seignior pond: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Israeli airstrike in Gaza kills 1 Palestinian

Palestinian relatives of Haitham Mishal, 29, react during his funeral in the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, April 30, 2013. An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcyclist in Gaza on Tuesday, killing the rider and wounding two other people in the first deadly airstrike in the Palestinian territory since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November. The Israeli military said the airstrike killed Haitham Mishal, whom it identified as a militant involved in the April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

APTOPIX Palestinian relatives of Haitham Mishal, 29, react during his funeral in the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, April 30, 2013. An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcyclist in Gaza on Tuesday, killing the rider and wounding two other people in the first deadly airstrike in the Palestinian territory since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November. The Israeli military said the airstrike killed Haitham Mishal, whom it identified as a jihadi militant involved in the April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Palestinians carry the body of Haitham Mishal, 29, during his funeral at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, April 30, 2013. An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcyclist in Gaza on Tuesday, killing the rider and wounding several other people in the first deadly airstrike in the Palestinian territory since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November. The Israeli military said the airstrike killed Haitham Mishal, whom it identified as a militant involved in the April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT -- Palestinians carry the body of Haitham Mishal, 29, during his funeral at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, April 30, 2013. An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcyclist in Gaza on Tuesday, killing the rider and wounding two other people in the first deadly airstrike in the Palestinian territory since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November. The Israeli military said the airstrike killed Haitham Mishal, whom it identified as a jihadi militant involved in the April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat. But Ashraf al-Kidra, Gaza's Health Ministry spokesman, said Mishal was a Palestinian police officer. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcycle in Gaza on Tuesday, killing a man who the military said was a top militant in a shadowy al-Qaida-influenced group who had been involved in a recent rocket attack on southern Israel.

It was the first deadly airstrike in Gaza since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November, and is the most serious test yet of the Egyptian-brokered agreement.

The strike came alongside the fatal stabbing of an Israeli settler in the West Bank, the first killing by a Palestinian of an Israeli in the territory in over a year.

The aircraft hit the motorcycle as it was traveling northwest of Gaza City, killing the driver and wounding a passenger. A bystander was also wounded, according to Gaza medical officials.

The Israeli military said it had successfully killed Haitham Mishal, describing him as a jihadi militant involved in an April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat and other violence. Ashraf al-Kidra, Gaza's Health Ministry spokesman, said Mishal was a policeman.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned in recent days that Israel would not tolerate rocket fire from either the Gaza Strip or Egypt's Sinai Desert.

"We hit today one of those involved in the despicable rocket fire on Eilat. I said that we would not be quiet over that," Netanyahu said Tuesday. "We do not accept sporadic rocket fire from Gaza or Sinai. We will act to protect the citizens of Israel, and we are acting."

Tuesday's airstrike may strain a five-month-old cease fire brokered by Egypt last November that ended eight days of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas. Under the deal, Gaza militants pledged to halt rocket attacks on Israel, while Israel said it would end its policy of assassinating wanted militants.

But after months of calm, the truce has begun to unravel. Palestinian militants have sporadically fired rockets into open areas of southern Israel in recent weeks. The Israeli air force has responded with strikes on training sites and suspected weapons storage sites in Gaza. Until Tuesday, there had been no casualties.

In a statement, the Israeli military said Mishal had been involved in the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, a murky al-Qaida-inspired group that has claimed responsibility for a number of rocket attacks, including the Eilat incident.

Israel viewed the rocket attack on Eilat, a normally tranquil oasis that borders the Red Sea and Egypt's Sinai desert, as an escalation. It accused Gaza militants of firing the rockets, which caused no injuries, out of Egypt's lawless Sinai desert.

It said Mishal "has been a key terror figure, specializing in weapons and working with all of the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip." It said he manufactured weapons and specialized in rockets and explosive devices that he sold to militant groups.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, condemned the Israeli attack but also signaled that it is eager to preserve the truce.

"We call on Egypt to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to stop these crimes and to force them to honor the truce and stop the aggression," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. He called for a "joint and unified" effort by Gaza's various militant factions.

Hamas considers the jihadi groups responsible for recent rocket fire to be rivals, and has struggled to keep them in check. Since the cease-fire was reached, Hamas has deployed security forces along the border areas with Israel and Egypt to help preserve the calm.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, a Palestinian man fatally stabbed an Israeli waiting at a bus stop and fired on police before he was detained by Israeli security forces, officials said.

The victim was identified as a 32-year-old man from a nearby West Bank settlement. The attack took place at an intersection in the northern West Bank, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the assailant stabbed the Israeli and took his gun, then opened fire at border police nearby. The officers returned fire, wounding the Palestinian who was then detained. The Israeli man died of his wounds at the scene, Rosenfeld said.

