Egypt in show of defiance against Islamist leader

A protester part of the Black Bloc, holds the Egyptian national flag during clashes with riot police near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. An unpredictable new element has entered Egypt?s wave of political unrest, a mysterious group of black-masked young men calling themselves the Black Bloc. They present themselves as the defenders of protesters against the rule of President Mohammed Morsi, but Islamists have used them to depict the opposition as a violent force wrecking the nation. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A protester part of the Black Bloc, holds the Egyptian national flag during clashes with riot police near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. An unpredictable new element has entered Egypt?s wave of political unrest, a mysterious group of black-masked young men calling themselves the Black Bloc. They present themselves as the defenders of protesters against the rule of President Mohammed Morsi, but Islamists have used them to depict the opposition as a violent force wrecking the nation. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

An Egyptian protester covers his face during clashes with riot police, not seen, near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Health and security officials say a protester has been killed in clashes between rock-throwing demonstrators and police near Tahrir Square in central Cairo. The officials say the protester died Monday on the way to the hospital after being shot. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Egyptian protesters run for cover during clashes with riot police near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Health and security officials say a protester has been killed in clashes between rock-throwing demonstrators and police near Tahrir Square in central Cairo. The officials say the protester died Monday on the way to the hospital after being shot. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Former Egyptian presidential candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, left, speaks during a press conference following the meeting of the National Salvation Front as former director of the U.N.'s nuclear agency and Nobel peace laureate, Mohamed El Baradei, right, listens in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Egypt?s main opposition coalition has rejected the Islamist president?s call for dialogue to resolve the country?s political crisis, unless their conditions are met. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Former director of the U.N.'s nuclear agency and Nobel peace laureate, Mohamed El Baradei speaks during a press conference following the meeting of the National Salvation Front in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Egypt?s main opposition coalition has rejected the Islamist president?s call for dialogue to resolve the country?s political crisis, unless their conditions are met. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) ? Protesters battled police for hours in Cairo on Monday and thousands marched through Egypt's three Suez Canal cities in direct defiance of a night-time curfew and state of emergency, handing a blow to the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's attempts to contain five days of spiraling political violence.

Nearly 60 people have been killed in the wave of unrest, clashes, rioting and protests that have touched cities across the country but have hit the hardest in the canal cities, where residents have virtually risen up in outright revolt.

The latest death came on Monday in Cairo, where a protester died of gunshot wounds as youths hurling stones battled all day and into the night with police firing tear gas near Qasr el-Nil Bridge, a landmark over the Nile next to major hotels. In nearby Tahrir Square, protesters set fire to a police armored personnel carrier, celebrating as it burned in scenes reminiscent of the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

"I will be coming back here every day until the blood of our martyrs is avenged," said 19-year-old carpenter Islam Nasser, who wore a Guy Fawkes mask as he battled police near Tahrir square.

Angry and at times screaming and wagging his finger, Morsi on Sunday declared a 30-day state of emergency and a nighttime curfew on the three Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismailiya and Port Said and their provinces of the same names. He said he had instructed the police to deal "firmly and forcefully" with the unrest and threatened to do more if security was not restored.

But when the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew began Monday evening, crowds marched through the streets of Port Said, beating drums and chanting, "Erhal, erhal," or "Leave, leave" ? a chant that first rang out during the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but is now directed at Morsi.

"We completely reject Morsi's measures. How can we have a curfew in a city whose livelihood depends on commerce and tourism?" said Ahmed Nabil, a schoolteacher in the Mediterranean coastal city.

In Suez and Ismailiya, thousands in the streets after curfew chanted against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which he hails. In Suez, residents let off fireworks that lit the night sky.

"Oh Morsi, Suez has real men," they chanted.

In Ismailiya, residents organized street games of soccer to emphasize their contempt for the curfew and state of emergency.

On Morsi's orders over the weekend, army troops backed with tanks and armored vehicles have deployed in Port Said and Suez ? the two cities worst hit by the violence ? to restore security, but they did not intervene to enforce the curfew on Monday night.

The commander of the Third Field Army in charge of Suez, Maj. Gen. Osama Askar, said his troops would not use force to ensure compliance. Army troops in Port Said also stood by and watched as residents ignored the curfew.

Adding to Morsi's woes nearly seven months into his turbulent presidency, the main political opposition coalition on Monday rejected his invitation for a dialogue to resolve the crisis, one of the worst and deadliest to hit Egypt in the two years since Mubarak's ouster.

Nevertheless, the dialogue went ahead late Monday afternoon. A list of participants released later by the presidential palace showed that Morsi presided over an inaugural session made up almost entirely of fellow Islamists whose support for him has never been in question.

The violence first erupted Thursday and accelerated Friday when protests marking the two-year- anniversary of the start of the anti-Mubarak uprising turned to clashes around the country that left 11 dead, most of them in Suez.

The next day, riots exploded in Port Said after a court convicted and sentenced to death 21 defendants ? mostly locals ? for a mass soccer riot in the city's main stadium a year ago. Rioters attacked police stations, clashed with security forces in the streets and shots and tear gas were fired at protester funerals in mayhem that left 44 people dead over the weekend.

The official MENA news agency said three more people died on Monday, succumbing to wounds sustained on Saturday, taking to 47 the number of people killed in the city over the past three days.

Earlier Monday, thousands in Port Said turned out for the funerals of some of those killed over the weekend. Witnesses later reported clashes in the city. The armed forces later said troops have repulsed an attack by six gunmen on motorbikes on the city's main prison.

In Cairo, white clouds of tear gas hung over Qasr el-Nil Bridge from early Monday morning and through the evening, wafting into nearby districts. The fighting was reminiscent of scenes two years ago to the day, when police and protesters battered each other on the same bridge in the most violent day of the 2011 uprising.

"People died to gain their freedom, social justice, bread. Now after 29 years of the despotic Mubarak, we're ruled by a worse regime: religious fascist, more dangerous," said Mohammed Saber, a 65-year old engineer who came to watch the clashes with his wife and children.

The clashes intensified in Monday evening. A group of protesters, including black masked youth, flashed the V-for-victory signs as they jubilantly milled around the burning police vehicle in Tahrir.

Outside Cairo, protesters marched, pelted police with rocks or cut off roads and railway lines in nearly a half dozen cities, including the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the country's second largest.

The geographical spread of the unrest and the tenacity of the protesters have showcased the depth of opposition to Morsi's rule outside the ranks of the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.

However, it will take the mostly liberal and secular opposition time and effort to translate this popular resentment of the Islamists into electoral power and seriously challenge them at the ballot box. The Islamists have dominated elections for both houses of parliament late in 2011 and early 2012. Morsi narrowly won the presidency with under 52 percent of the vote.

The major opposition parties grouped in the National Salvation Front, led by reform leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Mohamed ElBardei, are seeking to leverage the turmoil roiling the country to break the Islamists' hold on power and force Morsi to make concessions.

ElBardei and other front leaders said they would only accept his invitation to join a national dialogue to resolve the crisis if he agreed first to form a national unity government and a commission to rewrite what they see as contentious parts of an Islamist-backed constitution adopted in a referendum last month.

The rejection of Morsi's offer is likely to lend more weight to ElBaradei and his colleagues in the Salvation Front at a time when protesters on the streets are increasingly showing their independence from politicians, voicing a wide range of non-political grievances.

The Front has painted the explosion of unrest as a backlash against attempts by Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists to monopolize power in Egypt. It says the instability is proof that Morsi doesn't have enough legitimacy to bring security or achieve reforms alone.

"We support any dialogue if it has a clear agenda that can shepherd the nation to the shores of safety," said ElBaradei, flanked by former Arab league chief Amr Moussa and leftist Hamdeen Sabahi.

