Military grooms new officers for war in cyberspace

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) ? The U.S. service academies are ramping up efforts to groom a new breed of cyberspace warriors to confront increasing threats to the nation's military and civilian computer networks that control everything from electrical power grids to the banking system.

Students at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies are taking more courses and participating in elaborate cyberwarfare exercises as the military educates a generation of future commanders in the theory and practice of computer warfare.

The academies have been training cadets in cyber for more than a decade. But the effort has taken on new urgency amid warnings that hostile nations or organizations might be capable of crippling attacks on critical networks.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, called cyberattack the top threat to national security when he presented the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress this month. "Threats are more diverse, interconnected, and viral than at any time in history," his report stated. "Destruction can be invisible, latent, and progressive."

China-based hackers have long been accused of cyber intrusions, and earlier this year the cybersecurity firm Mandiant released a report with new details allegedly linking a secret Chinese military unit to years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies. This year, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post all reported breaches in their computer systems and said they suspected Chinese hackers. China denies carrying out cyberattacks.

On Tuesday, hackers compromised Associated Press Twitter accounts and sent out a false tweet. AP quickly put out word that the report was false and that its accounts had been hacked. AP's accounts were shut down until the problem was corrected.

Once viewed as an obscure and even nerdy pursuit, cyber is now seen as one of the hottest fields in warfare ? "a great career field in the future," said Ryan Zacher, a junior at the Air Force Academy outside Colorado Springs, Colo., who switched from aeronautical engineering to computer science.

Last year the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., began requiring freshmen to take a semester on cybersecurity, and it is adding a second required cyber course for juniors next year.

The school offered a major in cyber operations for the first time this year to the freshman class, and 33 midshipmen, or about 3 percent of the freshmen, signed up for it. Another 79 are majoring in computer engineering, information technology or computer science, bringing majors with a computer emphasis to about 10 percent of the class.

"There's a great deal of interest, much more than we could possibly, initially, entertain," said the academy's superintendent, Vice Adm. Michael Miller.

Since 2004, the Air Force Academy has offered a degree in computer science-cyberwarfare ? initially called computer science-information assurance ? that requires cadets to take courses in cryptology, information warfare and network security in addition to standard computer science. The academy is retooling a freshman computing course so that more than half its content is about cyberspace, and is looking into adding another cyber course.

"All of these cadets know that they are going to be on the front lines defending the nation in cyber," said Martin Carlisle, a computer science professor at the Air Force Academy and director of the school's Center for Cyberspace Research.

About 25 Air Force cadets will graduate this year with the computer science-cyberwarfare degree, and many will go on to advanced studies and work in their service's cyber headquarters or for U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Md., the Defense Department command responsible for defensive and offensive cyberwarfare.

Almost every Army cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., takes two technology courses related to such topics as computer security and privacy. West Point also offers other cyber courses, and a computer security group meets weekly. One of the biggest cybersecurity challenges is keeping up with the head-spinning pace of change in the field.

"You know American history is pretty much the same" every year, said Lt. Col. David Raymond, who teaches a cybersecurity course. "In this domain, it's really tough to keep up with how this thing evolves."

In his congressional report, Clapper noted that the chance of a major attack by Russia, China or another nation with advanced cyber skills is remote outside a military conflict ? but that other nations or groups could launch less sophisticated cyberattacks in hopes of provoking the United States or in retaliation for U.S. actions or policies overseas. South Korea accused North Korea of mounting a cyberattack in March that shut down thousands of computers at banks and television broadcasters.

Gen. Keith Alexander, head of U.S. Cyber Command, told Congress in March the command is creating teams to carry out both offensive and defensive operations. A spokesman said the command is drawing cyber officers from the service academies, officer schools and Reserve Officer Training Corps programs.

Teams from the three academies compete in events such as last week's National Security Agency Cyber Defense Exercise, in which they try to keep simulated computer networks running as an NSA "aggressor team" attacks. Teams from the U.S. Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies also took part, along with graduate students from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and Canada's Royal Military College.

Air Force won among undergraduate schools. The Royal Military College won among graduate schools.

That hands-on experience is invaluable, said 2nd Lt. Jordan Keefer, a 2012 Air Force Academy graduate now pursuing a master's degree in cyberoperations at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

"You can't just go out there and start hacking. That's against the law," he said. The competitions, he said, "gave me actual experience defending a network, attacking a network."

Counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke, noting that really high-level computer skills are rare, suggested the military might have to re-examine some of its recruiting standards to attract the most adept cyberwarriors.

"Hackers are the 1 percent, the elite and the creators," said Clarke, who served as White House cybersecurity adviser during the Clinton administration. "I wouldn't worry a whole heck of a lot (about whether they) can they run fast or lift weights."

Cyber's appeal was enough to get Keefer to put aside his dream of becoming a fighter pilot, a job with undeniable swagger. "It's a challenge, and for people who like a challenge, it's the only place to be," Keefer said.

___

Witte reported from Annapolis, Md. Associated Press Writer Michael Hill in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP. Follow Brian Witte at http://twitter.com/APBrianWitte . Follow Michael Hill at http://twitter.com/MichaelTHill

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/military-grooms-officers-war-cyberspace-083354456.html

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Karen Dalton-Beninato: What The Elle? New Orleans Jazz Fest Is Style-Worthy

"I have never attended a music festival," writes Joe Zee, Elle Creative Director in a May fashion spread. The white Prada onesie on his model styled for Lollapalooza suggests as much, because in a battle between a festival port-a-let and a model in a white onesie, the port-a-let would have bragging rights for years. Models were also styled for six other festivals, from giant madcap bows to insouciant overalls, but not one for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

With 44 years of festival style to its credit, that seems like a significant oversight. Jazz Fest ramped up yesterday, and it was an eye-buster from the stage to each audience. I'm not saying all the styles were "the love child of Sienna Miller and the Farmer in the Dell," as Zee writes of Glastonbury. But I did potentially spot the love child of Jerry Garcia and a box of feathers. Because at Jazz Fest, the uniform style is any embellishment that pops into your head as you're heading out the door. A dozen more buttons on your hat? Why not! Add an oversized banner that makes sense only to you? Done.

I have never attended Fashion Week, but maybe a little more Jazz Fest individualism is exactly what it needs. Mask-maker John Fleming, who displays the magnificent model below in the arts and craft section, said he's often thought a photo booth to capture the looks on the fairgrounds would be a hit. Age-appeal, like the fest's styles, is far ranging. French pop sensation Phoenix plays one day, and 101 year old jazz icon Lionel Ferbos another. Somehow it all fits, forerunners flexing their chops and newcomers finding the spotlight.

