WHO: Small cancer risk after Fukushima accident

FILE - In this April 16, 2011 file photo, Wakana Nemoto, 3, standing next to her mother Naoko, receives a radiation exposure screening outside an evacuation center in Fukushima, northeastern Japan. People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer that is so small it probably won?t even be detectable, according to a new report from the World Health Organization released on Thursday Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, File)

FILE - In this April 16, 2011 file photo, Wakana Nemoto, 3, standing next to her mother Naoko, receives a radiation exposure screening outside an evacuation center in Fukushima, northeastern Japan. People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer that is so small it probably won?t even be detectable, according to a new report from the World Health Organization released on Thursday Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, File)

FILE - In this April 7, 2011 file photo, Japanese police, wearing suits to protect them from radiation, search for victims inside the deserted evacuation zone, established for the 20 kilometer radius around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer that is so small it probably won?t even be detectable, according to a new report from the World Health Organization released on Thursday Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

LONDON (AP) ? People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable, the World Health Organization said in a report released Thursday.

A group of experts convened by the agency assessed the risk of various cancers based on estimates of how much radiation people at the epicenter of the nuclear disaster received, namely those directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, a rural agricultural area about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Some 110,000 people living around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were evacuated after the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 knocked out the plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water.

In the new report, the highest increases in risk appeared for people exposed as infants to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

"These are pretty small proportional increases," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," he said. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

WHO estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare, one of the most treatable cancers when caught early, and the normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That risk would be half of one percentage point higher for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase in such cancers may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most heavily exposed areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected to the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who was not connected to the WHO report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the WHO of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally-grown food. Kanno accused the report of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-02-28-EU-MED-Japan-Radiation/id-4670ec19e3d04fba83ce2782c1e2d388

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A new Wharton admissions test fuels a consulting boom - Fortune ...

By John A. Byrne

(Poets&Quants) -- When the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School announced last July that it was going to add a new team-based discussion as part of its MBA admissions process, the school made it clear it wanted to assess applicants in "an unscripted environment," free from the influence of admission consultants and other advice givers.

Instead, Wharton has unwittingly given the admissions consulting business a big boost. Several of the leading MBA admissions firms have since launched specific offerings priced between $400 and $500 a pop to help prepare anxious applicants for the group-based discussions. The online simulations by consultants are largely meant to mimic the real thing at which six applicants are posed a question they are expected to discuss.

"We knew people were going to be freaked out about it, so we developed a way for them to feel more comfortable with it," explains Angela Guido, a consultant with mbaMission who spearheaded the development of a 90-minute simulation for the firm. "It's a pretty exact replica of what happens in their interview. We have four to six participants, and the conversation is modeled on exactly what the real thing is like."

MORE:?Columbia B-school's Glenn Hubbard: Is an MBA worth it?

By month's end, mbaMission expects to run at least 10 sessions. The firm charges applicants $400 for the practice session unless they purchase a full admissions package of consulting, which would run $3,600 for one school to $9,400 for seven schools. Practice sessions run by mbaMission on Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 were sold out, as is a forthcoming Feb. 27 session.

The MBA Exchange and Accepted.com, admissions consulting firms that are among the largest in the business, are selling similar offerings. Several other firms, including Clear Admit, say they are helping applicants prepare for the test with more traditional consulting assistance. Accepted.com said it began offering its $500 service -- which includes mock team and individual interviews, written feedback on both, and a one-on-one telephone consult -- after being "bombarded" with questions about the Wharton interview and requests for specific coaching.

So much for hopes of an unscripted environment...

It's an unintended consequence of Wharton's initial hope to take prospective students "off the page" of a typical MBA application. "Over the last 10 to 20 years, because of blogs and the applicant community and discussion forums, people have developed a really good sense of what the admissions process looks like, down to what kinds of questions are asked and how they manage the interview," Vice Dean Karl T. Ulrich explained in an interview when the school announced the new test. "So in some ways that was one of the reasons we wanted to try some other approaches, because it had become kind of a game in which everyone knew the rules. We wanted to get the applicants in an unscripted environment, with a more dynamic kind of interaction."

But the new test set off a new round of anxiety among applicants and fueled the new offerings by consulting firms. "There is tremendous value in having a dress rehearsal," explains Linda Abraham, founder and CEO of Accepted.com.?"That benefit is why MBA programs provide mock interviews and mock group interviews to their grads."

MORE:?Inside MBA admissions: How a top school decides

Even before Wharton officially announced the new team-discussion admissions test, The MBA Exchange had introduced its new $395 service to help applicants prep for the novel addition to the school's MBA application. The Chicago-based firm announced its offering nearly 10 days before Wharton confirmed it was going forward with the new test. The MBA Exchange product features hour-long video conferences for groups of four to six applicants. MBA Exchange says it has already run 14 sessions for 63 clients and has three more scheduled through early March.

"Because facial?expressions, gestures, body language, etc. are so important, our prep?sessions take place via high-definition video," says Dan Bauer, founder and managing director of The MBA Exchange. A consultant plays the role of Wharton?admission officer, welcoming the participants and presenting the "prompt" for?them to discuss. Clients select and use pseudonyms to ensure?confidentiality. "Immediately after the team discussion, we review the?group's performance ?with them," adds Bauer. "We also video record the entire session and?provide a confidential link so each participant can see and further analyze?both team and individual performance. Finally, we send a written scorecard?to each participant grading his or her individual performance on five key?dimensions along with our specific comments and suggestions on what he or?she did right and which tactics should be improved before the actual team?session with Wharton."

