 |  |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/vSPqon_w7G0/story01.htm
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Daily Deal: 74% off Talon Hard Shell Case for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4
For today only, the TiPb Store has the Talon Hard Shell Case for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 on sale for only $3.95!. Get them before they’re gone! Heck,...
Priests brawl in Bethlehem church
Palestinian police restore order in the Church of the Nativity in Jesus's birthplace after scuffles erupt between Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergymen. Nick Rowlands reports.
A brawl has erupted between rival clergymen participating in an annual cleaning ritual at the church built at Jesus's traditional birthplace.
Armenian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox clergymen screamed at each other and beat each other with broomsticks during Wednesday's clean-up inside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
They were tidying up the church ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations in early January.
The two denominations each control sections of the church and fiercely guard their turf. The violence broke out when the sides accused each other of crossing into each other's territory. Similar fights have taken place in past years.
Palestinian security forces broke up the melee, and no serious injuries were reported.
- AP
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/6199151/Priests-brawl-in-Bethlehem-church
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Deadly Cyclone Thane hits southern India
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Source: www.aljazeera.com --- Friday, December 30, 2011
Eleven people killed as storm reaches wind speeds as high as 125kph, bringing with it tidal surges of up to 1.5 metres. ...
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/2011123081058193671.html
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Amazon may benefit as digital goods sales jump (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Digital goods are the fastest-growing category online this holiday, led by e-books, suggesting Amazon.com Inc's strategy of blanketing the world with cheap e-readers and tablet computers may be producing some early gains.
Sales of digital goods, which also include music and videos, are up about 30 percent this holiday season, compared to the same period last year, according to comScore data.
That is ahead of sales of consumer electronics and jewelry and watches, which are up about 25 percent versus last year's holiday season, and apparel and accessories, which are growing in line with overall e-commerce at roughly 15 percent, comScore data show.
The only other holiday season that digital goods grew the fastest was in 2006, when sales jumped 83 percent from a smaller base, according to comScore. At that time, Apple Inc's iTunes music store drove a lot of the growth of the category.
"Music is a much more stable market at this point. The real new growth is coming from e-books," said Andrew Lipsman of comScore.
"The increased proliferation of devices, such as tablets and e-readers, has led to more forms of digital content being downloaded," he added. "People are downloading e-books in a way they had not previously."
Amazon launched its $199 Kindle Fire tablet ahead of the holidays and slashed prices on its range of Kindle e-readers.
Earlier this month, Amazon said customers were buying more than one million Kindles a week and analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate the company will sell 14 million units during the fourth quarter.
Amazon priced these products aggressively and many analysts estimate the company is making little or no profit on the devices. Instead, Amazon is hoping to make money from higher sales of digital goods, according to Aaron Kessler, an analyst at Raymond James.
"Tablets and Kindles are selling a lot this season and that should ultimately benefit Amazon's digital sales," he said.
A DIGITAL CHRISTMAS
Still, a lot of these devices were bought as gifts this holiday, so the full impact on digital content sales will probably not come until Christmas Day and the weeks that follow, Kessler added.
Indeed, the 30 percent growth rate of digital goods so far this holiday season will likely increase next week, comScore's Lipsman said.
Christmas Day is the heaviest day of the year for digital content sales and downloads. Last year, about $10 million was spent on this category on Christmas Day. The second busiest days were Dec 26 and Dec 27, according to comScore.
Spending on digital goods during the week between Christmas and New Year's last year was three times more than the average week in 2010, comScore data also show.
In the past, such spikes have been caused by people using new Apple iPods, iPads and iTunes gift cards to buy and download music, videos, apps and e-books, Lipsman said.
"We think it will be even bigger this year as more tablets and e-readers make it onto the market," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon is a major beneficiary of this."
Historically, Christmas Day is the largest day for digital sales on Amazon.com, followed by Dec 26. Last year, from Christmas Eve through Dec 30, Amazon's digital content sales were over three times higher than the weekly average for 2010.
"With the introduction of Kindle Fire this season, millions more customers will be shopping for new digital content," said Craig Pape, director of music at Amazon.com.