New Orleans musicians themselves are sartorially splendid. Dr. John once cocked my floppy hat "acey-deucey," and it never looked better. I have no knack for styling and Mac Rebennack has better things to do that fix my brims, but it was funky while it lasted.

Elle should be so lucky.

Fleming Studios Mask in Jazz Fest Arts & Crafts
Dr. John rocks the Acura Stage with "Big Shot"
Keep N It Real and We Are One Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs
George Benson sings "Masquerade" at Congo Square
Comanche Hunters Mardi Gras Indians
Feather-filled van waits backstage
Jazz Fest style stalwarts Cowboy Phil and Julie on the track

(Photos by Jeff Beninato)

?

Follow Karen Dalton-Beninato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kbeninato

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-daltonbeninato/what-the-elle-new-orleans_b_3167822.html

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How Friendship Can Help Put an End to Rape - - Pacific Standard

Still from When Harry Met Sally. (PHOTO: COURTESY OF MGM)

Let me ask you a question: Do you have a good friend of the opposite sex?

Odds are you do. In fact, the odds are overwhelming.

When I first began teaching, 25 or so years ago, I asked my students how many of them had a good friend of the opposite sex. About 10 percent said they did. The rest were from what I called the When Harry Met Sally generation. You?ll remember the scene, early in the film, when Harry asserts that women and men can?t be friends because ?sex always gets in the way.? Sally is sure he?s wrong. They fight about it. Then, thinking she has the clincher for her position, she says, confidently, ?So that means that you can be friends with them if you?re not attracted to them!?

?Ah,? says Harry, ?you pretty much want to nail them, too.?

Young people today have utterly and completely repudiated this idea. These days, when I ask my students, I?ve had to revise the question: ?Is there anyone here who does not have a friend of the opposite sex?? A few hands perhaps, in the more than 400 students in the class.

But let?s think, for a moment, about the politics of friendship. With whom do you make friends? With your peers. Not your supervisor or boss. Not your subordinate. Your equal. More than romance, and surely more than workplace relationships, friendships are the relationships with the least amount of inequality.

This changes how we can engage men in the efforts to end sexual assault, because there are three elements to sexual assault that can be discussed and disentangled.

First is men?s sense of entitlement to women?s bodies, to sex. This sense of entitlement dissolves in the face of an encounter with your friends. After all, entitlement is premised on inequality. The more equal women are, the less entitlement men may feel. (Entitlement is not to be confused with resentment; equality often breeds resentment in the privileged group. The privileged rarely support equality because they fear they have something to lose.) Entitlement leads men to think that they can do whatever they want.

Second, the Bro Code tells those guys that they?re right?that they can get away with it because their bros won?t challenge or confront them. The bonds of brotherhood demand men?s silent complicity with predatory and potentially assaultive behavior. One never rats out the brotherhood. But if we see our female friends as our equals, then we might be more likely to act ethically to intervene and resist being a passive bystander. (And, of course, we rescue our male friends from doing something that could land them in jail for a very long time.)

Men?s silence is what perpetuates the culture of sexual assault; many of the excellent programs that work to engage men suggest that men start making some noise. We know the women, or know people who know them. This is personal.

Finally, we?re better than that?and we know it.

Sexual assault is often seen as an abstraction, a ?bad? thing that happens to other people: Bad people do bad things to people who weren?t careful, were drunk or compromised. But, as I said, it?s personal. And besides, this framing puts all the responsibility on women to monitor their activities, alcohol consumption, and environments; if they don?t, whose fault is it?

This sets the bar far too low for men. It assumes that unless women monitor and police everything they do, drink, say, wear etc., we men are wild, out of control animals and we cannot be held responsible for our actions.

Surely we can do better than this. Surely we can be the good and decent and ethical men we say we are. Surely we can promise, publicly and loudly, the pledge of the White Ribbon Campaign (the world?s largest effort to engage men to end men?s violence against women): I pledge never to commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women and girls.

Our friends?both women and men?deserve and expect no less of us.

---

This post originally appeared on Sociological Images, a Pacific Standard partner site.

Source: http://www.psmag.com/culture/how-friendship-can-help-put-an-end-to-rape-56354/

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Facebook Marketing: 7 Ways to Market Your Business on Facebook ...

Facebook continues to be the reigning champ of social media sites, as the #1 spot where friends connect and share online. More than just a meeting place for friends, Facebook has grown into a venue for businesses to market themselves through interaction with customers and self-promotion.

In this post we will be looking at seven ways you can use Facebook for marketing.

Whether you?re a big corporation or a small local biz, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool ? it?s a great space to keep customers informed, develop brand identity, and broaden your reach.

1. Making the Most of Your Facebook Business Page

A Facebook page is a great free marketing tool for businesses. These pages let businesses identify themselves ? not just through listing product offerings and services, but also by sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page to give a better sense of a business?s personality and character.

Your Facebook business page is a great spot to develop your brand identity and show your human side. Facebook is where you can loosen the tie a bit ? don?t be afraid to be funny. If you?re a local footwear store, you might consider posting a video like this little gem:

Ultimately you should consider what your key audience would want to see. Share images, links, videos, anything, as long as it is connected to your business and it seems like something your target audience would enjoy.

In addition to hilarious videos of dogs walking in tiny shoes, a store specializing in footwear might also post an article about how to measure your foot size accurately, what kind of shoe inserts are best for different sore feet woes, etc. A nice mix of humor, educational resources, and posts about your store updates is ideal.

2. Facebook Advertising: Classic Ads

Facebook offers its own form of advertising with Facebook ads, which appear in the side columns of the Facebook site. These classic ads are referred to more specifically as Marketplace Ads. They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to either a Facebook page, a Facebook app, or an outside website.

Image borrowed from Site Reference

Implementing Facebook advertising into your Facebook marketing strategy is one possible technique for increasing likes or driving website clicks.

Facebook advertising features include:

• Demographic targeting by Facebook user data on age, location, education, and interests.
• The ability to set ad budgets.
• Ad testing, in which multiple ad versions can be run simultaneously in order to compare ad designs and setup.
• Built-in ad performance measurement tools.

Facebook doesn?t release information about their ad CTRs, so it?s difficult to know how successful Facebook ads really are. In our Facebook Ads vs Google Display Ads Infographic, we found that Facebook ads generally have a CTR of 0.051%, and an average CPC of $0.80; however, a business?s Facebook advertising cost can vary a lot depending on the targeting options set and competition.