Although initial reactions by applicants to the test have been generally positive, the Wharton discussion has met some controversy. Some applicants say that they have been asked to travel from Asia or Europe at great expense for the test, especially when Wharton's schedule of on-campus and off-campus sessions have been unable to accommodate them. "That has rubbed some people the wrong way," says Guido. "One client was given the option to punt or fly a really long way and she decided not to do it. Wharton was asking her to purchase a really expensive ticket for the group interview, and she just said forget it."

Currently, round two applicants invited to the sessions are shown a video of Dean Thomas Robertson discussing the school's three pillars -- social impact, global presence, and innovation -- and then told about a fictitious donation of $1 million. After each of the six applicants in the session is given one minute for an introduction, they are then asked how they would invest the money in support of one of the pillars. An admissions official observes the session, presumably to assess each candidate's performance.

Admissions consultants: Helpful addition or thwarting the process?

Asked if the consulting sessions? thwart Wharton's efforts to get an "unscripted view" of applicants, most of the firms say it's na?ve to think they wouldn't create new ways to help MBA candidates with the test.

"I really like to think that what we designed is actually honoring their intention," says Guido of mbaMission, "Look, there is tension between ad consultants and admissions committees. They want to see the unpolished candidate and we won't let them. But we are not trying to get people to change their behavior. If we coach them over and over again on what to say, I can see them taking issue with it. But you can't train someone out of who they are."

MORE:?Anatomy of a major B-school turnaround

Adds Abraham of Accepted.com: "As long as there is a need for consulting and editing or interview coaching, we will innovate in response to the schools' new methods of meeting potential students."

Clear Admit, another MBA consulting firm, is taking a different approach from offering applicants a simulation. "We decided that trying to simulate a group interview wasn't the ideal approach for prepping candidates," says Stacey Oyler, a consultant with Clear Admit.?Instead, the firm's consultants are giving their clients expectations for the group interview experience, letting them know what Wharton is assessing, and talking through the types of people they may encounter in the group test.

"We talk with clients about the three pillars and encourage them to come up with great ideas for each one," adds Oyler. "We know from our own group interview experience that Wharton is looking for candidates who can showcase strong interpersonal skills and who are able to facilitate the discussion while contributing their own unique ideas."

The mbaMission service is a WebEx-like experience with audio and whiteboards but no video. Two consultants observe the session and offer both group and then individual feedback. "A lot of people have ... told us that what it helped them to do is think about their role in the group so that they went in with at least a few ideas of how they would orient themselves to the group," says Guido. "Having a plan of how to help move the groups forward while not stepping on people's toes gave them a greater sense of security."

More from Poets&Quants:

Source: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/26/wharton-admissions-test/

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Samsung touts market share, infographic style

Samsung shipped a hell of a lot of phones last year, and a bunch of them were smart phones -- 213,000,000 according to their latest infographic. That's a number which equates to over 30-percent of all smart phones shipped in 2012, and as we see is more than the total population of Brazil.

Samsung of course hopes to keep this trend going into 2013, with new releases like the Galaxy Note 8.0 and the upcoming Galaxy S4, as well as the multitude of entry-level phones and tablets for emerging markets. We'll have to see if this strategy works for them as well this year as it did in the last.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/6akD5jN4wDc/story01.htm

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Comet C/2013 A1 May Hit Mars In 2014

Late-breaking news from the Council: REMAIN CALM.

Panic and hysteria swept our world today upon the discovery of an inbound cometary body with a non-zero impact probability.

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addressed a terrified world:

"Podmates and citizens, we believe this object to rate, at most a 1 or a 2 on the Q'nirot scale, and expect further observations to eliminate the possibility of a collision. There is cause for continued observation, but at present there is no cause for alarm."

"We believe this potential impactor to be a routine and natural phenomenon, not a hostile threat from the Blueworlders. For one thing, is approaching from the direction away from the Blue World, from a region that even their invasion fleets have yet to control. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that the Blueworlders, despite the technological terrors they have sent to our world, remain utterly incapable of deflecting inbound asteroids and comets. Unlike our illustirous Planetary Defense Forces, the blueworlders lack the technology to do anything about an inbound impactor."

"A solid planetary defense is the right of every being in every technologically-advanced civilization. As the Blueworlders have so recently discovered the hard way, conquest and empire sometimes need to take a back seat to the basic tools that constitute civilization."

When a junior reporter suggested that EVERYBEING PANIC ANYWAYS, the Speaker concluded his remarks:

"For decades, junior reporters have been making proposals to this council that begin with 'we have to fight the blueworlders over there before we have to fight them over here', and today marks the day where they can finally put their gelsacs where their mouths are."

The reporter's gelsacs were then mounted on the impactor unit of the the kinetic kill vehicle that remains the Planetary Defense Force's third and last line of defense.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/xl9XqGiCx4U/story01.htm

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Court nixes Va. appeal in case of low IQ inmate

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court has rebuffed Virginia's request to reinstate the death sentence of a convicted killer who claims he is too mentally disabled to be executed.

The justices on Monday did not comment in letting stand lower court rulings that threw out the sentence of death for Leon Winston, convicted in the shooting deaths of Anthony and Rhonda Robinson in 2002. Rhonda Robinson, who was pregnant, was shot to death in front of her 4- and 8-year-old daughters.

The lower court concluded that Winston's lawyers did not try hard enough to show Winston was mentally disabled, and thus, ineligible to be executed under a 2002 Supreme Court ruling.