Amazon is planning to run discounts on digital goods, including e-books, music, video, apps and games, on Christmas Day and the days that follow.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Death toll from Baghdad blasts climbs to 49
BAGHDAD (AP) ? The spokesman for the Iraqi health ministry says that at least 49 people have been killed in a wave of violence across the city.
Ziad Tariq says at least 167 people were also wounded in the attacks that struck Baghdad on Thursday morning.
The wave of attacks is the worst to hit Baghdad in months. It targeted neighborhoods around the city in an apparently coordinated campaign of violence designed to wreak havoc.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A series of blasts Thursday morning in Baghdad killed at least 23 people and injured dozens more in a coordinated attack designed to wreak havoc across the Iraqi capital.
The blasts were the worst violence to hit the country since a political crisis between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite factions erupted this weekend. The political spat, which pits Iraq's Shiite prime minister against the highest-ranking Sunni political leader, has raised fears that Iraq's sectarian wounds will be reopened.
Iraqi officials said at least 12 blasts went off early Thursday morning in nine neighborhoods around the city. The violence ranged from sticky bombs attached to cars to roadside bombs and vehicles packed with explosives.
Most of the violence appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods although some Sunni areas were also targeted.
The worst attack was in the al-Amal neighborhood where seven people were killed in a blast that appeared to target rescuers and officials who came to the scene after a previous explosion. At least four people were killed in one western Baghdad neighborhood when two roadside bombs exploded.
All the information came from police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In the southwestern neighborhood of Karrada, where one of the victims was killed, sirens could be heard as ambulances rushed to the scene and a large plume of smoke rose over the explosion site.
"My baby was sleeping in her bed. Shards of glass have fallen on our heads. Her father hugged her and carried her. She is now scared in the next room," said one woman in western Baghdad who identified herself as Um Hanin. "All countries are stable. Why don't we have security and stability?"
While Baghdad and Iraq have gotten much safer over the years, explosions like Thursday's are still commonplace. They come at a precarious time in Iraq's political history, just days after American troops pulled out of Iraq.
The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of running a hit squad that targeted government officials. Al-Maliki is also pushing for a vote of no-confidence against another Sunni politician, the deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.
Many Sunnis fear that this is part of a wider campaign to go after Sunni political figures in general and shore up Shiite control across the country at a critical time when all American troops have left Iraq.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the morning's violence. But the coordinated nature of the assault and the fact that the attacks took place in numerous neighborhoods suggested a planning capability only available to al-Qaida in Iraq.
Many of the neighborhoods were also Shiite areas which are a favorite target of al-Qaida. The Sunni extremist group often targets Shiites who they believe are not true Muslims.
Al-Qaida in Iraq is severely debilitated from its previous strength in the early years of the war, but is still able to launch coordinated and deadly assaults from time to time.
U.S. military officials have said they're worried about a resurgence of al-Qaida after the American military leaves the country. If that happens, it could lead Shiite militants to fight back and attack Sunni targets, thus sending Iraq back to the sectarian violence it experienced just a few years ago.
__
Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Obama aide: Republicans playing politics on taxes (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The White House accused House of Representatives Republicans on Sunday of playing politics with the fate of the payroll tax cut and warned that Americans could face a "devastating" tax hike if Republicans do not act.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner has distanced himself from a two-month extension to the payroll tax cut passed in the Senate by Democrats and many fellow Republicans.
"If House Republicans refuse to pass this bipartisan bill to extend the payroll tax cut, there will be a significant tax increase on 160 million hardworking Americans in 13 days that would damage the economy and job growth," said Dan Pfeiffer, a senior aide to President Barack Obama.
Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said the House "should pass the two-month extension now to avoid a devastating tax hike from hitting the middle class in just 13 days."
"It's time House Republicans stop playing politics and get the job done for the American people," he said.
Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press" program he opposed the Senate legislation because it would renew the tax cut for only two months. He said that would amount to "kicking the can down the road."
His comments prompted Democrats to accuse Boehner, who had faced a rebellion among rank-and-file Republican lawmakers to the payroll tax cut extension, of reneging on a deal.
