8 killed in shooting at Mexican volleyball game

Gunmen opened fire on a group of volleyball players in the drug violence-plagued state of Sinaloa on Friday night, killing eight people and wounding at least seven, authorities said.

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Sinaloa state police chief Francisco Cordova said some of those killed were playing volleyball while others were watching. The volleyball court is in a working-class neighborhood of Culiacan, the state capital.

Soldiers, federal police and local officers were deployed to the crime scene, Cordova said. He did not provide any more details.

It was not immediately clear whether the shooting was drug related, but Sinaloa is the home state of Joaquin Guzman's powerful drug cartel. It has been the scene of bloody battles between the gang and its rivals.

Meanwhile, groups of heavily armed men fired hundreds of shots at each other in the streets of the border city of Ciudad Juarez, leaving at least six combatants dead.

Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Friday that the shooting took place in a rough part of the city on Thursday. He said investigators recovered 442 spent bullets from the scene.

Officials have not said who was involved, but the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels have been battling since 2008 over control of the city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

On Friday, Mexican federal police said they detained the second of three alleged leaders of a drug gang locked in a fierce battle for control of the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Victor Manuel Rivera was captured Friday in Mexico State, federal police anti-drug chief Ramon Pequeno said.

Authorities say Rivera's "street sweeper" gang has been fighting the local Independent Cartel of Acapulco for control of the port city since the 2010 arrest of suspected drug capo Edgar Valdez Villareal, a Texas-born man known as "La Barbie."

The two gangs splintered away from Valdez's organization because they didn't like the new leadership. Bloodshed in Acapulco, including mutilations and decapitations, surged following the break-up.

Federal police officers captured another alleged leader of the "street sweeper" last month.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45168087/ns/world_news-americas/

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Newsmaker: Greece's Papandreou, Socialist scion, felled by debt (Reuters)

ATHENS (Reuters) ? Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was elected as a Socialist who would lavish jobs and benefits on the poor and working class, but was brought down two years later by an economic crisis that forced him to do the opposite.

He is expected to step down soon, after the presidency announced on Sunday that his PASOK party and its conservative opponents had agreed to form a national unity government to stave off bankruptcy. One of the conservatives' main conditions for participation has been his resignation.

The soft-spoken, genteel Papandreou, 59, has struggled to follow in the footsteps of his elder statesman grandfather and larger-than-life father, who each served multiple terms as prime minister and towered over Greek politics for much of the past century.

He was born in St Paul, Minnesota and educated in Canada, the United States, Sweden and Britain. Greeks occasionally mock his mistakes speaking his country's own language, as well as his mild manner and even his penchant for riding a bicycle, a far cry from the macho image many Greek politicians strive for.

As his political career came to a head last week with a failed gamble on a proposal to hold a referendum on the harsh measures required to avert bankruptcy, he insisted that he was not holding onto power out of personal ambition.

"The last thing I care about is my post. I don't care even if I am not reelected. The time has come to make a new effort ... I never thought of politics as a profession," Papandreou said on Friday before surviving a confidence vote.

His Socialists came to power in 2009 with promises to help the poor that had been left behind by an economic boom that followed the country's entry into the euro single currency.

But since he took power and announced that Greece's debts were higher than thought, the country has suffered its longest recession in generations, and the poor and working class have been hit hardest.

To stave off bankruptcy, Papandreou has been forced to impose severe spending cuts and hack back at a welfare state and a system of generous treatment of state workers seen as the legacy of his own charismatic father. PASOK has seen its popularity crumble and its parliamentary majority erode.

With European leaders demanding more cuts and Greek workers taking to the streets in violent protests, he gambled last week that a referendum on the bailout would finally allow him to demonstrate political support for the tough measures.

But the prospect that a "no" vote could throw Greece into abrupt bankruptcy caused mayhem in the markets, fury among other European leaders and defections in the ruling party.

Eventually he backed down on the referendum, saying the proposal had achieved its aim by persuading the opposition to back the reforms and join a coalition government. Their stated price for doing so has been his resignation.

FOLLOWING FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS

Throughout his career, Papandreou has had to prove his mettle within a PASOK party still nostalgic for his late father Andreas. It took him three national elections to oust his arch-rival, conservative Costas Karamanlis, as premier.

"We stand united, facing the big responsibility to change our country into a nation of justice, solidarity, humanity and green development," Papandreou told cheering supporters in October 2009 after PASOK won 44 percent of the vote and 160 out of 300 parliament seats.

His grandfather, also named Georgios Papandreou, first joined the government as interior minister in 1923 and last left it in a military coup in 1967. He served as premier three times, including as the leader of the Greek government in exile during German occupation in World War II, and as a dominant center-left figure of the 1960s.

