Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/303887865?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Israel Syria strike targeted Iran missiles to Hezbollah: source
PARIS (Reuters) - Rafael Nadal will not be protected with a higher seeding at the French Open, tournament director Gilbert Ysern said on Saturday. Roland Garros committee member Guy Forget suggested last month that the Spaniard, who has slipped to fifth in the world rankings, should be protected to avoid a potential quarter-final clash with world number one Novak Djokovic. "Considering what Nadal represents in Paris, i.e. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-syria-strike-targeted-iran-missiles-hezbolla-source-044002434.html
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Sunday, May 5, 2013
Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms
By Dominic Evans and Oliver Holmes
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli jets devastated Syrian targets near Damascus on Sunday in a heavy overnight air raid that Western and Israeli officials called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah.
As Syria's two-year-old civil war veered into the potentially atomic arena of Iran's confrontation with Israel and the West over its nuclear program, people were woken in the Syrian capital by explosions that shook the ground like an earthquake and sent pillars of flame high into the night sky.
"Night turned into day," one man told Reuters from his home at Hameh, near one of the targets, the Jamraya military base.
But for all the angry rhetoric in response from Tehran and from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, it was unclear whether the second such raid in 48 hours would elicit any greater reaction than an Israeli attack in the same area in January, which was followed by little evident change.
The Syrian government accused Israel of effectively helping al Qaeda Islamist "terrorists" and said the strikes "open the door to all possibilities"; but Israeli officials said that, as in January, they were calculating Assad would not pick a fight with a well-armed neighbor while facing defeat at home.
Denying it was weighing in on the rebel side on behalf of Washington - which opposes Assad but is hesitating to intervene - officials said Israel was pursuing its own conflict, not with Syria but with Iran, and was acting to prevent Iran's Hezbollah allies receiving missiles that might strike Tel Aviv if Israel made good on threats to attack Tehran's nuclear program.
What Israel was not doing, they stressed, was getting drawn into a debate that has raged in the United States lately of whether the alleged use of poison gas by Assad's forces should prompt the West finally to give military backing to oust him.
Israel was not taking sides in a civil war that has pitted Assad's government, a dour but mostly toothless adversary for nearly 40 years, against Sunni rebels, some of them Islamist radicals, who might one day turn Syria's armory against the Jewish state.
It is a mark of how two years of killing in which at least 70,000 Syrians have died has not only inflamed a wider, regional confrontation between Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Arabs, some of them close Western allies, but have also left Israel and Western powers scrambling to reassess where their interests lie.
Egypt, the most populous Arab state and flagship of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts where elected Islamists have replaced a Western-backed autocrat, has no love for Assad. But on Sunday it condemned Israel's air strikes as a breach of international law that "made the situation more complicated".
ROCKETS TARGETED
Israel does not confirm such missions explicitly - a policy it says is intended to avoid provoking reprisals. But an Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the strikes were carried out by its forces, as was a raid early on Friday that U.S. President Barack Obama said had been justified.
A Western intelligence source told Reuters: "In last night's attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his aim for Israel was to "guarantee its future" - language he has used to warn of a willingness to attack Iran's nuclear sites, even in defiance of U.S. advice, as well as to deny Hezbollah heavier weapons.
He later flew to China on a scheduled trip, projecting confidence there would be no major escalation - though Israel has reinforced its anti-missile batteries in the north.
Syrian state television said bombing at a military research facility at Jamraya and two other sites caused "many civilian casualties and widespread damage", but it gave no details. The Jamraya compound was also a target for Israel on January 30.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television showed a flattened building spread over the size of a football pitch, with smoke rising from rubble containing shell fragments. It did not identify it.
Syrian state television quoted a letter from the foreign minister to the United Nations saying: "The blatant Israeli aggression has the aim to provide direct military support to the terrorist groups after they failed to control territory."
Obama defended Israel's right to block "terrorist organizations like Hezbollah" from acquiring weapons after Friday's raid, and a White House spokesman said on Sunday: "The president many times has talked about his view that Israel, as a sovereign government, has the right to take the actions they feel are necessary to protect their people."
It was unclear that Israel had sought U.S. approval for the strikes, although the White House spokesman said: "The close coordination between the Obama administration, the United States of America, is ongoing with the Israeli government."
Obama has in recent years worked to hold back Netanyahu from making good on threats to hit facilities where he says Iran, despite its denials, is working to develop a nuclear weapon.
On Sunday, some Israeli officials highlighted Obama's reluctance to be drawn into new conflict in the Middle East to explain Israel's need for independent action.