Netanyahu latter expressed sorrow over the stabbing. "The terrorist who committed this murder was captured and we will continue to operate on that front to protect our citizens," he said.

A militant group claiming affiliation with the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, movement took responsibility for the stabbing attack in notices posted on the Internet.

The group said it had "received a green light to begin a series of operations against the (Israeli) occupiers" in response to the deaths of two Palestinians in Israeli jail earlier this year. Abbas, an outspoken critic of violence, did not immediately comment.

The stabbing was the first fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since September 2011. But Capt. Barak Raz, a military spokesman, said the area has experienced a rise in rock throwing and firebombing in recent months. A baby Israeli girl was seriously injured earlier this year when Palestinians threw rocks at the car she was traveling in. Palestinians charge that some settlers, particularly in smaller remote hilltop communities, are behind a series of attacks against Palestinians and their property.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future independent state.

But peace talks between Israel and Abbas have remained frozen for more than four years, while divisions between Abbas and his Hamas rivals, who seized Gaza from his forces in 2007, have further hindered peace efforts.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-30-Israel-Palestinians/id-9661aec4d0154473a475c71a751d54b8

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Silicone liquid crystal stiffens with repeated compression: Discovery may point toward self-healing materials

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Squeeze a piece of silicone and it quickly returns to its original shape, as squishy as ever. But scientists at Rice University have discovered that the liquid crystal phase of silicone becomes 90 percent stiffer when silicone is gently and repeatedly compressed. Their research could lead to new strategies for self-healing materials or biocompatible materials that mimic human tissues.

A paper on the research appeared this month in Nature's online journal Nature Communications.

Silicone in its liquid crystal phase is somewhere between a solid and liquid state, which makes it very handy for many things. So Rice polymer scientist Rafael Verduzco was intrigued to see a material he thought he knew well perform in a way he didn't expect. "I was really surprised to find out, when my student did these measurements, that it became stiffer," he said. "In fact, I didn't believe him at first."

The researchers had intended to quantify results seen a few years ago by former Rice graduate student Brent Carey, who subjected a nanotube-infused polymer to a process called repetitive dynamic compression. An astounding 3.5 million compressions (five per second) over a week toughened the material, just like muscles after a workout, by 12 percent. What Verduzco and lead author/Rice graduate student Aditya Agrawal came across was a material that shows an even stronger effect. They had originally planned to study liquid crystal silicone/nanotube composites similar to what Carey tested, but decided to look at liquid crystal silicones without the nanotubes first. "It's always better to start simple," Verduzco said.

Silicones are made of long, flexible chains that are entangled and knotted together like a bowl of spaghetti. In conventional silicones the chains are randomly oriented, but the group studied a special type of silicone known as a liquid crystal elastomer. In these materials, the chains organize themselves into rod-shaped coils. When the material was compressed statically, like squeezing a piece of Jell-O or stretching a rubber band, it snapped right back into its original shape. The entanglements and knots between chains prevent it from changing shape. But when dynamically compressed for 16 hours, the silicone held its new shape for weeks and, surprisingly, was much stiffer than the original material.

"The molecules in a liquid crystal elastomer are like rods that want to point in a particular direction," Verduzco said. "In the starting sample, the rods are randomly oriented, but when the material is deformed, they rotate and eventually end up pointing in the same direction. This is what gives rise to the stiffening. It's surprising that by a relatively gentle but repetitive compression, you can work out all the entanglements and knots to end up with a sample where all the polymer rods are aligned."

Before testing, the researchers chemically attached liquid crystal molecules -- similar to those used in LCD displays -- to the silicones. While they couldn't see the rods, X-ray diffraction images showed that the side groups -- and thus the rods -- had aligned under compression. "They're always coupled. If the side group orients in one direction, the polymer chain wants to follow it. Or vice versa," Verduzco said.

The X-rays also showed that samples heated to 70 degrees Celsius slipped out of the liquid crystal phase and did not stiffen, Verduzco said. The stiffening effect is reversible, he said, as heating and cooling a stiffened sample will allow it to relax back into its original state within hours.

Verduzco plans to compress silicones in another phase, called smectic, in which the polymer rods align in layers. "People have been wanting to use these in displays, but they're very hard to align. A repetitive compression may be a simple way to get around this challenge," he said.

Since silicones are biocompatible, they can also be used for tissue engineering. Soft tissues in the body like cartilage need to maintain strength under repeated compression and deformation, and liquid crystal elastomers exhibit similar durability, he said.

