Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288553163?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Kerry says US releasing millions in aid to Egypt
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, shakes hands with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt on Sunday, March 3, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Egypt's president Sunday, wrapping up a visit to the deeply divided country with an appeal for unity and reform. The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, shakes hands with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt on Sunday, March 3, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Egypt's president Sunday, wrapping up a visit to the deeply divided country with an appeal for unity and reform. The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry waves goodbye as he leaves Cairo, Egypt en route to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, March 3, 2013. Kerry met with Egypt's president Sunday, wrapping up a visit to the deeply divided country with an appeal for unity and reform. The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr, left, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi take their seats at the starts of their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt on Sunday, March 3, 2013. Kerry met with Egypt's president Sunday, wrapping up a visit to the deeply divided country with an appeal for unity and reform. The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt on Sunday, March 3, 2013. Kerry met with Egypt's president Sunday, wrapping up a visit to the deeply divided country with an appeal for unity and reform. The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, walks with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, on arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, March 3, 2013. Saudi Arabia is the seventh leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
CAIRO (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi's pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country's "future as a democracy."
Yet Kerry also served notice that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that additional U.S. assistance would depend on it.
"The path to that future has clearly been difficult and much work remains," Kerry said in a statement after wrapping up two days of meetings in Egypt, a deeply divided country in the wake of the revolution that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt is trying to meet conditions to close on a $4.8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund. An agreement would unlock more of the $1 billion in U.S. assistance promised by President Barack Obama last year and set to begin flowing with Kerry's announcement.
"The United States can and wants to do more," Kerry said. "Reaching an agreement with the IMF will require further effort on the part of the Egyptian government and broad support for reform by all Egyptians. When Egypt takes the difficult steps to strengthen its economy and build political unity and justice, we will work with our Congress at home on additional support."
Kerry cited Egypt's "extreme needs" and Morsi's "assurances that he plans to complete the IMF process" when he told the president that the U.S. would provide $190 million of a long-term $450 million pledge "in a good-faith effort to spur reform and help the Egyptian people at this difficult time." The release of the rest of the $450 million and the other $550 million tranche of the $1 billion that Obama announced will be tied to successful reforms, officials said.
Separately, the top U.S. diplomat announced $60 million for a new fund for "direct support of key engines of democratic change," including Egypt's entrepreneurs and its young people. Kerry held out the prospect of U.S. assistance to this fund climbing to $300 million over time.
Recapping his meetings with political figures, business leaders and representatives of outside groups, Kerry said he heard of their "deep concern about the political course of their country, the need to strengthen human rights protections, justice and the rule of law, and their fundamental anxiety about the economic future of Egypt."
Those issues came up in "a very candid and constructive manner" during Kerry's talks with Morsi.
"It is clear that more hard work and compromise will be required to restore unity, political stability and economic health to Egypt," Kerry said.
Syria and Iran were topics of discussion, according to officials.
With parliamentary elections in April approaching and liberal and secular opponents of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood saying they will boycott, Kerry called the vote "a particularly critical step" in Egypt's democratic transition.
Violent clashes between protesters and security forces have created an environment of insecurity, complicating Egyptian efforts to secure vital international aid.
Officials in the Egyptian presidency said Kerry stressed the need for consensus with the opposition in order to restore confidence in Egypt that it can ride out the crisis. Morsi was reported to have expressed the importance of Egypt's relationship with United States, which is based on "mutual respect," and focused on the importance of the democratic process in building a strong and stable nation.
Kerry made clear that in all his meetings, he conveyed the message that Egyptians who rose up and overthrew Mubarak "did not risk their lives to see that opportunity for a brighter future squandered."
On Saturday, he told the country's bickering politicians that they must overcome differences to get Egypt's faltering economy back on track and maintain its leadership role in the volatile Middle East.
The U.S. is deeply concerned that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest.
U.S. officials said Kerry planned to stress the importance of upholding Egypt's peace agreement with Israel, cracking down on weapons smuggling to extremists in the Gaza Strip and policing the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula while continuing to play a positive role in Syria's civil war.
The impact of Kerry's message of unity to the opposition coalition seemingly was blunted when only six of the 11 guests invited by the U.S. Embassy turned up for a Saturday session with him and three of those six said they still intended to boycott the April parliamentary election, according to participants.
