In response, Mr Vannier, said: "I truly defended, as I always have done, the public interest."
He claimed he was only seeking to reduce ticket prices and transport costs.
The court case is the latest round in an ongoing battle between Mr Vannier and his chief rival, Patrick Gaulois ? Mont Saint Michel's mayor from 2001 to 2008.
Between them, the pair own or have a hand in more than 40 hotels, restaurants or shops in and around the site. Mr Vannier runs the
famous M?re Poulard restaurants, now a multinational food brand. Along with a handful of other families, the pair had shared the economic spoils of this hugely popular tourist attraction for decades.
The "shuttle scandal", as the French have dubbed the row, has shattered their truce however.
It was sparked by a 185 million-euro project to flush away 106 million cubic feet of silt and sand to restore Mont Saint Michel to a true island.
In the 8th century the mount was surrounded by water three miles out to sea in the bay where Normandy and Brittany meet. Over hundreds of years however, it gradually became beached on sand deposits.
A partly EU-funded project is under way using a new dam at the mouth of the river Couesnon, two miles from the mount to gradually remove the silt and sand between the Mont and the "continent".
As part of the project, the car and coach parks on salt flats at the foot of the Mont, were demolished, a bridge built, and a new car park set up further inland. The new shuttle service has been in operation since last April.
Mr Gaulois filed a legal complaint over the shuttle service last February, leading to prosecutors to press criminal charges.
Speaking before the trial, he said: "I don't want the Mont to become an amusement park ... with Poulard (Mr Vallini's flagship brand) everywhere."
Mr Vannier's lawyer argued that he had only acted "in the name of love for the Mont".
The violent action on "Spartacus" isn't just engrossing, it's educational -- at least that's what leading man Liam McIntyre claims.
McIntyre, who visited TODAY Tuesday morning with co-star Todd Lasance and the show's head trainer Tyrone Bell, said first and foremost "Spartacus" is fun, but "you can learn stuff too."
Such as?
"You learn how to disembowel people," he laughed.
For those who haven't exactly mastered that and other sword tricks from watching the show, McIntyre and Lasance put on a well-choreographed battle right in Studio 1A. After that, Bell joined the stars and taught TODAY's Willie Geist, Natalie Morales and Tamron Hall a few moves too.
See how the lesson went in the clip above.
"Spartacus" airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Starz.
What do you think of the new season of "Spartacus" so far? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.
Husbands who do more household work make love less, new study suggests
By Nathan Seppa
Web edition: January 30, 2013
Maybe it?s the apron. Couples in the United States in which the men do more chores around the house have less sex than those in which the husbands don?t do the dishes and laundry as much, a new study finds. The findings appear in the February American Sociological Review.
The division of labor in the typical U.S. household became more egalitarian between 1965 and 1995 says study coauthor Sabino Kornrich, a sociologist at the Juan March Institute in Madrid. As women entered the workforce in droves and had smaller families, men took on more chores.
But the new study, a snapshot of more than 3,500 heterosexual married couples in the United States in the early 1990s, finds that wives were still doing four-fifths of the household chores traditionally associated with women: doing dishes, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning and shopping. The husbands did a bare majority of traditionally male jobs, which comprised yard work, auto maintenance, driving and paying bills, Kornrich says.?
Against this backdrop, the new analysis finds that men reported having sex 5.2 times per month on average; women said their average was 5.6 times. Couples in which the man did a greater-than-average share of traditionally women?s chores reported less sex than couples in which men carried a below-average load. Couples in which the husband did all the ?women?s work? had one-third less sex than those in which the man did none of it.
Couples in which the husband did plenty of traditionally male jobs reported more sex than those in which the guy didn?t. When the husband did all of it, those couples had 18 percent more sex than couples in which the man did none, Kornrich says. The participants, who filled out written questionnaires, ranged in age from 18 to 65, with an average in the 40s.
?Housework remains a particularly important place where people express their gender identities,? Kornrich says. While those identities may seem traditional or even out of date in light of career changes and shared duties in the home, he says, ?it?s not like they have disappeared.?
While he expresses puzzlement that couples would have more sex in relationships when men seem to be shirking some of their home duties, he notes that the finding held up even when he and his colleagues accounted for marital satisfaction. Besides, Kornrich says, beliefs about sex are loaded with double standards, and this study just adds delegation of housework to that mix. ?I suspect that sex may change more slowly than other areas [of behavior] because we don?t want to talk about it and don?t want to address it.?
Some scientists remain unconvinced that less work around the home by the man is a turn-on for a couple. ?The jury is out on this,? says Oriel Sullivan, a sociologist at the University of Oxford in England, citing research that draws different conclusions.
Constance Gager, a sociologist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, has found that couples in which both spouses contribute a lot to household work tend to have more sex than couples who do less around the house. She refers to it as ?work hard, play hard.?
Sullivan acknowledges the possibility that the underlying sensibilities guiding sexual desire and frequency in a marriage have not changed in step with the division of household labor. After all, popular culture still often represents men in highly traditional roles, she says. ?The movie image of masculinity, the action hero, has hardly shifted at all over the last 50 years.?
As for sex, frequency may not explain it all, anyway. Gager says that social workers tell her that patients insist that quality matters just as much as quantity.
Suggested Reading
S. Bianchi et al. Is anyone doing the housework? Trends in the gender division of household labor. Social Forces. Volume 79, 2000, p. 191. [Go to]
N. Chethik. VoiceMale: What husbands really think about their marriages, their wives, sex, housework, and commitment. 2006. New York: Simon and Schuster.