(Reporting By Caren Bohan)
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
This DIY Solar Powered Robot Kit Is Your Creative Deal of the Day [Dealzmodo]
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Protecting confidential data with math
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 16-Dec-2011[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy
karthika@siam.org
267-350-6383
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Statistical databases (SDBs) are collections of data that are used to gather and analyze information from a variety of sources. The data may be derived from sales transactions, customer files, voter registrations, medical records, employee rosters, product inventories, or other compilations of facts and figures.
Because database security requires multiple processes and controls, it presents huge security challenges to organizations. With the computerization of databases in healthcare, forensics, telecommunications, and other fields, ensuring this kind of security has become increasingly important.
In a paper published Thursday in the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, authors Rudolf Ahlswede and Harout Aydinian analyze a security-control model for statistical databases.
"Providing privacy and confidentiality in SDBs is not a new issue," Aydinian points out. "Privacy interests have evolved from the very first census in the United States. Recorded protests until the mid-20th century reflect constitutional issues resulting from the requirement for U.S. residents to provide sensitive personal information. Questions on census forms about diseases, mortgage values, and other items have raised many concerns."
While such databases are very helpful in aggregating data, there is a risk that confidential information about an individual's record may be deliberately compromised. "Since such data sets also contain sensitive information, such as the disease of an individual, or the salary of an employee, it is necessary to provide security against the disclosure of confidential information," says Aydinian. "Even in cases where a user has no direct access to sensitive information, sometimes confidential data about an individual can be inferred by correlating enough statistics."
Typically, statistical databases are designed to only accept queries that involve specific statistical functions (such as sum, average, count, min, max, etc.). However, the use of these queries may render databases susceptible to compromise. For instance, it may be possible to infer information about specific individuals by putting together data from a sequence of statistical queries, using prior knowledge of an individual, or through collusion among users.
An SDB is considered secure if no protected data can be inferred from available queries. "In the literature, many scenarios of compromise and inference control methods have been proposed to protect SDBs," Aydinian says. "However, to date no one security control method is capable of completely preventing compromise."
Query restriction is one of several general approaches used for security control. A "query request" retrieves a subset of data from a database that meets a set of conditions. In query restriction, the kind and amount of data that can be retrieved by such queries is limited, for example, the size of the data, or the amount of overlap between data that is returned.
In one type of query restriction method, only certain sums of individual records (called "SUM queries") that meet a minimum specified size or number, and satisfy a specified set of conditions, are available to users.
Aydinian explains with an example. "Consider a company with a large number of employees. Suppose that for each member of the company, the sex, age, rank, length of employment, salary etc. is recorded. The salaries of individual employees are confidential. Suppose that only SUM queries are allowed, i.e. the sum of the salaries of the specified people is returned. Then one might pose the query: What is the sum of salaries for males, above 50, and during the last 10 years?"
The task addressed in the paper is to provide an optimal collection of SUM queries that prevents compromise of confidential informationsuch as individual salaries, for instance. A natural solution is to maximize the number of available SUM queries. The authors obtain tight bounds for the maximum number of such queries that return subsets of data without compromising groups of entries.
"Future work in the query-restriction approach includes evaluation of new security-control mechanisms, which are easy to implement and guarantee absolute security," says Aydinian. "At the same time, it is desirable that these methods satisfy other criteria like richness of available queries, consistency, cost etc. It also seems promising to develop methods combining different security control mechanisms."
###
Source article:
On Security of Statistical Databases. Rudolf Ahlswede and Harout Aydinian, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, 25, pp 1778-1791 (Online publish date: December 15, 2011)
[ | 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.
Public release date: 16-Dec-2011[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy
karthika@siam.org
267-350-6383
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Statistical databases (SDBs) are collections of data that are used to gather and analyze information from a variety of sources. The data may be derived from sales transactions, customer files, voter registrations, medical records, employee rosters, product inventories, or other compilations of facts and figures.
Because database security requires multiple processes and controls, it presents huge security challenges to organizations. With the computerization of databases in healthcare, forensics, telecommunications, and other fields, ensuring this kind of security has become increasingly important.
In a paper published Thursday in the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, authors Rudolf Ahlswede and Harout Aydinian analyze a security-control model for statistical databases.