The Front later issued a statement in which it said failure by Morsi to meet its conditions should be cause for early presidential elections, now scheduled for 2016.

It also called for mass, nationwide protests on Friday.

___

Associated Press writer Amir Makar contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-28-Egypt/id-324752980de04b13b62144e80010fd97

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Qigong Improves Quality of Life for Breast Cancer Patients | Psych ...

By Janice Wood Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 27, 2013

New research has found that qigong, an ancient Chinese mind-body practice, has been found to reduce depression and improve the quality of life in women undergoing radiation for breast cancer.

The study examined qigong in patients receiving radiation therapy and included a follow-up period to assess its benefits over time, according to researchers.

?We were [...] particularly interested to see if qigong would benefit patients experiencing depressive symptoms at the start of treatment,? said Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center?s Departments of General Oncology and Behavioral Science.

?It is important for cancer patients to manage stress because it can have a profoundly negative effect on biological systems and inflammatory profiles.?

For the study, Cohen and his colleagues recruited 96 women with stage 1-3 breast cancer from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center in Shanghai, China.

About half of the women ? 49 ? were randomly assigned to a qigong group consisting of five 40-minute classes each week during their five-to-six week course of radiation therapy. The remaining 47 women comprised a control group receiving standard care.

The program incorporated a modified version of Chinese medical qigong, which consisted of synchronizing one?s breath with various exercises, the researchers explained.

Participants in both groups completed assessments at the beginning, middle and end of radiation therapy and then one and three months later. Different aspects of quality of life were measured, including depressive symptoms, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and overall quality of life.

According to the researchers, patients in the qigong group reported a steady decline in depressive symptom scores beginning at the end of radiation therapy, with a mean score of 12.3, through the three month post-radiation follow-up with a score of 9.5. No changes were noted in the control group over time, the study found.

The study also found that qigong was especially helpful for women reporting high baseline depressive symptoms, Cohen said.

?We examined women?s depressive symptoms at the start of the study to see if women with higher levels would benefit more,? he said.

?In fact, women with low levels of depressive symptoms at the start of radiotherapy had good quality of life throughout treatment and three months later regardless of whether they were in the qigong or control group. However, women with high depressive symptoms in the control group reported the worst levels of depressive symptoms, fatigue, and overall quality of life that were significantly improved for the women in the qigong group.?

As the benefits of qigong were largely observed after treatment concluded, researchers suggest qigong may prevent a delayed symptom burden or expedite the recovery process, especially for women with elevated depressive symptoms at the start of radiation therapy. Cohen notes the delayed effect could be explained by the cumulative nature of the treatments, as the benefits often take time to be realized.

According to the researchers, the findings support other previously reported trials examining the benefits of qigong, but are too preliminary to offer clinical recommendations.

They note that additional research is needed to understand the possible biological mechanisms involved and further explore the use of qigong in ethnically diverse populations with different forms of cancer.

The study was published in the journal Cancer.

Source: University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

APA Reference
Wood, J. (2013). Qigong Improves Quality of Life for Breast Cancer Patients. Psych Central. Retrieved on January 28, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/01/27/qigong-improves-quality-of-life-for-breast-cancer-patients/50826.html

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Source: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/01/27/qigong-improves-quality-of-life-for-breast-cancer-patients/50826.html

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Egypt declares state of emergency in 3 provinces

Smoke rises after Egyptian protesters clash with police, unseen, in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Violence erupted briefly when some in the crowd fired guns and police responded with volleys of tear gas, witnesses said. State television reported 110 were injured. Egyptian health officials say 3 have been killed in clashes between protesters and police in Port Said. (AP Photo)

Smoke rises after Egyptian protesters clash with police, unseen, in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Violence erupted briefly when some in the crowd fired guns and police responded with volleys of tear gas, witnesses said. State television reported 110 were injured. Egyptian health officials say 3 have been killed in clashes between protesters and police in Port Said. (AP Photo)

Egyptians chant slogans during a mass funeral in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of the restive Egyptian city of Port Said on Sunday for a funeral for most of the 37 people killed in rioting a day earlier, chanting slogans against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. (AP Photo)

Egyptians carry the coffin of a man killed during a mass funeral in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of the restive Egyptian city of Port Said on Sunday for a funeral for most of the 37 people killed in rioting a day earlier, chanting slogans against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. (AP Photo)

Egyptians pray during a mass funeral in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of the restive Egyptian city of Port Said on Sunday for a funeral for most of the 37 people killed in rioting a day earlier, chanting slogans against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. (AP Photo)

Egyptians carry the coffin of a man killed during a mass funeral in Port Said, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of the restive Egyptian city of Port Said on Sunday for a funeral for most of the 37 people killed in rioting a day earlier, chanting slogans against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. (AP Photo)

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's president declared a state of emergency and curfew in three Suez Canal provinces hit hardest by a weekend wave of unrest that left more than 50 dead, using tactics of the ousted regime to get a grip on discontent over his Islamist policies and the slow pace of change.

Angry and almost screaming, Mohammed Morsi vowed in a televised address on Sunday night that he would not hesitate to take even more action to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country. But at the same time, he sought to reassure Egyptians that his latest moves would not plunge the country back into authoritarianism.

"There is no going back on freedom, democracy and the supremacy of the law," he said.

The worst violence this weekend was in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said, where seven people were killed on Sunday, pushing the toll for two days of clashes to at least 44. The unrest was sparked on Saturday by a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city's main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 dead.

Most of those sentenced to death were local soccer fans from Port Said, deepening a sense of persecution that Port Said's residents have felt since the stadium disaster, the worst soccer violence ever in Egypt.

At least another 11 died on Friday elsewhere in the country during rallies marking the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Protesters used the occasion to renounce Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the country's most dominant political force after Mubarak's ouster.

The curfew and state of emergency, both in force for 30 days, affect the provinces of Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez. The curfew takes effect Monday from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day.

Morsi, in office since June, also invited the nation's political forces to a dialogue starting Monday to resolve the country's latest crisis. A statement issued later by his office said that among those invited were the country's top reform leader, Nobel peace Laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist politician who finished third in last year's presidential race.

The three are leaders of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella for the main opposition parties.

Khaled Dawoud, the Front's spokesman, said Morsi's invitation was meaningless unless he clearly states what is on the agenda. That, he added, must include amending a disputed constitution hurriedly drafted by the president's Islamist allies and rejected by the opposition.

He also faulted the president for not acknowledging his political responsibility for the latest bout of political violence.

"It is all too little too late," he told The Associated Press.

In many ways, Morsi's decree and his call for a dialogue betrayed his despair in the face of wave after wave of political unrest, violence and man-made disasters that, at times, made the country look like it was about to come unglued.

A relative unknown until his Muslim Brotherhood nominated him to run for president last year, Morsi is widely criticized for having offered no vision for the country's future after nearly 30 years of dictatorship under Mubarak and no coherent policy to tackle seemingly endless problems, from a free falling economy and deeply entrenched social injustices to surging crime and chaos on the streets.

Reform of the judiciary and the police, hated under the old regime for brutality, are also key demands of Morsi's critics.

Morsi did not say what he plans to do to stem the violence in other parts of the country outside those three provinces, but he did say he had instructed the police to deal "firmly and forcefully" with individuals attacking state institutions, using firearms to "terrorize" citizens or blocking roads and railway lines.

There were also clashes Sunday in Cairo and several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah.

Egypt's current crisis is the second to hit the country since November, when Morsi issued decrees, since rescinded, that gave him nearly unlimited powers and placed him above any oversight, including by the judiciary.