Kerry said that the U.S. would not pick sides in Egypt, and he appealed to all sides to come together around human rights, freedom and speech and religious tolerance.
In an apparent nod to the current stalemate in Washington over the U.S. federal budget, Kerry acknowledged after meeting Foreign Minister Kamel Amr that compromise is difficult yet imperative.
"I say with both humility and with a great deal of respect that getting there requires a genuine give-and-take among Egypt's political leaders and civil society groups just as we are continuing to struggle with that in our own country," he said. 'There must be a willingness on all sides to make meaningful compromises on the issues that matter most to all of the Egyptian people."
The opposition accuses Morsi and the Brotherhood of following in the footsteps of Mubarak, failing to carry out reforms and trying to install a more religiously conservative system.
Morsi's administration and the Brotherhood say their foes, who have trailed significantly behind Islamists in all elections since the uprising against Mubarak, are running away from the challenge of the ballot box and are trying to overturn democratic gains.
After meeting Morsi and his defense and intelligence chiefs on Sunday, Kerry flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and planned later stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where his focus is expected to be the crisis in Syria and Iran.
Kerry is set to return to Washington on Wednesday.
___
Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy contributed to this report.
___
Online:
State Department: http://www.state.gov/secretary/travel/2013/205086.htm
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The 'Great Rotation' Out Of Investing - Business Insider
Since 2004,?interest in 'stocks' and 'bonds' has plunged by more than 50%. Despite a renaissance for bonds in 2008, and stocks in 2009, the 'Great Rotation' appears to be 'out of investing'. Google Trends also shows that, as expected, 'Bonds' have been more popular than 'Stocks' since the crash - a development the Fed is so desperately trying to reverse, by imposing ever stricter central planning, ironically the reason why most have "just said no" to an?authoritarian, inefficient, and farcical policy instrument formerly known as the market. Is it any wonder so many retail brokerages, commission-takers, and asset-gatherers are advertising day-in, day-out and constantly reassuring with the "it'll all be 'ok' in the long-run" meme?
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-great-rotation-out-of-investing-2013-3
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
Mars trip to use astronaut poo as radiation shield
The man and woman aboard the Inspiration Mars mission set to fly-by the Red Planet in 2018
will face cramped conditions, muscle atrophy and potential boredom. But their greatest health risk comes from exposure to the radiation from cosmic rays. The solution? Line the spacecraft's walls with water, food and their own faeces.
"It's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding," says Taber MacCallum, a member of the team funded by multimillionaire Dennis Tito, who announced the audacious plan earlier this week.
McCallum told New Scientist that solid and liquid human waste products would get put into bags and used as a radiation shield ? as well as being dehydrated so that any water can be recycled for drinking. "Dehydrate them as much as possible, because we need to get the water back," he said. "Those solid waste products get put into a bag, put right back against the wall."
Food too, could be used as a shield, he said. "Food is going to be stored all around the walls of the spacecraft, because food is good radiation shielding," he said. This wouldn't be dangerous as the food would merely be blocking the radiation, it wouldn't become a radioactive source.
Water 1 ? Metals 0
The details of Inspiration Mars's plans have yet to be clarified, but the team has said it will be using "state-of-the-art technologies derived from NASA and the International Space Station".
One idea that is already under consideration by the agency's Innovative Advanced Concepts programme, which funds research into futuristic space technology, is a project called Water Walls, which combines life-support and waste-processing systems with radiation shielding.
Water has long been suggested as a shielding material for interplanetary space missions. "Water is better than metals for protection," says Marco Durante of the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. That's because nuclei are the things that block cosmic rays, and water molecules, made of three small atoms, contain more nuclei per volume than a metal.
Water shielding also has another benefit ? you can drink it. Such dual use is essential aboard a spacecraft, where space is at a premium. Applying this rationale, the Water Walls concept involves polyethylene bags that use osmosis to process clean drinking water from urine and faeces.
Sights and smells
Lining the walls of a spacecraft with layers of these bags creates a 40-centimetre-thick liquid shield. All of the bags would initially be filled with drinking water. The crew would then fill other bags with waste during the trip to Mars and swap them out for the now-empty water bags.
