Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/166718337?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
UN calls for restraint on eve of Congo vote (Reuters)
KINSHASA (Reuters) ? International organizations appealed for calm on the eve of Democratic Republic of Congo's presidential election, after a run-up tainted by violent street clashes and delayed poll preparations.
Concerns have been mounting about the central African country's readiness for its second post-war presidential contest, and what impact a troubled vote might have on efforts to stabilize the giant minerals-producing nation.
The European Union, the African Union and the United Nations called for restraint after several people were killed in clashes Saturday, the last day of campaigning.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday Congo's election was "crucial for the country's progress," and called on "all political leaders and the people ... to exercise restraint throughout the process to ensure that the elections are held in a peaceful and secure environment."
The EU observer mission accused police of denying President Joseph Kabila's main rival, Etienne Tshisekedi, his right to campaign in the capital after he was blocked by security forces at the airport Saturday.
Police had earlier banned rallies after violence erupted in the sprawling capital Kinshasa. The confirmed death toll for Saturday's violence has risen to three, according to U.N. sources, though Human Rights Watch said eight had been killed and about 70 wounded.
Tshisekedi Sunday accused international actors, including the head of the United Nations mission in Congo, of being against him, and said that, as his rally was blocked on Saturday, he would hold one later Sunday.
"The international community has (in Congo) supported Africa's worst dictatorships for 51 years," he said, adding he wanted UN mission chief Roger Meece, a former U.S. ambassador to Congo during the last election, to step down.
U.N. spokesman Mounoubai Madnodje dismissed the accusations.
The streets of Kinshasa were mostly quiet Sunday after the clashes the day before. Churches held regular Sunday services, street kiosks did brisk trade and residents sat drinking in the city's street bars.
By mid-afternoon, there was no sign of Tshisekedi's rally call being heeded though riot police were deployed at Kinshasa's main stadium where the rally was to be held, and there was a heavy police presence near Tshisekedi's residence.
SHOWDOWN
Enjoying the powers of incumbency, Kabila is seen as the favorite in the vote. But Tshisekedi, a veteran opposition leader who appeals to many poor Congolese that have not see any progress despite eight years of relative peace, has drawn large crowds as his campaign gathered momentum.
Tshisekedi said he would accept results if he lost in a free election but would call on people to "take their responsibility" if the poll was flawed, a reference to likely further street protests.
Human Rights Watch said Congo's Republican Guard had wounded dozens of people after opening fire on them Saturday, and at least eight people were killed. "We're still confirming, and the number of dead might be higher," Human Rights Watch researcher Ida Sawyer said.
Sawyer added that security forces had taken four bodies from the UDPS opposition headquarters where they had been brought following clashes. An eyewitness told Reuters police arrived at the UDPS offices in the early hours of Sunday morning, threatening supporters and taking away bodies.
Police officials were not available to comment.
Election workers were scrambling Sunday to get remaining ballots to polling stations after delays at all stages of the process. But the head of the electoral body said he expected the election to go ahead as planned.
"We would like to assure you 99 percent of things are working perfectly, that's our commitment to you," electoral commission chief Daniel Ngoy Mulunda said.
Congo's last war, in which millions died mainly of famine and disease, ended eight years ago. But the peace is fragile, with pockets of clashes across much of its east while ordinary Congolese complain of rampant corruption and slow development.
Resource firms like Freeport McMoRan and ENRC operate in Congo, a big copper and cobalt producer with ambitions of developing an oil industry, but the country is seen as one of the world's riskiest in which to do business.
(Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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Video: Merkel, Sarkozy to Stop Arguing Over ECB
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45434657/
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
Boy, 14, jailed for buying drugs on resort island
BALI, Indonesia?? An Australian teen was sentenced to two months in detention Friday for buying drugs while vacationing with family on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.
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Presiding Judge Amzer Simanjuntak told the packed Denpasar district court that ? when taking into account time already served ? the 14-year-old would be freed in just over a week and immediately deported.
"It's better to give a jail sentence, but the shortest possible, which would enable him to be given back to his parents sooner," Simanjuntak said, according to a report in the Herald Sun newspaper.
The prosecutors had asked for a three-month sentence.
The boy, who cannot be identified by name because of his age, sat sobbing, his head bowed down, as his father patted him on the back consolingly while the judge spoke.
Remorse
Though he could have faced up to 12 years under Indonesia's tough narcotics laws, the panel of three judges said it decided to be lenient because he admitted to buying 0.13 ounces of marijuana from a man in front of a supermarket and repeatedly expressed remorse.
The teen, who has been in an immigration detention center since his Oct. 4 arrest, earlier promised to enter a drug rehabilitation program if he was allowed to return to his home in Morrisset Park, north of Sydney.
He said he had been struggling for some time with his addiction.
Australia ? which has seen dozens of its citizens jailed or placed on death row for drug possession in Indonesia ? had been closely watching the trial.
'Lessons to be learned'
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd welcomed the court verdict that he said meant the boy and his family would probably be back home by Christmas.
"I'm sure there are lessons to be learned by this young man as well," he told the Sun Herald.
Many argued the boy was too young to be jailed.
But critics noted that dozens of Indonesian children tied up in people-smuggling cases have been languishing for years in Australian detention centers.
The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45433766/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/
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16 Mobile Apps for Surviving Holiday ?Fun?
We've rounded up 16 apps to help you sail through the holidays problem-free. So, whether you're traveling, cooking, entertaining the kiddies, or doing some serious credit card damage in the malls or online, here are some suggestions that should make this, well, "festive" time of the year just a bit more palatable.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/p0iKlwrUuhE/
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Friday, November 25, 2011
October durable goods orders fell 0.7 percent (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Business orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell for a second straight month in October.
While much of the weakness came from a big drop in demand for commercial aircraft, a key category that tracks business investment spending fell by the largest amount since January.
The Commerce Department says that orders for durable goods fell 0.7 percent in January following a September decline of 1.5 percent. Orders for core capital goods, considered a good proxy for business investment spending, dropped 1.8 percent, the biggest decline since a 4.8 percent fall in January.
Manufacturing has been one of the strongest sectors in the economy in this sub-par recovery, but this sector slowed this year as consumer demand faltered and auto factories had trouble getting parts following the March natural disasters in Japan.
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Thursday, November 24, 2011
Restraining order extended in Selena Gomez case (AP)
BURBANK, Calif. ? A civil judge extended a temporary restraining order Wednesday but refused to issue Selena Gomez a lengthier order against a man accused of stalking the singer-actress.