The latest eruption of political violence has deepened the malaise as Morsi struggles to get a grip on enormous social and economic problems and the increasingly dangerous fault lines that divide this nation of 85 million.

In an ominous sign, a one-time jihadist group on Sunday blamed the secular opposition for the violence and threatened to set up vigilante militias to defend the government it supports.

Addressing a news conference, Tareq el-Zomr of the once-jihadist Gamaa Islamiya, said:

"If security forces don't achieve security, it will be the right of the Egyptian people and we at the forefront to set up popular committees to protect private and public property and counter the aggression on innocent citizens."

His threat was accompanied by his charge that the opposition was responsible for the deadly violence of the past few days, setting the stage for possible bloody clashes between protesters and Islamist militiamen. The opposition denies the charge.

In Port Said on Sunday, tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets for a mass funeral for most of the 37 people who died on Saturday. They chanted slogans against Morsi.

"We are now dead against Morsi," said Port Said activist Amira Alfy. "We will not rest now until he goes and we will not take part in the next parliamentary elections. Port Said has risen and will not allow even a semblance of normalcy to come back," she said.

The violence flared only a month after a prolonged crisis ? punctuated by deadly violence ? over the new constitution. Ten died in that round of unrest and hundreds were injured.

In Port Said, mourners chanted "There is no God but Allah," and "Morsi is God's enemy" as the funeral procession made its way through the city after prayers for the dead at the city's Mariam Mosque. Women clad in black led the chants, which were quickly picked up by the rest of the mourners.

There were no police or army troops in sight. But the funeral procession briefly halted after gunfire rang out. Security officials said the gunfire came from several mourners who opened fire at the Police Club next to the cemetery. Activists, however, said the gunfire first came from inside the army club, which is also close to the cemetery. Some of the mourners returned fire, which drew more shots as well as tear gas, according to witnesses. They, together with the officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation in the city on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the Suez Canal.

A total of 630 people were injured, some of them with gunshot wounds, said Abdel-Rahman Farag, director of the city's hospitals.

Also Sunday, army troops backed by armored vehicles staked out positions at key government facilities to protect state interests and try to restore order.

There was also a funeral in Cairo for two policemen killed in the Port Said violence a day earlier. Several policemen grieving for their colleagues heckled Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the force, when he arrived for their funeral, according to witnesses.

The angry officers screamed at the minister that he was only at the funeral for the TV cameras ? a highly unusual show of dissent in Egypt, where the police force maintains military-like discipline.

Ibrahim hurriedly left and the funeral proceeded without him, a sign that the prestige of the state and its top executives were diminishing.

In Cairo, clashes broke out for the fourth straight day on Sunday, with protesters and police outside two landmark, Nile-side hotels near central Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising. Police fired tear gas while protesters pelted them with rocks.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-27-Egypt/id-c2829ef6b2de4310ba277e8ba32d5497

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P53 mutation hinders cancer treatment response

Jan. 25, 2013 ? Scientists from the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) have discovered the workings of the gene that has been hindering treatment response in cancer patients. This discovery was made after 5 years of studying the mutant form of the p53 gene, the major tumor suppressor in humans, which is generally found mutated in over 50% of all type of human cancers.

The dominant-negative (DN) effect of the mutant p53 gene in cancers was found to affect the outcome of cancer treatment modalities. DN effect is a phenomenon whereby one copy of mutant p53 that exists in cancer cells inhibits the tumor suppressor activity of the other wild-type p53 copy when they co-exist. The result is that a patient may either have poor response or earlier relapse of tumours after their treatment.

The research findings is significant in that it offers hope to improve cancer treatment outcomes by selectively inhibiting mutant p53's DN effect through several methods by generating selective and specific inhibitory molecules specific for some of the common hot-spot p53 point mutations. There are currently no drugs or compounds that can alleviate DN effects of mutant p53.

In order to understand the specific roles of mutant p53 DN properties in regulating acute treatment response and long-term tumourgenesis, a team of five researchers led by NCCS Prof Kanaga Sabapathy, the Principal Investigator in the Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Head of the Division of Cellular & Molecular Research from NCCS, carried out experiments by generating genetically engineered knock-in mouse strains expressing varying levels of mutant p53. The results showed that DN effect is observed after acute p53 activation by a variety of chemotherapeutic drugs and irradiation, thereby affecting anti-cancer treatment. This breakthrough came after five years of intensive research.

It was found that mutant p53 have DN effects in a cell-type and dose-dependent manner, especially during acute p53 activation where p53 levels are elevated. Based on the above observations, efforts to generate specific inhibitors for the common hot spot p53 point mutations are underway. The inhibition of mutant p53 expression in cells carrying a wild-type and mutant p53 alleles can improve response to chemotherapeutic drugs.

In a further study, the researchers also questioned the possibility of the mutant p53 acquiring new functions (or Gain of Function) to drive carcinogenesis, transforming normal cells to cancerous cells. Their investigation comparing cells from genetically engineered mouse strains expressing 2 different types of p53 mutations: the R172H mutation versus the R246S mutation, which showed that Gain of Function (GOF) was found only in the former. This showed that GOF of mutated p53 is specifically dependent on mutation-type but not across all kinds of genetic mutations, highlighting diversity in properties of the different types of p53 mutations, thereby indicating that mutations found in human cancers can behave differently, and thus, need to be carefully assessed prior to treatment.

Thus, the existence of mutant p53 certainly has a negative impact on cancer treatment, whether it is through DN effect or GOF. Prof Sabapathy said that the team is now embarking on more research to determine the possibility of targeting mutant p53 without affecting wild-type p53 in human cells, paving way to clinical trials in the future to test the efficacy on cancer therapeutic response.

The research was supported by grants from the National Medical Research Council of Singapore and the Singapore Millennium Foundation to KS. The publication has been accepted and published by Cell Press, publisher of biomedical journals, in the journal Cancer Cell, on Dec. 10, 2012. Prof Sabapathy also teaches at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by SingHealth, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Ming?Kei Lee, Wei?Wei Teoh, Beng?Hooi Phang, Wei?Min Tong, Zhao?Qi Wang, Kanaga Sabapathy. Cell-type, Dose, and Mutation-type Specificity Dictate Mutant p53 Functions In?Vivo. Cancer Cell, 2012; 22 (6): 751 DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2012.10.022

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/most_popular/~3/EAuE68IgufU/130125111331.htm

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Apple steps up labor audits, finds underage workers

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems.

The iPhone and iPad maker, which relies heavily on Asian-based partners like China's Foxconn Technology Group to assemble the vast majority of its iPhones and iPads, said on Thursday it conducted 393 audits, up 72 percent from 2011, reviewing sites where over 1.5 million workers make its gadgets.

Apple in recent years has faced accusations of building its profits on the backs of poorly treated and severely underpaid workers in China.

That criticism came to the fore around 2010, after reports of suicides at Foxconn drew attention to the long hours that migrant laborers frequently endure, often for a pittance in wages and in severely cramped living conditions.

Foxconn is the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry and employs 1.2 million workers across China.

Under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple has taken new steps to improve its record and boost transparency, including the extensive audits of its sprawling supply chain. Last year, it agreed to separate audits by the independent Fair Labor Association.

In an interview on Thursday, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said the company has increased its efforts to solve two of the most challenging issues -- ensuring there are no under aged workers in its supply chain and limiting working hours to 60 hours a week.

While child labor reflected a small percentage of the workforce, Apple is now investigating its smaller suppliers -- which typically supply parts to larger suppliers and hence face less oversight on such issues -- to bring them into compliance, sometimes even firing them.

"We go deep in the supply chain to find it," Williams said. "And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with."

