Italy ends search for underwater missing in wreck

An Italian firefighter is lowered from an helicopter onto the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

An Italian firefighter is lowered from an helicopter onto the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Workers pull an anti oil spilling floating barrier to be set around the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

An Italian firefighter works on an underwater ROV, Remotely Operated Vehicle, to be used on the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Oil recovery experts work on a waves control buoy to be used near the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the temporary suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

An Italian firefighter is lowered from an helicopter onto the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Residents of Giglio are growing increasingly worried about threats to the environment and the future of the Italian island following the suspension of the recovery operation of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

GIGLIO, Italy (AP) ? Italian emergency officials are ending the search for missing people in the submerged part of the Costa Concordia cruise ship due to the danger to rescue workers.

Italy's Civil Protection agency said Tuesday that technical studies indicated the deformed hull of the ship created too many safety concerns to continue the search within it. Relatives of the missing and diplomatic officials representing their countries have been informed of the decision, it said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Civil Protection, Francesca Maffini, stressed that the search for the missing would continue wherever possible, including on the part of the ship above the water, in the waters surrounding the ship and along the nearby coastline.

The Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13 when the captain deviated from his planned route and struck a reef, creating a huge gash that capsized the ship.

Some 4,200 passengers and crew were on board the Carnival Corp.-owned ship when it capsized. Seventeen bodies have been recovered, of which one has not yet been identified. Sixteen people are listed as missing but are presumed dead. The last time anyone was found alive was Jan. 15.

Italian authorities had already begun shifting their focus from finding the missing to preventing an environmental disaster. The ship contains about 500,000 gallons (2,400 tons) of heavy fuel and other pollutants, and fears are growing that those pollutants could spill out, damaging a pristine environment that is home to dolphins, whales and other marine life.

Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, has it could take a full seven to 10 months once a contract is awarded to remove the 950-foot-long (290-meter) ship, raising deep concerns among residents who make their living from fishing and tourism.

Only once the fuel is pumped out ? a monthlong process ? can salvage work begin on removing the ship, either floating it in one piece or cutting it up and towing it away.

That means the damaged ship, or at least parts of it, will still be off the coast for the summer tourist season.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-31-EU-Italy-Ship-Aground/id-8c082928093d4a578a05245dae61d22a

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Study may answer questions about enigmatic Little Ice Age

Monday, January 30, 2012

A new University of Colorado Boulder-led study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century.

According to the new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self- perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to CU-Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. The primary evidence comes from radiocarbon dates from dead vegetation emerging from rapidly melting icecaps on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, combined with ice and sediment core data from the poles and Iceland and from sea ice climate model simulations, said Miller.

While scientific estimates regarding the onset of the Little Ice Age range from the 13th century to the 16th century, there is little consensus, said Miller. There is evidence the Little Ice Age affected places as far away as South America and China, although it was particularly evident in northern Europe. Advancing glaciers in mountain valleys destroyed towns, and famous paintings from the period depict people ice skating on the Thames River in London and canals in the Netherlands, waterways that were ice-free in winter before and after the Little Ice Age.

"The dominant way scientists have defined the Little Ice Age is by the expansion of big valley glaciers in the Alps and in Norway," said Miller. "But the time it took for European glaciers to advance far enough to demolish villages would have been long after the onset of the cold period," said Miller, a fellow at CU's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Most scientists think the Little Ice Age was caused either by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of both, said Miller.

The new study suggests that the onset of the Little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions. Climate models used in the new study showed that the persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a sea ice-ocean feedback system originating in the North Atlantic Ocean.

"This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age," said Miller. "We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time. If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period -- in this case, from volcanic eruptions -- there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect."

A paper on the subject is being published Jan. 31 in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The paper was authored by scientists and students from CU-Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the University of Iceland, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Science Foundation.

As part of the study, Miller and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact collected from beneath receding ice margins of ice caps on Baffin Island. There was a large cluster of "kill dates" between A.D. 1275 and 1300, indicating the plants had been frozen and engulfed by ice during a relatively sudden event.

Both low-lying and higher altitude plants all died at roughly the same time, indicating the onset of the Little Ice Age on Baffin Island -- the fifth largest island in the world -- was abrupt. The team saw a second spike in plant kill dates at about A.D. 1450, indicating the quick onset of a second major cooling event.

To broaden the study, the team analyzed sediment cores from a glacial lake linked to the 367-square-mile Langj?kull ice cap in the central highlands of Iceland that reaches nearly a mile high. The annual layers in the cores -- which can be reliably dated by using tephra deposits from known historic volcanic eruptions on Iceland going back more than 1,000 years -- suddenly became thicker in the late 13th century and again in the 15th century due to increased erosion caused by the expansion of the ice cap as the climate cooled, he said.

"That showed us the signal we got from Baffin Island was not just a local signal, it was a North Atlantic signal," said Miller. "This gave us a great deal more confidence that there was a major perturbation to the Northern Hemisphere climate near the end of the 13th century." Average summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere did not return to those of the Middle Ages until the 20th century, and the temperatures of the Middle Ages are now exceeded in many areas, he said.