The second generation of the dynasty, Andreas Papandreou, cast an arguably even greater shadow as the founder of the PASOK party whose leadership the younger George Papandreou would eventually assume.

Andreas Papandreou angered Greece's Western allies with his political bravado and challenged Greek conventions with his turbulent love life.

George, who has previously held the posts of education and foreign minister, is a calm, discreet politician who became comfortable in European Union corridors of power in Brussels.

"GREAT POTENTIAL," THEN CRASH

"We are a country with great potential," he told Reuters in a 2009 interview. "We have the political will to make deep changes in a just and equitable way, to put our country back on a development path, to meet the challenges of a new world."

But shortly after taking office, his government dropped a bombshell when it disclosed that the budget deficit would reach 12.7 percent of GDP that year, three times more than the previous government's original estimates.

This admission, which PASOK blames on its conservative predecessors, triggered the Greek debt crisis.

A raft of austerity measures followed to counter pervasive tax evasion and scale back a bloated public sector to meet the terms of EU and IMF bailout packages.

Ordinary Greeks hit worst by the severe cutbacks in wages, pensions and other benefits complained that a corrupt and wealthy political and business elite was escaping unscathed.

Waves of national strikes, street protests and civil disobedience ensued, undermining Papandreou's tenure.

By May 2011, 77 percent of Greeks in an opinion poll said they no longer believed he could extricate them from economic meltdown. By October, only 23 percent had a positive view of Papandreou.

Papandreou was handpicked by then-prime minister Costas Simitis, who secured Greece's euro zone entry, to lead the party in early 2004, partly on the strength of his family name.

Internal party dissent followed an election defeat that year, and he faced a direct challenge after his second defeat to Karamanlis in 2007.

He won the hard-fought internal battle, proving to friend and foe that he was more than an heir to a dynasty. He picked young, bright talent for top party positions and purged an old guard associated with decades of socialist graft.

But the dysfunctional aspects of Greece's economy within the euro zone remained unaddressed, bringing on the current crisis.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111106/ts_nm/us_greece_papandreou

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Business and Investment blog ? Blog Archive ? Investing in Real ...

The most successful investors know that it is best to allocate investment across several asset classes whose returns are not completely correlated with each other. Most of them have assets in cash, equities (stocks), debt instruments (bonds) and real estate. The latter asset class, real estate, is frequently under-represented in investors? portfolios, but real estate adds an important element of stability in an investor?s returns, owing to the remarkable stability of real estate appreciation over time compared to other asset classes.

Real estate has been under-represented because good property investment vehicles have not been easily available. For many investors, their home has been their main real estate investment. Others have branched out into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which have become increasingly popular in recent years. REITs have offered good liquidity, good overall returns (especially in recent years), but tend to be volatile, with returns that may vary widely year-over-year. Their other big drawback is since REIT dividend income is fully taxable at ordinary income tax rates; they are best suited for tax-advantaged accounts, such as 401(k) plans and IRAs.

Many large fortunes in real estate have been amassed by buying and holding properties to generate significant returns through cash flow and appreciation, and by taking advantage of their tax benefits, notably depreciation, long-term capital gains tax treatment, and the ability to defer tax liabilities through the use of 1031 tax-deferred exchanges. Buying and holding properties offers some of the very highest returns, stability, and tax advantages available.

Meridian Pacific?s objective is to provide investors with a real estate investment alternative to REITs for buying and holding cash flow properties with superior returns and low volatility with the all of the tax benefits of direct real estate ownership.

Meridian Pacific Real Estate Investment Philosophy

While there are a myriad of successful investment models in real estate, they all share only one or both of the following fundamentals to build financial wealth:

  • Cash flow growth

  • Equity build-up

Most homeowners are familiar with equity build-up, which is driven by the appreciation of a home and/or paying down a mortgage balance over time. Equity build-up increases one?s net worth in real estate assets.

Cash flow relates to deriving rental income in excess of all of the cash obligations and costs incurred, including the servicing of mortgage debt. To the extent that costs can be reduced and rents appreciate, cash flow will grow over time.

November 06 2011 03:09 am | Investing

Source: http://www.sxldjt.com/investing-in-real-estate/

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Google search promises to get fresh with you

After weathering some less than enthusiastic receptions to Gmail and Google Reader revamps, not to mention the long awaited launch of a Gmail app for the iPhone, the Google upgrade train just keeps on rolling along. This time out, Mountain View is targeting its real bread and butter: search. Google is harnessing its Caffeine indexing system to offer up fresher results -- a change that will apparently affect around 35 percent of the site's searches. The new results include more up to the minute results, prioritization for recent happenings and more frequent updates.