In one case, Apple terminated its relationship with a component maker after discovering 74 cases of underage workers. Apple also discovered an employment agency that was forging documents to allow children to illegally work at the supplier.

Apple reported both the supplier and the employment agency to local authorities, the company said in its latest annual report on the conditions in its supply chain.

Apple has audited both small and ancillary suppliers, as well as large ones such as Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, for working conditions. It found 95 percent of sites audited complied with avoiding underage labor.

Child labor is an issue that is part of the larger supply industry as the component maker that Apple found violated child labor laws supplied parts to more than a hundred different companies, including automotive companies, Williams said, vowing to eradicate under aged labor from the industry.

"I don't know how long it will take to get there but that's our goal," said Williams, who has spent a significant amount of his 14 years at Apple in Asia managing the supply chain.

FOCUS ON STUDENT INTERNS

For 2013, Williams said a key focus for Apple will be student interns and ensuring that suppliers do not abuse the internship system, especially in China where many colleges require students to complete internships as part of their curriculum.

Some companies in China are solving labor shortages by employing students. Last September, city officials of the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Yantai ordered vocational high schools to send students to a large plant run by Foxconn -- a key contract manufacture for Apple and other large electronics companies like Hewlett Packard -- to overcome a shortage of workers.

Another focus areas has been "bonded labor", where agencies who help immigrant workers find jobs take a substantial portion of the worker's pay.

Apple said in the report that it asked suppliers to reimburse $6.4 million in excess foreign contract worker fees in 2012, according to the report.

The company said it achieved 92 percent compliance with a maximum 60-hour work week in its supply chain. Where violations were discovered, Apple took action, it said in its report.

Apple also found and stopped discriminatory practices against women workers in 34 supplier facilities that required pregnancy testing and 25 facilities that tested employees for certain medical conditions, the report said.

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta and Noel Randewich; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-steps-labor-audits-finds-underage-workers-063934909--finance.html

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An 1850s Ancestral Home in Texas - Houzz

In 1981 a woman and her husband cruised by the historic plantation her family had owned for generations. She had heard many stories from her grandmother about the Central Texas home her family had lost during the Great Depression, and after seeing it, she and her husband dreamed of living in it one day.

More than 30 years later, the couple retired from their corporate jobs in California and set about making their Texas dream come true. In 2004 they approached the current owners, who agreed to sell. Next they turned to husband-and-wife team John (architect) and Candace (interior designer) Volz of Volz & Associates to help them with the preservation, restoration, renovation and additions.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with a grown daughter who comes to visit; the wife is descended from the original owner
Location: About 30 miles outside of Austin, Texas
Size: About 7,000 square feet, on 200 acres
That's interesting: This home is a recorded Texas historic landmark built in 1857; the original 2,000-acre plantation was established in 1836. Part of the historic research included getting in touch with a genealogical society of descendants of slaves who had lived there; the clients hosted a lunch where they all swapped family lore, and they are still in touch.

Source: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/6664661/list/Houzz-Tour--An-1850s-Ancestral-Home-in-Texas-Rises-Again/

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Southwest's 4Q profit slips on higher costs

DALLAS (AP) ? Southwest Airlines Co. said Thursday that fourth-quarter earnings fell by nearly half as costs rose for fuel, labor and maintenance.

The airline's revenue climbed slightly, however, as the average fare increased almost $8 from a year ago.

Southwest said that bookings for the first three months of 2013 look strong. It said that based on bookings and ticket prices so far, a key revenue measure should rise by between 2 and 3 percent in January compared with the same month last year.

Although the rate of airfare increases has slowed since 2011, fares are still going up partly because airlines are limiting the number of flights, making seats more scarce. Southwest expects the industry as a whole to run about 1 to 2 percent fewer flights in early 2013 than in the same period last year.

Southwest, the nation's fourth-biggest airline, will consider cramming more flights into the busier middle of the day and reducing daily flights on some routes that aren't profitable enough.

"I hope what we have less of is eliminating nonstop service between city pairs but ... that is a possibility," said CEO Gary Kelly. He didn't name the routes that could be affected.

On a conference call, analysts pressed Kelly on whether he might reverse Southwest's "bags-fly-free" policy. Kelly said the policy helps his airline draw customers away from competitors ? more than offsetting money lost by not charging fees ? and that charging for bags now would damage the company's image.

"Customers hate bag fees, so I think by definition there would be an impact to the brand," he said.

Southwest reported fourth-quarter net income of $78 million, or 11 cents per share. That's down from $152 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items such as fuel contracts, the net income would have been 9 cents per share, beating the 7-cents-per-share forecast among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue ticked up 1.6 percent to $4.17 billion but fell short of the $4.20 billion that analysts expected.

Expenses rose faster, however, by 3.1 percent. Labor costs rose and maintenance costs jumped significantly as the airline continued to overhaul the cabins inside many of its planes.

Spending on fuel, the airline's biggest expense, rose a modest 0.7 percent. Southwest is forecasting a welcome drop in its first-quarter fuel bill, to $3.30 per gallon from $3.44.

The cost increases were still less than some analysts expected. Standard & Poor's analyst Jim Corridore said he expects revenue to rise faster than most costs in 2013.

The average fourth-quarter fare on Southwest and its AirTran Airways subsidiary was $148.02, up 5.4 percent from $140.38 a year earlier.

Passengers flew 1.4 percent fewer miles on Southwest than a year earlier, and planes were less full ? 79.6 percent occupancy, down from 80.5 percent.

Southwest earned $421 million in 2012, its 40th straight profitable year, a streak that Kelly called "a remarkable feat and a record unmatched in the airline industry."

Southwest shares rose 3 cents to $11.39 in afternoon trading. They have gained about 50 percent since last August, rising along with other airline stocks. Investors have been encouraged by stronger financial performance at the airlines and the possibility that a potential merger of American Airlines and US Airways would increase the industry's ability to raise fares.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/southwests-4q-profit-slips-higher-costs-122155946--finance.html

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Is It Safe to Eat Damaged Fruit?

Is beat-up fruit OK to eat?

Photo by iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Much of the United States has been suffering through a deep freeze for several days, and farmers are starting to express concern about damage to crops. Citrus growers in the West say damage to the fruit has already occurred, although not enough to impact prices. All this damaged fruit has one Explainer reader wondering: Is there anything wrong with eating visibly bruised produce?

Not necessarily. A bruise is an indicator of cellular damage. When you ding an apple or a banana, it can compromise the ability of the skin or the peel to keep oxygen away from the fruit, and oxygen breaks down the cellular walls and membranes. When the chemicals within the fruit become oxidized by enzymes like polyphenoloxidase, the reaction causes an unappealing brown color. There?s no evidence, however, that oxidized fruit is bad for you. Nor is a bruise necessarily indicative of an infection. If you want to cut the bruised portion of your fruit away for aesthetic reasons, by all means do so. There are also plenty of ways to cover up the mushy consistency of bruised fruit?homesteaders turn their bruised fruits into pies, juice, jams, or fruit leathers. But if you can?t be bothered to trim your bruised banana or bake it into bread, there?s little risk to your health in just eating it.

There is a caveat: Bruising makes a piece of fruit more susceptible to infection. As the cell walls break down, nutrients leak into the open, inviting colonization by microbes already present on the surface of the fruit or in the air. As they feed on the fruit?s exposed innards, the cells multiply rapidly. It?s possible for damaged fruit to grow some of the more notorious varieties of food-borne pathogens, such as salmonella or E. coli, but garden-variety yeasts and molds are far more common. Yeasts are of minimal concern?inoculating fruit with yeasts gives us such delights as wine and cider?but molds can be dangerous. Some species of mold release mycotoxins, which can cause a variety of human illnesses. (The most notorious mycotoxin, known as aflatoxin, is a potent carcinogen that grows on milk, cheese, nuts, and grains.) If your bruised fruit has so much fungal activity that you can see or smell it, don?t eat it. In addition to bruised areas, you should check the area around the fruit?s stem for mold, which is an entry point for opportunistic microbes. Food safety experts have a saying: If in doubt, throw it out. Healthy adults often take their chances and get away with it, but this advice is especially important for small children or the elderly.