C. Gager and S.T. Yabiku. Who has the time? The relationship between household labor time and sexual frequency. Journal of Family Issues. Volume 31, 2010, p. 135. [Go to]
S. Gupta. Autonomy, dependence, or display? The relationship between married women?s earnings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Family. Volume 69, 2007, p. 399. [Go to]
The periodic concerns that come from the parents of boys (or from parents like President Obama who don?t and won?t have sons) regarding whether the young men entrusted to their care will create for some families a potential opportunity.
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, for example, has no issue with parents not wanting their sons to play football, because if fewer boys play football it?s be easier for Jim Harbaugh?s son to get to the NFL.
?If President Obama feels that way, then there will be a little less competition for Jack Harbaugh for when he gets old enough,? Jim Harbaugh said Monday, via Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com.? ?That?s the first thing that jumps in my mind if other parents are thinking that way.?
Jim Harbaugh is thinking that he definitely has a future football player in the household.
?[H]e?s a really big kid,? Jim Harbaugh said.? ?He?s got an enormous head. . . As soon as he grows into that head, he?s going to be something.? It?s early, but expectations are high for young Jack.?
Plenty of fathers throughout the country feel the same way.? With the football hierarchy more sensitive than ever regarding the dangers of concussions, the kids who play football now and in the future will see an unprecedented level of safety.? Even without those changes, plenty of kids will play football, either because their parents will want them to or when push comes to shove their parents won?t stop them from playing.
So even if fewer kids play at the youth level, there will still be 32 NFL teams and 120-plus Division I-A (or whatever they call it now) college programs handing out scholarships.? As Jim Harbaugh astutely points out, fewer players in the pipeline means fewer players jockeying for those spots.
There are many ways to stay connected with our family, no matter the distance.
We write e-mails, send letters or speak on the phone. Even with Skype on our computers, many of us still have a land line phone at home to connect with our families locally and worldwide.
Hearing our families? voices brings us closer together, but how were we able to keep in touch before all these technological advances showed up in our homes?
Construction of the first regular phone line was completed in 1877. By the end of 1880, there were 47,900 telephones in the US. Since the first Bell telephone company was established in 1878, phones have evolved from the ?candlestick? telephone to rotary-dial and to today?s cordless handsets.
The telephone emerged as an improvement to the telegraph. Many credit Alexander Graham Bell with the telephone?s invention; he did patent the invention. However, others have been recognized for their contributions including Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci, who developed a voice communication apparatus considered by many as the first telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell placing the first New York to Chicago phone call in 1892. Image credit: wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone
The phone?s design has changed technically and visually since the first 19th century. They have been made of wood, metal and - more commonly today - plastic.
The first model had two parts to speak and listen. In 1890, the phone evolved to the handset, with a one-piece microphone and earpiece The early 20th century rotary dial was replaced by touch-tone phones during the 1960s. By 1970, cordless phones provided a user-friendly telephone that made it possible to communicate from anywhere in our homes.
The history of cellular phones can be traced to two-way radios, but wasn't really developed until the 1960s. The first cell call was placed in 1973. Today, many of us have mobile phones, making communication with our families easier without being restricted to phoning from a specific place.
Computers have also helped with communication since the mid-1970s. With the Internet, communication via the web has increased. What is better than seeing family even if they are far away? All these great communication tools provide easy ways to stay in touch with the people we love.
With MyHeritage, there are several ways to make communication easier with our relatives. Members can send messages, create events, birthday reminders and more.
What modern communication technology tools do you use to stay in touch with your family? Before cell phones and video communication, how did you keep in touch?
Share below, or leave us a comment on our Facebook page.
Stem cells aid recovery from strokePublic release date: 27-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilary Glover hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com 44-020-319-22370 BioMed Central
Stem cells from bone marrow or fat improve recovery after stroke in rats, finds a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy. Treatment with stem cells improved the amount of brain and nerve repair and the ability of the animals to complete behavioural tasks.
Stem cell therapy holds promise for patients but there are many questions which need to be answered, regarding treatment protocols and which cell types to use. This research attempts to address some of these questions.
Rats were treated intravenously with stem cells or saline 30 minutes after a stroke. At 24 hours after stroke the stem cell treated rats showed a better functional recovery. By two weeks these animals had near normal scores in the tests. This improvement was seen even though the stem cells did not appear to migrate to the damaged area of brain. The treated rats also had higher levels of biomarkers implicated in brain repair including, the growth factor VEGF.
A positive result was seen for both fat (adipose) and bone-marrow derived stem cells. Dr Exuperio Dez-Tejedor from La Paz University Hospital, explained, "Improved recovery was seen regardless of origin of the stem cells, which may increase the usefulness of this treatment in human trials. Adipose-derived cells in particular are abundant and easy to collect without invasive surgery."
###
Media Contact
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Mob: 44-778-698-1967
Notes
1. Effects of intravenous administration of allogenic bone marrow- and adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells on functional recovery and brain repair markers in experimental ischemic stroke
Mara Gutirrez-Fernndez, Berta Rodrguez-Frutos, Jaime Ramos-Cejudo, M Teresa Vallejo-Cremades, Blanca Fuentes, Sebastin Cerdn and Exuperio Dez-Tejedor Stem Cell Research & Therapy (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2.Stem Cell Research & Therapy is the major forum for translational research into stem cell therapies. An international peer-reviewed journal, it publishes high quality open access research articles with a special emphasis on basic, translational and clinical research into stem cell therapeutics and regenerative therapies, including animal models and clinical trials. The journal also provides reviews, viewpoints, commentaries and reports.