The team used the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model to test the effects of volcanic cooling on Arctic sea ice extent and mass. The model, which simulated various sea ice conditions from about A.D. 1150-1700, showed several large, closely spaced eruptions could have cooled the Northern Hemisphere enough to trigger Arctic sea ice growth.

The models showed sustained cooling from volcanoes would have sent some of the expanding Arctic sea ice down along the eastern coast of Greenland until it eventually melted in the North Atlantic. Since sea ice contains almost no salt, when it melted the surface water became less dense, preventing it from mixing with deeper North Atlantic water. This weakened heat transport back to the Arctic and creating a self-sustaining feedback system on the sea ice long after the effects of the volcanic aerosols subsided, he said.

"Our simulations showed that the volcanic eruptions may have had a profound cooling effect," says NCAR scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study. "The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries."

The researchers set the solar radiation at a constant level in the climate models, and Miller said the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. "Estimates of the sun's variability over time are getting smaller, it's now thought by some scientists to have varied little more in the last millennia than during a standard 11-year solar cycle," he said.

One of the primary questions pertaining to the Little Ice Age is how unusual the warming of Earth is today, he said. A previous study led by Miller in 2008 on Baffin Island indicated temperatures today are the warmest in at least 2,000 years.

###

University of Colorado at Boulder: http://www.colorado.edu/news

Thanks to University of Colorado at Boulder for this article.

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[OOC] The Black Crusades

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College endowments show growth for FY 2011

NEW YORK (AP) ? College and university endowments made gains in the fiscal year that ended in June, but many are still struggling to make up ground they lost in 2008 and 2009, according to a report released Tuesday.

Data gathered from 823 U.S. colleges and universities show that the institutions' endowments returned an average of 19.2 percent for the 2011 fiscal year, the National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund said. That's up from 11.9 percent in fiscal year 2010.

Still, NACUBO President John Walda said 47 percent of the institutions have endowment market values below what they reported in 2008.

"Even though we had a really great year, many of our institutions are still not at a point where they've recovered in terms of value from the recession," Walda said.

Harvard University had the largest endowment of any U.S. university at $31.7 billion, up from $27.5 billion in fiscal year 2010. Yale was second with $19.4 billion. At the other end of the scale were colleges with small endowments like Pennsylvania's Keystone College with $7.1 million and Tennessee's Pellissippi State Community College with $5.7 million.

Colleges typically spend around 5 percent of their endowment annually to boost spending on things like faculty salaries, student financial aid and other operating costs. Most colleges depend largely on tuition revenue and government support, but at elite universities, endowment spending accounts for a substantial part of the budget; at Harvard, for instance, roughly one-third of the operating budget comes from income generated by the university's endowment.

Steve McAllister, vice president for finance at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., said the university's $1.2 billion endowment allows it to offer need-based financial aid to 45 percent of students.

"Last year markets were strong," McAllister said. "You do have periods like 2008 where markets are less than cooperative."

The 73 colleges and universities with endowments over $1 billion had returns of 20.1 percent last fiscal year while those under $25 million showed returns of 17.6 percent.

Verne Sedlacek, president and CEO of Commonfund, which manages money for colleges and other nonprofit institutions, said many of the smaller institutions have low-risk investment strategies that don't yield high returns.

Of the 20 largest endowments on the list, five belong to public universities such as the University of Texas and the University of California that are facing budget pressures from state legislatures. "The challenge there is to try to make up for what's going on with state appropriations," Walda said.

The donations that colleges rely on to replenish their coffers also have not rebounded from pre-recession levels.

Sedlacek said 46 percent of the colleges and universities reported that donations rose in 2011 from the prior year and 31 percent said they dropped. "It's still not really a vibrant picture with respect to gift flow," he said.

___

Online:

http://www.nacubo.org

http://www.commonfund.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-31-College%20Endowments-Survey/id-cd71555340b64cf8a87305148cacb663

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AngelList Launches 2011 Yearbook: 500 Startups, 2,500 Investors & 12,500 Introductions

AngelList, the community for startups that is part social network and part communication tool, designed to connect first-time entrepreneurs with respected angel investors, got hot in 2011. Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi's startup community was oft-talked about as a service with the potential to transform dealflow and give young entrepreneurs access to hard-to-reach investors -- with value proposition being evident on both ends, for founder and investor. The across the platform were many last year, and to start off the year, AngelList is giving users a chance to review all the craziness that 2011 had to offer, as it this weekend soft-launched its "2011 Yearbook". The Yearbook offers the public an opportunity to get a more detailed look at AngelList's activity over the course of last year -- who grabbed funding, from whom, how much -- with CrunchBase offering some data to boot.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4iEZMM4kFbI/

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Baseball Hall of Fame Classic moved up to June 16 (AP)

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. ? The Hall of Fame Classic is moving to a new date ? the Saturday before Father's Day.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum says the timing is a better fit for families. The first three Classics were held on Father's Day, and crowds at Doubleday Field have decreased somewhat since the first drew a near sellout.