Google search promises to get fresh with you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/03/google-search-promises-to-get-fresh-with-you/

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A rough, tough star-studded rivalry

Rivalry is filled with hatred, unpredictability, but big-name players' performances are consistent

Image: Pittsburgh Steelers v Baltimore RavensGetty Images

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger?s statistics against the Ravens are remarkably consistent from game to game.

updated 1:31 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2011

Mike Tanier

There?s a good reason Sunday night?s Ravens-Steelers game is giving you a sense of familiarity. The two teams are meeting for the 10th time, counting the playoffs, in the past 38 months. They faced each other in September?s season opener, which was a rematch of January?s first-round playoff game, which was the grudge match that decided a regular-season split between the two teams, who also split in 2009, after the Steelers swept the Ravens in three games in 2008, one of them the AFC Championship Game.

That?s a lot of history crammed into just over three years.

Many of the principal players in Sunday night?s game grew up in this rivalry. Joe Flacco, Ray Rice and Rashard Mendenhall were rookies in 2008 when John Harbaugh took over the Ravens and joined second-year Steelers coach Mike Tomlin in ushering new eras in both franchise?s histories. Mike Wallace joined the fray in 2009, Anquan Boldin as a free agent last season. In addition to the youngsters, many veterans have had career-defining moments in Steelers-Ravens games, including Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, Ray Lewis and Ed Reed.

With the NFC North typically hanging in the balance and shoo-in Hall of Famers battling up-and-comers, Steelers-Ravens games always give us plenty to talk about. A look back at their game-by-game statistics of some of the biggest stars can tell us something about what to expect on Sunday ? whether Rice will run wild, Big Ben will come up even bigger, which safety is more likely to produce a pick-6, and so on.

This rivalry has a reputation for unpredictability ? raise your hand if you had the Ravens winning the opener 35-7 ? but it turns out that there are some things you can count on, starting with Big Ben himself.

Ben Roethlisberger
Last Three Years vs. Ravens (per game): 34 attempts, 19 completions (54.7 percent complete), 244 yards, 1.1 touchdowns, 0.9 interceptions.?

Roethlisberger?s statistics against the Ravens are remarkably consistent from game to game. He has completed between 17 and 22 passes in every meeting since the September 2008 matchup, passing for between 246 and 280 yards in each of those games. He has thrown one touchdown in every game against the Ravens except last year?s playoff game, when he threw two. Roethlisberger?s interception rate went way up when he threw three interceptions against the Ravens in September. Before that, he threw just three picks in nine games. Big Ben has settled down interception-wise this year, so that three-pick effort is best thought of as a lockout-inflated anomaly. When Roethlisberger plays ? he has missed two meetings with injuries and suspensions ? you know what you will get.

Image: Ravens' quarterback Flacco throws a pass against the Steelers in the first half of their AFC Divisional NFL playoff football game in Pittsburgh

Jason Cohn / Reuters


Joe Flacco
Career vs. Steelers (per game): 31 attempts, 17 completions (53.9 percent), 197 yards, 1.1 touchdowns, 0.9 interceptions

Two weak playoff games hold Flacco?s numbers down, but September?s three-touchdown effort gives them a boost. Just as Roethlisberger has warmed up since the opener, Flacco has cooled off, so numbers like the ones you see above are far more likely than the efficient 224 yards he put up in the opener. The raw numbers do not show the pounding Flacco has taken at the Steelers' hands: he has endured 29 sacks, and many more knockdowns, in nine games.

Rashard Mendenhall
Career vs. Ravens (per game): 18 carries, 53 yards, 0.7 touchdowns, 1.5 catches, 10 yards

These numbers show how excellent the Ravens' and Steelers' defenses usually are: they turn 1,000 yard backs into guys who struggle to get past 50 yards per game and make it hard for established quarterbacks to complete 50 percent of their passes. The three 2010 meetings typified Mendenhall?s battering-ram role in these games: he may go 19 for 45 or 20 for 26, but he scored two touchdowns each in two of the games and is the Steelers? weapon of choice at the goal line.

Image: Ray Rice

Nick Wass / AP


Ray Rice
Career vs. Steelers (per game): 12 carriers, 59 yards, 0.25 TD, three catches, 28 yards

When Rice is on against the Steelers, he is on. He had 149 total yards and two touchdowns in September?s game and racked up 155 total yards in a 2009 game. At the same time, there are a lot of eight-carry, 20-yard efforts on Rice?s resume, and he is also usually neutralized as a receiver in those games.