The paper's co-authors include Carey, a Rice alumnus and now a scientist at Owens Corning; graduate student Alin Chipara; Yousif Shamoo, a professor of biochemistry and cell biology; Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, chemistry and chemical and biomolecular engineering; and Walter Chapman, the William W. Akers Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, all of Rice; and Prabir Patra, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Bridgeport with a research appointment at Rice. Verduzco is an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The research was supported by an IBB Hamill Innovations Grant, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by Mike Williams.

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

Journal Reference:

Aditya Agrawal, Alin C. Chipara, Yousif Shamoo, Prabir K. Patra, Brent J. Carey, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Walter G. Chapman, Rafael Verduzco. Dynamic self-stiffening in liquid crystal elastomers. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1739 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2772

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/top_news/top_science/~3/61Z0GEWnuTs/130429164952.htm

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Pro-gun billboard with Native American theme draws criticism

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) ? Two billboards in which images of Native Americans are used to make a gun rights argument are causing a stir with some Colorado residents who say the image is offensive and insensitive.

The billboards in this northern Colorado city show three men dressed in traditional Native American attire and the words "Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you."

Matt Wells, an account executive with Lamar Advertising in Denver, said Monday that a group of local residents purchased the space.

"They have asked to remain anonymous," he said.

He also refused to disclose the cost but said the billboards are only appearing in the Greeley area. Wells said he has not received any complaints so far.

"I think it's a little bit extreme, of course, but I think people are really worried about their gun rights and what liberties are going to be taken away," Wells told the Greeley Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/cdtkgj2).

Greeley resident Kerri Salazar, who is of Native American descent, said she was livid when she learned about it. She said she doesn't have a problem with the gun rights message, but she's offended the Native American people were singled out, apparently without their consent.

"I think we all get that (Second Amendment) message. What I don't understand is how an organization can post something like that and not think about the ripple effect that it's gonna have through the community," she said.

Irene Vernon, a Colorado State University professor and chairwoman of the ethnic studies department, said the message on the billboard is taking a narrow view of a much more complicated history of the Native American plight. She said it's not as if Native Americans just gave up their guns and wound up on reservations.

"It wasn't just about our guns," said Vernon, a Native American.

Greeley resident Maureen Brucker, who has worked with Native American organizations and who frequents the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as an honorary family member, said she thinks the billboards are making light of atrocities the federal government committed against Native Americans.

She said the billboard brings to her mind one of the most horrendous examples of that, the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890. Historical accounts say the 7th Cavalry had detained a band of Native Americans and asked them to give up their weapons. Troops began firing after a shot rang out. Death toll estimates of Native American men, women and children range from 150 to 300.

Brucker said she thinks those who put up the billboards should come forward to discuss their viewpoints.

"I thought it was pretty cowardly that someone would put something like that up and spend the money for a billboard but didn't have the courage to put their name on it," she said.

___

Information from: Greeley Daily Tribune, http://greeleytribune.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pro-gun-native-american-billboard-draws-criticism-163833535.html

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Monday, April 29, 2013

The Mailbox security failure that wasn?t

The Mailbox security fail that wasn?t

A few days ago it was reported that the popular Mailbox app was falling short on protecting user data. Developer Subhransu Behera published a post on his blog outlining what he considered to be security failures on the part of Mailbox.

Using iExplorer, Subhransu was able to extract the SQLite database out of Mailbox and view its contents, which consisted of all of the contact information and emails from the app. The conclusion to the article was the belief that Mailbox needs to be doing more to secure this user data, specifically by employing methods in the iOS SDK which would prevent being able to access this data with tools like iExplorer. After being posted on Hacker News, a number of people reported trouble reproducing Subhransu?s results.

This isn?t the first time we?ve seen confusion about this sort of thing. Not too long ago there was a lot of fuss about an iOS lock screen bypass bug that exposed the device?s filesystem. It turned out that claim wasn?t at all accurate. The cause of confusion over that lock screen bypass may be the same source of the confusion here.

When you plug your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into your computer for the first time, the device will exchange keys with the computer that allow the two devices to talk to each other. If you have a passcode on your device the first time you plug it into your computer, iTunes will give you an alert message saying you need to enter your passcode on the device first. This is because the device?s contents are encrypted and iTunes (or any other app for that matter) has no way to read the contents of the device. Once you enter your passcode, your device and computer can exchange keys as mentioned above and only then are they able to start communicating. These keys mean that even if the device is locked in the future, if you plug it into that same computer, iTunes (along with other apps) can still communicate with the device.