Superior Court Judge William Stewart said he will not grant a three-year restraining order while Thomas Brodnicki remains on a psychiatric hold unless he has assurances the man had an opportunity to be represented at a hearing.
Stewart did extend a temporary order requiring Brodnicki, 46, to stay 100 yards away from the "Wizards of Waverly Place" star until a Jan. 6 hearing.
Los Angeles Police Detective Jose Viramontes told Stewart that Brodnicki is in a hospital on an involuntary psychiatric hold and efforts are under way to place him under a conservatorship. Viramontes said those proceedings, which would place Brodnicki under court supervision and could establish a treatment plan, could take 10 months.
The judge said allowing Brodnicki time to contest the restraining order is a basic due process issue.
Gomez's attorney, Blair Berk, argued that Brodnicki had an opportunity to contest the order and briefly had a public defender in another case who could have handled the issue.
Another judge recently dropped a felony stalking charge against Brodnicki after determining prosecutors hadn't proven he had caused fear for the star.
Berk argued that the civil order was the only court protection for Gomez.
Gomez, 19, did not attend the hearing. She wrote in a sworn declaration that she was in extreme fear after learning that Brodnicki had threatened to kill her while he was on a previous psychiatric hold.
Prosecutors accused him of traveling to Los Angeles and stalking the actress between July and October.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Solar Eclipse on Friday Could Wow Small Audience
News |
Space
This will be the fourth time that a new moon will orbit between the sun and Earth to cause a solar eclipse in 2011, just one eclipse shy of the annual max
?| November 21, 2011?|
This Friday (Nov. 25), a rather large partial eclipse of the sun will be on view ? but only for a relatively small audience.
This will be the fourth time that a new moon will orbit between the sun and Earth to cause a solar eclipse in 2011, just one eclipse shy of the maximum for the number of solar eclipses in a given year.?
The first eclipse on Jan. 4 coincided with sunrise across Europe.
Some Alaskans and Canadians shared a view of a partially obscured sun on the afternoon of June 1. [Photos: The First Solar Eclipse of 2011]
And perhaps just a few penguins experienced a very slight eclipse a month later off Lutzlow-Holm Bay on the coast of Antarctica.
On Friday, the moon's penumbral, or outer, shadow will brush the southern belly of the Earth, initially touching down in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) a southwest of Cape Town, but only managing to encompass the southern and western portion of South Africa, completely missing Lesotho and barely grazing the border of Namibia. The sun will be seen rising with a dent in its upper right rim.
The axis of the Earth's shadow, containing the cone of darkness known as the umbra, from where we could see a total solar eclipse, misses Earth entirely, passing at its nearest, only about 0.05 of the Earth's radius, or about 210 miles (340 km) out in space.
So the depth of this partial eclipse is greater than the three others that preceded it. At greatest eclipse, 90.5 percent of the sun's diameter will be covered as seen from the place nearest to the shadow axis, at a point in the Bellingshausen Sea along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Here, the sun will be seen to dip to the southern horizon at the "midnight" of its 24-hour southern late spring day, and as it slowly ascends still very low to the south-southeast horizon it turns into a delicate boat-shaped crescent in eclipse; the horizon along which the dazzling boat goes rocking is that of "The Ice" (a nickname for Antarctica, being "on the ice").
As the penumbra slides under the bottom of the Earth, the partial eclipse is visible in varying extent across the icy land continent and just as it begins to slide back out into space it (just barely) manages to pass over Tasmania as well as portions of New Zealand's South Island. In fact, the last contact of the shadow with Earth occurs just to the west of the South Island, in the Tasman Sea.
Coming attractions
If you have already obtained a calendar for 2012, be sure to put a big red circle around May 20.?
That is the date of the next solar eclipse and it promises to be a spectacular event.? It will be an annular ("ring") eclipse that will be visible from parts of eight western U.S. states during the late-afternoon hours.?
For those living in parts of New Mexico and west Texas, the setting sun will be transformed into a blazing "ring of fire," in some cases lasting for more than five minutes. And across much of North America, the exception being those near and along the Atlantic Coast, the sun will appear partially eclipsed.?
Across the Pacific for parts of China and Japan, the annular eclipse will also be visible (Tokyo is directly in the eclipse track), although for Asia, being positioned to the left (west) of the International Date Line, this event will take place on the morning of May 21.?
Needless to say, in contrast to next Friday, next May's solar eclipse will have a huge viewing audience.?
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=15f1885d29fe5d0a4d50f9025c14b107
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New "Twilight" film takes $283.5 million global bite (omg!)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The new "Twilight" vampire movie opened with a massive $283.5 million in worldwide ticket sales over the weekend as passionate fans filled theaters for the beginning of a two-part finale for the hugely popular supernatural love story.
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1" captured an estimated $139.5 million in the United States and Canada, distributor Summit Entertainment said on Sunday. That ranked as the fifth biggest domestic opening of all time.
The movie's performance beat studio forecasts for the film, which shows young lovestruck human Bella wedding vampire Edward and becoming pregnant. Summit had predicted as much as $125 million domestically while other box-office analysts had estimated $140 million.
Internationally, "Breaking Dawn" added $144 million in 54 countries over the weekend.
The movie cost about $110 million to make.
The domestic opening ranked as the year's second-highest, behind only the "Harry Potter" finale over the summer. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" pulled in a record $169 million during its debut weekend in July.
But "Breaking Dawn," the fourth movie in the series, failed to top the previous domestic opening-weekend record for a "Twilight" film. "New Moon" debuted to $142.8 million in 2009.
Eighty percent of the film's audience was female, the core fan base for the story based on novels from Stephanie Meyer. Diehard fans of the books have embraced the screen adaptations including the latest movie, said Richie Fay, Summit's president of domestic distribution.
"We delivered to the audience ... exactly what they wanted to see," Fay said. He said the movie's success "bodes well for Breaking Dawn - Part 2," which hits theaters in 2012.
"Breaking Dawn" brought in an average of $34,351 at more than 4,000 screens in North America (U.S. and Canada) from midnight showings early on Friday through Sunday.
The "Twilight" series is one of Hollywood's most lucrative franchises. To date, the franchise has rung up more than $2 billion from box offices worldwide, according to Hollywood.com Box Office.
The series stars Kristen Stewart as human Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as her blood-sucking vampire love, Edward Cullen. Taylor Lautner plays Jacob Black, a werewolf who competes for Bella's affection.