Mike Wallace
Career vs. Ravens (per game): 4.2 catches, 62 yards

Wallace joined the party in 2009, and while he has not yet scored a touchdown against the Ravens,he has produced a few of his trademark long receptions, including a 45-yard catch in a 23-20 Steelers win in 2009. Some Ravens defenders consider Antonio Brown more dangerous than Wallace, perhaps remembering Brown?s 58-yard catch that changed the course of last year?s playoff game.

Anquan Boldin
Ravens Career vs. Steelers (per game): 4.25 catches, 64.5 yards, 0.5 touchdowns

Boldin caught 12 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown in two regular-season games against the Steelers last year, then had four catches for 74 yards and a touchdown in this season?s opener. As they always do against the Ravens, the Steelers had the last laugh in the playoffs, holding Boldin to one screen pass that lost two yards. In general, though, you can count on a few Flacco-to-Boldin hookups.

Image: Pittsburgh Steelers v Baltimore Ravens

Rob Carr / Getty Images


Troy Polamalu
Last Three Years vs. Ravens (total): one sack, one interception, two touchdowns.

Polamalu nailed the Ravens' coffin shut with a 40-yard interception return in the 2008 AFC Championship game. He also returned a fumble for a touchdown in 2008. Other than that, the big plays have been few and far between for Polamalu, in part because he is most dangerous when picking off passes underneath, while the Ravens prefer to attack deep.

Ed Reed
Last Three Years vs. Steelers (total): 1 sack, 2 interceptions

Reed also recovered a fumble in the 2010 playoff game. Both of Reed?s picks came in this season?s opener, and Reed has either missed or been severely limited in many Steelers games due to injuries. Reed and Polamalu will both go into the Hall of Fame, but they rarely have great games when facing each other?s offenses.

Ray Lewis
Last Three Years vs. Steelers (total): 80 tackles, 1 sack, 2 interceptions

The Steelers still bring out the best in Lewis, though stat-heads recognize that high tackle totals are often a sign that the defender?s team lost. Sure enough, Lewis recorded 13 total tackles in a 13-10 loss last year, and the Ravens? two playoff losses resulted in nine tackles each for Lewis. Take a look at Mendenhall?s stats, though, and you can see that Lewis is making many of those tackles close to the line of scrimmage, contributing to what (until September) was almost always a close, low-scoring slugfest.

Image: Ravens' quarterback Flacco is sacked by Harrison of the Steelers during the second half of their AFC Divisional NFL playoff football game in Pittsburgh

Jason Cohn / Reuters


James Harrison
Last Three Years vs. Ravens: 5.5 sacks

Steelers defensive performances against the Ravens tend to be team efforts. Sacks, interceptions and big plays are often spread among multiple players. All of Harrison?s sacks came in two games: a 2.5-sack effort in 2008, and a three-sack performance in last year?s playoffs.

Harrison?s game-changing postseason performance makes his status for Sunday (he is practicing with a face guard after missing am month with an eye injury) so critical. As the numbers above show, much about this rivalry is predictable: 240 Roethlisberger yards, low completion rates, great run defense, and so on. The difference between a 23-20 Ravens win and a 23-20 Steelers win may come down to a sack or two. Or three. Harrison is the wild card who could provide the sacks that decide the course of the AFC North, if not the league.

Mike Tanier writes for NBCSports.com and Rotoworld.com and is a senior writer for Football Outsiders.


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A rough, tough star-studded rivalry

Tanier: The Steelers-Ravens rivalry has a reputation for unpredictability, but it turns out that there are some things you can count on regarding the performances of the teams' stars.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45148590/ns/sports-nfl/

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Capitals Rally To Beat Ducks 5-4 In Overtime

WASHINGTON -- Nicklas Backstrom scored the tying goal with 42 seconds left in regulation, then added the game-winner at 2:18 of overtime to lift the Washington Capitals to a 5-4 comeback victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night.

The Capitals trailed 3-0 in the second period and 4-2 with 10:47 left in regulation before rallying. It was 4-3 when Washington pulled goaltender Tomas Vokoun in the final minute, and Backstrom hammered home the rebound of a shot by Jason Chimera to force the extra session.

In overtime, Backstrom was standing to the right of the net when Alex Ovechkin sent the puck toward goalie Jonas Hiller. Anaheim defenseman Toni Lydman let the puck slip past his stick, and Backstrom scored easily to end it.

Washington improved to 6-0 at home and ended a two-game skid.

Teemu Selanne had two goals and two assists for the Ducks, who have lost three straight. Hiller stopped 35 shots.