If your bruised fruit has visible microbial growth, is it still safe to eat the nondamaged portion? It depends on the fruit. The question is whether the roots of the mold have penetrated the food. It?s difficult for mold to grow deep into firm fruits. So feel free to cut away the moldy portion of a bell pepper?yes, bell peppers are a fruit?and eat the remainder. Bananas, on the other hand, are too soft to repel a mold invasion, so a banana with a bruised, moldy spot should be tossed.

Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Doug Gubler of UC-Davis and Lynne McLandsborough of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=c2bf0af81a0620a96b8da94b5f28733a

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Israeli lawmaker: domestic issues must be priority

JERUSALEM (AP) ? A top ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recommended Thursday that the next Israeli government sideline the polarizing issue of Mideast peacemaking in favor of domestic matters, in order to avoid political paralysis.

The hard-line Netanyahu was badly weakened in Tuesday's election, which ended in a deadlock between a hawkish, religious bloc and a camp of centrist, secular and Arab parties. While Netanyahu, as head of the largest single party in parliament, appears set to remain prime minister, he can't put together a stable coalition without drawing in both hawks and moderates.

His top partner is likely to be Yesh Atid, a new party with moderate views on peacemaking that has emerged as Israel's new power broker. Parliament's No. 4 party appears to be the pro-settler Jewish Home, which opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and even wants to annex West Bank land claimed by the Palestinians.

Lawmaker Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio on Thursday that the next government must focus on domestic issues because they could serve as a common denominator tying together parties with divergent views.

"If we want to founder from the outset, and embark upon endless internal struggles, then make foreign policy the top priority," he said.

"If we want the government to be effective and accomplish things, and leave a strong, significant imprint, I think everyone understands the need for domestic changes is dramatic, and that is the order of the day. So leave the foreign issues aside," Lieberman said.

Lieberman's ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party teamed up on a joint list with Netanyahu's Likud for Tuesday's election.

Netanyahu has hinted that is the direction he will take in the two statements he has given since the election. Both statements have focused on the need to build a broad coalition to address pressing domestic issues, including the high cost of living.

Peace talks reached an impasse before Netanyahu came into office four years ago and never resumed in earnest. The main obstacle during his tenure has been continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas, captured by Israel in 1967, for the heart of a future state and refuse to negotiate while the construction continues.

Netanyahu rejects that demand.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-lawmaker-domestic-issues-must-priority-102632369.html

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Sports are a civil right for disabled, U.S. says

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Breaking new ground, the U.S. Education Department is telling schools they must include students with disabilities in sports programs or provide equal alternative options. The directive, reminiscent of the Title IX expansion of athletic opportunities for women, could bring sweeping changes to school budgets and locker rooms for years to come.

Schools would be required to make "reasonable modifications" for students with disabilities or create parallel athletic programs that have comparable standing as mainstream programs.

"Sports can provide invaluable lessons in discipline, selflessness, passion and courage, and this guidance will help schools ensure that students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to benefit from the life lessons they can learn on the playing field or on the court," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement announcing the new guidance on Friday.

Federal laws, including the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, require states to provide a free public education to all students and bans schools that receive federal funds from discriminating against students with disabilities. Going further, the new directive from the Education Department's civil rights division explicitly tells schools and colleges that access to interscholastic, intramural and intercollegiate athletics is a right.

"This is a landmark moment for students with disabilities. This will do for students with disabilities what Title IX did for women," said Terri Lakowski, who led a coalition pushing for the changes for a decade. "This is a huge victory."

Education Department officials emphasized they did not intend to change sports' traditions dramatically or guarantee students with disabilities a spot on competitive teams. Instead, they insisted schools cannot exclude students based on their disabilities if they can keep up with their classmates.

"It's not about changing the nature of the game or the athletic activity," said Seth Galanter, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department.

It's not clear whether the new guidelines will spark a sudden uptick in sports participation. There was a big increase in female participation in sports after Title IX guidance instructed schools to treat female athletics on par with male teams. That led many schools to cut some men's teams, arguing that it was necessary to be able to pay for women's teams.

There is no deadline for schools to comply with the new disabilities directive.

But activists cheered the changes.

"This is historic," said Bev Vaughn, the executive director of the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs, a nonprofit group that works with schools to set up sports programs for students with disabilities. "It's going to open up a whole new door of opportunity to our nation's school children with disabilities."

A Government Accountability Office study in 2010 found that students with disabilities participated in athletics at consistently lower rates than those without. The study also suggested the benefits of exercise among children with disabilities may be even important because they are at greater risk of being sedentary.

"We know that participation in extracurricular activities can lead to a host of really good, positive outcomes both inside and outside of the classroom," said Kareem Dale, a White House official who guides the administration's policies for disabled Americans.

Dale, who is blind, wrestled as a high school student in Chicago alongside students who had full vision.

"I was able to wrestle mainly because there was a good accommodation to allow me to have equal access and opportunity," Dale said, describing modified rules that required his competitors to keep in physical contact with him during matches.

Those types of accommodations could be a model for schools and colleges now looking to incorporate students with disabilities onto sports teams. For instance, track and field officials could use a visual cue for a deaf runner to begin a race.

Some states already offer such programs. Maryland, for instance, passed a law in 2008 that required schools to create equal opportunities for students with disabilities to participate in physical education programs and play on mainstream athletic teams. And Minnesota awards state titles for disabled student athletes in six sports.

Increasingly, those with disabilities are finding spots on their schools' teams.

"I heard about some of the other people who joined their track teams in other states. I wanted to try to do that," said 15-year-old Casey Followay, who competes on his Ohio high school track team in a racing wheelchair.

Current rules require Followay to race on his own, without competitors running alongside him. He said he hopes the Education Department guidance will change that and he can compete against runners.

"It's going to give me the chance to compete against kids at my level," he said.

In cases where students with disabilities need more serious changes, a separate league could be required.

Although the letter is directed to elementary and secondary schools and the department hasn't provided comparable guidance to colleges, some of the principles in the letter will be read closely by administrators in higher education, said Scott Lissner, the Americans with Disabilities coordinator at Ohio State University and president of the Association on Higher Education and Disability.

"The logic that's in there applies us to us as well as it does to K-12, for the most part," Lissner said.

While slightly different portions of civil rights law apply to colleges and universities, "their approach in this letter was really more about the basic underlying equity and civil rights issues" that colleges also must ensure they're applying to pass muster under the law.

Generally, Lissner said, as colleges review their policies, the effects would more likely be felt in intramural and club sports programs on campus than intercollegiate ones, Lissner said. That's because relatively few people can meet the standards to compete in intercollegiate sports, and nothing in the guidance requires a change in such standards. But the purpose of intramural and club sports is broader, and colleges may have to do more to ensure students with disabilities aren't deprived of a chance to compete.

Some cautioned that the first few years would bring fits and starts.

"Is it easy? No," said Brad Hedrick, director of disability services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and himself a hall-of-famer in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. "In most places, you're beginning from an inertial moment. But it is feasible and possible that a meaningful and viable programming can be created."

Establishing students' needs would be the first step, followed by training for educators and coaches.

"We need to determine how many children would qualify and then look to where kids can be integrated onto traditional teams appropriately. Where we can't, then we need to add an adaptive program," said Vaughn, who has advised states and districts how to be more inclusive.