So far, six Hall of Famers are slated to take part in the seven-inning legends game on June 16, which will also feature 20 other retired major league stars. Hall of Famers Phil Niekro and Ozzie Smith will return as team captains.

Other activities planned for Classic weekend include a Hall of Fame golf tournament fundraiser for the museum, a youth skills clinic, and a special "Voices of the Game" program.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_hall_of_fame_classic

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Sprint Galaxy Nexus registration page gets served up by Google

Good news is here for folks on Sprint who've been anxiously waiting for a first taste of LTE connectivity and Ice Cream Sandwich. Google's official Galaxy Nexus website has quietly gone live with a registration section for anyone on the Now Network who wants to be notified when the device goes up for sale. If you'll recall, the pre-release version of Sprint's GNex that we spent time with at CES notably retained access to Google Wallet, and was apparently free of any crapware (unlike Verizon's variant). Aside from that -- and a Sprint logo -- it's essentially the same 32GB device you've come to know in the US. There's still no word on pricing just yet, but if you've got to be among the first to know, hit up the source link below.

Sprint Galaxy Nexus registration page gets served up by Google originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/28/sprint-galaxy-nexus-registration-site-gets-served-up-by-google/

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Northern Gateway Pipeline Part Of Battle Over Canada's Oil Ambitions

KITAMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia -- The latest chapter in Canada's quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast.

Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day.

But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline is just one aspect of an epic battle over Canada's oil ambitions ? a battle that already has a supporting role in the U.S. presidential election, and which will help to shape North America's future energy relationship with China.

It actually is a tale of two pipelines ? the one that is supposed to end at Kitamaat Village, and another that would have gone from Alberta to the Texas coast but was blocked by the Obama administration citing environmental grounds.

Those same environmental issues are certain to haunt Northern Gateway as the Joint Review Panel of energy and environmental officials canvasses opinion along the 1,177 kilometer (731 mile) route of the Northern Gateway pipeline to be built by Enbridge, a Canadian company.

The fear of oil spills is especially acute in this pristine corner of northwest British Columbia, with its snowcapped mountains and deep ocean inlets. People here still remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, and oil is still leaking from the Queen of the North, a ferry that sank off nearby Hartley Bay six years ago.

The seas nearby, in the Douglas Channel, "are very treacherous waters," says David Suzuki, a leading environmentalist. "You take a supertanker that takes miles in order to stop, (and) an accident is absolutely inevitable."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada's national interest makes the $5.5 billion pipeline essential. He was "profoundly disappointed" that U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Texas Keystone XL option but also spoke of the need to diversify Canada's oil industry. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S.

"I think what's happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons," he told Canadian TV.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich quickly picked up the theme, saying that Harper, "who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American ... has said he's going cut a deal with the Chinese ... We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity."

He charged that "An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country."

But the environmental objections that pushed Obama to block the pipeline to Texas apply equally to the Pacific pipeline, and the review panel says more than 4,000 people have signed up to testify.

The atmosphere has turned acrimonious, with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claiming in an open letter that "environmental and other radical groups" are out to thwart Canada's economic ascent.

He said they were bent on bogging down the panel's work. And in an unusually caustic mention of Canada's southern neighbor, he added: "If all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: Sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further."

Environmentalists and First Nations (a Canadian synonym for native tribes) could delay approval all the way to the Supreme Court, and First Nations still hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross, meaning the government will have to move with extreme sensitivity.

Alberta has the world's third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela: more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025, which the oil industry sees as a pressing reason to build the pipelines.

Critics, however, dislike the whole concept of tapping the oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens rivers and forests. Some projects are massive open-pit mines, and the process of separating oil from sand can generate lake-sized pools of toxic sludge.

Meanwhile, China's growing economy is hungry for Canadian oil. Chinese state-owned companies have invested more than $16 billion in Canadian energy in the past two years, state-controlled Sinopec has a stake in the pipeline, and if it is built, Chinese investment in Alberta oil sands is sure to boom.

"They (the Chinese) wonder why it's not being built already," said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert and professor at the University of Alberta.

In a report on China's stake in Canadian energy, Jiang notes that if every Chinese burned oil at the rate Americans do, China's daily consumption would equal the entire world's.

Harper is set to visit China next month. After Obama first delayed the Keystone pipeline in November, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Pacific Rim summit in Hawaii that Canada would like to sell more oil to China, and the Canadian prime minister filled in Obama on what he said.

Jiang reads that to mean "China has become leverage."

But oil analysts say Alberta has enough oil to meet both countries' needs, and the pipeline's capacity of 525,000 barrels a day would amount to less than 6 percent of China's current needs.

"I don't think U.S. policymakers view China's investment in the Canadian oil sands as a threat," says David Goldwyn, a former energy official in the Obama administration.

"In the short term it provides additional investment to increase Canadian supply; that's a good thing. Longer-term, if Canadian oil goes to China, that means China's demand is being met by a non-OPEC country, and that's a good thing for global oil supply. Right now we are spending an awful lot of time finding ways for China to meet its demand from some place other than Iran. Canada would be a great candidate."