Using Facebook advertising to increase your ?Likes? can be very beneficial ? once a user likes your page, they essentially become followers of your business page, and your posts will appear on their Facebook news feed.

This results in more users interacting with you and your brand, forming relationships that may end up translating to conversions in the future.

3. Hosting Facebook Contests

Running Facebook contests, sweepstakes, or promotions is another Facebook marketing tactic that can increase fans and brand awareness.

When conducting a Facebook contest, be aware that contests can?t be hosted through Facebook itself (meaning you can?t ask for likes as entries, have people write answers in the comments, etc.) Businesses must use a third-party app for creating their Facebook contest, then direct users to the app from their Facebook page.

There are plenty of paid tools to help you do this, as well as some free ones. Shortstack offers a number of free contest templates, so long as your page has under 2,000 likes. Pagemodo also has a free option. Many third-party Facebook contest apps offer free versions, but your options with them are limited.

4. Facebook Promoted Posts

Facebook Promoted Posts let Facebook page owners pay a flat rate in order to have a single post reach a certain number of users, increasing a specific post?s reach and impressions.

Some businesses have asked ? why should I have to pay to ensure that my post is seen by users who are my followers? If a user has liked my page, they should always see my posts on their news feed, shouldn?t they? The answer to this question is no, because it assumes that users spend every waking moment of their life on Facebook?s news feed. For the health and safety of your Facebook fans, we hope this isn?t true!

If a fan of yours happens to be looking at their news feed when you post your story, they are likely to see it, but even then there is no guarantee if their news feed is swamped by other posts. That?s where Promoted Posts comes in ? it ups your chances of being seen on a user?s news feed. Facebook Promoted Posts are shown to existing fans, with an added option to reach friends of fans.

Promoted Posts are easy to set up ? just click the button beneath any of your page posts.

While the flat rate simplifies the process, Promoted Posts lack the targeting options offered by other Facebook ads.

5. Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories are a type of Facebook ad that shows a user?s interactions, such as a Facebook like, to the user?s friends.

Sponsored Stories seeks to capitalize on the ?word of mouth? concept. If a user sees that three of his friends like a certain page, he is more inclined to pay attention. The goal of Sponsored Stories is to have a user take the same action as their friends. Advertisers can choose to show friends ?likes? if they want more page likes, show friends who have ?claimed this offer? if a business wants more users to claim offers, etc.

While the action performed by a friend liking a page or claiming an offer is automatically posted in a user?s news feed, these posts easily get overlooked. Sponsored Stories get preferred positioning, capable of appearing in news feeds and the right side bar. Sponsored Stories is also the only ad format available on mobile devices.

Sponsored Stories don?t only apply to likes or offers ? they can be used with any Facebook Open Graph app. If a friend has just installed Scramble With Friends on Facebook, Sponsored Stories can show users that their friend has just played the Scramble game, with an invite to ?challenge them,? ?play with them,? or any similar variation.

Facebook claims that Sponsored Stories have 46% higher CTRs and 20% lower CPCs than regular Facebook ads, making them a very serious strategy for marketing on Facebook.

Facebook Sponsored Stories can be created easily through the Facebook ad create flow. Open Graph Sponsored Stories with a customized call to action require advertisers to use a third-party provider.

6. Facebook Open Graph

Facebook Open Graph lets businesses label a user?s action with their app. Billions of interactions are posted with Facebook Open Graph every day.

Businesses can create third-party apps that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action with the app. Facebook?s Open Graph allows for creative interactive options outside of the standard ?like? and ?comment.? Posts can suggest that users ?listen,? ?taste,? ?read,? ? it?s up to businesses to get creative.

Virtually any time a site or app prompts users to sign in to Facebook, it has something to do with connecting the user with the Facebook Open Graph.

Spotify is a great example of how Facebook Open Graph becomes a powerful Facebook marketing tool.

It all starts with a Facebook login prompt.

This is followed immediately by a permission request, which many users click through with little thought. I actually discovered that I had given permissions to 130 apps, 95% of which I don?t recall the reasoning behind.

Once permission has been obtained, Spotify is able to stream what songs a user is listening to on a friend?s news feed.

Pic borrowed from Justin Lafferty of AllFacebook.com

Notice that users are given a variety of options ? they can like the song their friend is listening to, listen to the song themselves, or star it as a favorite in Spotify.

Open graph actions like these are unique enough to stand out from the cluttered craziness of a user?s news feed.

Many Facebook games make frequent use of Facebook open graph actions, posting a notice when a user has completed a level or won an achievement.

Farmville. Oh joy.

Open graph actions are being categorized as a new type of consumer story, taking advantage of the word of mouth phenomenon. Open graph posts are more meaningful to users because they are being generated by a familiar friend, not simply a brand, making them the latest and greatest of Facebook marketing tools.

7. Facebook Exchange (FBX)

Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on web history data ? when a user visits a product page on a retailer?s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.

While Facebook retargeting ads were only relegated to the side columns, recently these ads have been allowed to appear in news feeds, the most valuable Facebook real-estate. This is great news for FBX advertisers, since response rates for news feed ads are 10 to 50 times higher than that of ad placements in the right column.

So how do Facebook Exchange ads perform? The CTR for Facebook Exchange ads is 40% lower than for other web retargeting ads, like those offered by the Google Display Network. Other retargeting ads are also cheaper, with price per unique clicks costing 80% less than Facebook retargeting ads. Still, in terms of cost-per-impression and cost-per-click, FBX ads are considerably cheaper, so the monetary benefits depend on your business?s needs. These numbers are also subject to change as FBX ads begin to appear more often in the news feed.

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/04/15/facebook-marketing

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Marijuana Stocks Are Extremely Dangerous Investments - Seeking ...

The legalization of marijuana in America continues to be an extremely hot topic, with most polls I have looked at concluding that the majority of those surveyed support marijuana legalization. I am also in favor of marijuana legalization and am hopeful that more states will continue to legalize marijuana for recreational use (currently there are only two, Washington and Colorado). And with all the media attention for marijuana legalization, certain marijuana-related stocks have experienced massive surges in volume, largely from amateur speculators who intend to buy-and-hold in the belief that these stocks will get very high in future as marijuana use is made legal.

Unfortunately, at this stage I do not believe there is a single reputable marijuana stock on the market. Having previously investigated several marijuana stocks, and having observed the price action and news of the major marijuana stocks over the past few months, I believe that the only people set to make a lot of money from these stocks are the company insiders and smart day-traders.

Why Do Investors In Marijuana Stocks Face Enormous Risk?

