they also fear the insurgents, who have infiltrated government ministries, including the army and police. Civilian casualties, the majority of them rebel-inflicted, are up compared to last year.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/oF1FiRYu6kU/Road-to-recovery-in-Afghanistan-goes-through-the-countryside

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British film director Ken Russell dies at 84 (AP)

LONDON ? Director Ken Russell got Oliver Reed and Alan Bates to wrestle naked, turned Vanessa Redgrave into a demonic nun and cast Ringo Starr as the pope. Critics and mainstream audiences often hated his films. Actors and admirers loved him.

The iconoclastic British director, whose death aged 84 was announced Monday, made films that blended music, sex and violence in a potent brew.

Only a few of his movies were commercial successes. The best known were "Women in Love," an Academy award-winning adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novel, and "Tommy," which turned The Who's rock opera into a psychedelic extravaganza complete with appearances from Elton John, Eric Clapton and Tina Turner.

Pete Townshend, who wrote "Tommy," described Russell as a "grand dame" who brought to his films about music the "lavish affection and the kind of grandiosity only musicians and composers can dream of."

"He believed all artistic work could be made to come alive over and over again," Townshend said.

Russell was fascinated with altered mental states and loved horror, religious turmoil and Gothic excess. Critics could be sniffy ? Pauline Kael once wrote that Russell's films "cheapen everything they touch."

But many in the film industry felt his influence was underrated.

Supermodel Twiggy, who starred in Russell's 1971 film "The Boy Friend," said directors like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas "say that as a kid they would watch Ken Russell movies. I don't think he got the attention he deserved."

Glenda Jackson, who won a best actress Academy Award for "Women in Love," said Russell was an "incredible visual genius."

"It's an absolute shame that the British film industry has ignored him," she said. "It's an absolute disgrace ... he broke down barriers for so many people."

"Women in Love," in 1969, was one of Russell's biggest hits, earning Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, as well as winning Jackson an Oscar. It included one of the decade's most famous scenes ? a nude wrestling bout between Bates and Reed.

Reed said at the time the director was "starting to go crazy."

"Before that he was a sane, likable TV director," Reed said. "Now he's an insane, likable film director."

Paul McGann, who starred in Russell's "The Rainbow," said the director "encouraged an irreverent joyousness on set and usually got it."

"I remember him sat on a camera crane in kaftan and sandals shouting to us through a megaphone: 'Even greater heights of abandon!'" McGann said. "He's how you imagined, and hoped, a movie director would be."

Born in the English port of Southampton in 1927, Russell fell in love with the movies as a child.

In one of his last interviews, he said his whole life, including his filmmaking, had been affected by the death of his cousin Marion, who stepped on a land mine when they were children.

"There was nothing I could do, that was the end of her," he said in the interview for the Sky Arts TV channel. "She was blown to pieces. It was something I couldn't get out of my mind and it remained with me forever."

Attracted by the romance of the sea, Russell attended Pangbourne Nautical College before joining the Merchant Navy at 17 as a junior crew member on a cargo ship bound for the Pacific. He became seasick, soon realized he hated naval life and was discharged after a nervous breakdown.

Desperate to avoid joining the family's shoe business, he studied ballet and tried his hand at acting before accepting he was not much good at either. He then studied photography, for which he did have a talent, and became a fashion photographer before being hired to work on BBC arts programs, including profiles of the poet John Betjeman, comedian Spike Milligan and playwright Shelagh Delaney.

"When there were no more live artists left, we turned to making somewhat longer films about dead artists such as Prokofiev," Russell once said.

These quickly evolved from conventional documentaries into something more interesting.

"At first we were only allowed to use still photographs and newsreel footage of these subjects, but eventually we sneaked in the odd hand playing the piano (in 'Prokofiev') and the odd back walking through a door," Russell said. "By the time a couple of years had gone by, those boring little factual accounts of the artists had evolved into evocative films of an hour or more which used real actors to impersonate the historical figures."

Music played a central role in many of Russell's films, including "The Music Lovers" in 1970, about the composer Tchaikovsky ? Russell sold it to the studio with the pitch "it's about a nymphomaniac who falls in love with a homosexual."

The same unorthodox approach to costume drama informed 1975's "Lisztomania," which starred Roger Daltrey of The Who as 19th-century heartthrob Franz Liszt, with Beatles drummer Starr playing the pope.

"The Boy Friend," a 1971 homage to 1930s Hollywood musicals starring Twiggy, and Russell's 1975 adaptation of "Tommy," were musicals of a different sort, both marked by the director's characteristic visual excess.

Russell's darker side was rarely far away. "Dante's Inferno," a 1967 movie about the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, played up the differences between Rossetti's idealized view of his wife and her reality as a drug addict.

