Iran candidate list for presidential race

AAA??May. 21, 2013?3:32 PM ET
Iran candidate list for presidential race
By The Associated Press??By The Associated Press

COMBO - This combination of eight pictures shows eight candidates approved Tuesday, May 21, 2013 for Iran's June 14 presidential election to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run again because of term limits, clockwise from left: Mohammad Gharazi, Mohsen Rezaei, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Saeed Jalili, Ali Akbar Velayati, and Hasan Rowhani, taken between May 9 and May 11, 2013. (AP Photo)

COMBO - This combination of eight pictures shows eight candidates approved Tuesday, May 21, 2013 for Iran's June 14 presidential election to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run again because of term limits, clockwise from left: Mohammad Gharazi, Mohsen Rezaei, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Saeed Jalili, Ali Akbar Velayati, and Hasan Rowhani, taken between May 9 and May 11, 2013. (AP Photo)

In this photo taken on Saturday, May 11, 2013, conservative former Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shows his inked finger to media as he registers his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran. He was selected Tuesday, May 21, 2013 as one of eight candidates allowed to push ahead with his presidential bid. Velayati, 67, served as foreign minister during the 1980-88 war with Iraq and into the 1990s. He is a physician and runs a hospital in north Tehran. He was among the suspects named by Argentina in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

In this photo taken on Saturday, May 11, 2013, Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard commander, waves to media, after registering his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran. He was selected Tuesday, May 21, 2013 as one of eight candidates allowed to push ahead with his presidential bid. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

In this picture taken on Tuesday, May 7, 2013, former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani speaks with media after registering his candidacy for upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry, in Tehran, Iran. He was selected Tuesday, May 21, 2013 as one of eight candidates allowed to push ahead with his presidential bid. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this photo taken on Friday, May 10, 2013, pro-reform former Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref, waves to media during his press conference, after registering his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran. He was selected Tuesday, May 21, 2013 as one of eight candidates allowed to push ahead with his presidential bid. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The eight candidates approved Tuesday for Iran's June 14 presidential election to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run again because of term limits.

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ALI AKBAR VELAYATI: Top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on international affairs. Velayati, 67, served as foreign minister during the 1980-88 war with Iraq and into the 1990s. He is a physician and runs a hospital in north Tehran. He was among the suspects named by Argentina in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

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MOHAMMAD BAGHER QALIBAF: Tehran mayor and former commander of the Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war. Qalibaf, 51, is a pilot who enjoys good relations with Khamenei.

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HASAN ROWHANI: A former nuclear negotiator and Khamenei's representative at the Supreme National Security Council, which also handles the nuclear dossier. Rowhani, 64, is a British-educated cleric.

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MOHAMMAD REZA AREF: Liberal-leaning former vice president under reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Aref, 61, a former Tehran University chancellor, vowed to drop out of race if Khatami decides to run.

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MOHSEN REZAEI: Former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guard. Rezaei, 58, ran in 2009, but finished fourth. He currently is secretary of the Expediency Council, which mediates between the parliament and Guardian Council.

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SAEED JALILI: Iran's top nuclear negotiator since 2007. Jalili, 47, began his career as a diplomat in 1991. He has the support of ultraconservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who was previously seen as Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor.

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GHOLAM ALI HADDAD ADEL: A 68-year-old former parliament speaker, who is currently a member of the Expediency Council and considered a strong conservative voice. His daughter is married to Khamenei's son.

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MOHAMMAD GHARAZI: A former oil and telecommunications minister. Gharazi, 71, also served in parliament in the 1980s and '90s. He is considered conservative and portrays himself as a steady-handed technocrat.

Associated Press

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MessageMe chat app amasses 5 million users in 75 days across Android and iOS

Between WhatsApp, Viber, Google+ Hangouts and a raft of others, the mobile messaging app space is crowded, but recent entrant MessageMe has still managed to make notable headway. After a mere 75 days since its launch, the application has amassed 5 million registered users, up from 1 million in its first ten days. Now, the software is churning out an average of 1,500 notifications per second and handling approximately eight image uploads each second.

For the uninitiated, the app is attempting to woo chatty folks on Android and iOS away from its rivals with the ability to send pictures, doodles, videos, audio, music and location information between two people or a group of friends. Sticker- and money-sending features are poised to bring home the bacon for the firm, but CEO and co-founder Arjun Sethi recently told The Next Web that it doesn't plan to activate them just yet, as it's focusing on attracting more users first. If you're itching for another outlet to dispatch notes to pals, hit the bordering more coverage links to grab MessageMe.

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Moon or asteroid? Congress debates best Mars pit stop

NASA

A notional concept of a solar-electric-powered spacecraft, designed to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and relocate it safely close to the Earth-moon system so astronauts can explore it.

By Clara Moskowitz
Space.com

NASA's plan to lasso an asteroid for astronauts as a deep-space dry run for a future mission to Mars has some members of Congress wondering if the space agency would be better off setting its sights on the moon instead.

The asteroid mission was announced when President Barack Obama unveiled his 2014 NASA budget request. The scheme would have NASA use a robotic spacecraft to capture a roughly?23-foot-wide (7 meters) asteroid in deep space, and redirect it to an orbit closer to the moon. Once there, NASA would launch a human mission to rendezvous with the space rock and explore it.

But members of the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee expressed their skepticism of the plan during a hearing Tuesday to discuss NASA's ultimate goal of sending astronauts to Mars. The asteroid mission was proposed as an initial step toward that goal ? one that would test technologies needed for a Mars mission and allow crews to gain experience in deep space exploration. [How to Catch an?Asteroid: NASA?Mission?Explained (Infographic)]

Yet lawmakers questioned the mission's technical plan, budget and schedule. "I am not convinced this mission is the right way to go, and that it may actually become a detour for a Mars mission," said Rep. Steven Palazzo, R.-Miss.

NASA

An artist's concept of a possible colony on the moon.

Lunar legacy
Some members of Congress favored sending astronauts back to the moon instead.

"To me there is no better way for our astronauts to learn how to live and work on another planet than to use the moon as a training ground," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R.-Tex.