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Stem cells aid recovery from strokePublic release date: 27-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilary Glover hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com 44-020-319-22370 BioMed Central
Stem cells from bone marrow or fat improve recovery after stroke in rats, finds a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy. Treatment with stem cells improved the amount of brain and nerve repair and the ability of the animals to complete behavioural tasks.
Stem cell therapy holds promise for patients but there are many questions which need to be answered, regarding treatment protocols and which cell types to use. This research attempts to address some of these questions.
Rats were treated intravenously with stem cells or saline 30 minutes after a stroke. At 24 hours after stroke the stem cell treated rats showed a better functional recovery. By two weeks these animals had near normal scores in the tests. This improvement was seen even though the stem cells did not appear to migrate to the damaged area of brain. The treated rats also had higher levels of biomarkers implicated in brain repair including, the growth factor VEGF.
A positive result was seen for both fat (adipose) and bone-marrow derived stem cells. Dr Exuperio Dez-Tejedor from La Paz University Hospital, explained, "Improved recovery was seen regardless of origin of the stem cells, which may increase the usefulness of this treatment in human trials. Adipose-derived cells in particular are abundant and easy to collect without invasive surgery."
###
Media Contact
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Mob: 44-778-698-1967
Notes
1. Effects of intravenous administration of allogenic bone marrow- and adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells on functional recovery and brain repair markers in experimental ischemic stroke
Mara Gutirrez-Fernndez, Berta Rodrguez-Frutos, Jaime Ramos-Cejudo, M Teresa Vallejo-Cremades, Blanca Fuentes, Sebastin Cerdn and Exuperio Dez-Tejedor Stem Cell Research & Therapy (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2.Stem Cell Research & Therapy is the major forum for translational research into stem cell therapies. An international peer-reviewed journal, it publishes high quality open access research articles with a special emphasis on basic, translational and clinical research into stem cell therapeutics and regenerative therapies, including animal models and clinical trials. The journal also provides reviews, viewpoints, commentaries and reports.
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
With his performance against Donald Cerrone on Saturday night, Anthony Pettis made a believer out of many fight fans. One of those who now thinks Pettis belongs in the title shot conversation is UFC president Dana White.
While the next bout for UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson is set with Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez in April, Pettis has set himself up as the obvious next man up.
"I think the Melendez fight is pretty set, but (Pettis is) next. I can't say enough things about the kid tonight. That was incredible," White said in the postfight press conference.
The last time Pettis had a title shot, he had a wrench thrown into the plans. Pettis won the WEC lightweight belt in the promotion's final fight. A title shot was promised to whoever had the belt when the WEC merged with the UFC.
But two weeks after Pettis won the belt, Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard faced off for the belt. They fought to a draw and Edgar kept the belt, but Maynard was given an immediate rematch.
Instead of waiting for the title shot then, Pettis fought Clay Guida. He lost a decision, and the title shot was gone. This time, he's not going to let the title shot slip through his hands.
"If it's a guaranteed title shot, then I'm waiting. That was my goal this year, and I'm definitely going to wait and get better," Pettis said.
The way title shots have been going in the UFC, there's no way to know if Pettis is making the right call. However, what Pettis is doing is setting himself up as the go-to guy if the UFC needs him. Melendez has had to postpone fights because of injuries in the past, and you never know what could happen as fighters prepare for their bouts.
At a moment when many angry Indians are demanding that the rapists of a young woman who died this week be hung, one group encourages women to tackle social attitudes.
By Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar,?Correspondent / January 4, 2013
An Indian student shouts slogans seeking punishment for rapists of the 23-year-old student, during a protest in Bangalore, India, Friday.
Aijaz Rahi/AP
Enlarge
Among the many anti-rape protests that have been held in Indian cities over the past few weeks, something has stood out at a demonstration this week: Protest signs that didn?t cry shame or call for the death penalty, but pledged personal action.
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?I pledge to intervene when I see a woman being harassed,? read one slogan on signs held by both men and women on New Year's Day. Another sign held by a young woman read, ?I pledge to stare back.??
The ?Safe City Pledge? demonstrations were organized by?a collective called Blank Noise, which has been talking about sexual harassment in India for almost a decade now.
It is that long experience, says founder Jasmeen Patheja, that accounts for their unusual slogans. Amid the calls for better policing to prevent violent crime against women, the group wanted to also highlight how everyone contributes to ? and can thus help change ? a culture of sexism.
?It?s easy to blame the government and the police, but they also represent certain social mindsets, attitudes that we may be perpetuating,? Ms. Patheja says.
In recent weeks, some of those attitudes have been on display as political and civic leaders have faulted Westernization (read: sexual permissiveness) for violence against women.
On Friday, a leader from a Hindu nationalist party said that rapes ?happen in India, not Bharat? (the Hindi name for the country), while another suggested that women are being punished for ?crossing the line.? A survey from earlier this year showed that a fair chunk of both Indian men and women believed that wife beating was acceptable. ? ? ? ? ??
A younger, urban generation isn?t necessarily free from these attitudes either. ?We may all contribute to the problem in invisible ways,? Patheja says. ?When we say ?Boys will be boys,? or when we share sexist jokes or make mothers and sisters part of [curse words].?
One of the most common problems that Indian women face is harassment in public spaces.
?Eve teasing,? the lighthearted term used for everything from lewd comments to groping to stalking, is so routine that when Patheja started Blank Noise as part of a virtual project at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore in 2003, she found few of her peers wanted to talk about it.