The case is Pearson v. Winston, 12-492.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-nixes-va-appeal-case-low-iq-inmate-151553151.html

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Lawrence goes back to black (hair) post-Oscars

By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor

Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence is a lady of many hair colors, but her natural is blonde -- the color she sported at the awards ceremony on Sunday night.

AKM-GSI

Jennifer Lawrence with her fresh, dark look.

But it didn't last: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence was spotted the very next day -- Monday -- exiting a hair salon in Beverly Hills after a session with "colorist-to-the-stars Lorri Goddard." She was returning to a shade she sported in the movie that won her the big prize Sunday ("Silver Linings Playbook") and one she'll continue to wear in the "Hunger Games" sequels: very dark brunette -- maybe even black.

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/02/26/17101730-jennifer-lawrence-dyes-hair-black-post-oscars?lite

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'Genesis death sandwich' discovered in Bible

www.searchvisualizer.com

When mentions of "life" and "death" are plotted in Genesis, a pattern emerges.

By Megan Gannon
LiveScience

Researchers using text-analysis software say they've discovered a new literary device in the first book of the Bible: the "Genesis death sandwich."

The name refers to a familiar rhetorical structure ? sandwiching bad news in between the good. In the case of Genesis, the slices of white bread are themes of life, and the slimy cold cuts in between are mentions of death.

"The structuring of life and death in Genesis appears to be something that hasn't been noticed before," researcher Gordon Rugg, a senior lecturer in Computing and Mathematics at Keele University in the United Kingdom, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "We think it's a standard literary device being used on a larger scale than had been previously realized. No aliens, no secret codes, no conspiracies, but some striking images, and a great name for a band."

For their study, Rugg and his colleagues ran the King James version of the text through software known as the Search Visualizer, which plotted mentions of life in red and death in green on a single gridded page representing the whole book. Their results showed frequent mentions of life in the opening and closing verses of Genesis.

For example, toward the end of the book, when Joseph is reunited with his brothers, he tells them: "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5). Meanwhile, mentions of death are clustered in the middle, the researchers found, especially in Chapter 27, when an aging Isaac talks to his son Esau, saying, for example, "Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death" (Genesis 27:2).

The researchers say this structure is an example of a literary convention known as inclusio, also called bracketing, where one theme frames another. Rugg acknowledged that it is uncertain whether or not this "death sandwich" convention was applied to the text intentionally. Nonetheless, he says it might have been used to cushion the negative messages of death, or perhaps to put life and death in stark contrast. [The 10 Weirdest Ways We Deal With the Dead]

"Whether it was a deliberate use of inclusio or a subconscious use is an open question," Rugg wrote. "We don't think that this structure is likely to be a coincidence, given the number of times the two words occur within Genesis, and given that these are themes that have long been recognized as significant within it."

Rugg and his colleagues ran other searches using the software for words not considered significant by scholars, finding no specific patterns in the book of Genesis. However, they did find the word "woman" appears overwhelmingly in the first part of Genesis, while it rarely pops up in the second half, Rugg wrote. Another term, "begat," illustrates something scholars have long recognized -- that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John mirror the themes and structures of the Old Testament (which includes Genesis); sure enough, "begat" showed a striking cluster in the first part of Genesis, mirroring what was found in the first part of the gospel of Matthew, Rugg said.

Rugg and David Musgrave of Amridge University in Alabama presented their research at November's meeting of the Association of Schools of Oriental Research in Chicago.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook?and Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/22/17058384-genesis-death-sandwich-discovered-in-bible?lite

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Chinese Characters for War: Zh?n Zh?ng ??

By Cindy Chan
Epoch Times Staff Created: February 22, 2013 Last Updated: February 22, 2013

Chinese Characters for War (Zh?n Zh?ng)

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The Chinese character combination ?? (zh?n zh?ng) stands for war, as does the first character alone, ? (zh?n).

The character ? (ji?) on the bottom right-hand side of ? is the character for armour, while ? (g?) on the left-hand side refers to a halberd, spear, or lance, and is also the name of an ancient dagger-axe.

The Warring States Period (475?221 B.C.) of China, an era characterized by war, violence, chaos, and fragmentation, is referred to as ???? (zh?n gu? sh? d?i) or simply ?? (zh?n gu?) in Chinese.

The second character of ??, ? (zh?ng), means to fight or dispute. It is commonly used in character combinations that convey the meaning of struggling, striving, and quarreling, such as ?? (zh?ng du?), to struggle for or to contend; ?? (j?ng zh?ng), to compete; and ?? (zh?ng zh?) or ?? (zh?ng l?n), to argue, dispute, or debate.

The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 21 languages.?Subscribe to our e-newsletter.

Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-characters-for-war-zhan-zheng-%E6%88%B0%E7%88%AD-351281.html

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Scott touts plan to keep spring training teams in Florida

Published: Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 9:19 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 9:19 p.m.

SARASOTA - Florida Gov. Rick Scott said the state needs to build a strategy to make sure no more Major League Baseball spring training teams leave for Arizona.

Scott made his comments Thursday night after attending a private reception at the Ed Smith Stadium Complex, where the Baltimore Orioles are scheduled to begin their spring training schedule on Saturday.

Florida has 15 spring training teams.

?We need to keep them in Florida,? Scott, a Republican, said.

Sarasota is no stranger to losing Grapefruit League teams to Arizona. The Cincinnati Reds left Ed Smith Stadium in 2010 for a better stadium in Arizona, and that was a decade after the Chicago White Sox left for Arizona.