Syria restricts access to independent journalists. Its state media said Israeli aircraft struck three places between Damascus and the nearby Lebanese border. The city also lies barely 50 km (30 miles) from Israeli positions on the occupied Golan Heights.
Tehran, which has long backed Assad, whose Alawite minority has religious ties to Shi'ite Islam, denied the attack was on armaments for Lebanon and called for nations to stand firm against Israel. A senior Iranian commander was quoted, however, as saying Syria's armed forces were able to defend themselves without their allies, though Iran could help them with training.
Hezbollah, a Shi'ite movement that says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression, declined immediate comment.
ISRAELI CONCERNS
Analysts say the Fateh-110 could put the Tel Aviv metropolis in range of Hezbollah gunners, 100 km (60 miles) to the north, bolstering the arsenal of a group that fired some 4,000 shorter-range rockets into Israel during a month-long war in 2006.
"What we want is to ensure that inside the Syrian chaos we will not see Hezbollah growing stronger," Israeli lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi, a confidant of Netanyahu, told Army Radio.
"The world is helplessly looking on at events in Syria, the Americans in particular, and this president in particular," he added of Obama. "He has left Iraq, Afghanistan and has no interest in sending ground troops to Syria ... That is why, as in the past, we are left with our own interests, protecting them with determination and without getting too involved."
Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by Syrian activists showed a series of blasts. One lit up the skyline of Damascus, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.
Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli aircraft struck in three places: northeast of Jamraya; the town of Maysaloun on the Lebanese border; and the nearby Dimas air base.
"The sky was red all night," one man said from Hameh, near Jamraya. "We didn't sleep a single second. The explosions started after midnight and continued through the night."
Central Damascus was quiet on the first day of the working week, and government checkpoints seemed reinforced. Some opposition activists said they were glad strikes might weaken Assad, even if few Syrians have any liking for Israel: "We don't care who did it," Rania al-Midania said in the capital. "We care that those weapons are no longer there to kill us."
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Marwan Makdesi in Damascus, Maayan Lubell, Dan Williams, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Roberta Rampton Aboard Air Force One and Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Will Waterman)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/explosions-shake-damascus-syria-says-israel-attacked-001502034.html
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Friday, May 3, 2013
Jobless claims fall sharply to five-year low
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new jobless benefits claims fell sharply last week to its lowest level since the early days of the 2007-09 recession, a sign the job market is still healing even though the economy remains weak.
Other data on Thursday showed a narrowing of the trade gap in March, although drops in imports and exports offered warning signs over the strength of domestic and foreign demand.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 324,000 last week, the Labor Department said.
The claims report runs counter to a growing number of signals that economic activity softened in March and April, a phenomena economists have dubbed the spring swoon because it also happened in the previous two years.
"Growth slowed between the first and second quarters, but the claims data suggest that the extent of this slowing was limited," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.
The data on claims has no direct bearing on the Labor Department's monthly employment report for April due on Friday. However, it suggests employers are feeling less pressure to lay workers off, even if they have cut back on hiring.
"Layoffs (are) not an issue. Companies are reluctant to hire. This is keeping the jobs market in a rut," said Ryan Sweet, an economist with Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Analysts had expected 345,000 new jobless claims last week, and the positive signal from the data sent U.S. stock prices higher, while yields on U.S. government debt rose. An interest rate cut from the European Central Bank also lifted investor sentiment.
Economists expect Friday's jobs report will show employers hired 145,000 people last month, an improvement from March's dismal pace of 88,000 but not enough to bring down the still-elevated jobless rate, which is seen steady at 7.6 percent.
Supporting the view that hiring picked up modestly, a survey of small businesses showed they added workers in April for the fifth straight month. [ID:nL2N0DJ0W6] Planned layoffs also fell. [ID:nN9N0CX00U]
The recent slowdown in the economy has been blamed on government belt-tightening, although analysts also think a mild winter followed by an unusually cold March may have led some employers and consumers to bring forward hiring and purchases.
TRADE DEFICIT NARROWS
Ongoing weakness in the labor market and a slowing in inflation led the Federal Reserve to keep its monetary spigots open on Wednesday following a two-day policy review. Policymakers said they could even step up bond purchases if the economy needed more help.
The level of claims last week was the lowest since January 2008, a month after the start of the worst recession in decades.
Separately, Commerce Department data showed the U.S. trade deficit shrank more than expected in March as exports fell and imports recorded their biggest drop since 2009, which could mean U.S. consumers are demanding fewer goods and services.