?There was a sense that it was just part of life, that there was nothing you could do about it,? she says. ? ? ? ? ???
Patheja and others started a blog to provide an anonymous space for women to share their experiences. They also began organizing public events. The idea was not to be an advocacy group, says Patheja, but to ?trigger a public dialogue that wasn?t didactic, through a series of approaches both blog-based and on-the-ground interventions.? Blank Noise also encouraged young women to confront street harassment in an effort to ?reclaim the city.?
That approach challenges the conventional idea that women should protect themselves by staying away from the public sphere, and a recent trend among the Indian middle-class to segregate themselves from chaotic urban environments through gated communities and private transport. Signs at Tuesday?s demonstration included pledges to ?use public transport even when private transport was available.?
Today, the Blank Noise project has a presence across nine cities, hundreds of volunteers and a large Facebook presence, though getting boots on the ground remains a challenge. More than 10,000 people were invited via Facebook to take part in Tuesday?s protest across the country.
In Mumbai, about 30 showed up. ?It?s easier to click ?like? and more difficult to get out on the street,? says Patheja. ?But we don?t worry much about that anymore. Even that one click means that someone has decided to engage.??
What is most important, she suggests, is the change she has seen in the past decade. Last month, the supreme court called for wide-ranging measures to curb harassment in public places.? ?There is now a greater willingness to talk about the issue,? she says, ?and less of an inclination to trivialize it.?
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Ten police officers, including the local counter-terrorism chief, were killed in a suicide bombing in northern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Shortly after 5 p.m. (1230 GMT) a man driving a motorbike detonated a large bomb at a busy roundabout in the north city of Kunduz near a group of police officers, provincial police chief spokesmanSayed Sarwar Hussaini said.
"As a result of a suicide attack 10 policemen were killed, including the head of the traffic department and the head of the counter-terrorism office," said Hussaini.
Four civilians and five other police officers were wounded in the bombing, he said.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack but militants, including the Taliban, are active in the area.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomber in a car killed at least five civilians and wounded 15 others when he attacked a NATO convoy in the north eastern province of Kapisa.
Responsibility for that attack was claimed by the Taliban via spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
Taliban militants have been waging an 11-year war against Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a U.S.-led NATO force.
(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Mohammad Qasim Nori; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Director General of CERN, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, gestures as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Director General of CERN, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, gestures as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Director General of CERN, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, gestures as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Participants leave the Congress Center the last day of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Keystone/Laurent Gillieron)
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) ? The world should know with certainty by the middle of this year whether a subatomic particle discovered by scientists is a long-sought Higgs boson, the head of the world's largest atom smasher said Saturday.
Rolf Heuer, director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said he is confident that "towards the middle of the year, we will be there." By then, he said reams of data from the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border near Geneva should have been assessed.
The timing could also help Scottish physicist Peter Higgs win a Noble Prize, Heuer said in an interview with The Associated Press in the Swiss resort of Davos.
CERN's atom smasher helped scientists declare in July their discovery of a new subatomic particle that Heuer calls "very, very like" a Higgs boson, that promises a new realm of understanding the universe.
The machine, which has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, is being put to rest early this year. The data from it, however, takes longer to analyze.
"Suppose the Higgs boson is a special snowflake. So you have to identify the snowflake, in a big snowstorm, in front of a background of snowfields," Heuer said by way of analogy. "That is very difficult. You need a tremendous amount of snowfall in order to identify the snowflakes and this is why it takes time."
He said the standard model of particle physics describes only 5 percent of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.
To explain how subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons and neutrons, were themselves formed, Higgs and others in the 1960s envisioned an energy field where particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.
The idea was that other particles attract Higgs bosons and the more they attract, the bigger their mass will be. But a big question remains: Is this new particle a variation of the Higgs boson, or the same as the Higgs boson that was predicted?
The phrase "God particle," coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, is used by laymen, not physicists, more as an explanation for how the subatomic universe works than how it all started.
"Now, if there is a deviation in one of the properties of this Higgs boson, that means we open a new window, for example, hopefully into the part of the dark universe, the 95 percent of the unknown universe," said Heuer.
"If you find the deviation," he added, "that means if it is not the ? but a ? Higgs boson, then we might find a fantastic window into the dark universe so we would make another giant leap from the visible to the dark."
PRAGUE (AP) ? A former left-leaning prime minister staged a big return to power Saturday by winning the Czech Republic's first directly elected presidential vote.
With all the votes counted, Milos Zeman won 54.8 percent of the vote for the largely ceremonial post, the Czech Statistics Office reported. His opponent, conservative Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, had 45.2 percent.
"Long live Zeman!" his supporters chanted at his campaign headquarters in Prague.
"I promise that as a president elected in a direct popular vote I will try to be the voice of all citizens," Zeman said.
Voters seemed to punish Schwarzenberg for the government's unpopular austerity cuts that aimed to reduce the budget deficit.
"It definitely didn't help me," Schwarzenberg said, adding he will continue to serve as foreign minister.
Since Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1993, the Czech Republic has had two presidents elected by Parliament: Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus. But bickering during those votes led lawmakers to give that decision to the public.
The 68-year-old Zeman will replace the euro-skeptic Klaus, whose second and final term ends March 7.
Zeman is considered more favorable toward the 27-nation European Union, to which the country belongs. People in his inner circle also have close business ties with Russia so "he might become an advocate of closer relations with Russia," said Josef Mlejnek, an analyst from Prague's Charles University.
Zeman is not opposed to pre-emptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and opposes Kosovo's independence.