Critics generally disliked "Breaking Dawn," with just 27 percent giving a favorable review on aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were far more upbeat, scoring the movie a B+ on average, according to survey firm CinemaScore. Females gave the movie an A-.
'TWILIGHT' ECLIPSES OTHER FILMS
The "Twilight" phenomenon overshadowed all other movies over the weekend. Dancing penguin sequel "Happy Feet Two" earned $22.0 million, below studio forecasts for the 3D animated film.
"It was a very difficult weekend. Twilight certainly controlled the marketplace, especially the female audience," said Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. Fellman said he had hoped for an opening around $30 million but expected the movie would gain ground during next week's Thanksgiving holiday and throughout the holiday season.
Action movie "Immortals," last weekend's box-office leader, finished in third place with $12.3 million. Comedy "Jack and Jill," starring Adam Sandler playing a brother and sister, earned $12.0 million to take fourth place for the weekend.
Fifth place belonged to animated family movie "Puss in Boots," a spinoff from the blockbuster "Shrek" series. "Puss" pulled in $10.7 million domestically over the weekend.
Also this weekend, "The Descendants" starring George Clooney as a father reconnecting with his daughters opened in a small number of theaters. Touted as an Oscar contender, the film brought in $1.2 million from 29 locations, or $42,150 per theater. Distributor Fox Searchlight, a unit of News Corp, will bring the movie to more than 400 theaters next weekend.
"Breaking Dawn" was released by independent studio Summit Entertainment. Time Warner Inc unit Warner Bros. released "Happy Feet Two." Privately held Relativity Media released "Immortals." "Puss in Boots" was produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine, Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Obama signs bipartisan bill to help jobless vets (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Heralding a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, President Barack Obama signed into law Monday legislation aimed at helping unemployed veterans find work while putting more cash in the hands of companies with government contracts.
The legislation, which creates tax breaks for companies that hire jobless veterans, marks the first proposal from Obama's $447 billion jobs bill to be signed into law. The rest of the package of new taxes and spending has largely failed to garner support from Republican lawmakers.
"Because Democrats and Republicans came together, I'm proud to sign those proposals into law," Obama said during a signing ceremony Monday.
Looming over the brief moment of unity, however, was the apparent failure of lawmakers from both parties to agree on $1.2 trillion in spending cuts ahead of a Wednesday deadline by a special committee. While Obama didn't directly address the looming deadline, he said the American people deserve bold, bipartisan action.
"My message to every member of Congress is keep going. Keep working. Keep finding more ways to put bipartisanship aside and put more Americans back to work," he said.
The veterans' legislation had overwhelming support from both parties, with the House passing the measure 422-0 and the Senate approving it 95-0. In addition to the tax breaks for businesses, it also beefs up job-training and counseling programs for unemployed veterans.
The legislation also repeals a 2006 law that would have required the federal, state and local governments to withhold 3 percent of their payments to nearly all contractors. That statute, which doesn't take effect until 2013, was supposed to pressure contractors to pay their taxes in full, but lawmakers now say the law would deny cash to companies that need it to hire more workers.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said passage of the bill showed that it is possible for both parties to reach a consensus.
"By focusing on areas of agreement ? rather than partisan stimulus bills ? we can pass legislation to help foster job growth. Neither of these measures alone is going to solve the jobs crisis, but they'll provide relief to job creators and help American veterans," McConnell said.
McConnell praised Obama for inviting Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts to attend the ceremony. It was Brown who had introduced the 3 percent withholding bill.
Brown was joined on stage with the president by two other GOP lawmakers ? Florida Rep. Jeff Miller and Tennessee Rep. Diane Black ? as well as a handful of Democrats.
The tax credits for hiring veterans will cost the government an estimated $95 million ? a tiny fraction of Obama's overall jobs plan. The credits would be as much as $9,600 for companies hiring disabled vets who have looked for work for more than half a year. The size of the credit would be based on the worker's salary and how long the worker was unemployed.
The programs would be financed mostly by extending a fee the Veterans Affairs Department charges to back mortgages.
Erasing the withholding requirement for contractors would reduce federal revenues by an estimated $11.2 billion over the coming decade. It would be paid for by making it harder for some elderly people to qualify for Medicaid by changing the formula used to determine their eligibility.
Many economists have said annulling the withholding law would have a minimal impact on hiring.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Monday, November 21, 2011
October existing home sales rise 1.4 percent (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? U.S. existing home sales unexpectedly rose in October as low interest rates for mortgages and rising rents led more homebuyers into the market, the National Association of Realtors said on Monday.
Sales climbed 1.4 percent to an annual rate of 4.97 million units from September's revised rate of 4.90 million, the NAR said. Forecasters in a Reuters poll had expected the annual rate to fall to 4.8 million.
Despite the modest increase in sales, the median sales price for existing homes was 4.7 percent lower in October than it was a year earlier.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said the increase in sales comes amid "several improving factors that generally lead to higher home sales such as job creation, rising rents and high affordability conditions."
The U.S. Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates at nearly zero since 2008 and has expanded its balance sheet in a bid to get credit to businesses and households.
That has helped bring mortgage rates to near-record lows.
Still, while many other sectors of the economy have found their feet, housing continues to lag abysmally, held back by high rates of foreclosure and homes that have dropped dramatically in value.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
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After fire and tornado, Miss. church is rebuilt (AP)
YAZOO CITY, Miss. ? In this quiet little town where the hill country rises up from the pancake-flat Delta farmlands, reminders of the killer tornado are all around. The bent flag poles and broken crosses, snapped trees and abandoned houses, all claim a spot in the landscape now.
Among the vestiges of destruction, a resurrection of sorts has taken shape in Yazoo City since the 2010 storm. The Hillcrest Baptist Church, destroyed first by fire, then by nature, has been rebuilt on a hillside at the edge of town. The members of this small congregation are a determined and faithful lot who consider it nothing short of a miracle.
"A church encompasses a community," Pastor Rayburn Freeman said on a recent morning. "You're not talking about one little building up on a hill; you're talking about a whole community."
The church is planning a dedication ceremony Sunday to celebrate its new building, and perhaps nobody is more thankful to be here for it than longtime member Dale Thrasher.
Thrasher, 61, was the only person in the church on April 24, 2010, a Saturday, when it was hit by a tornado that killed at least 10 people. Thrasher dove under a communion table just moments before the twister ripped the church apart.