Because the fundamentals of the primary marijuana stocks being traded are horrible, they have extremely limited histories, and there are numerous skeletons in the closet. All the primarily marijuana-focused stocks being traded right now are traded on the OTC or Pink Sheets, which are considered by some to be the gutter of the stock market. There are no minimum requirements for a stock to be listed on these exchanges. In fact, a company can have no assets, no revenue and no employees, and still be listed here. That's why all the main marijuana stocks trade on the OTC or Pink Sheets: because they're not solid companies by any means.

To be clear, there are credible NASDAQ and NYSE listed stocks in a range of industries that might benefit in some small way from the legalization of marijuana (see this article). But all the stocks I have seen whose primary and only business model is in marijuana and marijuana production are extremely dubious. A few examples (see my previous article on marijuana stocks for more information):

• GreenGro Technologies (GRNH.PK) has no SEC filings filed, unknown financials and revenue, and their twitter feed has many tweets trying to hype up the marijuana industry and lure in investors.
• HEMP, INC (HEMP.PK) also has no SEC filings filed and unknown financials.
• Growlife Inc (PHOT.OB) had net loss of over $2 million in 2012. Searching their annual report brings up a familiar phrase: "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern."
• Cannabis Science (CBIS.OB) has absolutely horrible fundamentals, with $9,492 in cash in their latest 10Q, and losses of $81,049,984 since inception (how they could possibly run a profitable operation at this stage is beyond me).

A look at charts for these stocks show that they all very closely mimic each other, and all of them have fallen around 50% from their highs a couple of months ago. It should be obvious that the movement of marijuana stocks like these is not based on their fundamentals and real business merits, but rather hype and speculation. That is why I am making it very clear that these stocks are not for investing in. As with many stocks listed on the OTC and Pink Sheets exchange, the chance of any one of these stocks rising from the ashes and ever becoming anywhere even close to profitable is basically 0.

Regarding Medical Marijuana (MJNA.PK)

The only marijuana stock that may appear to be running a strong business (and which is the most popular and widely discussed marijuana stock) is MJNA, which recently reported Q1 2013 revenue. MJNA still trades on the Pink Sheets, but it has a substantially higher market cap than any other marijuana stock (currently over $200 million). MJNA has been highly profitable for many traders (see a couple of examples here and here), but I believe that as with all other marijuana stocks, only an ignorant speculator would hold this stock in their long term portfolio. The two main red flags for MJNA, in my view, are its earnings and management.

• Questionable Earnings: MJNA's Q1 2013 earnings may seem strong (net income of approximately $5.52 million on gross revenues of $8.45 million), but the numbers are very misleading, as they are counting $4.5 million in stock (not cash) received from CannaVEST (CANV.OB) as part of their revenue. CANV has extremely low trading volume and I am not aware of any of their business operations (a search for "CannaVEST" yields only results about their deal with MJNA). I am reminded of numerous pump-and-dump schemes that make "deals" with non-existent shell companies for the purpose of putting out a fluffy press release. In this case, given that CannaVEST appears to be nothing more than a shell stock, I am extremely suspicious that this deal with done primarily to boost MJNA's revenue numbers to make it look attractive to investors. See this article for more information regarding the deal with CannaVEST.
• Dubious Management: The management team of MJNA previously included a previously convicted criminal (Michael Llamas), while other members appear to have next to no experience running real companies, as this detailed article explains. We know that insiders have been selling shares to the public too (here is one example of insider selling from Michelle Sides, the Chairman).

The Bottom Line

If you are not an experienced trader, just stay away from marijuana stocks altogether - they all represent terrible looking long term investments based on their financials and the numerous red flags present. MJNA is a step above other marijuana stocks, but it too is extremely sketchy and something that I recommend staying away from.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1339771-marijuana-stocks-are-extremely-dangerous-investments

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Plots/Ideas

well as the name states here is where you shall display your thoughts on what the plot could be. it can be anything as long as everyone can partake it, even story arcs may be seen here:)

I wish for your happiness while watching the stars.
Hang on to your hopes, my dear.
Love emerges it disappears.
As learned by the earth.
We are wandering the road not yet known.
We are on a journey forever.
But we will return to love.
The heart's home is here.
Now, please. Won't you smile for me?
Don't cry. I'll wipe the tears form your eyes.
I wish I could be the one to kiss and touch your heart.
Look around. All your dreams are shining.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/IZmKPXgOMrk/viewtopic.php

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Different remits produce similar policies -British, U.S. central bankers

By Jonathan Spicer

BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank have set monetary policy in similar ways regardless of their contrasting official mandates, top British and U.S. policymakers argued at a forum on how central banks can lower unemployment.

David Miles, an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, on Saturday threw his weight behind an argument made a day earlier by Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren.

Miles said the BoE's greater formal focus on inflation had not led it to pursue a tighter monetary policy than that sought by the U.S. central bank, which beyond inflation must also consider unemployment.

Miles's comments come a few weeks after British Chancellor George Osborne tweaked the central bank's remit.

Osborne gave more explicit backing to the bank's practice of ignoring short-term inflation overshoots. The changes also pave the way for the next Bank governor, Mark Carney, to use more aggressive communication strategies like those followed by the Fed and the Bank of Canada, which he currently heads.

Miles, speaking on a panel at the Boston Fed alongside two other Fed policymakers and Lars Svensson of Sweden's Riksbank, played down the practical difference that central bank mandates made. His speech drew on technical models he first presented publicly in February.

"A wide range of weights placed upon real variables - output and employment - in the central bank's objectives can today give rise to rather similar monetary policies," he said.

"This might be an important part of the explanation for why the Fed and the Bank, two central banks with rather different formal objectives, have set monetary policy in such similar - and extraordinary - ways," he added.

In officially keeping one eye on unemployment, the Fed is unusual in a developed world where central banks such as the BoE are typically tasked solely with maintaining price stability.

Rosengren, who like Miles is on the dovish wing of their respective central banks, on Friday strongly defended the Fed's dual mandate of full employment and price stability. He argued the Fed's inflation record over the past 15-20 years has been as good as or better than European central banks.

Highlighting the records of the BoE, the Riksbank and the European Central Bank, Rosengren went so far as to suggest that central banks that focused only on inflation may want to consider adopting a U.S.-style dual mandate.

He said such a strategy would, for example, make it easier to publicly explain buying bonds when inflation is running above target, as that trio has done in the wake of the global recession.

Miles is the strongest advocate of more asset purchases to boost Britain's flagging economy at the UK central bank, and in a television interview earlier this week he said monetary policy should be "very, very expansionary".

On Saturday, he did not address the immediate outlook for Britain's monetary policy or economy.