In the campaign, one of the top issues became the 1945 expulsion of 3 million ethnic Germans from then-Czechoslovakia in a move approved by the Allies. Schwarzenberg said Czechs should not be proud of this action, prompting attacks from both Zeman and Klaus.
"Nationalism took over the campaign," said Mlejnek.
A chain smoker who likes a good drink, Zeman made international headlines as prime minister with his outspoken comments. He once compared the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Adolf Hitler, drawing condemnations from the EU and the Arab League, and called Austrians who opposed a Czech nuclear plant "idiots."
After the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., Zeman and his interior minister said they believed that hijacker Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2001. That purported meeting was cited as evidence of a possible al-Qaida connection to Iraq. The 9/11 commission later said such a meeting never happened.
In 2002, Zeman outraged German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder by calling ethnic those Germans "Hitler's fifth column." In protest, Schroeder canceled his official trip to Prague.
During his four years in office beginning in 1998, Zeman's government privatized the ailing bank sector but was criticized for a lack of transparency in privatizing state-owned property and for often failing to run public tenders for state contracts.
Under the Czech constitution, the president has the power to pick the prime minister after a general election and to appoint members of the Central Bank board. With the approval of Parliament's upper house, the president also appoints Constitutional Court judges.
Otherwise the president has little executive power and the country is run by the government chosen and led by the prime minister.
Cygnett makes a wide variety of cases for the iPad, and I recently had a chance to look at and try out a bunch of them.
The Lavish Earth Collection makes it easy to put your iPad in, secure it beautifully with velcro, prop it up with the multiview stand, and close it back again with magnetic smart cover action.
The Glam is also magnetic. Cygnett products are always beautiful and the Glam is soft and velvety. It's like the Lavish Earth but with a sheen. It's stitched all the way through, so it's built to last.
Alumi comes in a multitude of colors. It has a beautiful, soft finish, but also has a nice, handy pocket. It's also got the magnetic smart cover action.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc has inked two deals worth more than $2.68 billion this week as it accelerates its push to expand its wireless spectrum holdings to beef up capacity for high-speed services.
The No 2. U.S. mobile provider said on Friday that it agreed to buy wireless airwaves from Verizon Wireless for $1.9 billion in cash, plus spectrum licenses that it will contribute to Verizon Wireless in five markets.
The Verizon Wireless deal was announced just days after AT&T said it will pay $780 million in cash to buy Atlantic Tele-Network Inc's Alltel wireless business, which includes spectrum and 585,000 customers.
These deals follow 2012, a year in which the company forged a total of 50 spectrum deals that increased its national spectrum holdings by a third, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said during the company's quarterly conference call on Thursday.
The operator, which needs to catch up with Verizon Wireless in a high-speed wireless network upgrade, has been seeking smaller spectrum deals since the failure in late 2011 of its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, due to regulatory opposition.
AT&T, Verizon Wireless and their smaller rivals are all looking to bolster their capacity so they can profit from increasing consumer demand for mobile internet services for smartphones, tablet computers and other devices.
Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said that the deal was positive for both companies and gives AT&T spectrum in important markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami.
"While on the surface this appears to be a rich price, we would note that the B block licenses that AT&T is acquiring are concentrated in major metropolitan markets," Fritzsche said.
The deals announced this week follow AT&T's August agreement to buy wireless company NextWave Wireless Inc for its spectrum holdings for $50 million and $550 million of debt.
AT&T said the Verizon Wireless licenses it is buying, for airwaves in the 700 megahertz spectrum range, cover a population of 42 million in 18 U.S. states.
It said it expects to close the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, in the second half of 2013.
Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc , committed to sell a chunk of spectrum last year while it was seeking approval for its agreement to buy spectrum from cable operators.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Steve Orlofsky and Phil Berlowitz)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney who built a reputation prosecuting white-collar criminals, terrorists and mobsters, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency has a lead role in implementing changes on Wall Street.
Obama also named Richard Cordray to stay on as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The president used a recess appointment last year to bypass congressional opposition and install the former Ohio attorney general as head of the bureau. That appointment expires at the end of this year.
White spent nearly a decade as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, handling an array of white-collar crimes and complex securities and financial fraud cases. She brought down mobster John Gotti and won convictions in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Obama said that experience makes White well-suited to implement legislation he championed to change the behavior on Wall Street.
"I'd say that's a pretty good run. You don't want to mess with Mary Jo," Obama said at the White House. "As one former SEC chairman said, Mary Jo does not intimidate easily, and that's important because she's got a big job ahead of her."
One of my favorite things to do in the world is to organize. Yes, I am weird. Scrapbook supplies to me are the funnest, prettiest, most special, and lovely things that I have / will ever see. I just love this hobby, this lifestyle of crafting, creating, and memory keeping. Since I love organizing and scrapbooking, scrapbook organization is so up my alley and something that I simply adore to do.
The new year always gets me super excited to clean, organize, and purge unwanted belongings. Recently, I have had many opportunities to do just that because my family and I moved to our new home last month. Although my Scrapbook studio is still not completed, I wanted to share with you some organizational ideas to get your year started off right.
*Disclaimer I am not a professional organizer or an always neat crafter, but when I am done with a project (or often times) many projects I have a bunch of systems that work?
for me and keep my space looking clean, fun, and motivational.