He survived with barely a scratch. A hymnal found later in the debris nearby was turned to the song, "Till The Storm Passes By."
"`Mid the crash of the thunder, Precious Lord, hear my cry," the lyrics say. "Keep me safe, till the storm passes by."
You'd be hard pressed to convince Thrasher that was a coincidence, and there's no use saying the small, wood communion table saved his life.
"It wasn't the table that saved me. It was the Lord who saved me," Thrasher said recently while showing off the new brick building. "When I seen those windows busting, I just bowed my head and prayed, `Lord save me.' It was like he put his arms around me."
Hillcrest Baptist Church was founded in 1992 with a congregation of about two dozen people in a town known for blues, catfish and cotton. It was burned in 1999 by an arsonist who was never charged. The church was rebuilt bigger and better.
It stood for years on the hill just off Highway 49, where it was one of the first things people saw when driving into Yazoo City from the south. Then the tornado wiped it away, and like in the passages in the Bible, the believers and doubters came forward.
"Some people around here thought they wouldn't build back, but they were determined," said Yazoo City Mayor McArthur Straughter, who is not a member of the church.
"When something like that happens it makes you wonder how long before your community will be back the way it was. But we have managed to weather the storm, as they say," Straughter said.
The tornado that hit the church left a path of devastation from the Louisiana line to east-central Mississippi, damaging dozens of homes and businesses. At the time, Gov. Haley Barbour, who grew up in Yazoo City, called the scene "utter obliteration."
The congregation has been meeting in a temporary location lent by another church, and attendance fell from the 100 or so who used to show up on Sundays. But there have been a couple of services in the new church while the finishing touches have been put on, and it appears the congregation will reach the levels it was before the storm.
"The Lord has blessed us from the time we started on this building," said longtime member Alton Rivers, a 71-year-old retiree. "One of the greatest blessings my wife and I had was watching them raise the steeple. That was the crowning moment."
The congregation was able to rebuild and are debt free thanks to donations that poured in, including cash sent from Australia and money from a Jewish children's school.
"Just depend on God for everything. He'll take you through the storm and bring you back," Thrasher said. "Now just pray that the Lord is going to fill this building up."
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Sunday, November 20, 2011
Ex-UBS banker gets 5 years' probation in tax case (AP)
MIAMI ? A former banker at Swiss giant UBS AG was sentenced Friday to five years' probation and no jail time for tax fraud as a reward for helping U.S. prosecutors build other tax evasion cases.
Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King agreed that 45-year-old Renzo Gadola deserved leniency for his cooperation, which has led to charges against two former colleagues and at least one banking client.
"You cooperated fully and the results have been extraordinary," King said at a hearing.
Gadola, who worked at UBS from 1995 to 2008 and later started his own business, had potentially faced at least 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax fraud conspiracy in 2010. Prosecutors suggested a sentence of five months behind bars, but they also did not oppose the probation term that was handed down.
"He went through client by client, colleague by colleague," said Mark Daly, a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department's tax division. "It has been extremely helpful."
Gadola is the latest of nearly two dozen bankers and advisers at UBS and other banks charged in the U.S. with helping wealthy clients hide assets in Swiss accounts and dodge taxes. The Internal Revenue Service crackdown that began in 2009 has also led thousands of taxpayers to disclose their accounts under a voluntary program in which they avoided prosecution but still had to pay taxes and penalties.
Zurich-based UBS itself avoided prosecution in the U.S. by agreeing in 2009 to turn over accounts of more than 4,500 customers and paying a $780 million fine.
Gadola's assistance to prosecutors included taking part in recorded phone calls with bank customers and providing details about the inner workings of UBS. His disclosures led to federal charges against two former colleagues, Martin Lack and Christos Bagios, as well as at least one client in a case that remains sealed, Daly said.
Lack is a fugitive believed to be living in Switzerland. Bagios is awaiting trial in Fort Lauderdale federal court on tax fraud conspiracy charges and has not yet entered a plea.
Under terms of his probation, Gadola will be permitted to live in Switzerland but must return to the U.S. once a year to continue assisting prosecutors in other tax cases. If Bagios goes to trial, Gadola is expected to be a witness.
Gadola's attorney, Peter Raben, said his client had already proven his trustworthiness by traveling from Switzerland for his sentencing hearing Friday. Raben said Gadola had to talk his way past customs officials at Miami International Airport, who initially refused him entry because his visa had expired.
"He passed that test," Raben said.
_____
Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt
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Cancer Doctors Still Not Great With Patients' Pain (HealthDay)
THURSDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Oncologists think they are good at managing cancer patients' pain, but a new survey shows otherwise.
In response to two hypothetical vignettes describing a cancer patient who was suffering from pain, the majority of oncologists offered up a treatment plan that pain specialists would consider "unacceptable."
"There are serious deficiencies in oncologists' knowledge of cancer pain management," said study author Brenda Breuer, director of epidemiologic research in the department of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
The study appears in the Nov. 14 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Depending on the type of cancer and how advanced it is, anywhere from 14 percent to 100 percent of cancer patients experience pain, according to background information in the study.
In recent years, there's been a growing understanding among cancer experts about the importance of both properly assessing and treating pain, and better techniques for doing so, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.
Despite talk about a greater understanding of the importance of treating pain, oncologists' attitudes toward pain management have "demonstrated disturbingly little progress" since 1990, when a similar survey was conducted, according to an accompanying journal editorial.
"The entire issue of pain management for patients with cancer has been a priority concern for many experts and organizations, particularly over the past several years," Lichtenfeld said. "We have begun to recognize that we are not managing pain adequately and this report and editorial go directly to the heart of the matter. Doctors think they are managing pain properly, but the results of the report suggest otherwise."
Under-treating pain can occur for multiple reasons, experts said. Some patients are reluctant to complain too much, Breuer said. "They don't want to be 'bad' patients, or they just think pain goes with the territory and don't realize there may be help for them," she said.
Others put their trust in their oncologist and don't realize he or she may not know all there is to know about treating pain, Breuer said.
In some cases, oncologists may be focused on treating the disease and not ask enough questions about a patient's pain, Lichtenfeld said.
In the study, researchers surveyed more than 600 U.S. oncologists about their knowledge, attitudes and practices related to pain management. Oncologists tended to rate themselves as less conservative than their peers in administering pain medications.
According to the oncologists, barriers to proper pain management include patient reluctance to report pain; patient reluctance to take opioids because of addiction fears or fears of adverse reactions; excessive regulation of opioids; inadequate assessment of patients' pain by doctors and nurses and patient inability to pay for services or pain medications.