"Typically, the larger school districts realistically could field a varsity and junior varsity team in each sport. In more rural areas, we would do a regional team. It's not going to overwhelm our schools or districts. It's just going to take some solid planning and commitment."

___

Associated Press Education Writer Justin Pope contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sports-civil-disabled-us-says-050851263--politics.html

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Virut botnet crippled by researchers - Computer News Middle East

The Virut botnet suffered a major setback last week, after it was announced that many of the domain names used by a cybercriminal gang to control computers infected with the malware had been disabled.

This was the result of coordinated takedown effort, Spamhaus, an firm dedicated to fighting spam, announced on Saturday.

The Virut malware spreads by inserting malicious code into clean executable files and by copying itself to fixed, attached and shared network drives. Some variants also infect HTML, ASP and PHP files with rogue code that distributes the threat.

Once installed on a computer, the Virut malware connects to an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server using an encrypted connection and awaits instructions. This allows attackers to control Virut infected computers as a botnet.

Virut is primarily used as a malware distribution platform ? other cybercriminals pay the Virut botmasters to deploy their own malware on the already compromised computers.

In the past, Virut has been used to distribute the ZeuS banking malware and the Kehlios spambot. However, last week, security researchers from Symantec warned that Virut?started distributing the Waledac malware, potentially leading to the resurrection of the Waledac botnet that was originally shut down by Microsoft in 2010.

The Virut botnet masters are using several dozen domain names in the .pl (Poland), .ru (Russia) and .at (Austria) top-level domains as part of their command and control (C&C) infrastructure, Spamhaus team member Thomas Morrison said on Saturday in?an announcement?on the organisation?s website.

Spamhaus collaborated with the Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT.pl) and the home.pl domain registrar to ensure that no traffic was received by the .pl domains used by the Virut botnet, a process known as sinkholing, Morrison said.

?A number of domains in .pl, most notably zief.pl and ircgalaxy.pl, have been used to host Virut, its command and control IRC servers, as well as to host other malware, including Palevo and Zeus,? CERT Poland?said on Friday. ?NASK, the operator of the Polish domain registry, took over 23 of these domains yesterday in an effort to protect Internet users from Virut-related threats. Name servers for those domains were changed to sinkhole.cert.pl, controlled by CERT Polska [CERT Poland] ? an incident response team operated by NASK.?

Spamhaus also worked with Group-IB, a Russian information security and computer forensics company, which was able to get the .ru domains used by Virut shut down in a matter of hours.

Although currently crippled, the Virut C&C infrastructure is not completely out of the hands of attackers. Their last remaining strongholds are the remaining .at domain names, Morrison said.

Spamhaus alerted the .at domain registry and the Austrian CERT multiple times about this issue and hopes that they will follow the example of their Polish and Russian counterparts in suspending the C&C domain names.

?The Virut takedown effort clearly illustrates the important and meaningful role [domain] registries and registrars can play in the fight against cybercrime in general,? Morrison said. Such organisations should be proactive and add clauses in their contracts that will allow them to quickly take action against domain names used for malicious purposes, he said.

Based on information gathered during a recent sinkholing operation, Symantec?estimates the size of the Virut botnet?at over 300,000 infected computers.

Tags: ASP, Austria, botnet, C&C, CERT, CNME, command and control, computer news middle east, crippled, Cybercriminal, gang, Group-IB, highlightedpost, HTML, infected, infection, Internet relay chat, IRC, Kehlios, malware, Microsoft, online, php, Poland, Polish Computer Emergency Response Team, Russia, security, server, spam, Spamhaus, Symantec, takedown, Thomas Morrison, threat, virut, Waledac, Zeus

Source: http://www.cnmeonline.com/news/virut-botnet-crippled-by-researchers/

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Hearing loss may push decline in memory, thinking | Health X Pert ...

Older Americans who have hearing loss have an accelerated decline in thinking and memory abilities, compared to those with normal hearing, according to a study published in ?JAMA Archives of Internal Medicine . Those with hearing loss experience a 30% to 40% greater decline in thinking abilities compared to their counterparts without hearing loss, according to the findings published Monday. Hearing loss is common among old older adults, affecting about two-thirds of adults 70 and older, and about one-third of adults younger than 60, according to lead study author Dr. Frank R. Lin of Johns Hopkins University.? A large number of people with hearing loss are untreated, Lin explained, because they associate hearing loss with the stigma of getting older. About two years ago Lin and his associates published a paper showing that hearing loss was associated with greater risk for developing dementia. ?Fortunately most of us will never develop dementia, but most of us will experience some kind of cognitive decline over time,? explained Lin. Rather than looking at hearing loss and dementia, the researchers studied people with normal cognitive function to determine whether people with hearing loss had different rates of memory and thinking decline compared to people with normal hearing. Dementia rates are projected to rise as the world's population ages, the study noted; identifying factors that may contribute to cognitive decline and dementia in older adults may lead to ways to slow and treat brain decline. The researchers studied?about 2,000 older adults enrolled in a long-term study which began in 1997. All subjects included in the study had no dementia or cognitive impairment.? Each subject went through an audiometric assessment performed in a sound-treated booth, which Lin described as ?the gold standard? for hearing testing. Their memory, thinking abilities and decision-making were also tested. Both tests were repeated at three, five and six years, and researchers looked at average decline in memory and thinking abilities, comparing people with normal hearing to those with reduced hearing. ?We found that people with hearing loss had a faster rate of mental decline compared to people with normal hearing. ? And the greater the rate of hearing loss, the faster the decline of memory and thinking. It was dose dependent,? said Lin. People with hearing loss took 7.7 years to have a five-point drop in their thinking skills, compared to 10.9 years for people with normal hearing. Why does this happen? Lin said there?s no definite explanation, noting that various explanations may apply. When people suffer from hearing loss, it?s not that they can?t hear. It?s that the cochlea, the part of the inner ear that converts a complex sound to a precise signal that goes to the brain for decoding, isn?t doing a good job converting, so people hear a garbled signal. Lin described it like a bad cell phone connection. One theory is that "if the brain is dedicating extra resources to try and hear what?s going on, it's probably taking away from other brain resources like thinking and memory, ? explained Lin. A second explanation, using the cell phone example, is that people experiencing lousy reception end up tuning out, because it?s so labor intensive to try to hear the call. This explanation plays into the idea of social isolation, which has been shown to have negative health effects including increased illness, death rates, and increased cognitive decline and dementia. A third possible explanation is that some mechanism in the brain is affecting both hearing and brain function. Lin said it's likely that the hearing loss and brain decline are explained by all three factors. He also acknowledged that while his study tried to adjust for other factors affecting hearing and cognitive abilities, they did not account for factors including something in the inflammatory process or the age of mitochondria, the energy factories of cells. Lin thinks the big public health question is whether treating hearing loss will have an impact on brain function and memory decline. Filed under: Aging , Brain , Conditions Tagged: Ann J. Curley ? CNN Medical Assignment Manager

Read the original:?
Hearing loss may push decline in memory, thinking

Source: http://healthxpert.org/hearing-loss-may-push-decline-in-memory-thinking/

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Creating an Online Brand | Search Engine Journal

What is the single most powerful tool a business can possess? There may be conflicting answers. I admit it is a wide open topic, but in this humble consumers opinion, nothing is more powerful than a great brand.

I see the silhouette of an apple with a bite missing and suddenly I?m thinking of smartphones and tablets and all things gadget. The wealth of content that is conveyed by a simple drawing of a piece of fruit is astounding. That logo has become the benchmark for corporate branding. There are many others just like it: the flowing script of Coca-Cola, the striated font of IBM, and the offest-x of Exxon Mobile.