I believe the most important thing to consider when organizing your scrapbook space, whether it be a portable space going from a closet to the dining room table and back again, an office, a shed, a space in the family room, or your own studio, the most important thing is to organize your supplies in a way that makes sense to your scrapbooking process. Do not just type in scrapbook organization on *Pinterest and duplicate the first few things you see and automatically assume that will work best for you. Really think about it. Take either visual or mental notes of how you create for at least a month (if you create consistently) and notice things such as; what do you do first? how do you look for your supplies-by color, manufacturer, type? What supplies do you use most often? Remember, there are no rights or wrongs here. Everyone is a unique individual so it makes sense that we would all create in a different way doesn't it?
*All of that being said, I adore Pinterest. Such a great site full of so many fabulous ideas?
in one place, my kind of place to hang out.?
Shimelle Laine aka Glitter Girl (sorry to ruin the surprise if you did not already know ;-) has so many fabulous videos that continually inspire me. You can find her on the Two Peas in a Bucket website, where every Wednesday she updates with a new Glitter Girl Scrapbooking Adventure. The last video of 2012 touched on some of the aforementioned organizational ideas- she also firmly believes that you should create using your own scrapbooking process as your guide. Here is a link to that video HERE. She also has her own blog where she shares all kinds of scrapbooking products and even more videos and you can find that HERE.
For my first installment of Scrapbook Organization Thursday (Preview Edition,?) I want to start with one specific zone in my scrapbook studio. I warn you, none of this is never-before-seen-stuff, but it is what works for me:?Clean, organized storage that I can enjoy looking at without it looking to crazy when not in use.?My organizational supplies are as follows; a basic JetMax white storage cubby for the wall, a curtain rod-turned punch holder below.
* My?JetMax?cubby was purchased at Michael's with a 50% off coupon and my?curtain rod is from Target.?
From top to bottom:?
Top shelf: Extra inks and sprays, stamp cleaner and brush, favorite confetti punch, and extra wood veneer that were too big to fit in my plastic containers.
Second shelf from top: Plastic containers filled with wood veneer.?The clear plastic containers that all of the wood veneer pieces are organized in are also from Michael's originally, but they are super old and I don't know if they carry them anymore. They were sold in the six pack and located adjacent to the JetMax cubes. I need to get a better close-up of the containers, but in the mean time, I sort all of my Studio Calico wood veneer by type into each plastic container and then use Glossy Accents to adhere one veneer to the outside. That way even if all of the veneer are laying flat in any random container, I can still tell what type is in each container by just looking at the side of the container. Hopefully that made sense. You could use Mason Jars, any other bell type jar, or really anything to store smaller like-item embellishments in this manner. They don't have to be on a wall cubby either, I have seen many similar systems stored in tiered racks or on bookcases, or just out on a table. Whatever works for you and makes sense to your creative process is great.
Third shelf: Zing embossing powder and my trusty ol' Creative Memories Square Punch, do any of you still have one? I still think it is awesome.
Fourth Shelf: Studio Calico Mister Huey
Fifth Shelf: American Crafts Glitter Ribbon and more wood veneer in the same plastic containers.
And a close-up of my three favorites (well those three and enamel dots) Ooooh, ahhhh, oooh, aaaahhh!
FYI: ?I just "might (cough, cough) be hosting another giveaway next week for blog followers and if so this is what I would be giving away (cough, cough.") Are you following my blog yet? I will be hosting two giveaways a month, every month of 2013, as a way to say thank you to a hobby that I adore, as well as to say I just love you fellow crafters to many of the amazing scrapbookers I have met online.
Thank you so much for stopping by today. That is all I will share with you organization-wise for today, but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Also if you have any organization ideas or links you want me to check out, or other scrapbook organization topics you would like me to cover, please post here, I would love to see what works for you, or what you have your eye on . I looooooovveee scrapbook organization, can you tell?
Here's a stat that's getting a lot of attention today.
According to a new report from Spain's Institution Of National Statistics, youth unemployment is about to break 60%.
Specifically, youth unemployment is at 59.8%, according to the report.
It was merely at 50% early last year.
It's a totally cliched thought at this point, but turning around the actual Eurozone economies is a huge and urgent challenge, which if not addressed will destroy the legitimacy of all these governments.
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This article can help you go from your goal of a bigger network, to reaching ultimate success using multilevel marketing. It is important that you review the information in this article carefully.
Incorporate social networks into your marketing strategies. You should focus your efforts on pages and groups that are specific to your products and customer base. Create separate webpages on social networking sites featuring each one of your products.
When planning for an emergency, take what you spend each month and multiply that by nine. You can use multi-level marketing to build that nest egg and then move on to even greater results!
TIP! You should look at network marketing like it is your business venture. If you do not treat it with respect and take it seriously, then you will fail.
New techniques and information will help your business grow. Be sure to do research and stay up to date on MLM, general business and social media, as well as the latest trends in your specific field. Webinars held by network marketers that are successful are a great way to teach you new information. At a certain point, you can then pass your knowledge on to others as well.
Customers come first when it comes to multilevel marketing. A business with unsatisfied customers will quickly find itself no longer in business. You should aim to listen around 80% of the time and talk for the remaining 20%.
Creating a budget for both your business and personal life is key to becoming a successful network marketer. This can help you to improve the quality of your business and ensure that you have enough resources during the year. A budget is the perfect tool for striking the right balance so that you spend neither too much nor too little.
TIP! You should always encourage the down line to help you communicate and participate. Are they confused and overwhelmed? Do they have some other issue? Get to know the members of your network by encouraging questions and being willing to assist in resolving issues.
Network marketing should be seen as a battle to sign up more people. Focus on different ways that you can help people through your work, then move forward.
Think about paying someone else to carry out your MLM plans and campaigns for you. You might be limited in manpower and resources and this would help with your advertising. This will give you more time for other activities related to your business.