In one hypothetical scenario, oncologists were asked whether it was a good idea to increase the dosage of morphine for a man with lung cancer who was experiencing pain despite already being on a relatively high dose of morphine.
The correct answer is "no," because the increase in dosage suggested was unnecessarily high. Even so, 31 percent of oncologists thought it would be a good idea. While the rest knew it wasn't a good idea, only 13 percent chose both the right answer and the right reason for avoiding such a large increase, which was the risk of side effects such as excessive sleepiness and "mental clouding."
Wrong reasons cited for not giving the higher dose included causing a dangerous decrease in respiration; because the higher dose could lead to increasing tolerance and the medication to become less effective over time; and because of a "regulatory climate that puts doctors under scrutiny if relatively high doses are prescribed."
The study also found that few oncologists (16 percent) said they frequently made referrals to pain or palliative medicine care specialists, who specialize in treating people at the end of life, Breuer said.
"Patients need to know that there is such a thing as pain medicine and palliative care specialists. These are recognized specialities that you get board certification in. Patients can ask for consults. That is the best advice I can give them," she said.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on pain control for cancer patients.
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel Put $1.7M In The YouTube For Businesses, Vidyard
Y Combinator-backed Vidyard, a 'YouTube for businesses', has raised $1.65 million from Softech VC, Jawed Karim (Co-Founder of YouTube), Y Combinator, SV Angel, Andreessen Horowitz, iNovia Capital, Paul Buchheit, Vivi Nevo, Dennis Kavelman, David Nizkad and others. Vidyard, which launched in August, solves a pain point for businesses who want to use YouTube videos as a marketing tool. Many businesses embed YouTube videos on their sites, but visitors can click through the video to YouTube and off the brand's site ? and those videos also include YouTube's ads and branding. Ooyala and Brightcove both offer professional, enterprise-hosted video platforms but these can be expensive.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/CBaodu5xmxQ/
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Friday, November 18, 2011
Bacteria responsible for common infections may protect themselves by stealing immune molecules
Bacteria responsible for common infections may protect themselves by stealing immune molecules
Thursday, November 17, 2011Bacteria responsible for middle ear infections, pink eye and sinusitis protect themselves from further immune attack by transporting molecules meant to destroy them away from their inner membrane target, according to a study from Nationwide Children's Hospital. The study, published in the November issue of PLoS Pathogens, is the first to describe a transporter system that bacteria use to ensure their survival.
When the body senses an infection, one of the first lines of defense is to send immune molecules called host-derived antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) to target and kill bacteria. However, bacteria have learned to resist AMPs through a series of countermeasures such as remodeling their outer membrane surface to be less permeable. Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI) is such a bacterium.
NTHI resides in the human upper airway, typically without causing any harm. However, NTHI has the ability to change from a non-harmful bacterium to a disease causing pathogen, responsible for pink eye, sinusitis, middle ear infection and complications of cystic fibrosis. "When transitioning to a harmful pathogen, NTHI defends against increased production of AMPs by using the Sap, which stands for sensitivity to antimicrobial peptides, proteins to arm against attack, " said Kevin M. Mason, PhD, principal investigator in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and lead study author. "Yet, it's unclear just how the Sap transporter complex provides protection against AMPs."
To help explain the mechanisms that NTHI uses to protect itself from AMPs, Dr. Mason's team examined an animal model of middle ear infection. They had previously shown that NTHI bacteria lacking the protein SapA were susceptible to AMP attack. In the study, they describe the Sap transporter system that recognizes and transports host immune defense molecules into the bacterial cell. This system is necessary for the bacteria to survive in the host.
"It seems that NTHI senses the presence of these immune molecules, steals them from the host and arms itself to protect against future attacks," said Dr. Mason. "NTHI imports AMPs into the bacterial cell and then degrades them in the interior of the cell. By remodeling its membranes, the bacterium appears as already attacked, which protects it from being bothered by additional AMPs. Basically, transporting AMPs acts as a counter strategy to evade innate immune defense and ultimately benefits the bacterium nutritionally." This study provides the first direct evidence that the protein SapA contributes to bacterial survival by providing protection from AMPs in the host.
Dr. Mason says that targeting the Sap transport system may provide a way to use AMP derivatives as alternatives to antibiotics to treat NTHI infections. "Our long-range goal is to block this uptake system and starve the bacterium of essential nutrients. If we could develop a small molecule inhibitor that could block binding and transport, we could render NTHI susceptible to immune attack, while preserving the body's normal bacteria that are often disrupted by conventional antibiotic use."
###
Nationwide Children's Hospital: http://www.NationwideChildrens.org
Thanks to Nationwide Children's Hospital for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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PFT: Jets' Tomlinson out Thursday vs. Broncos
Reuters[Editor's note:? Yes, this is primarily a college football story.? But it has crossed over into other forms of football and other areas of news, and it will continue to be a major story in the coming weeks, months, and possibly years.]
The American justice system is premised on the notion that everyone who stands accused of criminal charges remains presumed innocent until proven guilty.? No such privilege applies in the court of public opinion, which passes judgment whenever, wherever, and however it chooses, based on whatever information it has available.
On Monday night, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky decided, for whatever reason, to submit to an interview with NBC?s Bob Costas on the new Brian Williams-hosted show, Rock Center.? And by choosing to add spoken words to the compelling evidence against him, Sandusky has forfeited whatever benefit of the doubt he otherwise was owed.
Sandusky could have scored an acquittal in the court of public opinion, theoretically.? Instead, he sealed his own fate with an unpersuasive explanation of the events, and the absence of any of the scream-it-from-the-rooftops indignation that a person who was wrongfully accused of such heinous, sinister acts surely would project.
Sandusky failed to express outrage, confusion, and sadness that someone would use the extensive personal sacrifices made in the interests of helping children in need as the basis for fabricating the most horrendous allegations that can be made against an adult male.? Instead, he offered up the perfunctory denial that comes from virtually every criminal defendant.
Even O.J. Simpson was more convincing with that passionate ?absolutely, 100 percent not guilty? uttered at his 1994 arraignment.
Costas is drawing widespread praise for the poised and fair manner in which he handled a difficult and delicate subject.? And deservedly so.? The full interview appears below, and it will be replayed in its entirety tonight on NBC SportsTalk (VERSUS, 6:00 p.m.).