The Orioles are in no danger of leaving anytime soon. The club signed a 30-year lease in Sarasota in 2009 in exchange for Sarasota's help in renovating Ed Smith Stadium.

Florida's biggest concern now is losing the Houston Astros, which train in Kissimmee. The team's lease expires in 2016, and there has been talk of Arizona cities trying to lure the team out west.

Arizona's 15 Cactus League teams are huddled around Phoenix, making for shorter travel for spring games.

Teams on Florida's east and west coasts can spend four hours on the road to play against teams on the opposite coast.

Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130221/article/130229905

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A misleading chart on ?welfare? spending (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/286356256?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Daimler formally opens new R&D site in India; largest R&D center outside of Germany

Daimler formally opens new R&D site in India; largest R&D center outside of Germany

Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) formally opened its new site in Bangalore. With 1,200 employees, MBRDI is the largest Daimler research and development center outside Germany.

Our new center of competence in Bangalore gives us direct access to a highly qualified workforce and excellent networking with the locally based international and national supply industry. With enormous growth potential, India is one of the core markets within our global strategy Mercedes-Benz 2020. With our new research site MBRDI we are further expanding our presence on the market, in order to be closer to the customer also in terms of research and development.

?Prof. Dr. Thomas Weber, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development

MBRDI started off with just ten employees in 1996 and has since transformed itself from a purely research-based site for IT and vehicle electrics/electronics into a center of competence with know-how in the fields of design (Computer Aided Design), simulation (Computer Aided Engineering), electrics/electronics (EE) and information technology (IT) for all divisions across the Daimler AG. The Indian site MBRDI filed 50 patent applications in 2012.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/greencarcongress/TrBK/~3/7oin3CZ-2lI/mbrdi-20130222.html

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Hong Kong continues to attract Chinese and overseas business

Hong Kong is continuing to grow as a Shangri-La for overseas and the Chinese mainland's corporate giants and small entrepreneurial investment alike, and the powerhouse city's welcome mat is gaining prominence to entice many more in the future, a seminar here was told on Wednesday.

With 7,250 mainland and foreign companies running business operations in Hong Kong in 2012 -- mainly from the United States, Japan, the Chinese mainland and Britain -- it represents a 4.3 percent increase over last year.

Hong Kong has become a globally focused powerhouse in addition to its traditional role as gateway to China, said Simon Galpin, director general of investment promotion at Invest Hong Kong, a government department established in 2000 to encourage and assist companies from all around the world to have a presence in Hong Kong.

"In addition to that role, Hong Kong is also becoming important as a springboard for Chinese mainland companies to go global," Galpin told about 50 business leaders from Houston, Texas, on Wednesday.

Galpin has been doing business in Hong Kong for 19 years and has senior management experience in the private and public sectors. He has been with Invest Hong Kong since the department's second year in 2001.

According to a survey by Invest Hong Kong, of the Chinese mainland and foreign companies doing business in Hong Kong today, 22 percent plan to expand their business operations during the next three years.

"There are things that set Hong Kong aside from other parts of China," Galpin said. "The rule of law based on British Common Law, convertible currency basically pegged to the U.S. dollar and the fact that we have a completely separate taxation system that is very simple, very predictable."

Though low labor costs might have been a prime consideration 20 years ago when Hong Kong was a manufacturing Mecca, Galpin said that today's Hong Kong is open to a wide variety of large and small businesses, some of them among the most technically driven, fiber-optic centers in the world.

"Everybody in Hong Kong has a cell phone," he said. "There are enough for every baby in Hong Kong to have two cell phones. Today, people see China as a tremendous place to do business because of the large population and its economic growth."

Galpin said his visit to Houston, the United States' fourth largest city, was prompted by Invest Hong Kong's desire to reach out to more companies in Houston and throughout Texas that may wish to do business in Hong Kong.

Currently among Invest Hong Kong clients from Texas are leading law firms, energy companies and banks, he said.

"Hong Kong is China light -- an easy place to set up base and do business with the China mainland, Vietnam and other Asian countries," Galpin said. "We have 48 million visitors coming to Hong Kong basically to shop ... Open a business in Hong Kong and business comes to you."

Invest Hong Kong works with about 700 businesses at any given time, about 20 percent of which are from the United States, Galpin said.

"We're seeing companies come from the two ends of the spectrum -- very large companies and the other trend we're seeing is small companies. You don't have to be a large company to do business in Hong Kong, but you do have to be competitive," he said.

The seminar at which Galpin spoke was titled "Hong Kong Right Place, Right Time, Right Now," and Galpin said that underscored the fact that Hong Kong is "not a post-Colonial relic frozen in time."

"Businesses come to Hong Kong because they want to access the cities and areas around Hong Kong -- the China mainland, South Korea, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Singapore, Tokyo," Galpin said. "Hong Kong will remain a low-tax economy with no sales tax, no capital tax. If you have a new technology, this is a great place to try it out."

While Hong Kong has few natural resources, it has a population of 7.1 million and a government that invests in their education.

"The single greatest resource is our people and our universities are among the best in the world," Galpin said.

Far from the movie stereotype of kung-fu practitioners on every corner, Galpin said, Hong Kong is one of the safest countries on the planet.

"The number of wealthy people continues to grow and wealthy individuals from the China mainland and elsewhere come to buy," he said. "Four-plus million visitors a year come to buy."

In terms of U.S. dollars, Hong Kong generates about 83 billion U.S. dollars annually and sends out 82 billion, much of which goes to the Chinese mainland, Galpin said.

"Hong Kong is the world's (most free) economy, with free trade in the heart of Asia," he said.