(Additional reporting and writing by David Milliken in London; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/different-remits-produce-similar-policies-british-u-central-170820510--business.html

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What mutant surgery is this Nexus 4 about to undergo?

Well, would you look at that. Someone went and dissected their Nexus 4. 

But that's not just any someone. That's Rod Whitby of webOS Internals fame who's taken apart his Nexus 4, with the intent of swapping out the Qi wireless charging for the tried and true, old-school (and now defunct) Palm Touchstone. (As we showed last year, the Nexus 4 and Touchstone are not compatible.)  "Qi charging (or at least the physical implementation of it on current devices) is inferior to Palm Touchstone charging," Whitby wrote recently on Google+.

Nexus 4 wireless charging became a bit of a thing this week when webOS Nation editor -- and like many of us here a multi-platform tinkerer -- expressed his loathing for the Nexus 4's official wireless charging orb. So Whitby, as any good Android hacker should appreciate, is doing something about it. And he's no stranger to this sort of mod, having performed it on the Galaxy Nexus as well as on the Nexus 7.

Will this one be successful? It's going to be a tight fit, Whitby writes. But if anyone can do it, it's him. 

Source: +Rod Whitby

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

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Egypt to try Brotherhood members accused of torture

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two Muslim Brotherhood members in northern Egypt have been ordered to stand trial on charges of detaining and torturing students during a protest against the president the group propelled to power.

The charges are a rare acknowledgement of the alleged role that some of the president's supporters have had in attacks on his opponents.

The U.S. State Department suggested this month that Egypt was selectively prosecuting those accused of insulting the government while ignoring or playing down attacks on anti-government demonstrators.

Opponents of Mursi also accuse him of trying to dominate state institutions such as the judiciary. The president has said he is working to rid the government of corrupt remnants from the era of Hosni Mubarak, ousted by a popular uprising in 2011.

The prosecutor's office in Damanhour said on Sunday the men were accused of detaining and beating the students in November at the Brotherhood office in the Nile Delta city during clashes between opponents of Mursi and his Islamist supporters.

The clashes in Damanhour were part of a wave of protests and violence set off by Mursi's decree in November to temporarily expand his powers and prevent court challenges to his decisions.

The crisis triggered by Mursi's decree deepened the divisions in Egyptian society, mainly between the increasingly empowered Brotherhood and its allies and other groups that fear what they see as autocratic tendencies of the Islamist group.

The prosecutor's office referred to case to trial on Saturday, court officials said. It was not immediately clear when the trial would take place.

Brotherhood officials in Cairo were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-try-brotherhood-members-accused-torture-203618575.html

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Gun debate in Senate likely to feature amendments to weaken or strengthen laws (Washington Post)

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Three Calif. teens arrested for assault after girl's suicide

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? Eight days after allegedly being sexually battered while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, "worst day ever," and hanged herself.

For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not bely a struggling soul.

And then on Thursday, seven months after the tragedy, a Northern California sheriff's office arrested three 16-year-old boys on charges of sexual battery.

"The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable," said family attorney Robert Allard.

"After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious."

Allard said students used cell phones to share photos of the attack, and that the images went viral.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Lt. Jose Cardoza said it arrested two of the teens at Saratoga High School and the third, a former Saratoga High student, at Christopher High School in Gilroy on Thursday. The names of the suspects were not released because they are minors.

Cardoza said the suspects were booked into juvenile hall and face two felonies and one misdemeanor each, all related to sexual battery that allegedly occurred at a Saratoga house party.

The lieutenant said the arrests were the result of information gathered by his agency's Saratoga High School resource officers. He said the investigation is ongoing, and Los Gatos police also continue looking into the girl's September suicide.

The Associated Press does not, as a rule, identify victims of sexual assault. But in this case, Pott's family wanted her name and case known, Allard said. The family also provided a photo to the AP.

The girl's family members did not comment and have requested privacy until a planned news conference Tuesday. Her father and step-mother Lawrence and Lisa Pott, along with her mother Sheila Pott, have started the Audrie Pott Foundation (audriepottfoundation.com) to provide music and art scholarships and offer youth counseling and support.

The foundation website alludes to the teen's struggles, but until now neither law enforcement, school officials nor family have discussed the sexual battery.

"She was compassionate about life, her friends, her family, and would never do anything to harm anyone," the site says. "She was in the process of developing the ability to cope with the cruelty of this world but had not quite figured it all out.

"Ultimately, she had not yet acquired the antibiotics to deal with the challenges present for teens in today's society."

On the day Pott died, Saratoga High School principal Paul Robinson announced her death, stunning classmates. Two days later other students and staff wore her favorite color, teal, in her honor.

Robinson wasn't immediately available for comment Thursday.

The Pott family is not alone.

In Canada on Thursday, authorities said they are looking further into the case of a teenage girl who hanged herself Sunday after an alleged rape and months of bullying. A photo said to be of the 2011 assault on 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons was shared online.

No charges initially were filed against four teenage boys being investigated. But after an outcry, Nova Scotia's justice minister appointed four government departments to look into Parsons' case.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-teens-arrested-assault-girls-suicide-024221519.html

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Libya releases four Egyptian Christians: MENA

CAIRO (Reuters) - Libya on Thursday released four Egyptian Christians who spent more than a month in jail after being accused of proselytizing, Egypt's state news agency MENA said.

Quoting church sources, MENA said Libyan authorities had dropped the charges against them. A fifth detained Egyptian died in a Tripoli prison last month, it added.

The release comes after Egypt extradited two members of the regime of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi earlier this month. An Egyptian court barred the extradition of a cousin of Gaddafi claiming to hold Egyptian citizenship.

Last month, Egyptian judicial sources told Reuters Egypt was seeking to swap the Libyans with the Egyptian Copts.

On Wednesday, Libya decided to grant Egypt, struggling with economic and political turmoil, a $2 billion five-year interest-free loan.

Libya's small Christian community has expressed fears over Islamist extremism as the government struggles to impose its authority over armed groups which have refused to lay down their weapons since the 2011 war that ousted Gaddafi.

In December, an explosion at a building belonging to a Coptic church in Dafniya, close to the western Libyan city of Misrata, killed two Egyptian men and wounded two others.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libya-releases-four-egyptian-christians-mena-090624493.html

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Michigan, solid all around, scorches Syracuse

The Michigan Wolverines advanced to the NCAA national championship game Saturday night, beating the Syracuse Orange 61-56. Michigan will face the Louisville Cardinals Monday night at 9:23 p.m.