This can cause some confusion when somebody plugs a locked device into a computer it has previously been plugged in to. The misconception is that because a locked device is plugged into a computer and the contents of the device are readable, that the contents of that device would be readable on any computer that the device is plugged in to; but this is not reality. If you were to lose your phone on the street, then somebody else picked it up, took it home, plugged it into their computer and fired up iExplorer, they would just see a screen telling them to plug in a device. iExplorer has no way to talk to that device until the device has been unlocked, plugged into the computer, and the keys have been exchanged. You can reproduce this behavior on a computer that the device has already been plugged into by going to the '/private/var/db/lockdown' directory on the computer ('%AllUsersProfile%\Apple\Lockdown\' in Windows) and deleting the plist file in that directory that has your device?s UDID in the filename.

This of course raises the question of what about a device that doesn?t have a passcode? While it?s true that somebody could copy the SQLite database off in that scenario, it?s also true that the person could just launch the Mailbox app and view the same information in the app itself. Mailbox could provide a little extra protection by encrypting the locally stored database. This would provide an extra level of protection for users so that in the event that an attacker momentarily had access to an unlocked device, they could not just copy the database off, allowing them to take their time looking through it later. However, it?s debatable if not having such a protection qualifies as a security fail. And it?s certainly questionable if it warrants deleting the app off of you device as Subhransu did. Especially in a case where you?ve trusted a 3rd party service with accessing your email accounts and storing your email on their servers in the first place.

Not to mention that Gmail?s own iPhone app stores cached email in pretty much the same way.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/K87uKoutOT8/story01.htm

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Owner of collapsed Bangladesh building arrested

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) ? The fugitive owner of an illegally-constructed building that collapsed in Bangladesh in a deadly heap last week was captured Sunday at a border crossing with India by members of a commando force.

Mohammed Sohel Rana was arrested in Benapole in western Bangladesh, just as he was about to flee into India's West Bengal state, said Jahangir Kabir Nanak, junior minister for local government. Rana was brought back by helicopter to the capital Dhaka where he faced charges of negligence.

Rana's capture by the Rapid Action Battalion brought cheers and applause when it was announced on a loudspeaker at the site of the collapsed building in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, where search and rescue operations were continuing through the night.

At least 377 people are confirmed to have died in the collapse of the 8-story building on Wednesday. Three of its floors were built illegally. The death toll is expected to rise but it is already the deadliest tragedy to hit Bangladesh's garment industry, which is worth $20 billion annually and is a mainstay of the economy. The collapse and previous disasters in garment factories have focused attention on the poor working conditions of workers who toil for as little as $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

Rana was presented before the media briefly at the commando force's headquarters in Dhaka. Wearing a printed shirt, an exhausted and disheveled Rana was sweating as two security officers held him by his arms. A security official helped him to drink water after he gestured he was thirsty. He did not speak to the media during the 10-minute appearance after which he was taken away. He is likely to be handed over to local police who will have to charge him and produce him in court within 24 hours.

A small-time politician from the ruling party, Rana had been on the run since Wednesday. He last appeared in public in front of his Rana Plaza on Tuesday after huge cracks appeared in the building. However, he assured tenants, including five garment factories, that the building was safe, according to witnesses.

A bank and some shops on the first floor shut their premises on Wednesday after police ordered an evacuation, but managers of the garment factories on the upper floor told workers to continue their shifts.

Hours later, Rana Plaza was reduced to rubble, crushing most victims under massive blocks of concrete and mortar. A garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed. About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for.

On Sunday, rescuers were supposed to start using heavy equipment to drill a central hole from the top to look for survivors and dead bodies. But the operation was delayed after rescuers located a woman inside the building, and were trying to pull her out.

Army Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the coordinator of the rescue operations, said so far rescuers have been manually shifting concrete blocks with the help of light equipment such as pickaxes and shovels.

The next phase will involve manual efforts as well as heavy equipment, including hydraulic cranes and cutters to bore a hole from the top of the collapsed building, he told reporters.

The purpose is to "continue the operation to recover both survivors and dead bodies. In this stage, we have no other choice but to use some heavy equipment. We will start it within a few hours. Manual operation and use of small equipment is not enough," he said.

The work will be carried out carefully so as not to mutilate bodies, he said. All the equipment is in place, "from a small blade to everything. We have engaged many private sector companies which supplied us equipment, even some heavy ones."

In rare good news, a female worker was pulled out alive on Sunday. Hasan Akbari, a rescuer, said when he tried to extricate a man next to the woman, "he said his body was being torn apart. So I had to let go. But God willing, we will be able to rescue him with more help very soon."