"It tells a sad tale of weakening growth momentum in both the U.S. and globally," said Millan Mulraine, an economist at TD Securities in New York.
Analysts at Capital Economics were more sanguine about the drop in imports, which they said could be a temporary factor related to the timing of a Chinese holiday that might have depressed the flow of goods out of the Asian giant.
Regardless, the narrowing of the trade gap to $38.8 billion suggests economic growth in the first quarter may have been a bit stronger than the 2.5 percent annual rate estimated by the government last week.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jobless-claims-fall-sharply-five-low-123407735.html
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U.S. centenarians have few regrets, stay active and social: poll
By Patricia Reaney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - America's centenarians are generally content and believe staying active is key to longevity, and some are even using social media and email to stay in touch with family and friends, a survey released on Thursday showed.
The poll that compared the attitudes and lifestyle of baby boomers to centenarians showed the country's oldest citizens were more content than their younger counterparts and put more emphasis on eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep.
"We are seeing clear differences in the generations," said Dr Rhonda Randall, chief medical officer of the healthcare company UnitedHealthcare & Retirement.
Although genetics play a big part, Randall said multiple factors contribute to longevity, including a positive attitude.
"Reflecting fondly and confidently on the choices they've made throughout their lives helps the longest-living Americans maintain a sense of satisfaction and well-being that's vital to healthy aging," she explained.
Census Bureau figures show that in 2010 there were more than 53,000 centenarians in the United States, an increase of 65.8 percent since 1980. By 2050 their numbers are expected to hit 600,000.
The survey of 100 centenarians and 300 baby boomers commissioned by UnitedHealthcare showed half of the elderly would not change a thing in their life, compared to only 29 percent of boomers.
Ten percent of centenarians said they wish they had taken better care of themselves and focused more on relationships. Only 6 percent would have wanted to have more money, compared to 26 percent of baby boomers who said they regretted they had not saved more.
Equal numbers of both generations recognized the importance of keeping active and socially connected and the importance of family.
"Whether it is family, a faith-based organization or friends, feeling connected to others is very important to health and well being," Randall explained.
In a sign of just how important social connections are, more than a third of the elderly said they had kept up a friendship for more than 75 years.
Although a landline is the most common way centenarians keep in touch, nearly half of both groups recognized that cellphones, email and text messages make it easier to stay connected.
Thirty nine percent of centenarians used social media, compared to 56 percent of boomers.
Randall said centenarians' desire to keep up with technology is part of their positive attitude and shows it is never too late to learn.
Nearly half, 45 percent, of the elderly said they were most nostalgic about young adulthood.
When asked about the best thing about reaching 100, more than a third thought it was the ability to spend more time with their children and grandchildren, and 26 percent said it was the opportunity to spend more time traveling.
(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-centenarians-few-regrets-stay-active-social-poll-120315340.html
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Was Africa the motherland of dinosaur predecessors?
The ancestors of dinosaurs might have established themselves in present-day Tanzania and Zambia, suggest newly discovered fossils.
People stand near an 26-foot replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex standing between the 9th green and the 10th tee at the Sunshine Coast resort course in south Queensland, Australia, in 2012.
Dennis Passa/AP/File
EnlargeNewly discovered fossils from 10 million years after the world's largest known extinction indicate that dinosaurs' ancestors might have taken hold in present-day Tanzania and Zambia, millions of years before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and much earlier than dinosaur relatives are seen in the fossil record elsewhere.?
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Earlier studies, mostly based on fossil records from Russia and South Africa, led scientists to think that dinosaur predecessors failed to survive after a mass extinction some some?252 million years ago,?which killed off 90 percent of Earth's species.?
"The fossil record from the Karoo of South Africa, for example, is a good representation of four-legged land animals across southern Pangea before the extinction," said Christian Sidor, a paleontologist at the University of Washington, in a press release. "But after the event, animals weren?t as uniformly and widely distributed as before. We had to go looking in some fairly unorthodox places.?
Sidor authored a recent study on dinosaurs' origins, published in?the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Drawing upon fossils unearthed from Tanzania, Zambia, and Antarctica since 2003, and current fossil records, Sidor and his colleagues generated two profiles of animals living about five million years before and 10 million years after the mass extinction.
For example, Dicynodon, a four-legged creature with a body resembling that of a fat lizard and a head resembling a turtle's, dominated the southern region of supercontinent Pangea before the extinction event, an area that comprises present-day Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, and India.