Pipelines are rarely rejected in Canada, but Murray Minchin, an environmentalist who lives near Kitamaat Village, says this time he and other opponents are determined to block construction. "They are ready to put themselves in front of something to stop the equipment," Minchin said. "Even if it gets the green light it doesn't mean it's getting done."

Enbridge is confident the pipeline will be built and claims about 40 percent of First Nation communities living along the route have entered into a long-term equity partnership with Enbridge. The communities together are being offered 10 percent ownership of the pipeline, meaning those which sign on will share an expected $400 million over 30 years.

But of the 43 eligible communities, only one went public with its acceptance and it has since reneged after fierce protests from its members.

Janet Holder, the Enbridge executive overseeing the project, says pipeline leaks are not inevitable, new technologies make monitoring more reliable, and tugboats will guide tankers through the Douglas Channel.

At the Kitamaat hearings, speakers ranged from Ellis Ross, chief of the Haisla First Nation in British Columbia, to Dieter Wagner, a German-born Canadian, retired scientist and veteran sailor who called the Douglas Channel "an insane route to take."

Ross used to work on whale-watching boats, and refers to himself as a First Nation, a term applicable to individuals as well as groups. He testified that the tanker port would go up just as marine life decimated by industrial pollution was making a comeback in his territory.

He held the audience spellbound as he described an extraordinary nighttime encounter last summer with a whale that was "logging" ? the half-doze that passes for sleep in the cetacean world.

"...Midnight I hear this whale and it's right outside the soccer field. ... It's waterfront, but I can hear this whale, and I can't understand why it's so close, something's got to be wrong.

"So I walk down there with my daughter, my youngest daughter, and I try to flash a light down there, and quickly figured out it's not in trouble, it's sleeping. It's resting right outside our soccer field.

"You can't imagine what that means to a First Nation that's watched his territory get destroyed over 60 years. You can't imagine the feeling."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/29/northern-gateway-pipeline_n_1239809.html

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Yemeni president heads to U.S (Politico)

SANAA, Yemen? - A presidential spokesman says Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has left Oman on route to the United States.
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Spokesman Ahmed al-Soufi says Saleh has arrived in London and will leave later Saturday for New York for medical treatment in the United States. He gives no futher details.
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Saleh left Yemen to neighboring Oman a week ago, planning to head to the United States, under pressure from Washington and others to leave his homeland to allow a more peaceful transition from his rule. In November, Saleh handed over his powers to his vice president and promised to step down completely.
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But opponents say he has continued to interfere in the work of a unity government through his allies and relatives in key posts.
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Private investors near deal on Greek debt

ATHENS, Greece?? Greece and investors who have bought its bonds have reached a tentative deal to significantly reduce the country's debt and pave the way for it to receive a much-needed euro130 billion ($170 billion) bailout.

Negotiators for the investors announced the tentative agreement Saturday and said it could become final next week.

Under the agreement, the euro206 billion worth of Greek bonds that investors own would be exchanged for new bonds worth 60 percent less. That will help Greece remain solvent and avoid a potentially devastating blow to Europe's already weakened financial system.

Private investors would receive new bonds whose face value is half of the existing bonds. The new bonds would have a longer maturity and pay an average interest rate of slightly less than 4 percent. The existing bonds pay an average interest rate of 5 percent, according to the think tank Re-Define.

The deal would reduce Greece's annual interest expense on the bonds from about $10 billion to about $4 billion. And when the bonds mature, instead of paying bondholders euro206 billion, Greece will have to pay only euro103 billion.

Without the deal, which would reduce Greece's debt load by at least euro120 billion, the bonds held by banks, insurance companies and hedge funds would likely become worthless. Many of these investors also hold debt from other countries that use the euro, which could also lose value in the event of a Greek default.

The agreement taking shape is a key step before Greece can get a second, euro130 billion bailout from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund. Besides restructuring its debt with private investors, Greece must also take other steps before getting aid. It must cut its deficit and boost the competitiveness of its economy through layoffs of government employees and the sale of several state companies, among other moves.

This would be Greece's second bailout. The EU and the IMF signed off on a euro110 billion aid package for Greece in May 2010, most of which has already been disbursed.

Greece faces a euro14.5 billion bond repayment on March 20, which it cannot afford without additional help.

Private investors hold roughly two-thirds of Greece's debt, which has reached an unsustainable level ? nearly 160 percent of the country's annual economic output. By restructuring the debt held by private investors, Greece and its EU partners are hoping to bring that ratio closer to 120 percent by the end of this decade. Without a deal, analysts forecast that ratio ballooning to 200 percent by the end of this year as the Greek economy falters.

In return for the first bailout, Greece's public creditors ? the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank ? have unprecedented powers over Greek spending. However, Greece's problems will not be fixed simply by cutting government spending. In order to bring its debts to a more manageable level, the country must also find ways to boost economic output, which would enable it to collect more taxes.