Now in his 20th season, the 41-year-old Selanne leads the Ducks in goals (five) and assists (nine). He has three goals and eight assists in his last six games.

Anaheim was averaging two goals per game and had been held to one goal or fewer in five of its first 11 contests. The Ducks took only 15 shots, but more than a quarter of them made it past Vokoun.

Joel Ward, Dennis Wideman and Troy Brouwer scored for the Capitals, who remained unbeaten in the United States following losses at Edmonton and Vancouver.

The Ducks went up 1-0 at 9:05 of the first period when Selanne skated behind the goal and sent a centering pass to Saku Koivu, who eluded defenseman Roman Hamrlik and beat Vokoun from the left side.

Selanne and Koivu teamed again 4 1/2 minutes later to make it 2-0. Koivu corralled Lydman's shot off the back boards and sent it across the crease to Selanne, who scored from the left side of the net.

Selanne made it 3-0 with a slap shot at 8:59 of the second period, but the Capitals got back into it when Ward and Wideman scored just over three minutes apart. Ward drilled a wrist shot through the Hiller's pads, and Wideman scored after Hiller botched an attempt to clear a puck that was sent the length of the ice by Vokoun.

Corey Perry got a power-play goal for Anaheim at 9:13 of the third period for a 4-2 lead.

NOTES: It was the only game of the season between the teams. ... Capitals D Mike Green missed a third straight game because of a twisted right ankle, but D John Erskine made his season debut after being sidelined following shoulder surgery. ... The Capitals recalled C Cody Eakin from Hershey of the AHL and assigned D Sean Collins to the same club. ... Anaheim still has two games left in a 13-day, seven-game road trip that ends Saturday in Detroit.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/capitals-ducks-5-4-overtime-nicklas-backstrom_n_1070755.html

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US report blasts China, Russia for cybercrime (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Cyberattacks by Chinese and Russian intelligence services, as well corporate hackers in those countries, have swallowed up large amounts of high-tech American research and development data, and that stolen information has helped build their economies, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded.

The report, offering the first such detailed public accusations from U.S. officials, said computer attacks by foreign governments are on the rise and represent a "persistent threat to U.S. economic security."

Assessing the implications, the report said "the governments of China and Russia will remain aggressive and capable collectors of sensitive U.S. economic information and technologies, particularly in cyberspace."

For years, experts and officials have complained about cyberattacks emanating from China. But this report, released Thursday, provides some of the sharpest and most direct criticism from the U.S. government about those intrusions.

A senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the report before its public release, said the Chinese and Russians are using the high-tech espionage to boost their own development.

Despite the broad accusations, neither the report nor the U.S. officials offered many details about the Chinese or Russian cyber-attacks. They also did not say how many of the attacks are government-sponsored. While they said attacks can be traced to the two countries, they noted that identifying the exact culprit is difficult.

China had no immediate response to the report, which was issued well after working hours Thursday in Beijing.

However, China has consistently denied engaging in cyberspying and, at a regularly scheduled news briefing Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei reiterated Beijing's insistence that it, too, has been attacked.

"China is a major victim of hacking," Hong said. "China is ready to build, together with other countries, a peaceful, secure and open cyberspace order."

He added, "As for the remarks from certain quarters, I would point out that hacking attacks have no boundaries and are anonymous. Speculating on the origin of the attacks without investigation is neither professional or responsible."

The report did note several instances in the past year or so where cybersecurity experts have traced attacks to Internet protocol addresses in China but were unable to determine exactly who was behind them.

Among the examples were the breach of Google's networks in January 2010 and an instance where data was stolen from a Fortune 500 manufacturing company during business negotiations when the company was trying to buy a Chinese firm.

Officials said the National Science Foundation has put the value of public and private research and development at about $400 billion in 2009, and the U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that as much as $50 billion was lost due to espionage, cyber-attacks and other counterfeit and trademark crimes. Officials said they could not determine how much of the total was lost due to cyber-attacks.

The report is part of an increasing drumbeat by U.S. officials about the risks of cyberattacks in a growing high-tech society. People, businesses and governments are storing an increasing amount of valuable and sensitive information online or accessing data through mobile devices that may not be as secure as some computers.

The Obama administration has tried to raise the level of awareness about these threats so individuals and the corporate world will better protect their data.

In the report, officials said foreign intelligence services have used independent hackers as proxies, thereby giving the agencies "plausible deniability."

It also accused the Chinese of being "the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage."

Attacks from Russia are a "distant second" to those from China, according to the report. But it said Moscow's intelligence services are "conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from U.S. targets."

Officials said other nations they would not name are also suspect, and the report suggested that U.S. allies may be using their access to American institutions to acquire economic and technology information.