On Saturday, police arrested three owners of two factories. Also under detention are Rana's wife and two government engineers who were involved in giving approval for the building design. Local television stations reported that the Bangladesh High Court has frozen the bank accounts of the owners of all five garment factories in the collapsed building.

Rana was a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front. His arrest, and that of the factory owners, was ordered by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also the Awami League leader.

The disaster is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 people and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. But since then very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low wages have made it a magnet for numerous global brands.

Bangladesh's garment industry was the third largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade. The country's minimum wage is the equivalent of about $38 a month.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.

Britain's Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not recently ordered garments from them.

Wal-Mart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

AP writers Farid Hossain and Gillian Wong in Dhaka contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/collapsed-building-owner-arrested-india-border-092723478.html

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Attention Baby Boomers: Get Screened for Hepatitis C

Apr. 26, 2013 ? If you were born during 1945-1965, talk to your doctor about getting tested for hepatitis C. Baby boomers are five times more likely than other adults to be infected. In fact, 75 percent of adults with hepatitis C were born during these years.

The word "hepatitis" means swelling of the liver. Hepatitis is most often caused by a virus. In the United States, the most common type of viral hepatitis is hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is primarily spread through contact with blood from an infected person. More than 15,000 Americans, most of them baby boomers, die each year from hepatitis C-related illness.

Deaths related to hepatitis C have been on the rise and are expected to increase. Hepatitis C is a leading cause of liver cancer and the leading reason for liver transplants. Other serious health problems related to hepatitis C include:

Liver damage
Cirrhosis
Liver failure

The reason that baby boomers have the highest rates of hepatitis C is not completely understood. Most boomers may have become infected in the 1970s and 1980s when rates of hepatitis C were the highest. Many baby boomers could have gotten infected from tainted blood and blood products before testing of the blood supply began in 1992. Others may have become infected from injecting drugs, even if only once in the past. Still, many baby boomers do not know how or when they were infected.

People with hepatitis C often have no symptoms and can live for decades without feeling sick. As baby boomers grow older, there is a greater chance that they will develop life-threatening liver disease from hepatitis C.

Risk factors for hepatitis infection include:

History of blood transfusions or other blood products (before July 1992)
Organ transplant before widespread testing for HIV and hepatitis (before July 1992)
Long-term dialysis treatment
Exposure to hepatitis C such as through a healthcare setting (healthcare needle sticks)
Infection with HIV, the AIDS virus
Children born to mothers who have hepatitis C
Any past use of injected illegal drugs
Having received a tattoo with needles that were not properly disinfected

The only way to know if you have hepatitis C is to get tested. Early detection can save lives. There is a simple blood test to determine if a person has ever been infected with the hepatitis C virus. It is estimated that one-time testing of everyone born during 1945 through 1965 will prevent more than 120,000 deaths.

Knowing your diagnosis early and getting treatment can help prevent liver damage, cirrhosis, and even liver cancer. There are no vaccines to prevent hepatitis C.

Many people who have been diagnosed with hepatitis C can be successfully treated with medications called antivirals. Two new medicines are now available (telaprevir and boceprevir), that when added to the standard treatment can increase the effectiveness and shorten treatment time for many people. For many people, medical treatment can result in clearing hepatitis C from the bloodstream.

Talk to your doctor about getting tested -- it could save your life!

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

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: 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/r6o7b9HF_tA/130426211102.htm

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FAA says air travel system to be normal Sunday night

(Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Saturday it had suspended all employee furloughs and that it expects the U.S. air travel system to return to normal by Sunday evening Eastern Time.

The suspension follows passage on Friday of a bill allowing the agency to shift money within its budget to halt furloughs of air-traffic controllers that started April 21.

The furloughs, prompted by automatic budget cuts, caused thousands of flight delays and hundreds of cancellations throughout the week. The FAA said in a statement on Saturday that it expects staffing to return to normal levels over the next 24 hours.

Airports around the country were reporting that flights were arriving and departing on time at 1 p.m. EDT, with the exception of San Francisco, where arrivals were delayed 44 minutes on average because of construction, the FAA said.

Earlier on Saturday, President Barack Obama chided Republicans in his weekly radio address for approving a plan to ease air-traffic delays while leaving untouched budget cuts that affect children and the elderly.

Congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a Republican from Pennsylvania, said the FAA could have complied with the automatic budget cuts, known as sequester, in a way that avoided inconveniencing travelers.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-says-air-travel-system-normal-sunday-night-171531869.html

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Why Amazon Wants To Make You Pay Sales Tax

Our days of sales-taxless, free-love internet revelry may be numbered. Thursday afternoon, the Senate voted to approve a bill that could end tax-free online shopping once and for all. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/dT0GQAb-tJE/why-amazon-wants-to-make-you-pay-sales-tax

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Syrian refugees denied health care due cash crunch: UNHCR

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - Doctors at Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan are having to decide between treating acute cancer patients and helping deliver babies due to severe shortages of cash, the United Nations said on Friday.

More than 1.4 million Syrian refugees have now fled their shattered homeland for neighboring countries whose health care systems are straining to meet the needs of their populations, in some cases suddenly swollen by 20 percent, it said.

But an appeal by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for $1 billion through mid-year is only 55 percent covered. This has meant that some of the costly medical care for chronic diseases is being denied, although emergency cases are treated, it said.

"We will prioritize paying for a woman's delivery instead of paying for treatment of a cancer patient with a poor prognosis. That is bad, but we have to do it. These are hard decisions," Dr. Paul Spiegel, UNHCR's chief medical expert, told Reuters.

Acute respiratory infections and diarrhea are the most common ailments among Syrian refugees, three-quarters of whom are women and children, the UNHCR said in its first report based on medical consultations in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. No data was available from Turkey, it said.

Some refugees require treatment for hepatitis A infections, others for skin lesions due to leishmaniasis, it said.

Both diseases have broken out in Syria, whose health system and drug industry have collapsed due to the conflict between Syrian government forces and rebels, now in its third year.

"NOT THE HEALTHIEST POPULATION"

But many of the refugees are elderly, suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, lung disease, cancers or cardiovascular disease, who received free treatment under their country's socialized medical system, it said.

Spiegel, referring to treatment for diabetes, told a news briefing: "With renal dialysis you don't pay for a month and then stop, you pay forever.

"And then very hard decisions are made, and many are not funded, and therefore they either have to find other funding and in some cases, yes these patients may die."

Syrians are used to high-quality medical service, more comparable to that in Europe than in Africa, Spiegel said.

"This is not the healthiest population, there is smoking, a fair bit of obesity and not much exercise," he added.

In Iraq and Jordan, refugees have access to free health care at all levels.

But an "elective care committee" meets each month in Jordan to discuss refugee patients whose treatment exceeds a fixed financial ceiling, UNHCR said. In the first three months of the year, 158 Syrians were reviewed, with treatment approved for cardio cases, prenatal cases and acute renal failure, it said.

In Lebanon, which has a largely privatized health care system and cost sharing is the norm, refugees must pay for referrals to experts for specialized care. An elective care committee held its first meeting in late March to review cases.

Iraq is studying whether to set up such reviews, it said.

"People are spending more out of their pocket. Refugees are coming from a system where they are not used to paying. The longer they stay, the less they have," Spiegel said.

Antonio Guterres, U.N. refugee chief, warned in mid-March that the number of refugees outside Syria could triple by the end of the year from 1 million at that time.

"The challenges of providing access to affordable and quality health care for Syrian refugees will only increase in the months to come," the UNHCR said in its report on Friday.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-refugees-denied-health-care-due-cash-crunch-145946259.html

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

5 Home Improvements Tips To Save Your Money - The Best ... - Luvne

5 Home Improvements Tips To Save Your Money - The Best Home Interior Design BlogsThe Best Home Interior Design Blogs

Save Your Money With Home Improvement

Luvne ? By getting better at the skills needed for home improvments, you can save money and also know that the projects will be done properly. Use the information in this article to help you know what projects you can do yourself, and what projects are best done by a professional. When you are unsure, you should consult a professional.

5 Simple Tips To Save Your Money With Home Improvements

Try using a wall mount for your television to free up some floor space or clear off the area where the television was sitting previously. Doing this type of project might only require about 30 minutes.

To help free up counter space, install an over-the-range microwave. You can find these type of microwave ovens in a variety of prices. Many of them have special features like convection cooking. Most of these units have a recirculating air filter rather than an actual vent, so they work best for people who do not require a kitchen vent.

Small rooms are often gloomy, but you can change that! Let the sun shine in! Raise the window shades and give the glass itself a thorough cleaning! Natural light will make any room feel bigger. Use pale colors on your walls and avoid clutter. This simple change can make your room seem larger.

With regards to home improvements, you can easily improve your home?s energy conservation. Utilizing a power strip is preferable to plugging each electronic device into a wall outlet. A power strip can be easily turned on and off when not in use. If you don?t need to use your device, simply turn off your power strip to conserve energy.

Figure out how long you plan to reside in the home. When you are only going to live in the home for a short time, you should minimize how much you plan to spend on home improvement. You should continue to make necessary repairs, but you probably shouldn?t be doing any improvements.