Source: http://english.sina.com/china/2013/0220/563564.html

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U.S. Catholics Divided On Church?s Direction Under New Pope

Three-quarters express a favorable view of Pope Benedict XVI ?

Washington, D.C. ? As the pontificate of Benedict XVI winds down, many American Catholics express a desire for change, according to a new survey report by the Pew Research Center. For example, most Catholics say it would be good if the next pope allows priests to marry. And fully six-in-ten Catholics say it would be good if the next pope hails from a developing region like South America, Asia or Africa.

At the same time, many Catholics also express appreciation for the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. While about half of U.S. Catholics (46%) say the next pope should ?move the church in new directions,? the other half (51%) say the new pope should ?maintain the traditional positions of the church.? And among Catholics who say they attend Mass at least once a week, nearly two-thirds (63%) want the next pope to maintain the church?s traditional positions.

These are among the key findings of a new report by the Pew Research Center?s Forum on Religion & Public Life based on two national surveys conducted Feb. 13-18 among 1,504 adults (including 304 Catholics) and Feb. 14-17 among 1,003 adults (including 212 Catholics). The report also finds that nine-in-ten U.S. Catholics have heard a lot (60%) or at least a little (30%) about Benedict?s resignation. Just one-in-ten Catholics say they have heard nothing at all about his resignation.

Additional findings include:

• Favorability ratings of the pope. Three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (74%) express a favorable view of the pope. Benedict?s ratings among Catholics now stand about where they were in March 2008 (just before his U.S. visit) and are lower than they were in April 2008, when 83% of U.S. Catholics expressed favorable views of him. Benedict?s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was rated favorably by upwards of 90% of U.S. Catholics in three separate Pew Research polls in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Benedict?s handling of the sex abuse scandal. U.S. Catholics voice dissatisfaction with Benedict?s handling of the sex abuse scandal in the church. Among Catholics who say they followed news of the pontiff?s resignation, nearly two-thirds (63%) think he has done a poor or ?only fair? job of addressing the sex abuse scandal, while 33% give him excellent or good ratings for his handling of the issue. U.S. Catholics are more negative in their views on this question now than in 2008; immediately following the pope?s 2008 visit to the U.S., 49% gave Benedict good or excellent ratings for his handling of this issue.
• Benedict?s handling of interfaith relations. Benedict gets better marks for his handling of interfaith relations; 55% of U.S. Catholics say he has done a good or excellent job promoting relations with other religions, while 37% say he has done a poor or ?only fair? job in this area. Catholics are also more negative in their views on this question now than in 2008, when 70% said he was doing a good or excellent job promoting interfaith relations.
• Maintain traditional positions or move in new directions? Among U.S. Catholics who say they attend Mass at least once a week, nearly two-thirds (63%) say the new pope should maintain the traditional positions of the church, while about one-third (35%) say the new pope should move the church in new directions. By contrast, among those who attend Mass less often, 54% say the next pope should move in new directions while 42% prefer to maintain the church?s traditional positions.
• New directions Catholics would like to see the church go. In response to an open-ended question, about one-in-five U.S. Catholics who think the next pope should move the church in new directions say simply that the church should become more modern (19%). And 15% want the next pope to do more to end sex abuse in the church and punish the priests involved. In addition, upwards of one-in-five mention issues regarding the priesthood, including 14% who say priests should be allowed to marry and 9% who say women should be allowed to serve in the priesthood. Others mention a desire to see the church become more accepting and open in general (14%), and an additional 9% say they want to see the church become more accepting of homosexuality and gay marriage in particular. Of Catholics who want a pope who will move the church in new directions, 7% specifically mention birth control, mainly indicating a desire for a lessening of the church?s opposition to the use of contraception.

The full report is available on the Pew Forum?s website. For additional information on related topics, see our Resources on Catholicism and the Pope.

###

The Pew Research Center?s Forum on Religion & Public Life conducts surveys, demographic analyses and other social science research on important aspects of religion and public life in the U.S. and around the world. As part of the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, non-advocacy organization, the Pew Forum does not take positions on policy debates or any of the issues it covers.?

Twitter: @pewforum?

Facebook: facebook.com/pewforum?

Source: http://www.pewforum.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/US-Catholics-Divided-On-Churchs-Direction-Under-New-Pope.aspx

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Researchers identify variations in four genes associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer

Public release date: 20-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kristen Woodward
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
206-667-5095
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

SEATTLE An international research team co-led by cancer prevention researcher Ulrike "Riki" Peters, Ph.D., M.P.H., and biostatistician Hsu Li, Ph.D., at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has identified variations in four genes that are linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. Peters and colleagues from 40 institutes throughout the world published their findings online ahead of the April print issue of Gastroenterology.

Peters and colleagues for the past four years have been studying the genes linked to colorectal cancer through the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium, a collaboration involving researchers from North America, Australia and Europe who have pooled data from approximately 40,000 study participants, about half of whom have colorectal cancer. Fred Hutch houses GECCO's coordinating center and Peters is its principal investigator.

The genomewide-association study was conducted in two phases. The first involved rapidly scanning complete sets of blood DNA from 12,696 people with colorectal cancer or a precancerous condition called adenoma. This data was then compared to the same set of variants from 15,113 healthy controls of European descent.

Of 2.7 million genetic variants identified, the 10 most statistically significant mutations associated with colorectal cancer were then further analyzed in a follow-up genomewide-association study of 3,056 colorectal cancers or adenomas and colon-tissue samples from 6,658 healthy controls of European and Asian descent.