"It is difficult to determine what advantages this (asteroid mission) may offer," he added.

The moon plan was backed by some experts called to testify at the hearing. The moon is easier to get to, offers greater science objectives, and is a better testing ground for Mars exploration technology, compared to an asteroid, argued Paul Spudis, a geologist specializing in lunar science at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "This effort is not 'been there, done that,'" he said. "It is a wholly new, untried and necessary pioneering enterprise in space."

But one of the architects of the asteroid mission was there to defend the plan, which he said is a realistic near-term goal for NASA that advances its ultimate objective of going to Mars.

"The asteroid retrieval mission creates a first step beyond the moon ? the only one we are now capable of performing and the only one which we can afford within the current budget," said Louis Friedman, co-leader of the Keck Institute for Space Studies Asteroid Retrieval Mission Study and co-founder and executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Friedman was co-leader of the study on the asteroid mission concept?that sold the Obama administration and NASA on the idea.

NASA

Astronauts return samples from an asteroid to their Orion spacecraft while orbiting high above the moon in this still image from a video NASA's Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization mission.

Lure of an asteroid
In addition to providing a testing ground for new solar electric propulsion technologies that could prove useful in going to Mars, the asteroid mission would further scientists' understanding of the space rocks that populate our solar system ? some of which might need to be diverted from their orbits if they pose a risk of colliding with Earth, Friedman said. The asteroid chosen for retrieval, however, would be too small to be dangerous to our planet.

"Nonetheless, the asteroid is big enough to be an interesting object to explore," Friedman said. "We may someday have to divert one. Exploring them and discovering new ones is important."

"I believe this is the direct and only sustainable way to Mars," he added.

But not everyone was sold.

"It is a clever concept and such a mission would undoubtedly demonstrate technologies," said Douglas Cooke, former associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate who now owns the Cooke Concepts and Solutions consulting company.

However, Cooke said he wasn't clear on the mission's application to Mars exploration, and he questioned the decision-making process that arrived on the plan without involving enough of the space community.

"I think a healthy process gets inputs from your stakeholders in terms of objectives and goals," Cooke said. "I don't see that that's happened here."

Ultimately, many agreed that whatever plan NASA decides on, the space agency must be given the funding to achieve it.

"NASA is being asked to do too much with too little," said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University astronomer who is principal investigator of NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars. "This overtaxing of the agency is chronic, severe and it's getting worse."

Follow Clara Moskowitz on?Twitter?and?Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebook?and?Google+. Original article on?Space.com.

Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Actavis to buy Warner Chilcott in $5 billion stock deal

By Caroline Humer and Ransdell Pierson

(Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Actavis Inc, itself a recent takeover target, said on Monday it would buy specialty pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott Plc for $5 billion in stock to expand its branded drug portfolio, lower taxes and increase profits.

The Warner Chilcott acquisition brings two new businesses - gastroenterology and dermatology - and adds additional women's health drugs like branded contraceptives to Actavis, which makes and sells drugs that are no longer under patent protection.

This is the second major purchase in the past two years for Actavis, which competes against larger companies like Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd and Mylan Inc.

Actavis is following Teva's path to growth. In recent years, Teva, the largest generic drugmaker in the world, has turned to acquiring specialty branded drugs, which have far higher profit margins than generics, to boost earnings.

Actavis recently rejected a $15 billion, $120 per share takeover offer from Mylan and an approach from Canadian company Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc was put on hold, Reuters has reported based on sources familiar with the situation. Analysts have said that buying Warner Chilcott would kill the chances of a takeover of Actavis.

Actavis Chief Executive Officer Paul Bisaro said he would not comment on speculation when asked if Actavis had seriously considered selling itself. In a conference call with analysts, he said the Warner Chilcott purchase was both an expansion and smart tax move.

Mylan would have gotten more out of a deal than Actavis, Morningstar analyst Michael Waterhouse said. Actavis could have given Mylan reach in Eastern Europe and a nice pipeline of products, he said. Waterhouse had some concerns about Warner Chilcott's pipeline, which faces looming patent expirations.

Actavis shares rose on news of the deal, and were up 1.9 percent in Monday afternoon trading to $127.86, after hitting a new all-time high of $131.18 earlier in the session.

Gabelli & Co analyst Kevin Kedra said Actavis seemed to have pursued what they thought was the best deal for shareholders. "I never got the sense their CEO was a maintain control-at-all-odds kind of guy," Kedra said.

Actavis said the deal would add 30 percent to earnings per share in 2014, in part because it would pay lower taxes when it incorporates in Ireland, where Warner Chilcott is based.

"The longer-term benefit of a lower tax rate is that it allows you to acquire other companies at even better prices," said BMO Capital Markets analyst David Maris. He said he expected the company to continue with more deals - maybe even bigger ones - after digesting Warner Chilcott.

Maris said Actavis will also likely move to acquire branded products for neurological conditions and allergies from drugmakers in Europe, that have far higher profit margins than generic drugs.

This is the second major acquisition in a year for Actavis. Bisaro, who has been CEO of the company since 2007, helped build Watson Pharmaceuticals into Actavis after it bought the Swiss company late last year and then took its name. Actavis revenues, which were $4.6 billion in 2011, rose to $5.9 billion in 2012 and are expect to hit $11 billion after it buys Warner Chilcott.

$8.5 BILLION WITH DEBT

Warner Chilcott shareholders will receive 0.16 share of the combined company. The companies said that would equate to $20.08 per share, based on Actavis' closing share price of $125.50 on Friday.

The purchase price is a 34 percent premium to Warner Chilcott's closing share price of $15.01 on May 9, the day before the companies disclosed that they were in talks. Warner Chilcott shares since rose to close at $19.19 on Friday, narrowing the premium to less than 5 percent. The shares were up 2.2 percent to $19.64 in Monday afternoon trading.

Warner Chilcott turned down offers at higher prices last year, company executives said during the conference call with analysts. But it has since issued special dividends, they said.

Warner Chilcott will have about a 23 percent stake in Actavis after the deal.