By Paul Newberry,?AP National Writer / April 7, 2013

Michigan's Caris LeVert (23) passes the ball as Syracuse's C.J. Fair (5) looks on during the second half of the NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball semifinal game Saturday, April 6, 2013, in Atlanta. Michigan won the game 61-56.

David J. Phillip/AP

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Michigan is more than just five fabulous players.

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No, this is quite a team ? all the way down the roster.

Fearlessly attacking Syracuse's suffocating zone in the first half, getting big contributions off the bench, and hanging on for dear life at the end, the Wolverines advanced to the national championship game with a 61-56 victory over the Orange in the?Final?Four?on Saturday night.

So put away those comparisons to the Fab Five.

This group of young stars is determined to leave its own legacy.

"We've been a team all year," said coach John Beilein, whose Wolverines were playing in the?Final?Four?for the first time since 1993, when the Fab Five lost for the second straight time in the national title game. "It was great."

Michigan (31-7) will be going for its first national title since 1989 when it faces Louisville on Monday at the Georgia Dome. Syracuse (30-10) failed to complete an all-Big East?final?in the fabled league's last season before a major overhaul.

Louisville was established as a 4 1/2-point title game favorite.

Don't expect that to bother the brash young Wolverines a bit. They showed they could win even when their best weapon, Associated Press player of the year Trey Burke, was having a really ugly night.

He scored just seven points on 1-of-8 shooting.

"We know Trey is our leader, and sometimes he's not going to have a game like he's had all season," said Tim Hardaway Jr., who led Michigan with 13 points. "That's when our team stepped up."

Trailing 58-56, the Orange had a chance to force overtime. But Brandon Triche was called for a foul when Jordan Morgan stepped in to take the charge with 19.2 seconds left.

"Jordan is our best charge-taker," Beilein said. "He stood in there and took a good one."

After Jon Horford made only one of two free throws, Syracuse called timeout and set up a play. Curiously, the Orange didn't attempt a tying 3-pointer. Instead, Trevor Cooney drove the lane looking to put up an easier shot. But the ball was swatted away, Michigan saved it from going out of bounds and Morgan wound up taking a long pass the other way.

He threw down a thunderous slam with just over a second remaining to cap the triumph.

Triche blamed himself for driving the ball recklessly into the lane when Syracuse had a chance to tie it.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/3iJxz8Z37CU/Michigan-solid-all-around-scorches-Syracuse

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Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin?s Talk Show The Axe!

Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin’s Talk Show The Axe!

Ginger funnywoman Kathy Griffin has confirmed that her talk show on Bravo has been cancelled. Griffin announced that she would not be returning for a third season on the show during a stand-up gig in Cincinnati, Ohio on Friday. Kathy told the audience that she?d been informed by Bravo of the decision the previous day. ...

Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin’s Talk Show The Axe! Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/bravo-gives-kathy-griffins-talk-show-the-axe/

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Arrhythmia drug may increase cancer risk - Cancer -Drug Abuse -

? Cancer ? ? Drug Abuse ? Apr 07, 2013

One of the most widely used medications to treat arrhythmias may increase the risk of developing cancer, especially in men and people exposed to high amounts of the drug. That is the conclusion of a new retrospective study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study?s results indicate that a potential link between amiodarone and cancer warrants further investigation.

Amiodarone was approved in 1985 for the treatment of arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats. Because the drug is fat-soluble and degrades very slowly, large amounts can accumulate in soft tissues after a long-term prescription. Previous studies have shown that amiodarone might increase the risk of certain cancers, but no large-scale study has looked at the issue.

To investigate, Vincent Yi-Fong Su, MD, of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, and his colleagues studied 6,418 individuals taking the drug, following them for an average of 2.57 years. A total of 280 participants developed cancer.

Patients who were male or who received high cumulative daily doses of amiodarone within the first year had an increased risk of developing cancer. Those with both factors were 46 percent more likely to develop cancer than those with neither factor. After taking age, sex, and illnesses into account, individuals taking a high amount of amiodarone had nearly twice the risk of developing cancer as those taking a low amount of the drug.

"We suggest that cancer events should be routinely reported in future amiodarone trials, and further observational research is necessary,? said Dr. Su. ?Also, when prescribing amiodarone, doctors need to keep in mind that this medication may increase cancer risk.?

###

Amy Molnar
sciencenewsroom@wiley.com
Wiley

Provided by ArmMed Media

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Source: http://www.health.am/ab/more/arrhythmia-drug-may-increase/

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First trial to investigate magic mushrooms as a treatment for depression delayed by UK and EU regulations

Apr. 5, 2013 ? The world's first clinical trial to explore the use of the hallucinogenic ingredient in magic mushrooms to treat depression is being delayed due to the UK and EU rules on the use of illegal drugs in research.

Professor David Nutt, president of the British Neuroscience Association and Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London (UK), will tell the BNA's Festival of Neuroscience today (Sunday) that although the UK's Medical Research Council has awarded a grant for the trial, the Government's regulations controlling the licensing of illegal drugs in research and the EU's guidelines on Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) have stalled the start of the trial, which was expected to start this year. He is calling for a change to the regulations.

He will tell the meeting at the Barbican in London, that his research has shown that psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, has the potential to alleviate severe forms of depression in people who have failed to respond fully to other anti-depressant treatments. However, psilocybin is illegal in the UK; the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances classifies it as a Schedule 1 drug, one that has a high potential for abuse with no recognised medical use, and the UK has classified it as a Class A drug, the classification used for the most dangerous drugs. This means that a special licence has to be obtained to use magic mushrooms in research in the UK, and the manufacture of a synthetic form of psilocybin for use in patients is tightly controlled by EU regulations.

Prof Nutt will say: "The law for the control of drugs like psilocybin as a Schedule 1 Class A drug makes it almost impossible to use them for research and the reason we haven't started the study is because finding companies who could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence, which can take up to a year and triple the price, is proving very difficult. The whole situation is bedevilled by this primitive, old-fashioned attitude that Schedule 1 drugs could never have therapeutic potential, and so they have to be made impossible to access."

"The knock-on effect is this profound impairment of research. We are the first people ever to have done a psilocybin study in the UK, but we are still hunting for a company that can manufacture the drug to GMP standards for the clinical trial, even though we've been trying for a year to find one. We live in a world of insanity in terms of regulating drugs at present. The whole field is so bogged down by these intransient regulations, so that even if you have a good idea, you may never get it into the clinic."

He will say that the regulations need to be changed. "Even if I do this study and I show it's a really useful treatment for some people with depression, there's only four hospitals in this country that have a licence to hold this drug, so you couldn't roll out the treatment if it worked because the regulations would make it difficult to use," he said.