If no debt-exchange deal is reached with private creditors and Greece is forced to default, it would very likely spook Europe's ? and possibly the world's ? financial markets. It could even lead Greece to withdraw from the euro.

Sarah Ketterer, co-manager of Causeway International Value Fund, a $1.4 billion mutual fund that invests in European stocks, said the region's markets have rebounded this month largely on expectations that negotiators would reach a deal along the lines of the one being finalized now.

Any last-minute breakdown in the talks could trigger a sharp decline in European markets, she said. But a rally is unlikely if negotiations succeed.

"The equity markets have ... largely already discounted this, and you can see that in the confidence that has returned in European equities since the end of December, and especially for financial stocks," Ketterer said.

She said there "really was no other option" than reaching a deal for bondholders to take a haircut of 50 percent or more.

Ketterer said a Greek deal could help restore bond market confidence. That would help Italy manage its own debt crisis ? one that Ketterer views as more critical than Greece's because of Italy's greater size.

The investors who own Greek bonds are being represented by Charles Dallara, managing director of the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, and Jean Lemierre, senior adviser to the chairman of the French bank BNP Paribas.

___

Elena Becatoros in Athens and Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels contributed.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46175493/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

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GOP candidates' pitch to voters: I'm your leader (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The pitch from the Republican presidential contenders to voters sounds a lot like the children's game of follow the leader.

When Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich aren't puffing up their own leadership credentials, they're running down the leadership skills of one another and of President Barack Obama.

If anyone missed Monday's conference call from the Romney campaign about Gingrich's record as a "failed leader," not to worry. They could have tuned in to Tuesday's conference call. Or Wednesday's. Or Thursday's. Or checked out the "unreliable leader" banner splashed across a Romney news release that labeled Gingrich "unhinged."

Romney's political biography, meanwhile, is all about his leadership as a businessman, Massachusetts governor and savior of the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

It's hard to miss Gingrich's frequent broadsides at Romney for failing to provide consistent, visionary leadership. Or the former House speaker's pronouncements that he, by contrast, offers "exactly the kind of bold, tough leader the American people want." Or Gingrich's descriptions of all that was accomplished in his four years as speaker in the 1990s.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in the polls, keeps trying to muscle his way into the conversation by offering himself as the steady bet who can be counted on to offer more reliable conservative leadership than "erratic" Gingrich or "moderate" Romney.

In a race where all the candidates are trying to out-conservative one another, stressing leadership credentials gives the GOP rivals a way to try to distinguish themselves. In a year when Obama's own leadership skills are seen as one of his weakest qualities, it gives the Republicans one more arrow in their quiver as they argue over who would be most electable in a matchup with Obama come November.

Leadership is always a part of the equation in presidential elections. In 2008, for example, the candidates all were abuzz with claims that they offered "transformational" leadership.

"I want to transform this country," Obama said when he announced he was running.

This year, leadership is getting an extra dose of attention, perhaps because of statistics such as this: The share of Americans viewing Obama as a strong leader slipped from 77 percent at the start of his presidency to 52 percent in a Pew Research Center poll released this month. Among Republicans, only about one-fourth of those surveyed in the most recent poll said Obama was a strong leader, compared with 80 percent of Democrats.

At a campaign debate last week in Tampa, Fla., Gingrich and Romney both turned a question about electability into an answer about the L-word.

"This is going to come down a question of leadership," Romney said. Then the former Massachusetts governor recited his track record as a leader in business and government and took a dig at Gingrich for having to "resign in disgrace" when he was speaker in the 1990s.

Gingrich, answering the same question, aligned himself with the leadership record of conservative hero Ronald Reagan and offered himself as someone "prepared to be controversial when necessary" to bring about great change.

The answers offer a window into how differently the two candidates define leadership: Romney more as a manager with business school credentials, Gingrich more as a big-thinking visionary.

The leadership argument is a particularly potent campaign weapon for Romney because a number of Republicans who served in Congress with Gingrich have been happy to describe his shortcomings in running the House.

"If you were somebody trying to serve with him, you were always sort of left standing with your hands empty in terms of moving forward with an actual plan or putting a plan to paper," Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., said of Gingrich on a Romney campaign conference call Thursday. "So for me, it's an example that he's just not an effective leader. I think Mitt has the temperament and the ability to lead."

Gingrich, who resigned after a spate of ethics problems and a poor showing for House Republicans in the 1998 elections, managed to turn even his resignation as speaker into evidence that he's a strong leader.

"I took responsibility for the fact that our results weren't as good as they should be," he said in the Tampa debate. "I think that's what a leader should do."

As for the turbulence of his tenure as speaker, Gingrich casts that, too, as evidence of his bold leadership.

"Look, I wish everybody had loved me, but I'd rather be effective representing the American people than be popular inside Washington," he said earlier in the campaign.

Stephen Wayne, a presidential scholar at Georgetown University, said the harsh judgment of Obama's presidential leadership by Republicans and even some Democrats in part is due to the high hopes that he raised during the 2008 campaign. Obama the president has been measured against the words of Obama the candidate ever since.