The companies said the deal, including debt, was valued at $8.5 billion.

Actavis advisors were Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Greenhill. Warner Chilcott was advised by Deutsche Bank.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer and Ransdell Pierson in New York; Additional reporting by Jessica Toonkel in New York and Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Lisa Von Ahn and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/actavis-buy-warner-chilcott-8-5-billion-deal-112018951.html

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Evaluating a new way to open clogged arteries

May 21, 2013 ? Over the past few decades, scientists have developed many devices that can reopen clogged arteries, including angioplasty balloons and metallic stents. While generally effective, each of these treatments has drawbacks, including the risk of side effects.

A new study from MIT analyzes the potential usefulness of a new treatment that combines the benefits of angioplasty balloons and drug-releasing stents, but may pose fewer risks. With this new approach, a balloon is inflated in the artery for only a brief period, during which it releases a drug that prevents cells from accumulating and clogging the arteries over time.

While approved for limited use in Europe, these drug-coated balloons are still in development in the United States and have not received FDA approval. The MIT study, which models the behavior of the balloons, should help scientists optimize their performance and aid regulators in evaluating their effectiveness and safety.

"Until now, people who evaluate such technology could not distinguish hype from promise," says Elazer Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and senior author of the paper describing the study, which appeared online recently in the journal Circulation.

Lead author of the paper is Vijaya Kolachalama, a former MIT postdoc who is now a principal member of the technical staff at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Evolution of technology

Until the late 1970s, the standard treatment for patients with blocked arteries near the heart was bypass surgery. Doctors then turned to the much less invasive process of reopening arteries with angioplasty balloons. Angioplasty quickly became the standard treatment for narrowed arteries, but it is not always a long-term solution because the arteries can eventually collapse again.

To prevent that, scientists developed stents -- metal, cage-like structures that can hold an artery open indefinitely. However, these stents have problems of their own: When implanted, they provoke an immune response that can cause cells to accumulate near the stent and clog the artery again.

In 2003, the FDA approved the first drug-eluting stent for use in the United States, which releases drugs that prevent cells from clumping in the arteries. Drug-eluting stents are now the primary choice for treating blocked arteries, but they also have side effects: The drugs can cause blood to clot over time, which has led to death in some patients. Patients who receive these stents now need to take other medications, such as aspirin and Plavix, to counteract blood clotting.

Edelman's lab is investigating a possible alternative to the current treatments: drug-coated balloons. "We're trying to understand how and when this therapy could work and identify the conditions in which it may not," Kolachalama says. "It has its merits; it has some disadvantages."

Modeling drug release

The drug-coated balloons are delivered by a catheter and inflated at the narrowed artery for about 30 seconds, sometimes longer. During that time, the balloon coating, containing a drug such as Zotarolimus, is released from the balloon. The properties of the coating allow the drug to be absorbed in the body's tissues. Once the drug is released, the balloon is removed.

In their new study, Kolachalama, Edelman and colleagues set out to rigorously characterize the properties of the drug-coated balloons. After performing experiments in tissue grown in the lab and in pigs, they developed a computer model that explains the dynamics of drug release and distribution. They found that factors such as the size of the balloon, the duration of delivery time, and the composition of the drug coating all influence how long the drug stays at the injury site and how effectively it clears the arteries.

One significant finding is that when the drug is released, some of it sticks to the lining of the blood vessels. Over time, that drug is slowly released back into the tissue, which explains why the drug's effects last much longer than the initial 30-second release period.

"This is the first time we can explain the reasons why drug-coated balloons can work," Kolachalama says. "The study also offers areas where people can consider thinking about optimizing drug transfer and delivery."

In future studies, Edelman, Kolachalama and colleagues plan to further examine how blood flow affects drug delivery. They also plan to study a variety of different drugs and drug coating compositions, as well as how the balloons behave in different types of arteries.

The National Institutes of Health and Abbott Vascular funded the research.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/q4_1CBDKLMU/130521121513.htm

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Russian oligarchs foot most of 2014 Sochi Olympics

SOCHI, Russia (AP) ? The mountains of Sochi are now home to Potanin's slope, Gazprom's gondola lift and Sberbank's ski jump. The nicknames used by locals and an army of construction workers leave no doubt about who is paying for the 2014 Winter Games: Russia's business powerhouses.

Other countries that have hosted the Olympics have overwhelmingly used public funds to pay for the construction of needed venues and new infrastructure. The Russian government, however, has gotten state-controlled companies and tycoons to foot more than half of the bill, which now stands at $51 billion and makes the 2014 Winter Games by far the most expensive Olympics in history. In contrast, the much-larger 2012 Summer Olympics in London cost about $14.3 billion and the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing cost about $40 billion.

For President Vladimir Putin, the games have been a matter of pride. He has entrusted the country's top businessmen with Sochi's key projects. He himself is spending increasing amounts of time in the southern Russian city, hosting world leaders at his luxurious presidential palace.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister under Putin, described the tycoons' participation as a sort of tax imposed by the president.

"If you want to carry on doing business in Russia, here's the tax you need to pay ? the kind of a tax that he wants you to pay," Kasyanov, now an opposition leader, told The Associated Press.

This is particularly true of those like metals tycoons Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska, who made their fortunes in the rags-to-riches privatizations after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. For others who have grown fabulously wealthy since Putin came to power in 2000, the 2014 Olympics have been a chance to reap the profits through lucrative state contracts.

Most of the projects the tycoons are involved in are not profitable ? and many businessmen are making no secret of the losses they are incurring. But anyone who does business in Russia today is acutely aware of the importance of maintaining good relations with the government ? and especially with Putin. The tycoons remember well how Putin in 2008, with one verbal attack, sent the stock of metals company Mechel tumbling 40 percent, cutting $6 billion from its shareholder value.

"Russian big business is heavily dependent on the government and often has to follow Putin's requests and take on projects that are important for top officials," said Vladimir Milov, an economist and former deputy energy minister who also is now part of the anti-Putin opposition.