"Providing privacy and confidentiality in SDBs is not a new issue," Aydinian points out. "Privacy interests have evolved from the very first census in the United States. Recorded protests until the mid-20th century reflect constitutional issues resulting from the requirement for U.S. residents to provide sensitive personal information. Questions on census forms about diseases, mortgage values, and other items have raised many concerns."
While such databases are very helpful in aggregating data, there is a risk that confidential information about an individual's record may be deliberately compromised. "Since such data sets also contain sensitive information, such as the disease of an individual, or the salary of an employee, it is necessary to provide security against the disclosure of confidential information," says Aydinian. "Even in cases where a user has no direct access to sensitive information, sometimes confidential data about an individual can be inferred by correlating enough statistics."
Typically, statistical databases are designed to only accept queries that involve specific statistical functions (such as sum, average, count, min, max, etc.). However, the use of these queries may render databases susceptible to compromise. For instance, it may be possible to infer information about specific individuals by putting together data from a sequence of statistical queries, using prior knowledge of an individual, or through collusion among users.
An SDB is considered secure if no protected data can be inferred from available queries. "In the literature, many scenarios of compromise and inference control methods have been proposed to protect SDBs," Aydinian says. "However, to date no one security control method is capable of completely preventing compromise."
Query restriction is one of several general approaches used for security control. A "query request" retrieves a subset of data from a database that meets a set of conditions. In query restriction, the kind and amount of data that can be retrieved by such queries is limited, for example, the size of the data, or the amount of overlap between data that is returned.
In one type of query restriction method, only certain sums of individual records (called "SUM queries") that meet a minimum specified size or number, and satisfy a specified set of conditions, are available to users.
Aydinian explains with an example. "Consider a company with a large number of employees. Suppose that for each member of the company, the sex, age, rank, length of employment, salary etc. is recorded. The salaries of individual employees are confidential. Suppose that only SUM queries are allowed, i.e. the sum of the salaries of the specified people is returned. Then one might pose the query: What is the sum of salaries for males, above 50, and during the last 10 years?"
The task addressed in the paper is to provide an optimal collection of SUM queries that prevents compromise of confidential informationsuch as individual salaries, for instance. A natural solution is to maximize the number of available SUM queries. The authors obtain tight bounds for the maximum number of such queries that return subsets of data without compromising groups of entries.
"Future work in the query-restriction approach includes evaluation of new security-control mechanisms, which are easy to implement and guarantee absolute security," says Aydinian. "At the same time, it is desirable that these methods satisfy other criteria like richness of available queries, consistency, cost etc. It also seems promising to develop methods combining different security control mechanisms."
###
Source article:
On Security of Statistical Databases. Rudolf Ahlswede and Harout Aydinian, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, 25, pp 1778-1791 (Online publish date: December 15, 2011)
[ | 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.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/sfia-pcd121611.php
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Survey: 1 in 4 US women victims of severe violence (AP)
ATLANTA ? It's a startling number: 1 in 4 women surveyed by the government say they were violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends.
Experts in domestic violence don't find it too surprising, although some aspects of the survey may have led to higher numbers than are sometimes reported.
Even so, a government official who oversaw the research called the results "astounding."
"It's the first time we've had this kind of estimate" on the prevalence of intimate partner violence, said Linda Degutis of the centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The survey, released by the CDC Wednesday, marks the beginning of a new annual project to look at how many women say they've been abused.
One expert called the new report's estimate on rape and attempted rape "extremely high" ? with 1 in 5 women saying they were victims. About half of those cases involved intimate partners. No documentation was sought to verify the women's claims, which were made anonymously.
But advocates say the new rape numbers are plausible.
"It's a major problem that often is under-estimated and over-looked," said Linda James, director of health for Futures Without Violence, a San Francisco-based organization that advocates against domestic abuse.
The CDC report is based on a randomized telephone survey of about 9,000 women.
Among the findings:
? As many as 29 million women say they have suffered severe and frightening physical violence from a boyfriend, spouse or other intimate partner. That includes being choked, beaten, stabbed, shot, punched, slammed against something or hurt by hair-pulling.