The research team uncovered mutations in the following genes all genetic variants that previously had not been associated with colorectal cancer:

• NABP a gene involved in DNA repair
• LAMC1 the second gene in the laminin gene family found to be associated with colorectal cancer
• CCND2 a gene involved in cell-cycle control, which is a key control mechanism to prevent cancer development
• TBX3 a gene transcription factor that targets a known colorectal cancer pathway

If a person carries one or two copies of any of these genetic variants, their risk of colorectal cancer is increased by 10 percent to 40 percent compared to a person who does not harbor such DNA genetic variants, Peters said.

"These findings could potentially lead to new drug targets and, in combination with previously identified genetic and environmental risk factors, identify subgroups of the population that can benefit most from colorectal-cancer screening and could be targeted for early or more frequent endoscopy, a very effective screening tool for colorectal cancer," said Peters, a member of the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch.

###

GECCO is funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home to three Nobel laureates, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists seek new and innovative ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. Fred Hutch's pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation led to the development of immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system to treat cancer with minimal side effects. An independent, nonprofit research institute based in Seattle, Fred Hutch houses the nation's first and largest cancer prevention research program, as well as the clinical coordinating center of the Women's Health Initiative and the international headquarters of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Private contributions are essential for enabling Fred Hutch scientists to explore novel research opportunities that lead to important medical breakthroughs. For more information visit www.fhcrc.org or follow Fred Hutch on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Public release date: 20-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kristen Woodward
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
206-667-5095
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

SEATTLE An international research team co-led by cancer prevention researcher Ulrike "Riki" Peters, Ph.D., M.P.H., and biostatistician Hsu Li, Ph.D., at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has identified variations in four genes that are linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. Peters and colleagues from 40 institutes throughout the world published their findings online ahead of the April print issue of Gastroenterology.

Peters and colleagues for the past four years have been studying the genes linked to colorectal cancer through the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium, a collaboration involving researchers from North America, Australia and Europe who have pooled data from approximately 40,000 study participants, about half of whom have colorectal cancer. Fred Hutch houses GECCO's coordinating center and Peters is its principal investigator.

The genomewide-association study was conducted in two phases. The first involved rapidly scanning complete sets of blood DNA from 12,696 people with colorectal cancer or a precancerous condition called adenoma. This data was then compared to the same set of variants from 15,113 healthy controls of European descent.

Of 2.7 million genetic variants identified, the 10 most statistically significant mutations associated with colorectal cancer were then further analyzed in a follow-up genomewide-association study of 3,056 colorectal cancers or adenomas and colon-tissue samples from 6,658 healthy controls of European and Asian descent.

The research team uncovered mutations in the following genes all genetic variants that previously had not been associated with colorectal cancer:

• NABP a gene involved in DNA repair
• LAMC1 the second gene in the laminin gene family found to be associated with colorectal cancer
• CCND2 a gene involved in cell-cycle control, which is a key control mechanism to prevent cancer development
• TBX3 a gene transcription factor that targets a known colorectal cancer pathway

If a person carries one or two copies of any of these genetic variants, their risk of colorectal cancer is increased by 10 percent to 40 percent compared to a person who does not harbor such DNA genetic variants, Peters said.

"These findings could potentially lead to new drug targets and, in combination with previously identified genetic and environmental risk factors, identify subgroups of the population that can benefit most from colorectal-cancer screening and could be targeted for early or more frequent endoscopy, a very effective screening tool for colorectal cancer," said Peters, a member of the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch.

###

GECCO is funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home to three Nobel laureates, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists seek new and innovative ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. Fred Hutch's pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation led to the development of immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system to treat cancer with minimal side effects. An independent, nonprofit research institute based in Seattle, Fred Hutch houses the nation's first and largest cancer prevention research program, as well as the clinical coordinating center of the Women's Health Initiative and the international headquarters of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Private contributions are essential for enabling Fred Hutch scientists to explore novel research opportunities that lead to important medical breakthroughs. For more information visit www.fhcrc.org or follow Fred Hutch on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/fhcr-riv022013.php

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New analysis of Genesis reveals 'death sandwich' literary theme

Feb. 20, 2013 ? An online tool has, for the first time, revealed a common literary technique in the Book of Genesis that has remained hidden in the text for millennia.

Researchers at Keele University, UK, and Amridge University, USA, have discovered that Genesis uses an early example of a technique known as 'bracketing', which sandwiches one theme between two mentions of another theme. The technique is commonly used today, such as when bad news is sandwiched between two bits of good news. The new analysis of Genesis reveals a striking pattern between the two key themes of 'life' and 'death'. The opening and closing verses of the book contain frequent mentions of life, whereas mentions of death are only found in clusters in the middle.

Informally dubbed by researchers the 'Genesis Death Sandwich', this pattern offers the first clear example of this common rhetorical structure being used in the text describing the creation of the universe. The discovery was made thanks to a new tool for analysing texts developed by Dr Gordon Rugg, senior lecturer in Computing and Mathematics at Keele University. The text-analysis tool, called Search Visualizer, represents entire texts as a grid with each square representing a word and coloured squares representing search keywords. When used to examine the words 'life' and 'death' in the King James Version of Genesis, the new pattern emerged.

Dr Rugg explains: "This is a significant discovery for historians and theologians interested in the Old Testament, and shows that whoever wrote the version of the text that been passed down to us was clearly employing this rhetorical structure. Whether this was done consciously or subconsciously will probably remain a mystery, although possible reasons for the pattern might be to soften the negative messages of death, or perhaps to juxtapose life and death for greater impact.