A common multi-level marketing tip that everyone knows but still bears mentioning is to set goals for yourself. Regardless of the specific MLM strategies that you use, you should always have goals that you can meet. Having these goals in front of you will help push you to achieve them.
TIP! Your initial contact with a potential network marketing client might come from a voicemail message, so make sure your outgoing message is used well. Make the message simple, clear and to the point.
When talking with a MLM lead, you should never shake your head. Always nod your head and remain positive. Keep your body language positive too. )
In order to be as successful as you can be with MLM, you have to be open to new ideas. Staying open-minded all the time will allow you to be in a better place to do better business.
TIP! Everybody loves a good deal! Look for a company in network marketing that gives you coupons to distribute to your customers. Coupons are pretty versatile.
Don?t cut corners when you are in the field of multi-level marketing, as this will lead to disaster further down the road. Do not take short cuts, as you will have to put in hard work and effort to succeed at multi-level marketing. Favorable results are only possible through high-quality work.
Be patient if you?ve just started in this type of business. It is not uncommon for some to get discouraged and give up quickly in the beginning. Your first few months are extremely important as to whether your business will succeed or not. You may have a slow beginning, but you will notice your multi-level marketing business slowly gaining speed over time.
Try to avoid distractions that waste your time. The temptation to do things other than work is ever-present when your work is Internet based. Set up a schedule for your work, and focus on meeting your deadlines.
TIP! Network marketing can be a game where you fight to sign up the most people. Instead, look at what you can do to help others, and then work from there.
Construct your site to educate its visitors on your product. By setting up this tutorial, you will not only push more traffic to your website, you will also extend the time users stay there. When you practice these techniques, you will gain new members in your network and increase advertising revenue.
Look to others? success stories as excellent learning opportunities. Look to the organization?s leaders for inspiration and motivation. Find out what works and use it to develop your own network marketing strategy. If you do what they do it can only help you out in the end. Learn from the success of others, and use your mistakes as a learning process.
Be honest about your intentions. Is multilevel marketing a hobby for you? You will be able to determine how much efforts you are ready to put into network marketing if you know what it means to you.
TIP! You should always try and visualize your success when you are dealing with network marketing. It is important to note that your success is directly related to your network size.
Multi-level marketing is a new frontier; don?t get lost before you find success. Use this information wisely, and you could be on your way to becoming a very successful network marketer.
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) ? A Kremlin plan to turn a St. Petersburg hospital that specializes in treating children with cancer into a medical center for Russia's top judges was shelved Wednesday, marking a rare occasion when the government appeared to bow to public pressure.
The intention to turn City Hospital No. 31 into a clinic that would exclusively serve judges and staff of the Supreme Court and other high courts when they are relocated to St. Petersburg from Moscow caused widespread public dismay.
More than 100,000 people signed a petition to President Vladimir Putin, a city native, urging him to scrap the plan. Among those who signed were prominent figures from the worlds of art and sciences, including physicist Zhores Alfyorov, a Nobel Prize winner who is a member of Russia's parliament.
On Wednesday, the St. Petersburg governor's office said the hospital would continue to serve patients and insisted there was no plan to change its location or profile. The Kremlin's property department also issued assurances that the hospital, located on prestigious Krestovsky Island, would not be used to serve judges of the top courts.
Even so, about 1,500 people took part in a planned evening protest, with some saying they did not trust officials not to go back on their word. Braving a bitter winter wind, they held up signs that said: "Children are more important than bureaucrats" and "You want to kill the hospital, but you will kill children instead."
"Even a one-day break in the work of the hospital is a potential murder," said protester Anna Ivanova, a 29-year-old pediatrician who trained with the hospital's doctors.
"I'm sure that it is only the fact that people have come out to defend the hospital that it might be saved," said Nadezhda Dankova, a 32-year-old pediatric nurse.
Yelena Grachyova, coordinator of a charity foundation that helps children and adults suffering from cancer, said the timing of the government's about-turn was clearly aimed at thwarting the protest rally, which organizers had hoped would attract thousands. Grachyova said there had been previous attempts to take over the hospital because of the prime real estate it occupies, and she called for legal guarantees protecting it and other hospitals and schools on city property.
Other unpopular projects in St. Petersburg also have been scuttled or changed in recent years in the face of public opposition. In 2010, Gazprom was forced to abandon plans to build a glass skyscraper in the city's historical center.
Putin, however, has generally ignored opposition demands and avoided giving any ground on controversial issues, apparently seeing it as a sign of weakness. His decision last month to sign a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children came despite widespread public outrage.
Putin has not weighed in on the hospital controversy.
In Soviet times, Hospital No. 31 provided medical treatment for privileged Soviet bureaucrats. Similar specialized clinics for the Communist Party elite existed elsewhere as well.
During the democratic reforms of the 1980s, the hospital was handed over to the city, with preference to be given to World War II veterans. The children's oncology clinic also was established.
"Twenty years ago it seemed obvious that the privileged St. Petersburg residents were precisely children and elderly people. We hope this is not in doubt now," the petition to Putin says.
Moscow has numerous hospitals that serve the presidential administration or a certain government ministry, a tradition carried down from Soviet times. Today, however, the medical services also are available to other residents on a paid basis.
Android smartphones, led by Samsung, were the overall winner in the crucial holiday sales period at the end of last year, although Apple's iPhone continues to shine in the U.S. as well as Japan, according to the latest numbers out from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, a division of WPP that tracks handset sales in a number of key markets over a rolling, 12-week period. It also found that while handsets built on Microsoft's Windows Phone OS continue to struggle in markets like the U.S., they are showing small signs of growth in Europe -- although we're still talking about single-digit percentages in almost all cases.