? That number grows to 36 million if slapping, pushing and shoving are counted.
? Almost half of the women who reported rape or attempted rape said it happened when they were 17 or younger.
Several of the CDC numbers are higher than those of other sources. For example, the CDC study suggests that 1.3 million women have suffered rape, attempted rape or had sex forced on them in the previous year. That statistic is more than seven times greater than what was reported by a Department of Justice household survey conducted last year.
There may be several reasons for the differences, including how the surveys were done, who chose to participate and how "rape" and other types of assault were defined or interpreted, said Shannan Catalano, a statistician with the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Sandusky legal sarcasm fail - Boing Boing
Jerry Sandusky's defense lawyer tried to brush off reporters who wanted to know about the eyewitness accounts of his client raping children. Counsel Joe Amendola told reporters who believed this testimony, "I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY." That turns out to be the number of a phone-sex line.
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Source: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/14/sandusky-legal-sarcasm-fail.html
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Palm Springs fest to honor "Young Adult''s Reitman, Theron (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? "Young Adult" director Jason Reitman, screenwriter Diablo Cody and stars Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt will receive the Vanguard Award at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival, PSIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.
In a news release announcing the award, festival chairman Harold Matzner called "Young Adult" "a truly unique and utterly enjoyable film" and added, "The filmmakers and cast represent the some of the best and most exciting filmmaking work of the year and have delivered a biting black comedy as deeply poignant as it is funny."
Of the four honorees, only Oswalt is not a past PSIFF recipient. Reitman and Cody received the Vanguard Award in 2008 for their previous collaboration, "Juno," while Theron received the Desert Palm Achievement Actress Award for "North Country" in 2006. Reitman also won the festival's Best Director award for "Up in the Air" two years ago.
Previously announced PSIFF honorees include Octavia Spencer, Michelle Williams, George Clooney, Glenn Close and "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius.
The 23rd Palm Springs International Film Festival kicks off on January 5 and runs through January 16. The awards gala, at which the "Young Adult" team will receive their honors, will take place on January 7.
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
Google Acquires Clever Sense, Creator Of Local Recommendations App Alfred
Google is acquiring the?Silicon Valley-based startup?Clever Sense, both companies are announcing today. Clever Sense, as you may recall, is the maker of the mobile application "Alfred," which delivers personalized recommendations?for nearby restaurants, coffee shops, bars and nightclubs using a combination of artificial intelligence and?machine-learning algorithms. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Clever Sense team will be joining Google's local services division immediately, the home to the business directory and reviews service Google Places.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lK3P3zPgqQ8/
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Amanda Knox hires attorney for possible book deal (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Amanda Knox, who was cleared of murder and freed from prison by an Italian court in October, has hired a prominent Washington, D.C.-based lawyer as she considers possible book deals, her spokesman said on Monday.
Knox, 24, has retained attorney Robert Barnett "to represent her in discussions with various book publishers who have expressed an interest in Amanda writing a book," spokesman David Marriott said.
"Mr. Barnett will also assist Amanda and her family in evaluating other opportunities as well," Marriott said in a statement.
Marriott did not elaborate on those additional opportunities but said few details of a potential book had been yet decided by Knox and her family, including an advance or the possibility of co-authors.
Barnett has previously represented President Barack Obama, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, singer Barbra Streisand and a host of other political and entertainment luminaries in book deals.
The announcement comes a day after a Seattle-based literary agent announced that she had agreed to represent Knox's 27-year-old former Italian boyfriend and co-defendant in the sensational murder case, Raffaele Sollecito.
"This is a case I have followed from day one and never, not even for one moment, have I doubted the innocence of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox," agent Sharlene Martin said in a statement announcing that deal.
Knox, then a college student studying in Italy, and Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of murdering her 21-year-old British housemate, Meredith Kercher in what prosecutors said was a drug-fueled sexual assault.
An Italian appeals court overturned their convictions in October after independent forensic investigators sharply criticized police scientific evidence in the original investigation, saying it was unreliable.
Knox made a tearful return to her hometown of Seattle last month, saying she was "overwhelmed" by her ordeal and return.