The tycoons and state-owned companies dismiss claims that they were pressured to invest in Sochi or that they did so in exchange for promises of preferential treatment.

Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer and a publicly traded company, said in a written statement to the AP that its work in Sochi is "both a business project and serious social responsibility." Gazprom's Sochi projects are vast. It is building a pipeline to bring gas supplies to the Sochi area, a power station in a Sochi suburb, an Alpine ski resort, one of the three Olympic villages and a cross-country skiing and biathlon center. Its total costs run to $3 billion.

Andrei Elinson, deputy general director at Deripaska's Basic Element investment vehicle, insists its Sochi projects were all designed to be profitable. The company is building an Olympic village and a seaport and has just finished revamping the Sochi airport, for a combined cost of $1.4 billion.

"We are a strategic investor in the area. We believe in the development of the area on the whole," Elinson said. After the games, Basic Element plans to convert the Olympic village into apartments and the sea port into a marina.

Even so, some tycoons are grumbling that they have been hit up with unexpected demands that are stretching their funds more than anticipated. Their balance sheets have been dragged down by a flow of requests from the state contractor Olimpstroi to build more infrastructure than originally planned.

Potanin started building his Roza Khutor ski resort even before Sochi was picked in 2007 to host the 2014 games. He is spending $2.5 billion, including $500 million on infrastructure required by the International Olympic Committee. In addition, the Alpine resort had to close to tourists for months at a time while hosting Olympic tests events during the past two winter seasons, costing it $3.2 million in lost revenue each month it was closed, according to Roza Khutor general director Sergei Bachin.

When Potanin's Interros holding company first committed to the games, "we had no idea what exactly would be required from us," Bachin said. Now delivering everything on time has become "a matter of honor," he said. Still, looking back, Bachin said Roza Khutor should not have been so compliant.

"When we were asked to build this or that, we were probably too yielding in taking up those requests," he said.

Potanin was the first to raise his voice. Last year he said he expected the Russian government to compensate him for at least the $500 million he is spending doing work that he said should have been the government's responsibility.

Roza Khutor has asked the government to create a special economic zone in the Sochi area. Tax rebates would allow the resort to be "operationally sound" and help it repay loans to the state-owned VEB bank more quickly, Bachin said.

The frustrations have been shared by Deripaska's Basic Element, which is suing Olimpstroi for about $50 million, the amount it had to fork out when Olimpstroi questioned the quality of the gravel used to protect the coast at the sea port. Deripaska's company also complained that the sea port it built is receiving only 20 percent of the cargo load that had been promised by the government, leaving revenues far lower than expected.

"It's pretty frustrating," Elinson said. "But we think it's curable if the government takes certain responsibly for those actions and comes up with a solution that would allow the project and the investor to recover."

He said at this stage all investors are concerned about the additional costs they have faced in Sochi.

Last month, Basic Element, Interros, Gazprom and state-owned Sberbank asked the government for help in covering some of their losses. Although there has not been an official response to the plea, the government has said in the past that investors bear full responsibility for any losses.

"Those are the risks of those who made the decision," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is overseeing the Sochi preparation, said in response to complaints last year.

In contrast to the Boris Yeltsin-era oligarchs like Deripaska and Potanin who are involved in capital-consuming projects with uncertain commercial prospects, the new generation of billionaires with close ties to Putin seems actually to be making money in Sochi.

One man who stands to profit from the games is Arkady Rotenberg, who has known Putin since he was 12.

Through a majority-owned subsidiary, Rotenberg holds nearly 39 percent of the Mostotrest company, which has amassed a dozen Olympics-related state contracts to build nearly all of the highways in the area. Its projects include a $1.6 billion bypass for Sochi, as well as tunnels, bridges and railroads for a total of at least $3.4 billion.

"Those who became billionaires before Putin's rise to power now have to pay the price, and that's why they're being forced to invest and build," Kasyanov said. "Those of Putin's generation are out there to make money. They use public funds. They don't invest their own money but simply work on state contracts."

One Russian businessman in charge of an Olympic project was publicly disgraced when he failed to deliver. On a tour of Olympic sites in February, Putin harshly scolded officials for the huge delays and cost overruns in building the ski jump, a project run by real estate developer Akhmed Bilalov, who had once owned 90 percent of it. The state-controlled Sberbank had taken a controlling stake in 2012 when it was clear the project was in trouble, and Bilalov's younger brother handed over the remaining 40 percent stake after Putin's televised dressing down.

Bilalov was immediately stripped of his position as a vice president of the Russian Olympic Committee, but Putin still was not done with him. In April, prosecutors charged Bilalov with abuse of office in relation to his work as chairman of a state company that is building ski resorts elsewhere in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia. Facing up to four years in prison if convicted, Bilalov left Russia.

At least one company has already acknowledged the futility of its investment in Sochi.

During his inspection tour in February, Putin asked the chairman of mining giant UGMK, Andrei Bokarev, whether he would give the new $100 million hockey arena that UGMK has built to the state after the games.

"There's nothing standing in the way of you doing it," Putin commented.

That was not a direct order but its intent was clear.

Putting aside previous pledges that the stadium would be dismantled after the Sochi games and moved near an UGMK facility to benefit the company's workers, Bokarev responded with gusto to the suggestion.

"We're ready!" he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-oligarchs-foot-most-2014-sochi-olympics-063512594.html

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Yahoo confirms acquisition of Tumblr, but will run it as a 'separate business'

Hot on the heels of yesterday's rumors, Yahoo and Tumblr have jointly announced a "definitive agreement" for the former to acquire the latter for $1.1 billion. The agreement makes it clear that Tumblr will be "independently operated as a separate business" with its own branding and line of development. A frankly worded press release says that this arms-length arrangement will help Yahoo "not to screw it up" and promises that the 300 million monthly visitors to the blogging site will continue to experience Tumblr's "irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators." If all this is to be believed, those who have allegedly fled to WordPress, for fear of Tumblr being shut down or re-versioned, may have slightly jumped the gun.