Now that it's campaign season again, says Wayne, "he's not competing against his own image, he's competing against a real life person that has frailties. ... In a sense, that lowers the bar for Obama."

___

AP Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nancy Benac at http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_follow_the_leader

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Romney widens lead in Florida Republican primary race: poll (reuters)

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Romney's forceful body language scores in debate

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla. Confident and forceful, Romney's debate performance scores points with body-language experts. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla. Confident and forceful, Romney's debate performance scores points with body-language experts. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, listens to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at a Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla. Confident and forceful, Romney's debate performance scores points with body-language experts. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? The hands came out of the pockets. The gaze was intense. Mitt Romney leaned confidently into the lectern.

Even with the sound turned off, Romney would have stolen Newt Gingrich's debate thunder with a surprisingly commanding and aggressive performance in the latest Florida faceoff, body language experts said Friday.

To some, in fact, it was as if the two Republican presidential candidates had swapped roles, with Gingrich, the aggressor (and ultimate victor) in South Carolina, suddenly seeming the uncomfortable, squirmy candidate in Florida.

It was a marked change for Romney, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert in political communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "All his nonverbal cues suggested directness," she said. "The halting delivery was gone. He didn't hesitate before responding. The indecisiveness disappeared."

The former Massachusetts governor also showed flashes of temperament, unafraid to display real anger at Gingrich's calling him, in an ad, an "anti-immigrant" candidate.

"Mr. Speaker, I'm not anti-immigrant!" he retorted. "The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don't use a term like that."

The anger came off as both real and controlled, said body language coach Patti Wood, which was important because it projected the sense that Romney wouldn't be carried away by his emotions as president.

"It was a controlled strength," said the Atlanta-based Wood, who coaches politicians and executives. "His shoulders were up, chest back. Very effective." And equally important, Wood said, is the way Romney ended the exchange ? with a slight, satisfied smile that stopped short of a smirk: "He could have ruined it at that moment with a smirk, which he's been known to do, but he didn't."

Where did the new Romney technique come from? Both Jamieson and Wood say it was clear the candidate had been well coached. Indeed, Romney has been working with a new coach ? Brett O'Donnell, formerly with Michele Bachmann's campaign.

"You don't make that kind of change without practice," says Jamieson.

Another expert, Lillian Glass, said it was more than just technique ? that perhaps Romney was getting a better sense of himself as a candidate.

"You can coach someone, but the body doesn't lie," said the Los Angeles-based Glass, who coaches both politicians and actors in body language. "What's going on psychologically shows. What I'm seeing is more conviction, that he seems more sure of what he is saying."

One thing was clear to Glass: "If you turned off the sound last night, that was your leader, just based on the physical alone."

Not that many viewers do turn the sound off, but nonverbal cues are more important than people may think, said Gerald Shuster, a professor of political communication at the University of Pittsburgh. "The nonverbal message often carries a lot more weight than the verbal," said Shuster, who also studies presidential rhetoric.

In earlier debates, Shuster said, Romney had seemed less engaged, with his hands often in his pockets, as if staying above the fray. He also appeared exasperated when attacked by Gingrich.

"The tilt of his head, the tone of his voice," Shuster said. "It was almost like a parent disciplining a child, as in, 'I can't believe you just said that!'"

With his fiery style, Gingrich, said Shuster, took advantage of Romney's role as perceived front-runner. "The challenger has it easier ? he forces the perceived favorite to go off his stride and go off message," he said. "Gingrich was very good at that. He forced Romney to stop talking about Obama and defend himself" ? especially on questions over his personal income taxes and his considerable wealth.

Romney did, though, take a page from Gingrich's playbook: More effective use of the debate audience.

"Last night Romney got at least as much audience support as Gingrich did," said Jamieson.

In general, Gingrich seemed more frustrated, said Glass, the body language expert in Los Angeles. "His voice would go up in pitch," she said. "It was a pinched voice, and pinched facial expressions. He pursed his lips, furrowed his brow, shifted around a lot."

As for the two other candidates, former Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas congressman Ron Paul each had their good moments, Glass said: Paul scored with his folksy humor (he even plugged his wife's cookbook) and Santorum "was very well-spoken, but lacked gravitas."

Of course, everyone has ups and downs, and things could change again. But, Jamieson said, Romney took a big step toward blunting Gingrich's contention that he'd be the more successful debater in the general election.

"If Republicans are looking for someone who can debate Barack Obama, the better debater on the stage last night was Mitt Romney," Jamieson said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-27-Debates-Body%20Language/id-3c1651f7ac9646a7bc857b9d98b6efb7

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FACT CHECK: Debate over 'ghetto language' ad (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Mitt Romney accuses Newt Gingrich of calling Spanish a "ghetto language." Close, but not quite.

Gingrich denies doing so and said he merely promoted the use of English, "period." That's even more of a stretch.

The last Republican presidential debate before the GOP Florida primary Thursday brought viewers a blitz of charges and countercharges over immigration, the financial lives of the candidates and more. Here are how some of the claims compare with the facts:

GINGRICH: "It's taken totally out of context.... I did not say it about Spanish. I said in general about all languages. We are better for children to learn English in general, period."