Here?s hoping Bob gets more opportunities to pose fair yet necessary questions to the key figures in this case.
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/15/ladainian-tomlinson-out-thursday-at-denver/related/
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
'Big Bang' machine to get huge upgrade in 2020
GENEVA?? Physicists from around the globe launched a major program on Wednesday aimed at converting the LHC "Big Bang" particle collider at CERN near Geneva into a vastly more powerful cosmic research machine by the year 2020.
CERN officials said the effort, involving scientific establishments in the European Union, the United States and Japan, would demand development of new technologies in fields ranging from super-conducting magnets to energy transfer lines.
The upgrade will enable the operators to carry out up to 10 times as many collisions, or luminosity, in the LHC as the hundreds of millions a second now, and to gain deep insight into the origins and make-up of the universe.
"With processes so rare, extra luminosity makes a big difference to our ability to make precision measurements and discover new things," said Sergio Bertolucci, research director at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
The program was put in motion at a meeting of scientists and engineers from participant countries to plan how work will be coordinated, CERN said.
The collisions, in which particles are smashed together at just a fraction under the speed of light, produce computer- monitored explosions that have been dubbed "mini-Big Bangs."
The LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, runs around a 16.8-mile circular tunnel under the borders of Switzerland and France. It has been in operation since March 2010, producing a wealth of data for physicists and cosmologists.
Scientists at CERN monitoring the collisions have spotted some puzzling events, but so far nothing has emerged that takes man's knowledge clearly beyond what they call the Standard Model of how the cosmos works.
Higgs Boson
Physicists are hoping that a small luminosity increase, for which preparations will be made during the two-month winter shutdown from next month, will help produce evidence next year of the existence of a particle, the Higgs Boson, thought to give mass to matter.
Establishing exactly how the debris of the "Big Bang" 13.7 billion years ago came together to form stars, planets and the other stuff of the universe is one of the prime targets of the LHC in its initial phase.
But later on, after a year-long shutdown at the end of 2012 during which the LHC will be adapted to double its luminosity, CERN researchers will be looking for what they call "New Physics" or phenomena beyond the Standard Model.
These could include insight into what is the "dark matter" making up some 23 percent of the universe, the idea of "super-symmetry" which helps explain the properties of gravity, and what is the "dark energy" driving expansion of the universe.
However, the 10-fold upgrade being planned for 2020 could take man's knowledge far into the realms of what at present is pure speculation on subjects like the true nature of time and the possible existence of other universes.
Taking part in preparations for what will be called the High Luminosity LHC will be Japan's KEK and the U.S. LARP network of laboratories, which include Fermilab near Chicago whose long-running Tevatron collider closed down in September.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45328831/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Plasma-Filled Bags Could Replace the Petri Dish
Perhaps someone else wondered (given that this is an article about microbiology) if the "plasmas" in the summary is of the 'blood plasma' sort or rather the ionized gas sort. You may save yourself a click: it's the latter; and its function is mostly to sterilize to sample space. Now as to the ease of subsequent sterile access to the bag, versus a dish with a lid, i leave that to the imagination of the gloved and harried lab tech.
(http://www.etymonline.com/ plasma 1712, "form, shape" (earlier plasm, 1620), from L.L. plasma, from Gk. plasma "something molded or created," from plassein "to mold," originally "to spread thin," from PIE *plath-yein, from base *pele- "flat, to spread" (see plane (1)). Sense of "liquid part of blood" is from 1845; that of "ionized gas" is 1928)
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O-pinion: 'Legal issues' in McQueary's fate at Penn State
Good morning. This is the O-Pinion blog for Monday. I'm associate editor Fannie Flono, hosting the blog today, and providing some commentary from near and far that's getting some buzz.
The horrific sex abuse scandal at Penn State is still lighting up the boards. A judge who ordered former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, accused of raping and other sexual abuse of young boys who were associated with a charity he ran, to be freed on $100,000 unsecured bail worked as a volunteer for Sandusky' charity, The Second Mile, Deadspin reported Sunday. Prosecutors had asked for $500,000 bail and that Sandusky be required to wear a leg monitor, but District Judge Leslie Dutchcot ruled he be freed without having to post any money unless he failed to show up for court, according to various news reports. Geez. The reports also said Sandusky continues to receive a hefty pension from Penn State.
President Obama weighed in on the Penn State scandal after being asked a question by ABC's Jake Tepper in Hawaii, where he is attending a Asia Pacific conference. He talked about the obligation of people to step up when sexual abuse of children happens: "When you think about how vulnerable kids are, for the alleged facts of that case to have taken place and for folks not to immediately say, nothing else matters except making sure those kids are protected, that's a problem." That larger issue - the obligation of anyone who knew of sex abuse in this case or any other case to report it to law enforcement - should become much more a part of this discussion.
In that regard, it's good to hear that we're glad to hear that Penn State has at least put Penn State receivers coach Mike McQueary on administrative leave. McQueary was a graduate assistant when he allegedly witnessed sex abuse at the school in 2002, and took it no further than reporting it to athletic officials. In an editorial Saturday, our editorial board asked why McQueary was still employed and said: "We don?t understand how McQueary could bear seeing Sandusky in the hallways of Penn State?s football building in the weeks, months and years after the alleged incident with the 10-year-old boy. The alleged victims deserve an answer why he never chose to go to police, and why the trustees feel he is less culpable than those fired or suspended from their duties for similar silences." New Penn State president Rodney Erickson said on this morning's Early Show that McQueary wasn't fired last week because "legal issues" are in play. He didn't elaborate.
Internationally, it's Italy that's claiming the spotlight after its long-time president Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday under pressure as economic woes dogged Italy, bringing it to the brink of financial ruin and affected the rest of Europe's economy as well. Italians were singing in the streets in celebration. But Italian pundits had this one right in noting that Italians left it to Europe and American pressure to do what they should have done years ago. Berlusconi has been a disgrace for years, involved in numerous sex scandals including being charged with having sex with an under-age prostitute, and a wave of salacious revelations from police wiretaps about alleged orgies at his luxurious Milan villa. He also faces two ongoing fraud court cases, the latest in more than 30 prosecutions by magistrates he accuses of being communists bent on perverting democracy, notes Reuters. "The perma-tanned media tycoon, once a cruise ship crooner, was always unrepentant about a notoriously off-color sense of humour and a series of diplomatic gaffes which led many foreign leaders to try to avoid being photographed near him," the Post said. Italians should have given him the boot years ago.