Russell was even more provocative in his 1970 film "The Dance of the Seven Veils: A Comic Strip in Seven Episodes." It presented the composer Richard Strauss as a crypto-Nazi, and showed him conducting Rosenkavalier waltzes while SS men tortured a Jew.

"The Devils," a 1971 film starring Redgrave as a 17th-century nun in the grip of demonic possession, was heavily cut for its U.S. release and is due to be released on DVD in Britain for the first time in 2012.

Russell told The Associated Press in 1987 that he found such censorship "so tedious and boring." He called the American print of "The Devils" "just a butchered nonsense."

Admirers luxuriated in his overripe, gothic sensibility ? on display once again in "Gothic," a 1987 film about the genesis of Mary Shelley's horror tale "Frankenstein" replete with such hallucinatory visuals as breasts with eyes and mouths spewing cockroaches.

Russell said his depiction of a drug-addled Percy Bysshe Shelley was an accurate depiction of the time.

"Everyone in England in the 19th century was on a permanent trip. He must have been stoned out of his mind for years," Russell said. "I know I am."

Russell's fascination with changing mental states also surfaced in 1980 film "Altered States," a rare Hollywood foray for him, starring William Hurt as a scientist experimenting with hallucinogens.

Later films included the comic horror thriller "The Lair of the White Worm" in 1988, which gave an atypical early role to Hugh Grant as a vampire worm-battling lord of the manor.

Russell also directed operas and made the video for Elton John's "Nikita."

Married four times, Russell is survived by his wife Elize Tribble and his children.

The director's son, Alex Verney-Elliott, said Russell died in a hospital Sunday following a series of strokes.

"My father died peacefully," Verney-Elliott said. "He died with a smile on his face."

His widow said Russell was working on a musical feature film of "Alice in Wonderland" when he died.

Funeral details were not immediately announced.

___

Associated Press writers Meera Selva and Robert Barr contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_en_mo/eu_britain_obit_russell

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Monday, November 28, 2011

Iran's parliament orders ties with Britain reduced (AP)

TEHRAN, Iran ? Iran's parliament on Sunday approved a bill requiring both Iran and Britain to withdraw their respective ambassadors from each other's countries, following London's support of recently upgraded U.S. sanctions on Tehran.

Tehran's relations with Britain have become increasingly strained over the past few months, largely driven by increasing tensions over Tehran's disputed nuclear program. The West says Iran is developing weapons; Tehran denies the claims.

During an open session broadcast live by state radio, 171 out of 196 lawmakers present voted for the bill requiring Iran to reduce its relationship with Britain to the level of charge d'affaires within two weeks. Ismail Kowsari, a lawmaker and one of the sponsors of the bill, told the official IRNA news agency that the bill would lead to the removal of ambassadors.

Britain's Foreign Office on Sunday said the decision to order the country's ambassador, Dominick John Chilcott, to leave Tehran was regrettable.

"This unwarranted move will do nothing to help the regime address their growing isolation, or international concerns about their nuclear program and human rights record," the ministry said in a statement. "If the Iranian government acts on this, we will respond robustly in consultation with our international partners."

The bill needs ratification by a constitutional watchdog to be a law. It also requires reduction of the volume of trade to a "minimum" level. It allows Iran's foreign ministry to restore ambassador-level relations if the "hostile policy" of Britain changes.

Parliament's decision is seen as a reaction to London's support of a new U.S. package of sanctions in Iran. The measures were coordinated with Britain and Canada and build on previous sanctions to target Iran's oil and petrochemical industries and companies involved in nuclear procurement or enrichment activity.

The annual volume of trade between Iran and Britain is about $500 million.

Iranian oil exports are a large component of this trade. In the first six month of 2011, Iran sold some 11,000 barrels of crude to Britain per day, some 0.5 percent of Iran's daily production.

British Midland International airline carries some 80, 000 between Tehran and London per year in its daily flight. Some 100.000 Iranians live in Britain.

The tension between the two countries is not limited to the nuclear dispute.

Earlier in October, the mayor of Tehran ordered a lawsuit to be filed contesting the ownership of the land on which Britain's embassy has stood since the 19th century.

In September, Iran detained and summoned a group of people for their alleged links to BBC's Farsi-language service.

Since the turmoil which followed Iran's 2009 elections, Tehran has repeatedly accused Britain of fomenting unrest. London denies the charge.

___

Associated Press writer David Stringer contributed to this report from London.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_britain

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Bay Area tries to pull together to help seniors in need at upcoming health summit (San Jose Mercury News)

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News Since Morning Papers (ABC News)

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