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Breakup of physician, drug company relationship could improve health care, cut cost

May 20, 2013 ? A new report suggests that improved health care and significant reductions in drug costs might be attained by breaking up the age-old relationship between physicians and drug company representatives who promote the newest, more costly and often unnecessary prescription drugs.

This system, which has been in place for decades, at one time benefited doctors by keeping them up to date on new medications, and always provided generous amounts of "free" samples to get patients started on the newest drugs, as well as other supplies and gifts.

But it's actually a powerful marketing process into which the pharmaceutical industry pours tens of billions of dollars a year, with more than 90,000 drug representatives providing gifts and advice. There is one drug representative for every eight doctors in the United States. This doesn't necessarily serve the best interests of the patient in terms of economy, efficacy, safety or accuracy of information, experts say.

In one of the first reports of its type -- titled "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" -- researchers from Oregon State University, Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Washington outlined the deliberate process that one central Oregon medical clinic went through to remove drug company representatives from their practice. It explored the obstacles they faced and the ultimate, successful result. The findings were just published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

The study found that avoiding conflicts of interest and becoming "pharma-free" is possible, but not easy.

"This is a culture change, one that's already happening but still has a ways to go, especially in smaller private practices," said Dr. David Evans, now with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington, and previously a physician at the Madras, Ore., clinic featured in the article.

"The relationship between physicians and drug company representatives goes back generations, and it took a methodical, deliberate campaign to change it," Evans said. "We ultimately decided something had to be done when our medical clinic was visited by drug reps 199 times in six months. That number was just staggering."

Part of what allows the change, the researchers said, is that information on new medications is now available in many other forums. These may have less bias and be more evidence-based than the material traditionally provided by the pharmaceutical industry, which wanted to sell the latest product. In the Madras clinic, the physicians replaced information previously supplied by drug reps with monthly meetings to stay current on new medications, based on peer-reviewed, rather than promotional literature.

"In the past 5-10 years there's been more of a move toward what we call 'academic detailing,' in which universities and other impartial sources of information can provide accurate information without bias," said Daniel Hartung, assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy. "This is being supported by some states and the federal government, and it's a move in the right direction."

Moves to separate the drug industry from the practice of medicine have been more aggressive in large medical teaching hospitals, Hartung said, but much less so in smaller private practice. Of the 800,000 physicians in the U.S., only 22 percent practice in academic settings, the study noted, and 84 percent of primary care physicians still have close relationships with the pharmaceutical industry.

The stakes can be high, the researchers said. In the study example, the "sample cabinet" of medications at the Madras clinic, provided for free by the pharmaceutical representatives, had an average price of $90 for a month's supply of the medications. Less expensive, generic medications were identified for 38 of the 46 sample drugs, which would have cost $22 a month.

The new analysis explored the necessary steps that a private clinic can take to help address this concern, including quantifying the clinic-industry relationship, anticipating clinician and staff concerns, finding new ways to provide up-to-date information, and educating patients and the public.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/qnl5Jy21UwU/130520133749.htm

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UN Calls On North Korea to Stop Missile Launches (Voice Of America)

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The Most Excellent Techniques for Using Essential Oils for ...

Putting essential oils to use for aromatherapy is more than a new age craze, because they have been put to use in this styled for centuries in countries around the globe. People found, a very long time ago, that they could modify their moods and lessen physical symptoms with the right scents. Today we have many ways to use essential oils, from dabbing a drop on your handkerchief to using one of the various types of diffusers to change the atmosphere of a whole room. The following are some trendy methods to utilize essential oils so you can revere the advantages of aromatherapy.

We all take a liking to particular scents and a disliking to others, and some scents also can adjust the way we feel or at times, call to mind old memories. That?s why perfumes and colognes are so popular. These are in reality, types of aromatherapy, because they?re smells crafted to have a particular effect on the wearer, or people who have contact with the wearer. The rationale for essential oils being effective is due to our sense of smell being associated with the limbic system of the brain, which frees an array of hormones in our bodies. That?s the reason that distinct smells can make us feel calm, elated or even sexually aroused. Obviously, fragrances can also have destructive effects too however these aren?t the ones we purposely develop with essential oils.

Chamomile is well known for being calming and soothing, making it a sought after plant for teas and essential oils. It?s often combined with other oils to create a soothing and refreshing blend that?s great for relaxing and calming the nerves.

Since it?s aroma helps to relax and calm children and infants, parents often use it. You can find two different types of chamomile, namely Roman and German, but they practically identical so it doesn?t matter which you use. You won?t have any nasty side-effects from this gentle oil, unless you are allergic to it.

Rose essential oil is very well-liked, and its use goes back all the way to ancient Egypt. The rose has continuously been one of the most cherished flowers throughout the world, and time and again has been allied with romance. From this intention, rose oil has many times been deemed as an aphrodisiac and as something you?d use to draw in love. It also has therapeutic uses, such as for skin care and treating or preventing infections or viruses. The one constraint of rose oil is its worth, which is on account of the fact that it necessitates 60,000 rose petals to distill a single ounce of pure rose oil. For this rationale, rose oil is habitually diluted or joined with other oils.

Essential oils are a natural form of therapy that anyone can benefit from. Even if people?s preferences in terms of aromas vary, there will surely be at least one essential oil you find pleasing. You will find, with some research, that there are plenty of symptoms that can be treated with aromatherapy. Since we have only been able to cover a limited number of advantages, if you want to make aromatherapy part of your life and enjoy all its benefits, then you will have to explore further.

View this snoring mouthpiece review video to discover how this mouthpiece can be combined with aromatherapy to treat your snoring issues.

Source: http://hotarticledepot.com/the-most-excellent-techniques-for-using-essential-oils-for-aromatherapy-3/

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State of Social Media Advertising - Business Insider

The media constellation has become increasingly fractured.?The Web produced the initial fissure, but mobile created new cracks in the landscape. Today, no single medium earns more than 45% of our media consumption.

How can you solve this problem??Social media offers a solution.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are daily destinations for millions of consumers. Increasingly, their ad products offer targeting according to specific demographics, social connections, interests, and habits.?