"Our new method for visualising texts means an entire book can be represented on a single page of A4, allowing you to see patterns very easily. It offers a quick and simple way for researchers to identify patterns, or see which of their ideas might be red herrings, which is an important insight for researchers dealing with large texts."

Dr Gordon Rugg from Keele University and Dr David Musgrave from Amridge University, USA, have also used Search Visualizer to explore other significant texts including the Iliad. They have uncovered a pattern in the text that provides new evidence supporting a theory that one section, 'The Catalogue of Ships', is in fact an older poem incorporated into Homer's epic story.

As well as exploring patterns in historical texts and literature, the new tool has a wide range of other potential applications. One such use is re-examining cold-case police investigations by analysing old witness statements to identify correlating stories. Using Search Visualizer, patterns can be seen that might have been very difficult to identify by reading through large numbers of documents manually. The software can also be used as a new way of searching the web.

The search tool is available at www.searchvisualizer.com.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Keele University, via AlphaGalileo.

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

---

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/q8lmvIlmJEU/130220084730.htm

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Democrats in Washington Backtrack on Plan to Allow Police to Search Gun Owners Homes Without a Warrant

By Alex Thomas
theintelhub.com
February 19, 2013

A proposed law in Washington State has led to widespread uproar, with citizens decrying the provision that would allow police to search the homes of gun owners without a warrant up to once per year.

The proposed law,?SB 5737,?contains a startling provision that would effectively end the Fourth Amendment in the state.

?In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall ? safely and securely store the assault weapon.

The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection.?

In response to the outcry, multiple Democrats who sponsored the legislation are now backtracking with claims that they didn?t actually read the bill and that the specific provision allowing?warrant-less?searches of all gun owners is being removed.

A report in the Seattle Times outlined the fact that the original bill has now been removed from the states website, replaced with an updated?version?that does not contain a provision allowing police to conduct door to door searches of homes.

?It seemed in recent weeks lawmakers might be headed toward some?common-sense regulation?of gun sales. But then last week they went too far. By mistake, they claim. But still too far.

?They always say, we?ll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder.?

{?.}

That?s no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling?Senate Bill 5737?to my attention.

It?s the long-awaited assault-weapons ban, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats.

(Note to readers: The link above is to a new version of SB 5737, which no longer contains the disputed provision. The original version of the bill has been erased from the state?s Web site, but?here?you can see it as it was proposed.)

Two co sponsors were then quoted in the article as saying that they hadn?t actually read the proposed law and that staff was to blame for the horrific,?unconstitutional provision.

I spoke to two of the sponsors. One, Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, a lawyer who typically is hyper-attuned to civil-liberties issues, said he did not know the bill authorized police searches because he had not read it closely before signing on.

?I made a mistake,? Kline said. ?I frankly should have vetted this more closely.?

That lawmakers sponsor bills they haven?t read is common. Still, it?s disappointing on one of this political magnitude. Not counting a long table, it?s only an eight-page bill.

The prime sponsor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, also condemned the search provision in his own bill, after I asked him about it. He said Palmer is right that it?s probably unconstitutional.

?I have to admit that shouldn?t be in there,? Murray said.

This proposed law is a part of a larger tyrannical effort to limit and or restrict the gun rights of private Americans throughout the country.

As pro gun control activists, the corporate media, and elements of the federal government continue to claim that they simply want?reasonable?gun control, the fact of the matter is numerous extremely unreasonable laws have been passed and or proposed in the wake of the?horrific?mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

In early February Democrats in California floated the idea of outright gun confiscation as they attempted to one up New York in regards to the strictest gun law in the country.

Among the measures is one that would outlaw the future sale of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines. The restriction would prevent quick reloading by requiring bullets to be loaded one at a time.

Lawmakers also want to make some prohibitions apply to current gun owners, not just to people who buy weapons in the future.

{?..}

That?s right, gun confiscation, a possibility that has been ridiculed by the corporate media and the left for years is now being openly talked about as if they didn?t just spend years and years trying to convince the American people that gun confiscation is simply a right-wing conspiracy theory with no basis in actual fact.

Shortly after the idea was floated in California, a proposed law was?introduced?into the?Missouri?House of?Representatives?that included outright gun confiscation of all semi-automatic weapons.

A section in the?proposed law?calls for direct confiscation:

?Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution.

Residents will be ordered to ?remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri? Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or? Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.?

The two examples above are merely an example of the numerous gun control measures that have been either proposed or talked about by gun grabbing?politicians?throughout the country.

Sadly, we are seeing the largest attack on gun rights in the history of America.

Regardless of what the gun grabbers claim, the facts clearly show that most if not all plans for gun control are?thinly veiled attempts at much more?tyrannical?gun restrictions.

(Obviously most can agree that some sort of background check system should be in place but this is far from the only thing the gun grabbers are pushing.)

For a complete report on calls for gun confiscation throughout the country click here.?(up to 16 states have proposed laws that would ban all semi-automatics)

Alex Thomas is an investigative journalist, researcher, and the co-founder and editor of?theintelhub.com. You can follow him on Twitter?here?and like our page on Facebook?here.

Source: http://theintelhub.com/2013/02/19/democrats-in-washington-backtrack-on-plan-to-allow-police-to-search-gun-owners-homes-without-a-warrant/

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White House tries to keep immigration on track

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House sought to keep delicate immigration negotiations on track Tuesday as a key Republican senator further distanced himself from a draft bill President Barack Obama's aides are readying in case congressional talks crumble.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's office said Obama's plan "injected additional partisanship into an already difficult process." The White House, following the weekend leak of its draft legislation, insisted the president wants the bipartisan Senate group of which Rubio is a member to propose its own bill instead.