Prof Nutt and his team at Imperial College London (UK) have shown that when healthy volunteers are injected with psilocybin, the drug switched off a front part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is known from previous imaging studies to be over-active in depression. "We found that, even in normal people, the more that part of the brain was switched off under the influence of the drug, the better they felt two weeks later. So there was a relationship between that transient switching off of the brain circuit and their subsequent mood," he will explain. "This is the basis on which we want to run the trial, because this is what you want to do in depression: you want to switch off that over-active part of the brain.

"The other thing we discovered is that the major site of action of the magic mushrooms is to turn down a circuit in the brain called the 'default mode network', which the anterior cingulate cortex is part of. The default mode network is a part of the brain between the front and back. It is active when you are thinking about you; it coordinates the thinking and emotional aspects of you."

The researchers discovered that the 'default mode network' had the highest density of 5HT2A receptors in the brain. These are known to be involved in depression and are the targets for a number of existing anti-depressive drugs that aim to improve levels of serotonin -- the neurotransmitter [1] that gives people a sense of well-being and happiness. Psilocybin also acts on these receptors.

"We have found that people with depression have over-active default mode networks, and they are continually locked into a mode of thinking about themselves. So they ruminate on themselves, on their incompetencies, on their badness, that they're worthless, that they've failed; these things are not true, and sometimes they reach delusional levels. This negative rumination may be due to a lack of serotonin and what psilocybin is doing is going in and rapidly replacing the missing serotonin, switching them back into a mind state where they are less ruminating and less depressed," Prof Nutt will say.

The proposed trial will be for patients with depression who have failed two previous treatments for the condition. Thirty patients will be given a synthetic form of psilocybin and 30 patients will be given a placebo. The drug (or placebo) will be given during two, possibly three, carefully controlled and prepared 30-60 minute sessions. The first session will be a low dose to check there are no adverse responses, the second session will give a higher, therapeutic dose, and then patients can have a third, booster dose in a later session if it's considered necessary. While they are under the influence of the drug, the patients will have guided talking therapy to enable them to explore their negative thinking and issues that are troubling them. The doctors will follow up the patients for at least a year.

"What we are trying to do is to tap into the reservoir of under-researched 'illegal' drugs to see if we can find new and beneficial uses for them in people whose lives are often severely affected by illnesses such as depression. The current legislation is stopping the benefits of these drugs being explored and for the last 40 years we have missed really interesting opportunities to help patients."

Ethical approval for the trial was granted in March and Prof Nutt says he hopes to be able to start the trial within the next six months -- so long as he can find a manufacturer for the drug.

[1] Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals from neurons (nerve cells) to target cells.

[2] Funding: The Beckley Foundation has funded part of Prof Nutt's research, and the Medical Research Council has agreed a grant for the proposed clinical trial.

Abstract title: "Can we use psychedelic drugs to treat depressions?" Symposium: "Treating depression with antidepressants: where are we now and where are we going?"

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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/mind_brain/depression/~3/pA07KX3YSxA/130407090832.htm

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Rumor: Microsoft Cloning Google Glass Too for 2014

Microsoft is supposedly building Smart Glasses too.

Last week brought reports that Chinese search giant Baidu is working on a clone of Google Glass. The news stemmed from an April Fools' joke that "spun out of control," but a rep from the company said there is a hint of truth behind the joke, that internal testing is in progress to produce something similar to Glass.

Now there is a rumor that Microsoft is doing the same, only the Redmond company is expected to produce a working product in 2014. The rumor stems from analyst Brian White, who informed investors of his theory about Microsoft's Internet-connected specs on Thursday.

Unfortunately, he didn't provide any extra specifics. But Microsoft's entry into the wearable tech realm really isn't all that far-fetched, and it wouldn't be surprising if the company actually introduces a prototype during BUILD 2013 or E3 2013 this June. A Windows 8-based set of specs that connect to a Windows-based tablet, smartphone and/or PC? You bet. Console connectivity is even likely.

"It appears to us that Google has made significant breakthroughs around software applications as it relates to this new product," he said. "As such, we believe this initiative will kick off a major push into the field of wearable electronics and therefore will be closely scrutinized."

Apple is reportedly taking a different avenue by developing the much-rumored iOS-powered iWatch. White also said that Apple is working on the iRing, which will interact with the upcoming iTV slated for a late 4Q13 release. This ring, acting as a navigation pointer, will help enhance motion detection and allow users to control the television set using hand gestures. The iWatch will supposedly interact with iTV as well.

Last month, Samsung confirmed that it, too, is working on a Smart Watch. "We?ve been preparing the watch product for so long," said Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung?s mobile business, in an interview with Bloomberg. "We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them."

Marshal Cohen, an analyst at NPD Group, later said that the race is on to redesign the mobile phone into something that you wear. "We?re going to see formidable competition coming from many different directions -- from device makers, accessory makers, even fashion designers," he said.

As for Microsoft, the company will likely not arrive late in the game as it did in the tablet and smartphone sectors. Developing wearable tech should actually be a given seeing that its two major competitors are busily working on gadgets. We suspect that Kinect and the Xbox brand will somehow be involved.

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Source: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=13a2593eb7fea59da4a8e5bc4b5a9078

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Syrian airstrike kills 5 in Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) ? A Syrian government airstrike on a heavily contested neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least five people Saturday, while several mortar rounds slammed into a residential district in Damascus, leaving at least one person dead, activists and state media said.

Aleppo and Damascus ? Syria's two largest cities ? are key fronts in civil war between President Bashar Assad and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime. Opposition fighters have managed to seize control of several neighborhoods in Aleppo since storming the city last summer, while the regime has largely kept the rebels at bay so far in Damascus, although opposition fighters control several suburbs of the capital and look increasingly capable of threatening the heart of the city ? and Assad's power.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air raid Saturday hit Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, which rebels seized parts of last weekend after days of heavy fighting with regime troops.

Both sides are eager to control the strategic district, which is predominantly inhabited by minority Kurds. The neighborhood is located on a hill on the northern edge of Aleppo and overlooks much of the city, giving those who control it the ability to pound districts held by the opposing side with mortars and artillery.

The rebels control large swaths of northern Syria, and captured their first provincial capital ? the city of Raqqa ? last month. They have also been making gains in recent weeks in the south, seizing military bases and towns in the strategically important region between Damascus and the border with Jordan, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital.

In Damascus, mortar rounds hit the residential district of Kafar Souseh on the city's western outskirts, killing one person and wounding at least 13, the state-run SANA news agency said. The attacks also caused material damage to stores in the district and set several parked vehicles on fire, SANA said.