Source: http://obsdailyviews.blogspot.com/2011/11/penn-state-legal-issues-at-play-in.html
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Cain's trouble with women voters threatens GOP bid (AP)
WASHINGTON ? In a matter of a week, Herman Cain referred to the House Democratic leader as "Princess Nancy" Pelosi, said presidential rival Michele Bachmann would be "tutti-frutti" ice cream, and shrugged off a joke about Anita Hill.
The Republican presidential candidate also has denied allegations that he sexually harassed several women and, through his lawyer, threatened to investigate anyone else who makes such a claim.
Now, as Cain struggles to stabilize his campaign, the Republican presidential candidate is rolling out his wife to defend him ? and help stop the flood of female voters fleeing from him.
"I know that's not the person he is," Gloria Cain said on Fox News Channel's "On The Record." "He totally respects women."
Her public foray into the presidential campaign after months of staying behind the scenes comes as polls show Herman Cain's support among women dropping, further threatening a campaign rocked by accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior.
Cain's overall standing has slipped in surveys just weeks before the Iowa presidential caucuses that kick off the state-by-state voting for the Republican Party's nomination; state and national polls show former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leading the pack, with Cain no longer challenging him for the top spot.
Two polls released in recent days show that female voters specifically have turned away from him since the sexual harassment allegations.
A CBS News poll conducted Nov. 6-10 showed his support among Republican women having dropped since late October, from 28 percent then to 15 percent now. And a CNN/ORC International poll conducted Nov. 11-13 showed that majorities of all women said they tend to believe Cain's accusers and would like to see the candidate end his campaign; majorities of men take the opposite position.
The polls are national in scope, meaning they're hardly predictive of how Cain is faring in Iowa ? the first state to weigh in on the GOP nomination fight on Jan. 3.
Even so, the findings of the national surveys raise questions of whether Cain, should he manage to win the nomination, be able to compete for women's votes against President Barack Obama in next year's general election.
Women have made up a majority of voters in every presidential year since 1980, and while Democrats tend to win the group, successful Republicans have had to win or come close to splitting the vote among women in order to prevail.
In the 2008 presidential election, female eligible voters participated at a higher rate than males ? 66 percent to 62 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Nearly 10 million more women cast ballots than men. And Obama won 56 percent of the female vote, the biggest margin among women a Democratic presidential candidate has had since exit polling began in 1972.
Over the past two weeks, Cain has repeatedly denied the allegations of sexual harassment, though they aren't going away.
On Monday, the former boyfriend of Sharon Bialek ? one of Cain's accusers ? said Monday the then-couple spent an evening with Cain in the 1990s. That countered the GOP presidential candidate's earlier statements that he never met the woman.
"Sharon indeed did meet and spend time with Mr. Cain," said Victor Jay Zuckerman, a Louisiana pediatrician.
In turn, Cain's attorney, Lin Wood, insisted that his client "doesn't recall Ms. Bialek."
But Cain, in earlier statements, said he had seen Bialek "for the very first time" last week when she publicly accused him of groping her in 1997.
"As I sat in my hotel room with a couple of my staff members, as they got to the microphone, my first response in my mind and reaction was, I don't even know who this woman is. Secondly, I didn't recognize the name at all," Cain said.
Later, Cain added: "I don't even know who this woman is. I tried to remember if I recognized her and I didn't."
It wasn't just the allegations of sexual harassment Cain had had to explain.
He's also been forced to answer for his colorful statements about women.
During a debate last week, Cain likened Pelosi to royalty for blocking efforts to repeal Democrats' health care overhaul as House speaker. After the debate, Cain said he "probably should not have made" that comment.
Not long after that, Cain found himself defending a joke he made about Hill, who famously accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
Cain said he was approached at a recent event by a supporter who said Hill was trying to contact him.
"And my response was `Is she going to endorse me?'" Cain said in an interview Friday on WGDJ-AM Albany, N.Y. "He said it in a humorous way. I gave back a humorous response. It was in no way intended to be an insult toward Anita Hill or anybody else."
In a lighthearted interview with GQ magazine, Cain couldn't resist when asked what ice cream flavor he'd would best describe Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman running against him.
"Tutti-frutti," he said, adding, "I know I'm going to get in trouble!"
With voting near, Cain has little choice but to try to fix the problem with female voters.
Enter Gloria Cain.
"To hear such graphic allegations and know that that would have been something that was totally disrespectful of her as a woman and I know that's not the person he is," Gloria Cain told host Greta Van Susteren. "I'm thinking he would have to have a split personality to do the things that were said."
Her response was expected.
"Every woman who finds out her husband is a harasser has a hard time believing it," said Karen O'Connor, founder of the nonpartisan Women & Politics Institute at American University. "This is another `stand by your man.'"
Now other Republican women will have to decide whether to stand by him, too.
_______
Associated Press writer Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
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Breast Cancer Survival Rate Lesser Among Elderly Women ...
Breast cancer has today become one of the severely affecting illnesses among women. Though reports have highlighted that the illness has affected fewer women since past two decades, a new study has recently revealed that the improvement rates in the survivals of the illness have become slow especially among the oldest women suffering with the disease.
Researchers have explained in their statements that the elderly women, aged 75 and above, who are suffering from breast cancer could not show much aggressiveness in treatment as is usually cited among the younger women age group, which could at some point of time hamper the affect of the treatment on their body.
The above results of the study have been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Researchers have stated some more reasons behind their statement:
Age factor plays a significant role in one?s body and it could be possible that the disease slowly grows in elderly group, which shortens the life expectancy rate and fails to give enough hope to the elderly patient for the treatment and their life after that.
It might be possible that the older women find it more difficult to tolerate powerful medications as compared to the younger ones.
?You don't want to treat older women so aggressively that you actually cause more problems from the treatment than from the disease. When they are treated with chemotherapy, it probably doesn't quite do the same as it might in younger women?, said Dr. Benjamin Smith, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who worked on the study.
In context to the above issues, Guidelines from the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force have also bought some altercations, according to which, no more calls would be given to women over 74 years of age for a regular breast cancer screening.
Source: http://topnews.us/content/244717-breast-cancer-survival-rate-lesser-among-elderly-women
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Monday, November 14, 2011
ANALYSIS: GOP searches for voice in foreign policy (AP)
WASHINGTON ? After years of Republicans dominating the politics of national security, this year's GOP presidential candidates are struggling to find a coherent national security argument against President Barack Obama.