If you are working on several projects within the same room, carefully plan the order in which you complete them. For example, if you?re replacing the floor and cabinets, then it?s best to begin with the cabinets. If something goes wrong with the cabinets, any falling debris will only harm the floor that is about to go out anyway. Take the time to sit and plan out your work on paper before beginning. You?ll be thankful you did.

Read Another Tips At Luvne.com

If You Are New, Request An Assistamce To Do Home Improvements

As you may remember from the start of this piece, knowing your limits in regards to home improvement is important. By using the tips shared here, you can pull off your projects without a hitch. It is better to request assistance than to regret an error for the rest of your life.

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Source: http://luvne.com/home-improvement/5-home-improvement-tips-to-save-your-money/

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Does the US bring jihad on itself? (Americablog)

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Bush's Global Legacy of Death and Destruction

Yahoo News asked voters to consider President George W. Bush's legacy as his presidential library opens Thursday in Dallas. Here's one perspective.

COMMENTARY | George W. Bush's global legacy is one of widespread death and destruction, epitomized by the so-called War on Terror his administration waged in response to the horrific September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington.

The invasions and occupations that followed resulted in the deaths of more than 15,000 innocent civilians in Afghanistan and more than 100,000 in Iraq-- a nation whose fate "The Decider" allegedly decided long before 9/11. In addition to the dead and the maimed, Bush's wars have caused a refugee crisis in which millions have been displaced.

Then there are the wartime atrocities, for which Bush ultimately bears responsibility. These include, but are by no means limited to, torture, murder, intentional false imprisonment of innocent men, women and children, and rape. Additionally, Iraq was left in utter ruins and it is very likely that toxic poisoning from U.S. weapons is behind an alarming spike in horrific birth defects among Iraqi children.

While Bush did not personally authorize most of these crimes, top officials in his administration certainly did and, ultimately, the president is responsible for what happens on his watch. Bush may not have ordered the torture and murder of innocent detainees at Abu Ghraib or the rape and murder of Iraqi children by American troops, but he did endorse the wars and the gloves-off approach that guided U.S. actions in them. He did authorize Guant?namo Bay, waterboarding, drones, extraordinary rendition and secret prisons operating outside the boundaries of the law. As Vice President Cheney once said, the U.S. had gone over to the "dark side."

Sadly, not only has President Barack Obama protected Bush and his top administration officials from facing justice, the new president has continued -- and expanded -- some of his predecessor's deadliest policies and actions.

The death and destruction of American policies and actions did not begin nor end with George W. Bush. But during his tumultuous tenure, they reached a level unseen since the senseless slaughter of Vietnam. This, ultimately, is the legacy of America's 43rd president.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and the editor of Moral Low Ground.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bushs-global-legacy-death-destruction-211500305.html

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Israel fears end to 40-year peace on Syrian front

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli General, stands at an army outpost overlooking Syria and Jordan in the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, a worker builds a security fence along the border between Israel and Syrian on the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, an Israeli soldier looks through binoculars at a Syrian village from an army post on the border between Israel and Syrian on the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, Israeli soldiers stand next to a metal placard in the shape of an Israeli soldier, at an observation point on Mt. Bental in the Golan Heights, Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

ALONEI HABASHAN, Golan Heights (AP) ? Against a vista of green fields and snowcapped mountains, all is silent but for a gusting wind. Then comes a burst of gunfire from the Syrian civil war raging next door, where jihadist rebels are battling Bashar Assad's troops in a village.

Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.

This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel's front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst ? a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country's large stockpile of chemical weapons.

In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.

Though Israel believes these have mostly been cases of errant fire, it has responded with firepower of its own on several occasions in the first round of hostilities since a long-term armistice took hold after the 1973 Mideast war.

"This area became a huge ungoverned area and inside an ungoverned area many, many players want to be inside and want to play their own role and to work for their own interests," said Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli brigadier general who is involved in the military's strategic planning and operations. "Syria became a place that we see as a big threat to Israel and that is why we started to work in the last two years on a strong obstacle, on our infrastructure, in order to make sure that we will be ready for the future. And the future is here already."

Officials say the military's present deployment on the plateau is its most robust since 1973, and its most obvious manifestation is the brand new border fence, 6 meters (20 feet) tall, topped with barbed wire and bristling with sophisticated anti-infiltration devices. The previous rundown fence was largely untested until it was trampled over last year by Syrians protesting on behalf of Palestinians.

The military would not detail other measures it is taking, but stressed it was actively defining the new border arrangement now, before it could be too late.