Often customers who come to us for Tooway satellite broadband are fairly new to the concept of a broadband internet connection, and what it can do for them. One of the first questions we?re asked by new internet users is ?what?s the difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet?? Aren?t they the same thing?
Actually they?re not, but in terms of popular culture people tend to refer to them as one. The internet is in fact the system of globally linked and networked computers that enable us to send email, and to retrieve information from computers that could be sitting on the other side of the world to us. Its what enables us to access the World Wide Web, a kind of ?network of networks? linked together by a vital conduit, broadband communications.
The World Wide Web on the other hand is the basis of the information itself that we seek out when we carry out an online search. It?s a system of billions of interlinked hypertext pages, put online in a common form to allow you to access and download them via a web browser. It can contain other media like photos or video, and you can find your way through all the data via a series of hyperlinks which stitch all the information together in a logical way.
So much for the basics, what else can we expect to see happening and trending in the way the web works in 2013?
Well the way we use the web and the internet is changing, and changing fast. The proliferation of smart phones and small tablet computers mean that an increasingly large percentage of users are accessing the web via mobile and wireless devices and not traditional PC?s. This means that website owners and designers increasingly have to consider maintaining 2, if not 3 different versions of their websites to ensure that their content or product can be viewed easily by their audience.
As a consequence advertising and how we get to know about products is changing. Web advertising is diverging into 3 separate channels; one for desktop and laptop users with decent sized screens, and with separate ads, marketing and messaging for both smart phone users, and tablet users.
Giving access to information and products is becoming increasingly driven by apps. These small software programs designed to run on tablets and smart phones mean that even non-technical and new users of the web can quickly become engaged in things they?re interested in. Whilst Apple has defined the standard and market for apps, due to the success of its incredibly popular iPhone, the biggest change in online computing in 2013 will be coming from our friends in Mountain View, California.
Google has today announced that for the first time its revenues in 2012 exceeded $50 billion for the first time. Not bad from a standing start in 15 years. It?s common knowledge that Google now shapes the way we use computers and the web much as Microsoft did 20 years ago, but there?s something new brewing which not many people have seen coming. Google has performed the ultimate Trojan horse manoeuvre and the consequences of their skulduggery will become apparent this year.
Google has spent billions of dollars developing its free browser Chrome which it pushes to everyone every day when they search using Google search. Chrome now has around 20% of the search engine market with around 350 million users. But not many people know that in giving us Chrome, Google has cleverly developed and implanted its own operating system running on top of those of its main competitors, Microsoft and Apple.
Very shortly Google will start to push Chrome apps, and suddenly that Google desktop that Chrome offers you will be full of exciting new applications that look very similar to Apple apps, but that will look native to whichever operating system you use. Very quietly back in October 2012, Google released Google Packaged Apps. This lets developers build desktop apps powered by Chrome. These can be installed with one-click from the Chrome Web Store, access system APIs such as Bluetooth USB and can be opened via standard desktop shortcuts.
Google Chrome Apps ? the way of things to come
As ever, with the relentless march of new technology, you could argue there?s good and bad sides to this. In some ways, these new app hybrids combine the very best the web and desktop worlds. On the other side the downwards trend in advertising revenues for traditional media like newspapers and magazines that haven?t adapted well to the online world will accelerate its already fatal dive, and Google?s stranglehold on the web will become even more invincible.
From our perspective here at ToowayDirect, we?re happy to play our small but important part in giving eager consumers who can?t access broadband over wires super-fast broadband, wherever in Europe they?re located.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa will likely miss its target of creating five million jobs by 2020, given labor strife and strained relations between the government and private firms, a newspaper quoted a deputy minister as saying.
"We are not going to achieve them (job targets) if we don't systematically look at priority sectors," Economic Development Deputy Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize told Business Day in an interview - marking the first such public admission by a government minister.
President Jacob Zuma's government has pushed a major development plan to slash unemployment to 15 percent from 25 percent over seven years, but economic growth remains far below the levels needed to reduce the problem, carving deep social divisions in Africa's largest economy.
Referring to one priority sector, Mkhize said often-violent wildcat strikes in recent months and the threat of job losses at some of the country's mines stand in the way of creating jobs.
Two major mining firms are looking to slash jobs due to labor strife with Anglo American Platinum, the largest producer of the precious metal, planning to mothball some of its operations and cut some 14,000 jobs.
Harmony Gold, South Africa's third-largest gold producer also plans to mothball its Kusasalethu mine, which could lead to 6,000 job losses.
Zuma's ruling African National Congress has severely criticized the moves and threatened to review mining licenses.
The possibility of further job losses has kept tensions simmering in the mining sector after strikes last year left more than 50 people dead and shaved off about 0.5 percentage points from the country's 2012 economic growth.
The Treasury has forecast growth of 3 percent this year from 2.5 percent in 2012, far below the 7 percent the country needs to significantly reduce the jobless rate.
(Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by Jon Herskovitz, John Stonestreet)
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With his performance against Donald Cerrone on Saturday night, Anthony Pettis made a believer out of many fight fans. One of those who now thinks Pettis belongs in the title shot conversation is UFC president Dana White.
Android smartphones, led by Samsung, were the overall winner in the crucial holiday sales period at the end of last year, although Apple's iPhone continues to shine in the U.S. as well as Japan, according to the latest numbers out from 