I believe that every company can benefit from an online brand at the forefront of their marketing campaigns. Branding is more than just whipping up a logo and posting it on your website. There are several elements I think that need to be considered if you want to make your brand instantly recognizable.

Expression of Quality through Design

This is a big hurdle that I see most business tripping over. The lack of commitment to a brand can kill it before it even gets started. I know that some popular logos were probably sketched on the back of a placement. I know that quality graphic design is expensive, but if you don?t possess a lick of design talent, you need to spend the money to get a professional design for your brand.

Delivery of Information

Your brand will never take off if people can?t find the information that they need. I?ve experienced it countless times. You visit a website with a great look. It?s uniform and unique; clearly the product of many hours of intensive work, but it?s essentially empty. There?s no useful content anywhere. No brand can survive unless it actually delivers.

Added Value

When building your online brand, keep in mind and possible opportunities to add value to your services. Spending time and money to develop a brand that is too tightly focused can hamper your ability to easily expand your products and services.

Easy to Navigate

I think this one should go without saying. Today?s internet users have very short attention span. Your professional brand can grab their attention, but poor navigation will drive them away from your online site in seconds.

Brands in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

I find almost everything I need using a search engine. So does the majority of the consuming public. Having a webpage that ranks high in the SERPs will help drive the maximum amount of visitors to your site, especially if they can instantly recognize your brand. When it comes to choosing which search result to click, I am more likely to click on the one that I recognize first and then sift through others.

Sidestepping the Competition

Like I said above, I?ll click on the link that I am more familiar with. A strong brand will have potential clients sidestepping your competitors and coming to you if you have more brand power than your rivals. Brand power is not only restricted to your online brand, but can also help you draw attention from your competition in print and other media.

Keep these few tips in mind while you?re developing your brand. They?ll help to ensure that you get the best results from your online branding efforts.

Brain Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forix SEO in Portland, OR. Forix offers affordable and ethical SEO services in Portland helping small businesses with their Internet marketing needs.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/creating-an-online-brand/57453/

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RPT-Wall St Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK, Jan 20 (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the

rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it

continues to power forward, its all-time high a not-so-distant

goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed last week at a new

five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a

string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation, banks and

housing last week hit historic or multiyear highs as

well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth

Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to

watch for this week will come from cyclical companies. United

Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell

is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the

economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies will also report this week, but

the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices, which is due

Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD

shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing

results from its larger competitor, Intel. Still, a

chipmaker sector index posted its highest weekly close

since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from

Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock

from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting this week include Google

, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and DuPont

on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday

and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from

the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds - $11.3 billion in the

past two weeks, the most since 2000 - indicates a riskier

approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a

great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is

pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing

director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to

work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could

get an additional bump this week as investors eye data expected

to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish

U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in

December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home

sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit

a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a

2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for

investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House

Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round

of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not

to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index, a gauge of market anxiety,

closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from

political drama, given this seems to be happening over and

over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what

you want to base your investing decisions on."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rpt-wall-st-week-ahead-earnings-money-flows-162254323--sector.html

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CNBC's Fast Money: Stocks, Investing, Market Analysis - CNBC

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Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838499/CNBCrsquos_Fast_Money_Stocks_Investing_Market_Analysis__CNBC

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Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan Musial dies at age 92

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- No last name necessary.

A slew of batting titles. Corkscrew stance. Humble. A gentleman. All-around good guy.

Stan the Man.

Stanley Frank Musial, the St. Louis Cardinals star who was one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, died Saturday. He was 92.

''I never heard anybody say a bad word about him - ever,'' Willie Mays said in a statement released by the Hall of Fame.

The Cardinals announced Musial's death in a news release and said he died at his home in Ladue, a St. Louis suburb, surrounded by family. The team said Musial's son-in-law, Dave Edmonds, informed the club of the slugger's death.

Earlier Saturday, baseball lost another Hall of Famer when longtime Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver died at age 82.

Musial, the Midwest icon with too many batting records to fit on his Hall of Fame plaque, was so revered in St. Louis that two statues in his honor stand outside Busch Stadium - one just wouldn't do him justice. He was one of baseball's greatest hitters, every bit the equal of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio even without the bright lights of the big city.

Musial won seven National League batting crowns, was a three-time MVP and helped the Cardinals capture three World Series championships in the 1940s.

He spent his entire 22-year career with the Cardinals and made the All-Star team 24 times - baseball held two All-Star games each summer for a few seasons. He had been the longest-tenured living Hall of Famer.

''Stan will be remembered in baseball annals as one of the pillars of our game,'' Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson said. ''The mold broke with Stan. There will never be another like him.''

A pitcher in the low minors until he injured his arm, Musial turned to playing the outfield and first base. It was a stroke of luck for him, as he went on to hit .331 with 475 home runs before retiring in 1963.

Widely considered the greatest Cardinals player ever, Musial was the first person in team history to have his number retired. Ol' 6 probably was the most popular, too, especially after Albert Pujols skipped town.

''I will cherish my friendship with Stan for as long as I live,'' Pujols wrote on Twitter. ''Rest in Peace.''

At the suggestion of a pal, actor John Wayne, Musial carried around autographed cards of himself to give away. He enjoyed doing magic tricks for kids and was fond of pulling out a harmonica to entertain crowds with a favorite, ''The Wabash Cannonball.''

Scandal-free and eager to play every day, Musial struck a chord with fans throughout America's heartland and beyond. For much of his career, St. Louis was the most western outpost in the majors, and the Cardinals' vast radio network spread word about him in all directions.

Farmers in the field and families on the porch would tune in, as did a future president - Bill Clinton recalled doing his homework listening to Musial's exploits.

''We have lost the most beloved member of the Cardinals family,'' team chairman William DeWitt Jr. said.

Musial's public appearances dwindled in recent years, though he took part in the pregame festivities at Busch Stadium during the 2011 postseason as the Cardinals won the World Series. And he was at the White House in February 2011 when President Barack Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor for contributions to society.

At the ceremony, President Obama said: ''Stan remains to this day an icon untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate.''

He certainly delivered at the plate.

Musial never struck out 50 times in a season. He led the NL in most every hitting category for at least one year, except homers. He hit a career-high 39 home runs in 1948, falling one short of winning the Triple Crown.

''Major League Baseball has lost one of its true legends in Stan Musial, a Hall of Famer in every sense and a man who led a great American life. He was the heart and soul of the historic St. Louis Cardinals franchise for generations,'' Commissioner Bud Selig said. ''As remarkable as 'Stan the Man' was on the field, he was a true gentleman in life. All of Major League Baseball mourns his passing.''

In all, Musial held 55 records when he retired in 1963. Fittingly, the accolades on his bronze Hall plaque start off with this fact, rather than flowery prose: ''Holds many National League records ...''

He played nearly until his 43rd birthday, adding to his totals. He got a hit with his final swing, sending an RBI single past Cincinnati's rookie second baseman - that was Pete Rose, who would break Musial's league hit record of 3,630 some 18 years later.

Of those hits, Musial got exactly 1,815 at home and exactly 1,815 on the road. He also finished with 1,951 RBIs and scored 1,949 runs.

All that balance despite a most unorthodox left-handed stance. Legs and knees close together, he would cock the bat near his ear and twist his body away from the pitcher. When the ball came, he uncoiled.

Unusual, that aspect of Musial.

Asked to describe the habits that kept him in baseball for so long, Musial once said: ''Get eight hours of sleep regularly. Keep your weight down, run a mile a day. If you must smoke, try light cigars. They cut down on inhaling.''

One last thing, he said: ''Make it a point to bat .300.''