Obama spoke with Rubio on Tuesday to reiterate his commitment to the Senate process, but to make clear that he had his own legislation ready, the White House said. The president also called Republicans Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, two other GOP lawmakers involved in the immigration negotiations.

"It is, by far, the president's preference that the Senate process move forward, that the bipartisan group of eight have success, and that they produce a bill that wins the support of Democrats and Republicans in Senate," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Senate aides said privately that bipartisan negotiations are in a good place and did not feel as though the disclosure of details in Obama's draft bill would disrupt their progress. In fact, Obama's backup bill could end up spurring GOP lawmakers to rally behind a similar congressional plan rather than support legislation attached to the president.

While they differ on some key details, both sides are contemplating legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S., tighten border security, crack down on businesses that employ illegal workers and strengthen the legal immigration system.

Rubio, a rising Republican star and favorite of his party's conservative wing, has particular incentive to disown Obama's proposals.

As one of his party's leading voices on immigration, Rubio will be called on to sell other conservatives on any deal and knows that doing so will be harder if that deal has the president's name attached to it. He'll also have to convince Republicans that a bipartisan Senate agreement would be more conservative than what Obama would propose on his own.

Rubio's office, trying to further distance itself from the White House, insisted that the senator's team had not been in talks with the administration on immigration. But Rubio spokesman Alex Conant later backed away from that statement after senior administration officials said representatives from Rubio's office had been part of five bipartisan immigration meetings with the White House.

The White House has insisted it did not intentionally leak details of its immigration plan, which circulated widely at key government agencies. Top Obama aides tried to clear up the mess over the weekend, making apologetic calls to the offices of the eight senators at the center of the Capitol Hill negotiations.

Obama officials say the documents represent draft proposals, not a final bill. The president and his aides have repeatedly said publicly that the White House was readying legislation and would submit it to Congress if the Senate process stalls.

The draft White House proposal and the principles outlined by the Senate group overlap in many areas, though there are some key differences.

The administration's draft proposal would create a visa for those in the country illegally and allow them to become legal permanent residents within about eight years as part of a broader pathway to citizenship. The Senate group is looking at a 10-year timeline before people already in the U.S. illegally could get green cards.

While Obama's proposal calls for more funding for securing the border, it does not make border security a pre-condition for opening a pathway to citizenship. The Senate group's principles would require a border security trigger, though it's unclear how they would define a secure border.

Rubio's office has also criticized the president's proposals for not including a guest worker program or a plan for dealing with the future flow of immigrants.

Officials say the White House has not set a deadline for when the president would choose to abandon the Senate process and send his bill to Capitol Hill. Senate lawmakers have raised the prospect of drafting a bill next month.

Hanging over the entire immigration debate in Washington is a changed political landscape that gives Hispanics more influence in national politics than ever before. Hispanics made up 10 percent of the electorate in the November presidential election and Obama won more two-thirds of their votes, causing many Republican lawmakers to rethink their opposition to immigration reform.

Immigration advocates have vowed to keep reminding GOP lawmakers of the growing political power of Hispanic voters.

"You can choose not to do it, you can choose inaction, but keep in mind that the Latino community is not going to forget," said Eliseo Medina, an immigration advocate and labor leader at the Service Employees International Union.

"If the Senate blocks it, then get prepared for 2014," he added, referring to next year's congressional elections.

_

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

_

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-tries-keep-immigration-track-222727649--politics.html

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The new University of Hawaii Cancer Center is now open for business in Kakaako....

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151466241765479&set=a.446167765478.235705.192156350478&type=1

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UK patient dies from SARS-like coronavirus

LONDON (AP) ? A patient being treated for a mysterious SARS-like virus has died, a British hospital said Tuesday.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said the coronavirus victim was also being treated for "a long-term, complex unrelated health problem" and already had a compromised immune system.

A total of 12 people worldwide have been diagnosed with the disease, six of whom have died.

The virus was first identified last year in the Middle East. Most of those infected had traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan, but the person who just died is believed to have caught it from a relative in Britain, where there have been four confirmed cases.

The new coronavirus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and SARS. In 2003, a global outbreak of SARS killed about 800 people worldwide.

Health experts still aren't sure exactly how humans are being infected. The new coronavirus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.

Britain's Health Protection Agency has said while it appears the virus can spread from person to person, "the risk of infection in contacts in most circumstances is still considered to be low."

Officials at the World Health Organization said the new virus has probably already spread between humans in some instances. In Saudi Arabia last year, four members of the same family fell ill and two died. And in a cluster of about a dozen people in Jordan, the virus may have spread at a hospital's intensive care unit.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-patient-dies-sars-coronavirus-110739376.html

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Office? HD tracks all the changes at Macworld|iWorld 2013

While iPad software continues to get more and more sophisticated, one of the holy grail's of great tablet software continues to be great office software. Office? HD keeps getting closer with their all-in-one package for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. At Macworld|iWorld 2013, Stuart Prestedge of Byte? , the developers of Office? HD showed us just how far they've managed to take track changes on the iPad, and it's impressive.

I've often felt great software on the iPad was like finger painting with productivity, and this is no exception. If you like all your office in one app, and track changes is important to your workflow, check out Office? HD.

• $7.99 - Download now

More: Byte?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/SmtpzkdF7x8/story01.htm

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