In a new report?from?BI?Intelligence,?we analyze the state of social media advertising and where it is heading, offering a comprehensive guide and examination of?the advertising ecosystems on?Facebook and Twitter, offer a?primer on Tumblr as an emerging ad medium, and detail how mobile is an important part of this story as mobile-friendly as?native ad formats?fuel growth in the market.

Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's an overview of some major players in the mobile advertising ecosystem:

• The lure of social media advertising is massive:?As brands look across a fractured media landscape, social networks offer them an interesting proposition. Social networks have scale - ?enormous user bases and deep databases. They have high engagement - Americans were spending an average of 12 hours per month on social networks as of July 2012, with 18-24 year olds averaging 20 hours.?And potentially, social media gives brands offer a uniquely captive audience for their content.
• Guaranteed placement is getting advertisers to pay up: Brands are paying to get their content or copy in front of a quantifiable audience, an increasingly rare feat in an era of scattered consumer attention.?This desire for guaranteed attention also helps to explain social media's move away from traditional display ads ? like Facebook's right-rail ads?? and toward so-called native ads that surface in a user's stream, either as a tweet or a Facebook post.?A consensus seems to be forming around in-stream advertising as the most promising social advertising format.?
• Social media advertising is set to explode:?Social media advertising is a young market and so far, it only represents 1% to 10% of ad budgets for a wide majority of advertisers. There's significant opportunity for that share to grow.?BIA/Kelsey recently came out with a study that offers one view -?forecasting $11 billion of social ad spend in 2017, up from $4.7 billion last year.?That estimate is large - but still seems pessimistic, because...
• Increased mobile usage will be a huge growth driver: The BIA/Kelsey prediction calls for mobile to account for only $2.2 billion of that in 2017 - a 20% market share. This could easily be surpassed. Both Twitter and Facebook have passed the 50% mobile usage mark and,?given the continued growth of mobile devices, it will only rise.?Mobile accounted for 11% of Facebook's ad revenue last year even though it didn't release mobile ads until the tail end of the second quarter. By the fourth quarter, it was up to 23%. And now, Twitter is reporting that its mobile ad revenue now regularly outpaces its desktop ad revenue. Social media advertising is therefore uniquely positioned to grab an increasing share of the fast growing mobile advertising market.?

In full,?the?report includes:

To access BI Intelligence's full reports on The State Of Social Media Advertising, sign up for a free trial subscription here.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/state-of-social-media-advertising-2013-5

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Teach kids personal finance through experience: six tips

When teaching older children and teenagers about personal finance, experience is key. Here are six real-life experiences that can get them on the right financial track.?

By Trent Hamm,?Guest blogger / May 18, 2013

Damien Herrera smiles as customers arrive last week at his lemonade stand as he participates in Lemonade Day Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas. Hamm suggests encouraging kids to start a summer business in order to teach them about managing money.

Michael Zamora/Corpus Christi Caller-Times/AP/File

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One of the most powerful things I?ve learned over the last few years is that older children and teenagers often learn the most powerful life lessons from experiences they can directly relate to.

Skip to next paragraph Trent Hamm

The Simple Dollar is a blog for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two. Our busy lives are crazy enough without having to compare five hundred mutual funds ? we just want simple ways to manage our finances and save a little money.

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The problem is that personal finance isn?t often directly relatable to their life. Quite often, parents and teachers rely on lectures and discussions to get the ideas across, but experiences are the things that many older children and teenagers really connect with. You can tell them about personal finance all day long, but without some experience, it often won?t sink in.

Here are some actual experiences your older children and teenagers can engage in to learn some of the basics of personal finance. I?ve been collecting these activities myself in order to help educate my children in personal finance literacy as they grow older.

Give an allowance each week. You can start this effectively with children as young as four. We give our children an allowance of a rate of $0.50 per week per year. So, a seven year old gets $3.50 per week. Out of that allowance, they must donate at least 20% of it, they must invest at least 20% of it, and they must save at least 20% of it for a future goal, rounded up to the nearest quarter.

This teaches them both the basic structure of budgeting and the benefit of saving money over time. They?ll learn that structuring what they do with their income is a completely normal thing and segmenting their money means that they?ll always have enough for what they need.

Lend them money with interest attached. If your child really wants something, lend them the rest of the money with 20% interest attached, and make the payments come out of their allowance each week. ?I?ll loan you the $20 you need for that game, son, but I?ll charge you 20% interest on that and you have to pay me $1 a week until it?s all paid off.?

If they go for it, take that $0.50 each week out of their allowance and remind them each time how much they?ve repaid you. When they reach week 20 and they?ve now repaid the full amount and you?re still taking a dollar a week for the next month to pay off an item that they?ve probably forgotten about, it?ll hit home.

Take your children to a few tax auctions. Explain to them that all of the stuff on sale there came from people who were unable to pay their bills because they spent too much money.

The lesson here is that there are real consequences to taking on debt. If you fall into too much debt, you not only lose all of the money you paid into that debt, you lose the things you bought with that money, too. Personal debt is a dangerous game to play.

Tell them that they have $X to spend this week and they have to figure out what to buy for groceries. If you want, you can actually let them carry forward with this plan from beginning to end. They have to figure out how to spend that money to cover all 21 family meals for the week. How will they stretch those dollars? What does the meal plan look like?

Don?t be afraid to let your older child attempt this, carry it all the way through, and find that it?s a lot harder than they thought it would be. In fact, it?s okay to let it end in miserable failure. Only swoop in when you have to in order to make sure there are actually functional meals on the table.

Encourage them to spend the summer launching a small business. It can be anything they want, from starting a Youtube channel to running a vegetable garden to sell the products at a farmers? market. Help them work out the costs and give them an out-of-pocket business loan to get started.

The goal here is for them to connect their personal efforts to financial and personal rewards. The harder they work, the greater the financial reward, but the greater the pride in the work they?ve produced as well. Any entrepreneurial effort is loaded with potential lessons for an older child or a teenager.