THE FACTS: At issue is Romney's Spanish-language radio ad running in Florida that says Gingrich branded Spanish a ghetto language in a 2007 speech. In the contentious remarks in question, much more came after Gingrich's "period."

In his speech to the National Federation of Republican Women, Gingrich advocated making English the official language, a position he still holds, and added: "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."

He did not explicitly call Spanish a ghetto language. But at the time, the remark was widely taken to mean Spanish, overwhelmingly the main foreign language spoken in the United States and the primary language of many immigrants.

Gingrich recognized as much when, in response to a Hispanic backlash against his remark, he made an online video days after the speech in which he more or less apologized for his choice of words and for producing "a bad feeling within the Latino community."

___

ROMNEY on the same topic: "I doubt that's my ad, but we'll take a look and find out."

THE FACTS: It's his ad.

___

RICK SANTORUM: "You had a president of the United States that held (up) a Colombian free trade agreement. Colombia, who's out there on the front lines working with us against the narco-terrorists, standing up to Chavez in South America ? and what did we do? ... The president of the United States sided with organized labor and the environmental groups and held Colombia hanging out to dry for three years."

THE FACTS: When President Barack Obama took office, he actually tried to revive a free-trade deal with Colombia that had been negotiated by his Republican predecessor but left to languish without congressional approval, just as he tried to make similar progress with South Korean and Panamanian free-trade pacts. He bucked considerable opposition from organized labor and fellow Democrats in doing so.

Obama did hold off on submitting the three deals to Congress as his administration tried to negotiate more palatable terms to Democrats. He finally submitted them in 2011 and Congress approved them in the fall ? with substantial GOP support and a fair amount of Democratic opposition.

___

ROMNEY: "Obamacare takes over health care for the American people."

THE FACTS: Obama's health care overhaul does increase the role of the federal government in the health care system, but even after it is fully implemented in 2019, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says 56 percent of Americans under age 65 will be covered by employer plans, about the same share as today. That's hardly a takeover.

___

ROMNEY: Fannie and Freddie are "offering mortgages again to people who can't possibly repay them. We're creating another housing bubble, which will hurt the American people."

THE FACTS: If there is another housing bubble forming, most homebuilders, mortgage lenders and real estate agents would like to find it. Instead, the housing market remains depressed, with sales low and home prices falling.

Fannie and Freddie don't sell or offer any mortgages. Their function has always been to support the housing market by purchasing mortgages from banks, packaging them into bonds and guaranteeing the bonds against default. This proved costly when the housing bubble burst: The two entities were formally taken over by the government in 2008 and have since cost taxpayers $150 billion.

The two mortgage giants are still functioning under government receivership, and now own or guarantee nearly all new mortgages, because banks are reluctant to make loans without the agencies' support. But banks have significantly toughened their credit standards since the housing bubble and are requiring higher credit scores and bigger down payments. That is causing an increasing number of home sales contracts to fall through as would-be buyers are unable to get mortgage loans.

___

SANTORUM: Criticized the Obama administration for its "abysmal treatment" of allies in Latin America, and said Obama has a "consistent policy of siding with the leftists, siding with the Marxists, siding with those who don't support democracy."

THE FACTS: Obama has not sided with the leading leftists, such as those ruling Cuba and Venezuela, and instead has roundly criticized them.

It's true that Latin America has been on the back burner for much of Obama's tenure, as he concentrated on other parts of the world, including the Middle East. But Obama visited three countries in Latin America last year, and the Panamanian and Colombian trade agreements were part of the biggest round of trade liberalization since the North American Free Trade Agreement and other pacts of that era.

___

ROMNEY: "My investments are not made by me. My investments for the last 10 years have been in a blind trust, managed by a trustee."

THE FACTS: Not all of his investments have been in a blind trust. Romney's personal financial disclosure forms show he owned between $250,001 and $500,000 in the Federated Government Obligation Fund, which contained mutual-fund notes of politically sensitive Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. An addendum to Romney' disclosure forms says that certain assets ? including the federated fund ? were outside the scope of his blind trust.

The investment was not on Romney's 2007 financial form, making it a relatively new one ? just as the housing and financial crises were hitting Americans full force.

___

RON PAUL: Obama "promises to end the wars, but the wars expand."

THE FACTS: By the most obvious measures, the wars are shrinking. Last month, the U.S. pulled its last troops out of Iraq, fulfilling a pledge by Obama to end the war there.

Obama did escalate America's fight in Afghanistan, announcing in December 2009 that he was sending an additional 33,000 troops.

The U.S. and its NATO partners in late 2010 agreed to end the combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. As part of that plan, Obama fulfilled his promise to bring 10,000 troops home from Afghanistan by the end of last year, and is moving ahead with plans to pull an additional 23,000 out by this fall. There are now about 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

___

GINGRICH: "We're in a continuous state of war where Obama undermines the Israelis."

ROMNEY: "This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip."