In the first debate dedicated to security and foreign policy, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took issue with Obama's plan for drawing down troops in Afghanistan but the dispute amounted to whether some forces should stay an extra few months. Texas Gov. Rick Perry called for sanctions against the Iranian central bank. Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman debated whether the World Trade Organization should investigate Chinese currency practices.
All of the candidates offered only incremental criticism of the Democrat who has racked up a string of security successes, a stark contrast to the with-us-or-against-us politics Republicans have used since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. If the debate made anything clear, it's that Republicans have lost-their go-to national security talking points, with Osama bin Laden's body somewhere in the Indian Ocean, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drawing to a close and Obama expanding the use of unmanned spy planes to hunt terrorists.
"I don't think there's a very strong narrative," said Tony Fratto, who served as a White House and Treasury Department spokesman during the Bush administration. "Is it a significant issue for a majority of Republican voters? No. It's not."
And it's not hard to understand why.
The sluggish economy is at the top of voters' concerns and, thus, dominating the campaign conversation. National security and foreign policy issues have been all but absent from the Republican primary contest and, given that the 9 percent unemployment rate is showing no sign of significant improvement, it no doubt will shape the general election, as well.
Unlike four and eight years ago, a GOP heavily influenced by the tea party this year has found more traction criticizing Obama for spending at home and it turns to that line of attack any chance it gets.
Even Saturday during a debate, one of the lengthier exchanges was over foreign aid, which makes up about 1 percent of the federal budget but is a popular target for criticism among fiscal conservatives, particularly in the tea party movement.
"I don't believe any of them have spent much time trying to think through and understand foreign assistance," much of which involves providing weapons, training and equipment to countries that protect our interests, Fratto said.
The candidates also veered into more familiar territory, criticizing the president's health care program and spending on public broadcasting and the arts.
Flashback to 2002 and 2004 when President George W. Bush led the party.
White House political adviser Karl Rove urged Republicans to make the war on terrorism central to congressional elections, saying: "We can go to the country on this issue."
Then, Bush made security the centerpiece of his re-election campaign. Domestic issues took a backseat to all else. His nominating convention was in New York City not far from where the World Trade Center towers once stood. And Bush's team ran an advertisement against Democrat John Kerry showing a pack of wolves in the forest, with a narrator saying, "weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."
In contrast, Obama is letting his actions ? and his successes ? on that front speak for itself and is focusing primarily on economic issues.
Barring a terrorist attack against the United States, Obama will go into the general election with the upper hand on an issue matrix where Republicans used to have a strong advantage.
"No matter what you criticize him on, he can say, `I got bin Laden,' `' said Marc Thiessen, a former Bush speechwriter. "In the world of 30-second sound bites, there is a very good case to be made against Obama's foreign policy, but he has a very good talking point."
"It's kind of pathetic that CBS had this debate on Saturday night between two football games," Thiessen added. "If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how the world values a foreign policy discussion, I don't know what does."
Despite compiling a lengthy terrorist body count, Obama still has not laid out a clear policy on detention, interrogation and how the government will prosecute terrorists. The prison in Guantanamo Bay will remain open and there's no indication that there will be a plan for dealing with the prisoners, many of whom have been cleared for release since the Bush administration.
Part of the challenge for Republicans is that the president has an advantage on national security issues by virtue of his daily interaction with world leaders and his access to the nation's most sensitive intelligence. During the 2004 presidential debate, when Kerry criticized Bush's collaboration with other world leaders, Bush countered, portraying Kerry as an armchair quarterback.
"I know how these people think," Bush said. "I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently."
Today, that advantage goes to Obama.
At the same time, the GOP field ? made up primarily of current and former governors ? starts from a position of disadvantage, collectively having little foreign policy experience.
Voters also have grown tired of the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, making it harder for any other foreign policy message to resonate.
"It's really reflective of where the voters are more than anything else," said Fratto.
Still, in the end, whoever is president in 2013 will face a number of foreign policy challenges, such as how to respond to Chinese cyber attacks and how to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons ? issues that were touched on only briefly Saturday.
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US says Canada, Mexico open to Pacific trade zone (AP)
KAPOLEI, Hawaii ? A U.S.-backed initiative to forge a Pacific free trade bloc got a big boost Sunday when leaders of Canada and Mexico said their countries are interested in joining.
The news was a coup for President Barack Obama, who had made progress on the pact one of his top priorities for the annual summit of Asia-Pacific leaders being held in his home state of Hawaii. It comes after Japan, the world's third-biggest economy, said it would join the nine nations already involved in talks on what has been dubbed the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The balmy weather for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering at a resort on the west side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu contrasted with deepening pessimism over the economic outlook as the leaders sat down for a day of talks on how to spur growth and create jobs. With Europe again on the brink of recession, Asia's vital role as a driver of global growth has gained even greater urgency.
"Now its time to get down to work, and we have much to do," President Barack Obama said in opening the meeting. "Our 21 economies ? our nearly 3 billion citizens ? are looking to us to bring our economies closer, to increase exports, to expand trade and opportunity that creates jobs and economic growth. That's why we're here."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his country must look to the East to ensure markets, especially for its energy exports. "That will be an important priority of this government," Harper said before meeting with Obama on the sidelines of the 21-member APEC summit.
The U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, welcomed the overtures from Canada and Mexico, calling them America's "neighbors and largest export markets."
Obama has said he is optimistic that work on the American-backed trade pact could result in a legal framework by next year.
For the U.S., the initiative is seen as a way to break through bottlenecks and open new business opportunities. Many in APEC see the emerging deal as a building block for a free trade area that eventually encompasses all of Asia and the Pacific ? covering half the world's commerce and two-fifths of its trade.
"The Asia Pacific region is absolutely critical to America's economic growth. We consider it a top priority. And we consider it a top priority because we're not going to be able to put our folks back to work and grow our economy and expand opportunity unless the Asia Pacific region is also successful," he told his fellow APEC leaders at Sunday's meeting.
Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an influential business lobbying group, praised the Pacific trade initiative.
"An important step to unlocking global economic growth will be expanding trade in the Asia-Pacific, and the TPP holds this key," Donohue said. He urged the group to move quickly in drawing up a timeline that is "comprehensive, enforceable, and makes room for new entrants."
The pact now includes only four smaller, relatively affluent economies ? Chile, New Zealand, Brunei and Singapore ? but the U.S., Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Peru are negotiating to join.
___
Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Erica Werner and Jaymes Song contributed to this report.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_bi_ge/apec
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