On the other side of the frontier, the village of Bir Ajam is in rebel hands and Israeli troops report watching them successfully deflect Syrian military pre-dawn raids almost daily. In a village nearby, Syrian intelligence and commando forces are based in concrete, windowless structures.

At the triangle where the borders of Israel, Syria and Jordan meet along the Yarmouk River, a lone jeep is seen crossing uninterrupted from Jordan into Syria. In March, rebels kidnapped 21 Filipino U.N peacekeepers nearby. Thousands of refugees have used the route to flee the carnage into Jordan.

A few injured refugees have trickled into the Golan, and the military runs a field clinic to treat them. But there's no guarantee the trickle won't become a flood if Jordan in the south or Turkey in the north become unreachable.

"Syria right now is a kind of self-evolving system," Hirsch said. "No one can control or predict everything."

Israel, which borders southwestern Syria, has thus far been careful to stay on the sidelines of a civil war that has already claimed the lives of more than 70,000.

Assad is a bitter enemy, an ally of Iran and a major backer of Lebanese Hezbollah guerilla attacks against Israel. But like his father whom he succeeded as president, he has faithfully observed U.S.-brokered accords that ended the 1973 war. Israel worries that whoever comes out on top in the civil war will be a much more dangerous adversary.

Chief among Israeli concerns is that Assad's advanced weaponry could reach the hands of either his ally, the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, or Islamic extremist groups among the rebels trying to oust him.

"Syria is not a regular place ... it is the biggest warehouse for weapons on earth," Hirsch warned.

In an interview with BBC TV last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the rebel groups among "the worst Islamist radicals in the world."

"So obviously we are concerned that weapons that are ground-breaking, that can change the balance of power in the Middle East, would fall into the hands of these terrorists," he said.

This week, a senior Israeli military intelligence official said Assad used chemical weapons last month. After initial denials, American and British officials confirmed the assessment of Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, that the lethal nerve agent sarin was probably used. U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that the introduction of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer" that could usher in greater foreign intervention in the civil war.

For Israel, the specter of peace with Syria disintegrating adds to a growing sense of siege. It saw the Gaza Strip fall to the militant Hamas movement in an election in 2006. And Egypt, the most populous Arab country and the first to make peace with Israel, is now ruled by the fiercely anti-Israeli Muslim Brotherhood. All this against the backdrop of the Iranian nuclear program and its threats to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel has all but admitted that its warplanes destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles believed to be headed from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon in January, and on Thursday it shot down a drone which it said it suspects was operated by Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied launching it.

Hirsch, who commanded an Israeli division in a monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006, said war regional roles have since then been reversed. While once Syria used Hezbollah in Lebanon as a proxy against Israel, Hezbollah is now deterred from acting on Lebanese soil for fear of Israeli retribution and is preparing to use the instability in Syria as its future staging ground.

"The fighting in Syria gives them an opportunity to open a new front against Israel," said Hirsch. "We must be ready for turbulence. We must be ready for the Iranian involvement inside Syria. We must be ready to be able to fight against radical fundamentalist activities that will come from Syria, and that is what we are doing here."

___

Follow Heller on Twitter (at)aronhellerap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-26-Israel-On%20Syria's%20Doorstep/id-cdaa5de61c694d4a960e6cafe8b54aba

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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Michigan moves to regulate amateur MMA after death after amateur bout

In the wake of a death in an amateur bout, Michigan has moved forward with regulating MMA for amateurs. Felix Nchikwo, a 35-year-old Canadian, died after his amateur bout in Michigan on Saturday. The vote was planned before his death, but the death did bring a spotlight on the need for amateur regulation in the state.

Nchikwo died in the hospital after fighting in an amateur bout in Port Huron, Mich. The Michigan coroner found no evidence that the death was caused by trauma. After the fight, his cornerman said he was dizzy and a "little exhausted," but then he was brought to the hospital after he collapsed.

Even though trauma was not behind Nchikwo's death and we'll never know if amateur regulation could have prevented it, it is a good move for Michigan to address this hole in their laws. With regulation, protections will be put in place for fighters such as required pre-fight medical and blood screenings. Professionals who try to fight amateurs could be charged with a felony.

Professional MMA has been regulated in Michigan for years. The UFC has been to Michigan twice, but both events were marred by controversy. UFC 9 was the event that led to Sen. John McCain's crusade against the sport and its removal from several cable providers. At UFC 123, several years later, Maiquel Falcao filed a formal complaint with the state commission because of a timekeeping problem.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/michigan-moves-regulate-amateur-mma-death-amateur-bout-175941712--mma.html

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