THE FACTS: Obama has spoken at length about the plight of the Israelis and has talked about an Israeli girl near Gaza who fears for her life because of the rocket attacks launched by Hamas. In a June 2009 speech in Cairo, Obama said both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist, but the U.S. does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. That's not only the view of his administration; it's long-held U.S. policy. Despite that, the administration sided with Israel by vetoing a U.N. resolution that would have condemned its settlement policy.

___

Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Lolita C. Baldor, Jim Drinkard, Christopher S. Rugaber, Jack Gillum and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_el_pr/us_republicans_debate_fact_check

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Portugal and Greek concerns weigh on world stocks (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? World stocks fell from a 5-1/2 month high on Friday as gains spurred by the Federal Reserve's pledge of low interest rates gave way to concerns about Portugal, seen as the next domino in the euro zone crisis, and uncertainty over Greek debt talks.

Portuguese five- and 10-year government bond yields were set to remain under pressure after hitting euro-era highs on Thursday as fears grow that the country may follow Greece in requiring another bailout or seeking to restructure its debt.

Athens is locked in tough negotiations with its private creditors on a restructuring it needs quickly to avert a disorderly default when a major bond redemption falls due in March. Greece's bondholders are demanding the European Central Bank contribute to a deal to put the country's messy finances back on track.

"With all the focus on Greece, attention has also started to shift to Portugal, whose own bond yields are continuing to rise sharply, with 10-year yields pushing on towards 15 percent, as fears rise that it could well need a second bailout," said Michael Hewson, market analyst at CMC Markets in London.

The MSCI world equity index fell a quarter percent, after hitting its highest since August on Thursday after the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates near zero for the next three years.

European stocks lost 0.4 percent while emerging stocks rose 0.3 percent.

U.S. crude oil fell 0.1 percent to $99.56 a barrel.

Bund futures rose 30 ticks.

The dollar rose slightly against a basket of major currencies. The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.3091.

After weeks of wrangling over the coupon that Greece will pay on new bonds it will swap for existing debt, the focus has shifted to whether the ECB and other public creditors will follow private bondholders in swallowing losses.

Euro zone members may have to increase their financial support for Greece if Athens and the private sector do their part to address the country's debt crisis, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker told a newspaper.

Italy, on the other hand, has enjoyed a recent rapid decline in yields, mostly driven by demand from domestic banks awash with three-year loans taken out from the European Central Bank. Italy will sell 8 billion euros of six-month bills and 3 billion euros of 11-month bills on Friday after a successful short-term bond auction on Thursday and before a key sale of longer-dated debt next week.

"Italy has seen some relief," Hewson said.

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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Bisping continues to question Sonnen?s manhood over low testosterone

CHICAGO -- Maybe it's a good thing Michael Bisping and Chael Sonnen didn't have months to promote their fight tomorrow night on the UFC on Fox 2 at the United Center. One can only imagine the depths the trash talk would've sunk to.

Sonnen's testosterone replacement therapy is the popular subject this week for the Brit, who suggests that the American is less than a complete male. Early in the week on HDNet, Bisping alleged that Sonnen has a physical abnormality.

"[...] He's been submitted more times than I care to mention. Not to mention, the last time he lost a fight by submission, there were some issues involving performance enhancing drugs," Bisping said. "I don't know what the deal is. Apparently, he has one testicle. One testicle! This is why he uses performance enhancing drugs. He's gonna need more than one little ball to fight me next weekend!"

Sonnen served a one-year suspension for not properly disclosing that he was undergoing testosterone replacement therapy before his UFC 117 fight in California. Bisping is not a fan of fighter using TRT.

"If Sonnen needs TRT, then he's is the wrong sport. If you need TRT, then perhaps you should be carrying a purse and a handbag, and wearing a dress," Bisping told The Telegraph's Gareth A. Davies. "This is a fight sport, and Alpha males shouldn't need testosterone from anywhere else."

Strangely enough, that quote emerged from a conversation where Bisping discussed using a sports psychologist. That topic could certainly open the door for some counter-fire from Sonnen. Stay tuned, there's still 30-plus hours until the fight.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/bisping-continues-sonnen-manhood-over-low-testoterone-194252587.html

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Govt failed to keep records of key nuke meetings (AP)

TOKYO ? Japan's deputy prime minister says the government failed to take minutes of 10 meetings held to formulate its response to the country's nuclear crisis last year and called for officials to compile reports on the meetings retroactively.

The missing minutes have become a hot political debate, with opposition lawmakers saying they are necessary to provide a transparent record of the government's decisions after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami touched off the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada confirmed Friday at a news conference that the minutes were not recorded at the time and called for them to be written up, retroactively, by the end of next month.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_nuclear_crisis

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NimbleBit calls out Zynga over Tiny Tower clone Dream Heights

Powerhouse social gaming company Zynga, as you may or may not know has a new app on the market called Dream Heights that looks strikingly similar to small indie developer NimbleBits's award winning Tiny Tower -- so much so that NimbleBit has called Zynga out on the matter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Lt9L567fVz4/story01.htm

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