As for how he did that, Musial offered a secret.

''I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider,'' he said. ''Then, I'd pick up the speed of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it has crossed the plate.''

It worked pretty well, considering Musial began his baseball career as a pitcher in the low minors. And by his account, as he said during his induction speech in Cooperstown, an injury had left him as a ''dead, left-handed pitcher just out of Class D.''

Hoping to still reach the majors, he turned to another position. It was just the change he needed.

Musial made his major league debut late in 1941, the season that Williams batted .406 for the Boston Red Sox and DiMaggio hit in a record 56 straight games for the New York Yankees.

Musial never expressed regret or remorse that he didn't attract more attention than the cool DiMaggio or prickly Williams. Fact is, Musial was plenty familiar in every place he played.

Few could bring themselves to boo baseball's nicest superstar, not even the Brooklyn Dodgers crowds that helped give him his nickname, a sign of weary respect for his .359 batting average at Ebbets Field.

Many, many years before any sports fans yelled ''You're the man!'' at their favorite athletes, Stan was indeed the Man.

Dodgers pitcher Preacher Roe once joked about how to handle Musial: ''I throw him four wide ones and then I try to pick him off first base.''

Brooklynites had another reason to think well of Musial: Unlike Enos Slaughter and other Cardinals teammates, he was supportive when the Dodgers' Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. Bob Gibson, who started out with the Cardinals in the late 1950s, would recall how Musial had helped establish a warm atmosphere between blacks and whites on the team.

''I knew Stan very well,'' Mays said. ''He used to take care of me at All-Star games, 24 of them. He was a true gentleman who understood the race thing and did all he could.''

Like DiMaggio and Williams, Musial embodied a time when the greats stayed with one team. He joined the Cardinals during the last remnants of the Gas House Gang and stayed in St. Louis until Gibson and Curt Flood ushered in a new era of greatness.

''Sad to hear about Stan the Man, it's an honor to wear the same uniform,'' current Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday tweeted.

The only year Musial missed with the Cardinals was 1945, when he was in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was based in Pearl Harbor, assigned to a unit that helped with ship repair.

Before and after his military service, he was a star hitter.

''St. Louis has been lucky to have a player like Stan Musial. He will always be Mr. Baseball,'' Hall of Fame Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said. ''It's a very big loss. You can go around the world and you'll never find a better human being than Stan Musial.''

Musial was the NL MVP in 1943, 1946 and 1948, and was runner-up four other years. He enjoyed a career remarkably free of slumps, controversies or rivalries.

''Stan was a favorite in Cooperstown, from his harmonica rendition of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' during Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies, to the reverence he commanded among other Hall of Fame members and all fans of the game. More than just a baseball hero, Stan was an American icon and we will very much miss him in Cooperstown,'' Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark said.

The Cardinals were dominant early in Musial's career. They beat DiMaggio and the Yankees in the 1942 World Series, lost to the Yankees the next year and defeated the St. Louis Browns in 1944. In 1946, the Cardinals beat Williams and the visiting Red Sox in Game 7 at Sportsman's Park.

Musial, mostly a left fielder then, starred with Terry Moore in center and Slaughter, another future Hall of Famer, in right, making up one of baseball's greatest outfields. Later on, Musial would switch between the outfield and first base.

Musial never played on another pennant winner after 1946. Yet even after the likes of Mays, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron came to the majors, Musial remained among baseball's best.

The original Musial statue outside the new Busch Stadium is a popular meeting place before games and carries this inscription: ''Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight.''

''Everybody's a Musial fan,'' Herzog once said.

Musial gave the press little to write about beyond his grace and greatness on the field. He didn't date movie stars, spike opponents or chew out reporters or umpires.

In 1958, he reached the 3,000-hit level and became the NL's first $100,000-a-year player. Years earlier, he had turned down a huge offer to join the short-lived Mexican League. He never showed resentment over the multimillion dollar salaries of modern players. He thought they had more fun in his days.

''I enjoyed coming to the ballpark every day and I think we enjoyed the game,'' Musial said in a 1991 Associated Press interview. ''We had a lot of train travel, so we had more time together. We socialized quite a bit and we'd go out after ballgames.''

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969, his first year of eligibility.

''It was, you know, a dream come true,'' Musial once said. ''I always wanted to be a ballplayer.''

After retiring as a player, Musial served for years in the Cardinals' front office, including as general manager in 1967, when the Cardinals won the World Series.

In the 1970s, he occasionally played in Old-Timers' Day games and could still line the ball to the wall. He was a fixture for decades at the Cooperstown induction ceremonies and also was a member of the Hall's Veterans Committee. Often, after the Vets panel had voted, he'd pull out a harmonica conveniently located in his jacket pocket and lead the other members in a rendition of ''Take Me Out to the Ball Game.''

Into the 2000s, Musial would spend time with the Cardinals at spring training, thrilling veterans and rookies alike with his stories.

Ever ready, he performed the national anthem on his harmonica at least one opening day at Busch Stadium. Musial learned his music during overnight train trips in the 1940s and in the 1990s was a member of a trio known as ''Geriatric Jazz'' and collaborated on a harmonica instructional book.

Stanley Frank Musial was born in Donora, Pa., on Nov. 21, 1920, son of a Polish immigrant steelworker. He began his minor league career straight out of high school, in June 1938, and soon after married high school sweetheart Lillian Labash, with whom he had four children.

Musial fell in 1940 while trying to make a tough catch and hurt his left arm, damaging his pitching prospects. Encouraged by minor league manager Dickie Kerr to try playing the outfield, he did so well in 1941 that the Cardinals moved him up to the majors in mid-September - and he racked up a .426 average during the final weeks of the season.

In his best year, 1948, he had four five-hit games and batted .376, best in the National League. He also led his league that year in runs scored (135), hits (230), total bases (429), doubles (46), and triples (18).

In 1954, he set a major league record with five home runs in a doubleheader against the New York Giants. He hit .300 or better in 16 consecutive seasons and hit a record six home runs in All-Star play, including a 12th-inning, game-winning shot in 1955.

In 1962, at age 41, he batted .330 and hit 19 home runs. In his final game, on Sept. 29, 1963, he had two hits at Busch Stadium against the Reds and the Cardinals retired his uniform number.

He was active in business, too. He served as a director of the St. Louis-based Southwest Bank. He was co-owner of a popular St. Louis steakhouse, ''Stan Musial and Biggie's,'' and a bowling alley with former teammate Joe Garagiola (leading to a bitter fallout that eventually got resolved). He later ran Stan the Man Inc., specializing in merchandise he autographed. Musial was known for handing out folded $1 bills.

A prominent Polish-American, he was a charter member of the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame and was warmly regarded by his ancestral country, which in 2000 dedicated Stan Musial Stadium in Kutno, Poland. Musial also was involved politically, campaigning for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and serving as Lyndon Johnson's director of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

Musial's versatility was immortalized in verse, by popular poet of the times Ogden Nash, who in ''The Tycoon'' wrote of the Cardinals star and entrepreneur:

''And, between the slugging and the greeting,

To the bank for a directors' meeting.

Yet no one grudges success to Stan,

Good citizen and family man,

Though I would love to have his job

One half tycoon, one half Ty Cobb.''

The Cardinals said Musial is survived by his four children, Richard, Gerry, Janet and Jean, as well as 11 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

Musial's wife died in May 2012.

Funeral arrangements had not yet been finalized, the Cardinals said. The team set up a memorial site around one of Musial's statues at Busch Stadium.

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Associated Press writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/sports/rss/mlb/SIG=12l6k0ler/*http%3A//sports.yahoo.com/news/cardinals-hall-famer-stan-musial-010325831--mlb.html

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