The report said some of the most desired data includes communications and military technologies, clean energy, health care, pharmaceuticals and information about scarce natural resources. Of particular note, the report said, is interest in unmanned aircraft and other aerospace technology.

U.S. officials have called for greater communication about cyberthreats among the government, intelligence agencies and the private sector, which owns or controls as much as 85 percent of computer networks. The Pentagon has begun a pilot program that is working with a group of defense contractors to help detect and block cyberattacks.

The report, issued by the national intelligence director's office of the counterintelligence executive, comes out every two years and includes information from 14 spy agencies, academics and other experts.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111103/ap_on_hi_te/us_us_cyber_espionage

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Buying dollars in Argentina just got a lot tougher

People walk past a board displaying currency exchange rates in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. Argentina's government has launched a new crackdown on capital flight and tax evasion. It is requiring people who want to buy dollars to first prove that they're up to date on their taxes. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)

People walk past a board displaying currency exchange rates in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. Argentina's government has launched a new crackdown on capital flight and tax evasion. It is requiring people who want to buy dollars to first prove that they're up to date on their taxes. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)

A police officer guards outside a currency exchange house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. Argentina's government launched Monday a new crackdown on capital flight and tax evasion. It is requiring people who want to buy dollars to first prove that they're up to date on their taxes. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)

A board displaying currency exchange rates is seen in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. Argentina's government has launched a new crackdown on capital flight and tax evasion. It is requiring people who want to buy dollars to first prove that they're up to date on their taxes. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)

(AP) ? Argentina launched a new crackdown on capital flight, tax evasion and money laundering Monday, requiring people buying dollars to first prove they're up to date on their taxes.

Flexing its enforcement power only days after winning re-election by a landslide, the government says that anyone trading Argentine pesos for foreign currencies must first show where they got the money, based on wealth or income previously declared to the tax agency.

That's only a paperwork problem for people and businesses that are fully compliant on their taxes.

But tax evasion runs rampant in Argentina, as in many countries in the developing world, with an estimated 34 percent of the Argentine economy operating in undeclared cash. Many of these scofflaws are expected to turn even more to the black market for their dollars, but the government is cracking down there as well, arresting operators who have long facilitated illegal money flows.

Many Argentines were anxious Monday as the country adjusted to the new rules announced Friday night. Currency exchange houses in downtown Buenos Aires were mostly empty, save for a few tourists buying pesos with their foreign currencies. Outside some of these businesses, signs showed only the purchase price, suggesting that for the moment, they weren't selling dollars at any price.

Complying with the new measures shouldn't take any longer than the confirmation of a purchase using a credit card, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said Monday. People wanting dollars simply need to enter their national identity number and tax number into the database of AFIP, Argentina's tax agency, and will promptly get approved or rejected based on how the amount involved matches the person's income and wealth, he said.

Boudou also urged Argentines to trust that their government won't allow the currency to drastically fall from its current rate of 4.26 pesos to the dollar.

But for many people in the capital, it was all but impossible to buy dollars Monday. Some exchange houses posted signs saying all currency trading was suspended while their systems were being updated, and people applying online to get approval for even nominal sums were rejected. One account representative for a major multinational bank said he had applied to buy relatively small amounts of dollars on behalf of eight clients, and got only two responses so far, both negative.

"It's really slow, more than an hour's wait," the banker said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

Economist Fausto Spotorno predicted that the currency controls will only sap more confidence from the Argentine economy and prompt more people to hide their money from the government. This could increase capital outflows, which are already estimated at $3 billion a month, as more people turn to the black market, he warned.

Last week, President Cristina Fernandez imposed new requirements on oil and mining and insurance companies, ending exemptions that enabled them to convert most of their Argentine profits into foreign currencies outside the country. From now on, these companies, like nearly all others, must fully declare their profits within Argentina's tax and currency system, increasing the local money supply by as much as $4 billion, analyst Daniel Kerner said.

Fernandez also announced that insurance companies must make all their investments inside Argentina. Before, they could invest 15 percent outside the country. This could generate as much as $2 billion more, Kerner said.

Argentina's modern history has been so marked by catastrophic political and economic upheavals that many citizens are convinced another disaster is just around the bend. That's a big reason why they have stashed about $160 billion of their wealth outside the country. That's nearly half the size of the country's entire economy, which generated $370 billion in GDP last year.

With relatively low foreign debt (15 percent of GDP) and a favorable trade balance, Argentina's government has been able to live with the capital outflows, spending dollars from its foreign reserves to maintain the peso's value.