The Observatory said mortar rounds also struck the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shells, but mortar rounds have fallen with increasingly regularity in the center of the capital, puncturing the aura of normalcy that the regime has tried to cultivate in the city.

The Observatory also reported clashes between government troops and rebels Saturday in the town of Otaybah east of Damascus.

Also Saturday, the newly elected prime minister of the Western-backed opposition umbrella group, Ghassan Hitto, started reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government that will consist of 11 ministries and will be based inside Syria, according to a statement by the Syrian National Coalition.

It said Hitto, who has lived in the United States for many years, aims to "attract the qualified talent and competencies required to manage the upcoming phase of the revolution."

The candidates for ministerial and deputy positions must be Syrian citizens older than 35 years of age, the statement said. It added that high-ranking regime officials or "those who have committed crimes against the Syrian people or have unlawfully seized Syrian property or wealth" will be excluded from consideration.

"The nominee must be an advocate or supporter of the Syrian revolution," the statement said.

The Western-backed opposition alliance has been marred by severe divisions in its ranks since its formation late last year in Qatar, and its leaders are mostly seen as disconnected from the myriad rebel forces fighting inside Syria.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-airstrike-kills-least-5-aleppo-123326047.html

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?In The Studio,? Paddle8?s Aditya Julka Discuses Building Niche Online Marketplaces

"In the Studio" opens up Q2 of 2013 by hosting a three-time founder who, after stints in engineering and the biomedical industry in India, happened to team up with a young leader in the art world to create one of the art world's most fascinating online auction houses. Aditya Julka, a co-founder of online art and collectible marketplace Paddle8, has carved an unusual path of entrepreneurship. After growing up and studying in India, Julka began his career as a healthcare entrepreneur, founding two companies before he came stateside to pursue his MBA. After graduation, he moved to NYC and started what would become Paddle8, though the business initial began as a lead-gen engine for collectors, but Julka and his team quickly identified that, given the intricacies of the art world, the web could enable an interesting marketplace so long as they were able to secure the right art "supply."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cgApGuIeX0Q/

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Newspaper publishes photo of Pistorius in blades

In this photo taken March 24 2013, shows Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius running on the track at the University of Pretoria South Africa. The photo was taken by a pupil from the Voortrekker High School in Pietermaritzburg while on a hockey tour in Pretoria. A South African newspaper published the grainy cellphone image of Pistorius at a running track in his carbon fiber blades Thursday as the Olympian?s agent said his return to training was now imminent, but denied he was already in training. (AP Photo/Lisa Smith)

In this photo taken March 24 2013, shows Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius running on the track at the University of Pretoria South Africa. The photo was taken by a pupil from the Voortrekker High School in Pietermaritzburg while on a hockey tour in Pretoria. A South African newspaper published the grainy cellphone image of Pistorius at a running track in his carbon fiber blades Thursday as the Olympian?s agent said his return to training was now imminent, but denied he was already in training. (AP Photo/Lisa Smith)

FILE - In this Sept. 5, 2012 file photo, South Africa's Oscar Pistorius competes during Men's 100m T44 round 1 at the 2012 Paralympics in London. A judge in South Africa says Pistorius, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend, can leave South Africa to compete in international competition, with conditions. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 19, 2013 file photo, olympian Oscar Pistorius stands following his bail hearing in Pretoria, South Africa. A judge in South Africa says Pistorius, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend, can leave South Africa to compete in international competition, with conditions. (AP Photo/File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? A South African newspaper published a grainy cellphone photograph of Oscar Pistorius at a running track in his carbon fiber blades Thursday as the Olympian's agent said his return to training was now imminent ? but denied he was already in training.

The Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper had the image of what it said was Pistorius, who was charged with murder for the Valentine's Day shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on the front page of its Thursday edition.

In the photograph ? taken by a high school student from a bus passing by the track ? the double amputee is seen from some distance wearing his blades and dark lycra running clothes and is walking on a track with his hands on his hips.

The photo was taken on March 24 by teenager Lisa Smith, her field hockey coach said, when their team was visiting the University of Pretoria where Pistorius' regular practice facility is.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Pistorius had been at the track in the South African capital city on the day of the photograph.

It was the first time Pistorius had put his blades on since he shot dead Steenkamp in his home in the early hours of Feb. 14, his agent, Peet van Zyl, told the AP later on Thursday.

Pistorius was only "having a jog around the track," the agent said, as the newspaper claimed sources had told it the Olympic 400-meter runner and Paralympic champion had begun full training at the university on March 21. Van Zyl disputed that and said neither he nor Ampie Louw, Pistorius' coach and the man who controls his training sessions, were present at the track on the day the photograph was taken.

Field hockey coach and school sports director Charmaine Koekemoer said she was driving the bus past the track at around 10.15 a.m. on the Sunday morning when members of her Hoerskool Voortrekker girls hockey team started shouting "There's Oscar, there's Oscar!" from the back.

Student Smith then took the photo on her BlackBerry, Koekemoer said. It shows Pistorius in the distance with the bars of a metal fence in the foreground. He is the only person in the shot.

"The kids were very excited," Koekemoer told the AP. "That was the excitement, seeing a world icon in real life. It was nothing to do with his case.

"We didn't see him running around the track. He was just walking to the 100 meter end line down the final stretch. It looked like he was going to take his blades off."

The single photo, a grainy image taken through the black fence and showing Pistorius walking on the far side of the track, was accompanied by a front-page story in Beeld under the headlines "Oscar is back on the track" and "In training with other athletes."

Pistorius' management team was expecting the photo to be published, Van Zyl said, after Pistorius had told them he had visited his track with some Australian athletes on the day a little under two weeks ago. Koekemoer ? who was visiting with her students from the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg ? said there were other athletes around Pistorius when they saw him.

Neither Pistorius' coach nor his agent knew about the track visit until afterward, Van Zyl said.

But while Pistorius wasn't yet in a training routine, the agent said, his return could be any day now. The image of the world's most famous disabled athlete back on his unmistakable running blades was likely now to become more and more common again.

"He might get up this morning and call (coach) Ampie (Louw) and say he wants to be at the track at one o'clock," Van Zyl said. Van Zyl also said Pistorius' desire to start training again did not show disrespect to the family of Steenkamp.

Pistorius denies murder in the Valentine's Day killing of model Steenkamp, saying he mistook her for a nighttime intruder in his home. His next scheduled court appearance is June 4, when prosecutors say they intend to serve indictments.

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Follow Gerald Imray at www.twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-04-OLY-Pistorius-Shooting/id-8ce9bd85cdbc4d788ec4aaf9600e315c

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