The osmosis-based processing is much simpler than the automated life-support systems aboard the International Space Station, making it less likely to fail during the long ride to Mars.
However, there are problems to be ironed out. The urine-to-water processing bags were tested in orbit on the last ever flight of the space shuttle in 2011 and found to be 50 per cent less efficient in microgravity than in ground-based tests.
Besides testing that the various bags work properly, the Water Walls team points out the more basic worry of dealing with the residual sights and smells. MacCallum made a similar point about the system to be used on Inspiration Mars: "Hopefully they're not clear bags," he said.
Solar danger
Not all bags need be equally unpleasant, though. The Water Walls concept also includes bags that scrub carbon dioxide from air, regulate temperature and grow algae for food ? although NASA hasn't yet taken those to space.
Inspiration Mars also plans to have an external water tank and the aluminium skin of the spacecraft itself for extra protection. This kind of shielding should keep astronauts safe from lower energy cosmic rays, says Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, UK, who is working on creating magnetic "deflector shields" for spacecraft.
Organic material or aluminium is no defence against the burst of particles that occasionally spew out from the sun during a solar storm, however. "For this, putting three metres of concrete may not be enough to protect the astronauts," says Bamford. Inspiration Mars say they should be able to keep the upper rocket stage of their launch vehicle attached to the spacecraft for the whole of the trip, and point that towards the sun in the event of a flare.
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Evernote issues site-wide password reset after hackers access user details
Popular cross-platform note-storing service Evernote has revealed in a blog post that it has been the subject of hacking attacks. The operations and security team is keen to point out that there is no evidence that any stored notes and content was accessed, but that some user information -- including passwords and emails -- were. The data breached does benefit from one-way encryption (hashed and salted), but the firm is issuing a site-wide password reset just in case. In short, all users of the site will be required to set a new password, and are advised to log-in as soon as possible to do so. For more details and updates, we suggest keeping a close eye on Evernote's official blog and twitter. Both of which can be found below.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Evernote Blog, Evernote (Twitter)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/02/evernote-hacked/
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Finding An Accommodation In The Lively Noosa Region
The Noosa region, located in the southeastern part of Australia, is a naturally attractive tourist destination made famous by stunning beaches, lively waterfronts and hinterlands with the natives leading a very casual and friendly way of life. This region is blessed to be engulfed with strikingly beautiful destinations that are present on the itinerary of every tour guide, no matter which one you book. The moderate climate throughout the year only adds to the charm of this vacation spot. This is one place where you can discover nature in its purest form with beaches that allow you to sit on shining sand and take a dip in clear blue waters.
Theres no dearth of beaches, since Noosa is located on the coast. Coolum, Sunshine and Noosa North Shore are a few popular beaches that are sprinkled with some amazing cafs where one can start their day with a filling breakfast. You can enjoy a few fish dishes if you like fish as this coastal region is known for its unique preparation of fish. At one end of the coast lies the Noosa National Park, which is home to several exotic species of birds and animals and a haven for trail lovers. One can enjoy walks through the national park and discover some hidden treasures of nature. It would be good if you could just carry along a camera and try your hand at some amateur photography of some stunning destinations.
Being a tourist destination, theres no shortage of hotels in Noosa. One can find accommodation Noosa with ease by either consulting the locals on arrival or even pre-book much prior to their date of stay to make sure that they dont fall short of a room. As such, theres no shortage of accommodation in Noosa but the available rooms might not fit in your budget, or those available might be way too below your standards. Its always better to do some research prior to arriving here. A good way to decide on the accommodation is by using the internet. If youre using a third party website to book your flight tickets, you can use the same flight for booking your hotel or apartments Noosa as well. Booking hotels and flights in combination is always cheaper.
Another good way is to look up for the website of a Noosa based travel agency. Since they are based in the city, chances are that they are well connected with various hotels and thus, can get you good discounted rates. Hotels in this area offer world class amenities, professional service and sumptuous meals throughout the day. The meals may or may not be a part of the complementary package but breakfasts usually are a part of complementary benefits.
About the Author:
Read more about cheap accommodation Melbourne, hotels in Wollongong and hotels in Noosa. Visit @ www.ourrooms.com.au
Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Finding-An-Accommodation-In-The-Lively-Noosa-Region/4462370
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