But with inflation running as high as 25 percent a year, according to private estimates, the demand for dollars is becoming ever stronger. The Central Bank had to sell $2 billion in dollar reserves in October, nearly $500 million more than the month before. Even with significant inflows from dollar-denominated commodities exports, the bank's foreign reserves fell from a peak of about $52.6 billion in January to $47.6 billion on Friday, after last week's election.

Argentina had just $11 billion in foreign reserves when Fernandez's late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, took office in 2003. The country was only beginning to bounce back from its world-record default and currency devaluation back then, and the government had little wealth to share.

Now Fernandez is desperate for dollars because social spending has risen to an unsustainable $27.8 billion this year, according to economist Orlando J. Ferreres, who runs his own mergers and acquisitions firm in Argentina.

But Boudou stressed that the laws haven't changed; they're just being enforced like never before.

Evading taxes was easier in Argentina before the government updated its computer systems. Now, the tax agency, Central Bank and money laundering watchdog all have access to the same data, and can detect when someone is moving more cash than can be justified by their declared income.

"Nothing has changed with respect to the possibility of buying dollars. Everyone who can demonstrate their income can acquire them," Boudou, now doubling as vice president-elect, said Monday on Twitter.

Then he added a warning: "But those who hoped that this government would stop defending the country because it won the elections, forget about it. This government works for Argentina."

___

Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires contributed to this story.

Michael Warren can be reached at www.twitter.com/mwarrenap

(This version CORRECTS the peak reserve figure to $52.6 billion in January. )

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-31-LT-Argentina-Currency-Controls/id-bf3788903a4a4161903701f3051d0280

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Pakistani Sesame Street preaches tolerance

In a Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 photo, a Pakistani artist gives final touches to characters of Pakistani Sesame Street in Lahore, Pakistan. Sesame Street is coming to Pakistan, but not as generations of Americans know it. The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school age children are not in school. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when Pakistan is wracked by a Taliban insurgency and the influence of radical views is growing. (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

In a Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 photo, a Pakistani artist gives final touches to characters of Pakistani Sesame Street in Lahore, Pakistan. Sesame Street is coming to Pakistan, but not as generations of Americans know it. The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school age children are not in school. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when Pakistan is wracked by a Taliban insurgency and the influence of radical views is growing. (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

In an Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 photo, characters of Pakistani Sesame Street are dispalyed in Lahore, Pakistan. The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school age children are not in school. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when Pakistan is wracked by a Taliban insurgency and the influence of radical views is growing. (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

In a Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 photo, Pakistani artists supervise preparations to produce Pakistani Sesame Street in Lahore, Pakistan. Sesame Street is coming to Pakistan, but not as generations of Americans know it. The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school age children are not in school. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when Pakistan is wracked by a Taliban insurgency and the influence of radical views is growing. (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) ? Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch are nowhere in sight. But there's Elmo. And new creatures too, like Baily, a kindly donkey who loves to sing, and Haseen O Jameel, a vain crocodile who lives at the bottom of a well.

Sesame Street is coming to Pakistan but not as generations of Americans know it.

The TV show has a new cast of local characters led by a vivacious 6-year-old girl named Rani who loves cricket and traditional Pakistani music. Her sidekick, Munna, is a 5-year-old boy obsessed with numbers and banging away on Pakistani bongo drums, or tabla.

The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school-age children are not in class. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when the influence of radical views is growing.

"One of the key goals of the show in Pakistan is to increase tolerance toward groups like women and ethnic minorities," said Larry Dolan, who was the head education officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan until very recently.

The show, which started filming last week and will air at the end of November, was jointly developed by Sesame Workshop, the creator of the American series, and Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, a group in the Pakistani city of Lahore that has been staging puppet shows for more than three decades.

The American version of Sesame Street first aired in 1969, and the U.S. government has worked with the company since then to produce shows in about 20 foreign countries, including Muslim nations like Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Perhaps nowhere else are the stakes as high as in Pakistan. The U.S. is worried that growing radicalization could one day destabilize the nuclear-armed country. Washington has committed to spend $7.5 billion in civilian aid in Pakistan over five years, despite accusations that the country is aiding insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan.

Rani, the new program's star, sports pigtails and a blue and white school uniform. Her innate curiosity is exemplified by the magnifying glass she often carries and her endless stream of questions. She is captain of the school cricket team and plays the harmonium, an instrument used to perform Qawwali music.

The creators chose Rani as the lead character to emphasize the importance of sending girls to school, something that doesn't often happen in Pakistan's conservative, male-dominated society, said Faizaan Peerzada, the chief operating officer of Rafi Peer and one of several family members who run the organization.