Her father said at the time that the former University of Washington student, whose trial gripped attention on both sides of the Atlantic, had not agreed to any media deals
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
New Charles Dickens coin honors author
This picture made available by Britain's Royal Mint taken Nov. 9, 2011, shows the new 2 pound sterling coin with the Queen's head, right, and the reverse with the image of Charles Dickens, made up from some of the titles of his most famous novels, which has been created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth on 7 February 1812. (AP Photo/David Parry) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
This picture made available by Britain's Royal Mint taken Nov. 9, 2011, shows the new 2 pound sterling coin with the Queen's head, right, and the reverse with the image of Charles Dickens, made up from some of the titles of his most famous novels, which has been created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth on 7 February 1812. (AP Photo/David Parry) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
This picture made available by Britain's Royal Mint taken Nov. 9, 2011, shows the reverse of the new 2 pound sterling coin with the image of Charles Dickens, made up from some of the titles of his most famous novels, which has been created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth on 7 February 1812. (AP Photo/David Parry) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
LONDON (AP) ? The Royal Mint has come up with a novel way to wish Charles Dickens a happy 200th birthday ? a new coin with a portrait of the author made up of the titles of some of his most famous fictional works.
The two-pound ($3.20) uncirculated collectible coin will be available via the Royal Mint's website for a price of 8.50 pounds ($13) starting this week, officials said.
Coins designed for circulation will be available early next year to mark Dickens' birthday. The celebrated Victorian novelist was born two centuries ago on Feb. 7, 1812.
The design released Tuesday shows a portrait by artist Matthew Dent that uses titles like "David Copperfield" and "A Christmas Carol" to form a silhouette of Dickens' face.
"I wanted the design of the coin to reference both the immense contribution Dickens has made to British literature and his iconic portrait," Dent said.
The portrait is based on a bust of the author on display at the Charles Dickens Museum in London.
The edge of the coin is inscribed with the quotation "Something will turn up," associated with the ever-optimistic Wilkins Micawber character in "David Copperfield."
_____
Online: www.royalmint.com
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Monday, December 5, 2011
The next generation of superstars to stir up our galaxy
Three astronomers at the University of Toronto have found the most numerous batch of young, supermassive stars yet observed in our galaxy: hundreds of thousands of stars, including several hundreds of the most massive kind --blue stars dozens of times heavier than our Sun.
The light these newborn stars emit is so intense it has pushed out and heated the gas that gave them birth, carving out a glowing hollow shell about a hundred light-years across.
These findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. For the researchers, the next step is already clear: "By studying these supermassive stars and the shell surrounding them, we hope to learn more about how energy is transmitted in such extreme environments," says Mubdi Rahman, a PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, who led the work with his supervisors, Professors Dae-Sik Moon and Christopher Matzner.
Such large nurseries of massive stars have been noticed in other galaxies, but were so far away that all stars are often blurred together on images taken by telescopes. "This time, the massive stars are right here in our galaxy, and we can even count them individually," Rahman says.
Studying the individual stars will require intricate measurements. The cluster of bright stars is located nearly halfway across our galaxy, 30,000 light-years away, and the line of sight is blocked by dust. "All this dust made it difficult for us to figure out what type of stars they are," Rahman says.
"These stars are incredibly bright," Rahman says, "yet, they're very hard to see." Before the light from these stars can reach us, most of it is absorbed by the intervening dust in our galaxy. This makes the brightest stars in the cluster appear as dim as smaller, nearby stars. The fainter stars in the cluster appear so dim that they are not seen.
The researchers used the New Technology Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile to collect whatever light they could from a few dozen stars. They measured in details how much light the stars emit in each colour, and were finally able to confirm that at least a dozen stars in the cluster were of the most massive kind, some possibly a hundred times more massive than our Sun.
In fact, before turning a ground telescope toward the stars themselves, Rahman first noticed the glow from the large shell of heated gas using the WMAP satellite, which is sensitive to microwaves (between radio waves and visible light). To make an image of the gas shell being blown away and heated up, the researchers used the Spitzer satellite, which works with infrared light (between microwave and visible light).