These activities require time, effort, and patience from the parent, but they provide experiences that make the realities of personal finance far more accessible to children. If you want your child to learn these kinds of lessons, get them involved in these kinds of experiences.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on www.thesimpledollar.com.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/xIVJoiY_MYY/Teach-kids-personal-finance-through-experience-six-tips

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Stocks rise on hopeful signs for the US economy

NEW YORK (AP) ? Encouraging news about the U.S. economy extended the stock market's rally Friday.

Small-company stocks rose the most, a sign that investors are taking on more risk. Two companies soared in their stock-market debuts in the latest indication that the market for initial public offerings is reviving.

A gauge of future economic activity rose more than analysts had expected, as did a measure of consumer confidence, adding to evidence that the economy is steadily recovering.

Stocks closed higher for a fourth straight week. Indexes are at record levels after surging this year on optimism about the economy and record corporate earnings. The market is also being supported by ongoing stimulus from the Federal Reserve, which is keeping long-term borrowing costs at historically low levels.

"This slow but relatively steady growth, that keeps inflation in check and keeps interest rates low, is actually a pretty healthy environment for the stock market," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. "Right now we are very optimistic."

General Motors rose $1.03, or 3.2 percent, to $33.42. The automaker's stock is trading above the $33 price of its November, 2010 initial public offering for the first time in two years.

Northrop Grumman gained $3.17, or 3.2 percent, to $82.19 after the defense contractor said its board approved the repurchase of another $4 billion in stock, and that it plans to buy back a quarter of its outstanding shares by the end of 2015.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 121.18 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,354.40. The index gained 1.6 percent for the week and is up 17.2 percent for the year.

The index started higher, then drifted through the rest of the morning. The index added to its gains in the afternoon, climbing about 70 points in the last two hours of the day.

The Standard & Poor' 500 index rose 15.65 points, or 1 percent, to 1,666.12. The gauge is up 2 percent this week and has gained 16.8 percent this year.

After some lackluster reports on the economy Thursday, including slowing manufacturing and an increase in applications for unemployment benefits, Friday's reports were a tonic for investors.

The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.6 percent last month after a revised decline of 0.2 percent in March. The index is intended to predict how the economy will be doing in three to six months.

The University of Michigan's preliminary survey of consumer confidence climbed to 83.7. Economists had predicted that the gauge would climb to 76.8.

The strength of the rally in stocks has taken many by surprise, leaving investors waiting for a drop in prices to get into the market, said Jim Anderson, an investment specialist at JPMorgan. The S&P 500 index hasn't fallen for two consecutive days in a month.

"Everyone is waiting for a pullback," Anderson said. "Every client asks me, 'When are we getting a pullback?' With so many people waiting for it, and pouncing on it when it arrives, it's over so quickly."

As well as giving stocks a lift, the positive economic reports also pushed government bond yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.96 percent from 1.88 percent Thursday as investors favored riskier assets.

The yield, which moves inversely to its prices, has jumped since May 3 after the government reported that hiring picked up sharply in April. The note started trading that day at 1.63 percent, its low for the year.

The move to riskier assets also gave small stocks a lift. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies, rose 10.94 points, or 1.1 percent, to 996.28. The index has surged this month and is performing better than both the Dow and the S&P 500 for the year. It's up 17.3 percent so far in 2013.

Small stocks are doing well partly because they are more focused on the U.S., which is recovering, and don't rely as much on sales from recession-plagued Europe, as larger companies do.

Gold fell for a seventh straight day, dropping $22.20, or 1.6 percent, to $1,364 an ounce. The precious metal is down almost 20 percent this year and has fallen out of favor as an alternative investment as the stock market has surged this year.

The demand for gold as an alternative asset is also being undermined by a recent surge in the U.S. dollar. The U.S. currency advanced against both the euro and the yen Friday. The ICE dollar index, which measures the strength of the U.S. currency against a group of six currencies, is at its highest in two years.

The price of oil rose 86 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $96.02 a barrel.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 33.72 points, or 1 percent, to 3,498. The technology-heavy stock index got a small boost from Facebook, which climbed 12 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $26.25 on the one-year anniversary of its initial public offering.

Facebook slumped in the first four months after its market debut on concern that it wasn't doing enough to develop mobile advertising. Despite recovering since then, it's still trading below its IPO price of $38.

Two software companies had more success in their stock market debuts on Friday. Marketo surged $10.10, or 77.7 percent, to $23.10 on its stock market debut. Tableau software rose $19.75, or 63.7 percent, to $50.75 on its first day of trading.

The standout performance made the two companies the two best performing IPOs of the year. So far, 22 companies have prices stock sales in May, making this the biggest month for stock market debuts since November 2007, according to Renaissance Capital.

Among other stocks making big moves;

? J.C. Penney fell 78 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $18.01 after the retailer reported a loss that was worse than analysts' already dismal estimates. The retailer is reeling from the fallout from a failed turnaround plan orchestrated by its former CEO Ron Johnson, who was ousted last month after less than a year and a half on the job.

? Autodesk fell $2.67, or 6.7 percent, to $37.11, after the design software company posted disappointing first-quarter results and lowered its forecasts for the year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-rise-hopeful-signs-us-economy-142804549.html

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Wild, wild Web: Shocking world of online classifieds

>>> a look at online classified , they can be convenient but they can be shady and shocking. "dateline"'s chris hansen has more of his hidden camera look at the wild, wild web.

>> unbelievable from hitmen to sweetheart swindles to people selling bad drugs online we found it all. take a look. we're back in the online classifies, and this time you won't believe what we found. are you a vampire?

>> yes, i am a vampire.

>> this man posted seeking human blood so he could drink it. when was the first time you consumed human blood ? here's an ad from someone calling himself the problem eliminator.

>> i'm all set. we're ready to go.

>> promising he'll take care of a nasty co-worker to are a fee. are you a hitman? then there was jessica , who posted this listing on craigslist saying she's looking for love. she'd be a great catch for any young man, except she says she doesn't want a young man. she wants an old man.

>> i'm a 35-year-old woman looking for love from an older man at least in his 70s.

>> is she for real? a "dateline" senior producer pretends to be a 76-year-old named sam .