"It makes the girl stand equally with the boy, which is very clear," said Peerzada.

Rani and Munna are joined by Baily the donkey, Haseen O Jameel the crocodile, and Baaji, a spirited woman who serves as a mother figure for the others.

Elmo, the lovable, red, child monster, is the only traditional Sesame Street character on the show, which is called Sim Sim Hamara, or Our Sim Sim.

The action centers around a mock-up of a Pakistani town, complete with houses, a school and Baaji's dhaba, a small shop and restaurant found in many places in the country. The town also includes a large Banyan tree, known as the wisdom tree in South Asia, in the shade of which the children often play.

Given the intense ethnic and regional divisions within Pakistan, the creators tried to build a set that was recognizable to Pakistani children but did not stand out as being from one part of the country. For similar reasons, the skin colors of the puppets range from very light brown to orange.

A total of 78 episodes will be aired in Pakistan's national language, Urdu, over the next three years, as well as 13 in each of the four main regional languages, Baluchi, Pashtu, Punjabi and Sindhi. The shows will appear on Pakistan state television, and the producers hope they will reach 3 million children, 1 million of whom are out of school.

They also plan radio programs and 600 live puppet performances they hope will reach millions more kids and parents.

Each episode will be based around a word and a number, like the U.S. version, and will tackle general themes like friendship, respect and valuing diversity. This last theme is particularly important in Pakistan, where Islamist extremists often target minority religious sects and others who disagree with their views.

"There are many situations where we coexist peacefully, and that's what we want to focus on," said Imraan Peerzada, the show's head writer.

The program will feature holidays celebrated by Muslims, Christians and Hindus in an attempt to get children to respect the traditions of different religious groups in Pakistan, said Peerzada.

American officials stressed they were not involved in creating content for the show. The U.S. is extremely unpopular in Pakistan, and suspicions run high about American manipulation in the country.

The creators realize that there is some risk of militant backlash. Events held by Rafi Peer have been attacked several times in the past, including a world arts festival in 2008 that was hit by three small bomb blasts that wounded at least half a dozen people.

"We can't just stop because of this fear," said Faizaan Peerzada.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-31-AS-Pakistan-Sesame-Street/id-297cb7cddb5a49ba99dc82d6cd4acf3a

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New findings may help explain high blood pressure in pregnancy

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011) ? Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered that the infiltration of white blood cells into an expectant mother's blood vessels may explain high blood pressure in pregnancy.

The findings could lead to novel avenues of treatment for pregnant women with preeclampsia based on regulation of white blood cells called neutrophilis, their products or their cellular effects.

Preeclampsia is one of the most significant health problems in pregnancy and a leading cause worldwide of both premature delivery and of sickness and death of the mother and baby. Research has shown that the blood vessels of women with preeclampsia are dysfunctional, but the cause of preeclampsia is not known, and the only treatment is delivery of the baby.

In a study published online in the October issue of Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association, the VCU team reported that an infiltration of white blood cells may be responsible for the high blood pressure observed in preeclampsia. These white blood cells release reactive oxygen species that the team showed enhance the reactivity of the mother's blood vessels to hypertensive hormones by activating the RhoA kinase pathway in the blood vessels.

According to corresponding author Scott W. Walsh, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the RhoA kinase pathway is an intracellular mechanism in the smooth muscle cells of blood vessels that makes the blood vessels more reactive to hormones that increase blood pressure.

"In other words, the blood vessels contract more easily to the hormones so blood pressure increases even though the hormone levels do not increase," said Walsh.

"These findings may explain the enhanced blood pressure response of women who develop preeclampsia, which was first described almost 40 years ago," he said.

Walsh said some potential treatments on the horizon for clinical studies are monoclonal antibodies that could prevent the infiltration of the white blood cells, and selective RhoA kinase inhibitors that could prevent the enhanced reactivity of the mother's blood vessels.

This work was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Walsh collaborated with Nikita Mishra Ph.D., M.B.B.S., graduate student with the VCU Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Physiology and Biophysics, and currently an Ob-Gyn resident at The Reading Hospital and Medical Center in Pennsylvania; William H. Nugent, a post-doctoral student in the VCU Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and Sunila Mahavadi, a post-doctoral student in the VCU Department of Physiology and Biophysics.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Commonwealth University.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Nikita Mishra, William H. Nugent, Sunila Mahavadi, Scott W. Walsh. Pregnancy/Preeclampsia Mechanisms of Enhanced Vascular Reactivity in Preeclampsia. Hypertension, 2011 DOI: 10.1161/?HYPERTENSIONAHA.111.176602

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://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/1gz8_8fcOes/111031154125.htm

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