After the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, populations of Dicynodon, along with many other herbivores, decreased dramatically.
The changing climate allowed new creatures to emerge and thrive. Archosaurs were a?group of plant-eating reptiles whose living relatives are birds and crocodilians. In its news release, the National Science Foundation, one of the study's two sponsors, said scientists are interested in archosaurs?because they were believed to be the predecessors of dinosaur-related animals such as Asilisaurus, a dinosaur-like animal, and Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a dog-sized creature with a five-foot tail that may be the earliest dinosaur.
"Early archosaurs being found mainly in Tanzania is an example of how fragmented communities became after the extinction event,? Sidor said in the University of Washington press release.
These findings, according to the co-authors, suggested that "archosaur diversification was more intimately related to recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction than previously suspected.?
In an interview with?Discovery News,?co-author and geologist Sterling Nesbitt of the Field Museum of Natural History said "true dinosaurs first show up about 230 million years ago, from what is now Argentina. We think that dinosaurs first evolved in Gondwanaland ? including Africa, South America, India, Madagascar, Australia, Antarctica." ?
The study also revealed that before the extinction, 35 percent of four-legged species were found in two or more of the five areas studied, with some species' habitats stretching 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers), encompassing the Tanzanian and South African basins.
Ten million years after the extinction, just seven percent of four-legged species were found in two or more regions, suggesting that?there was a geographical clustering of the animals.
"The expeditions by this team of researchers to little-explored Permian and Triassic aged depositional basins in Africa and Antarctica, which form part of the supercontinent Gondwana, has greatly enhanced our understanding of the distribution of land-living vertebrates that lived more than 200 million years ago,"?Bruce Rubidge, a dinosaur specialist at the University of Witwatersrand, told Discovery News.
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'Oil for the joints' offers hope for osteoarthritis sufferers
May 2, 2013 ? A team of researchers led by a Boston University Biomedical Engineer has developed a new joint lubricant that could bring longer lasting relief to millions of osteoarthritis sufferers. The new synthetic polymer supplements synovial fluid, the natural lubricant in joints, and works better than comparable treatments currently available.
According to Professor Mark W. Grinstaff (BME, MSE, Chemistry), the best fluid supplement now available offers temporary symptom relief but provides inadequate lubrication to prevent further degradation of the cartilage surfaces that cushion the joint. To achieve both objectives, Grinstaff, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School orthopedic surgeon Brian Snyder and a team of Boston University chemistry and engineering students, fellows and clinicians have advanced the first synthetic synovial fluid. They describe the unique polymer and its performance in Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The most common form of joint disease and a leading cause of disability in the elderly, osteoarthritis (OA) affects about 27 million Americans and 200 million people worldwide. Characterized by pain and swelling, the disease emerges in hand, hip, knee and other commonly used joints where degradation of cartilage and synovial fluid results in bone-on-bone abrasion. Treatments range from anti-inflammatory drugs to total joint replacement. While there's no cure for OA, one treatment -- injection of a polymer to supplement synovial fluid in the joint -- promises to relieve symptoms and slow the disease's progression by reducing wear on cartilage surfaces.
"From our studies, we know our biopolymer is a superior lubricant in the joint, much better than the leading synovial fluid supplement, and similar to healthy synovial fluid," said Grinstaff. "When we used this new polymer, the friction between the two cartilage surfaces was lower, resulting in less wear and surface-to-surface interaction. It's like oil for the joints."
Originally produced last year for another study, the new polymer mimics some of the properties of natural polysaccharides, large compounds that link repetitive sequences of sugar molecules in a chainlike pattern.
"You put it between your fingers, and it's slippery," Grinstaff observed. "Once we made it, we wondered if we could use it as a lubricant and where it would be useful. That's how we thought of using it as a potential treatment for OA."
Another advantage of the biopolymer is its large molecular weight or size, which prevents it from seeping out of the joint, enabling longer lasting cartilage protection. Unlike the leading synovial fluid supplement, which lasts one or two days, the new polymer remains in the joint for more than two weeks.
The research is supported by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and Flex Biomedical, a startup cofounded by Grinstaff and Snyder.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Boston University College of Engineering. The original article was written by Mark Dwortzan.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Eric L. Dane and Mark W. Grinstaff. Poly-amido-saccharides: Synthesis via Anionic Polymerization of a ?-Lactam Sugar Monomer. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013 DOI: 10.1021/ja305900r
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Ihtti-gXYbo/130502185423.htm
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