>> i want to enjoy life a little.

>> reporter: she tells sam her name is jessica travers and she says she wants to start a new life with him if he wires $7,500.

>> i got some savings.

>> sam says his nephew is delivering the money and that is a "dateline" producer and i comment along as his friend and here comes jessica now.

>> how are you?

>> nice to meet you. i'm jessica .

>> jessica , really? she says sam has already charmed her, even though she has never even seen a photo of him.

>> he makes me laugh, i haven't smiled since god knows what.

>> i ask her why she looks nothing like the photo she posted. that's not really you, is it?

>> no, that was me when i was in high school .

>> in high school ?

>> yes.

>> it's time for me to tell jessica who i am. jessica , there's something i need to tell you and that is i'm chris hansen with "dateline" nbc. everybody changes over the years, i'm not being disrespectful but i don't think that's you.

>> that was me in high school .

>> what year did you graduate from high school ?

>> i stood back a couple of years, so i don't remember the exact date.

>> you don't remember the year you graduated from high school ?

>> no.

>> jessica .

>> i don't remember the exact year.

>> how could you not? everybody knows the year they graduate from high school . jessica has not stayed to finish her lunch, so who was that woman in the photo jessica posted?

>> it's embarrassing.

>> her name is kara mckinnett a college freshman we tracked down in maine.

>> i feel absolutely violated. it's my own personal identity and i feel like that's been taken from me.

>> as it turns out, jessica stole kara's photo from her facebook page. they were friends in high school , the class of 2012 . and that's just the tip of the iceberg . tonight at 8:00 eastern, 7:00 central you'll see all kinds of things that will blow your mind .

>> thank you, chris, we appreciate that, look forward to it and as chris mentioned see his report on dateline 8:00, 7:00 central on nbc.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2c0e0f2f/l/0Lvideo0Btoday0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51914968/story01.htm

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Two blasts at Iraqi Sunni mosque kill 43

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two bombs exploded outside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the Iraqi city of Baquba as worshippers left Friday prayers, killing at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks in a month-long surge in sectarian violence.

Several other bombings claimed lives around the country - with 19 killed near a commercial complex in the west of Baghdad, as mounting violence intensified fears of a return to all-out civil conflict.

Attacks on Sunni and Shi'ite mosques, security forces and tribal leaders have mounted since troops raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk a month ago.

The increasingly sectarian civil war in neighboring Syria is emboldening Iraqi Sunni insurgents and straining relations between the two Muslim groups in Iraq, where tensions are at their worst since U.S. troops pulled out at the end of 2011.

On Friday, one bomb exploded outside the mosque in Baquba, about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Baghdad, and a second explosion tore into crowds of people rushing to help victims of the first attack, police said.

Local television showed images of bodies, pools of blood and the victims' scattered shoes.

"I was about 30 meters from the first explosion. When the first exploded, I ran to help them, and the second one went off. I saw bodies flying and I had shrapnel in my neck," said Hashim Munjiz, a college student.

In the Amiriya district of western Baghdad, 19 people were killed by a roadside bomb, police and hospital sources said. Eight others died and more than 20 were wounded by a similar device targeting people gathering for the funeral of a Sunni Muslim cleric who was killed a day earlier.

COFFEE SHOP

Two more were killed in the southern outskirts of Baghdad at another funeral for someone who died in one of a series of attacks in the capital on Thursday.

Four others were killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to a coffee shop in the city of Falluja. A roadside bomb in the Doura district of southern Baghdad killed three, according to police and medics.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Shi'ite Islamist militias, which fought U.S. troops for years after the 2003 invasion, have said they are prepared in case they need to return to war. Sunni insurgents also sometimes hit Sunni targets to provoke conflict.

Sunni Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda's local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, have stepped up attacks since the start of the year to try to provoke a wide-scale sectarian confrontation like that which killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in 2006-2007.

The Sunni militants accuse Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government of discriminating against their sect.

The United Nations said leaders from all groups needed to end the violence. "Small children are burned alive in cars. Worshippers are cut down outside their own mosques. This is beyond unacceptable," said U.N. envoy Martin Kobler.

April was Iraq's bloodiest month for almost five years, with 712 people killed, according to U.N. figures.

Since the U.S. withdrawal, Iraq's coalition government has been caught up in a power struggle between majority Shi'ites, minority Sunnis and ethnic Kurds who split cabinet posts between them.

Sunnis, who lost their dominance when the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, have been protesting for months against Maliki, demanding reforms to tough anti-terrorism laws they say are used to unfairly target their sect.

Iraqi Sunni insurgents, some linked to al Qaeda, say they have formed an alliance with the al-Nusra Front Islamist group fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and a Reuters reporter in Baquba; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/least-eight-killed-blast-outside-sunni-mosque-iraqs-115003210.html

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Yahoo Wants To Buy Everyone, Tumblr Edition

The first rule of being cool is not telling people you want to be cool. Yahoo is not following this rule, with its M&A team in full pray-and-spray?acquisition?mode post-Marissa Mayer hire, hitting on everything that walks, or at least has traction. Deals I have heard rumors Yahoo was trying to get into over the past couple of months: Foursquare (at an $800 million asking price). Path (at a $2 billion asking price). Pinterest. Hulu. Zynga.?Daily Motion. And at a smaller scale: Gdgt. Wavii. Media Ocean (?). A spate of others. And now Tumblr. "Literally they talk to everyone," said one person familiar with the matter on the matter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/r9gXVQEQL6c/

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Nine-year-old Mars rover passes 40-year-old record

May 17, 2013 ? While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until yesterday.

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars today that the rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on Thursday, bringing Opportunity's total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles (35.760 kilometers).

Cernan discussed this prospect a few days ago with Opportunity team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Apollo 17 astronaut said, "The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I'm excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity."

The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth's moon in 1973.

Opportunity began a multi-week trek this week from an area where it has been working since mid-2011, the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater, to an area about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) away, "Solander Point."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and its rover, Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/wuHIEDRP8yQ/130517120939.htm

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