Rahman suggested the name "Dragonfish" after comparing the infrared image of the celestial gas shell with Peter Shearer's illustration of the deep-sea creature with the same name. The astronomical image resembles a dark gaping mouth-like shape with teeth, two eyes, and a bright fin to the right.
The "mouth" is the volume from which the gas has been cleared by the light of the stars, pushed outward to form a shell that is particularly bright in spots corresponding to the eyes and the fin of the animal.
"We were able to see the effect of the stars on their surroundings before seeing the stars directly", Rahman says. This would be like seeing lit faces and red cheeks from the heat of a campfire, without being able to see the logs and flames themselves.
In the same way that red embers are cooler than the blue flame of a welding torch, the gas is cooler than what is heating it, and thus glows redder than the blue stars.
Compared to the colours of a rainbow ranging from red to blue, most of the light emitted by the heated gas is in fact redder than red, and thus infrared - less affected by gas or dust, and invisible to our naked eyes, but not to appropriate telescope instruments. At the other end of the rainbow, the giant stars in the cluster are bluer than blue, and emit mostly in the ultraviolet, which is blocked by dust and thus not visible on the image.
"But we had to make sure what was at the heart of the shell," Rahman says. Now that the astronomers have identified several stars there as very massive, they know that these stars will burn their nuclear fuel relatively quickly in astronomical terms: within a few million years (thousands of times faster than for our Sun) even though the giant blue stars contain dozens of times more fuel than our Sun.
"Still, if you thought the inside of the shell was empty, think again," Rahman says. For each of the few hundred superstars the researchers may have spotted, there are thousands of average stars more akin to our Sun. When the superstars have burned through their fuel, they will explode and release metals and other heavy atoms that may help form rocky planets around smaller, quieter stars --perhaps providing the building blocks for life.
"There may be newer stars already forming in the eyes of the Dragonfish," Rahman says. Some areas in the shell glow particularly bright, and the researchers think the gas there may have been compressed enough to ignite even more stars.
The gas now in the shell is the remainder of the very gas that gave birth to the stars, and there is a lot of it: the mother shell is more massive than the cluster of its babies. But with no mother anymore to keep them reined in via its mass and gravity, all the young stars may start wandering off in all directions.
"We've found a rebel in the group, a runaway star escaping from the group at high speed," Rahman says. "We think the group is no longer tied together by gravity: however, how the association will fly apart is somethie still don't understand well."
The online version of the scientific paper can be downloaded here.
Source: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_next_generation_of_superstars_to_stir_up_our_galaxy_999.html
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Nevada Cancer Institute to be Sold to UCSD
LAS VEGAS - Nevada Cancer Institute announced Friday plans to sell its out-patient facility, operations and some personal property to UC San Diego Health System.
Operations will continue as normal until the sale is finished. As part of the agreement, the non-profit corporation will have to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The sale will reduce the NCI's debt by more than $50 million.
Nevada Cancer Institute officials say patients will not see a significant change in their care.
"Over time, we will continue to be able to build based on the foundation that the UCSD system and the Moore's Cancer Center have - to be able to, over time, offer more clinical trials to people and again to be part of something that has again achieved enormous standards of excellence," said Nevada Cancer Institute co-founder Heather Murren.?
The sale is expected to be completed in 2012.
Source: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/16177624/breaking-news-nevada-cancer-institute
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Catholic church in Congo issues poll warning (Reuters)
KINSHASA (Reuters) ? Congo's Catholic Church urged election authorities Sunday to ensure published poll results were a true reflection of voters' intentions as a disorderly counting process raised concerns about possible electoral fraud and more bloodshed.
The Church, which had the largest network of independent observers during Monday's elections and is an influential player in the overwhelmingly Christian country, warned that a dispute over the election could trigger major unrest.
At least 18 people were killed in election-related violence, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, which Sunday welcomed a government probe into the alleged killing of civilians by President Joseph Kabila's security forces.
Separately, the African Union urged politicians in the Central African state to show restraint after leading opposition parties rejected partial election results that showed Kabila in the lead so far.
"We have called for the results from the ballot boxes to be respected. That means we must publish the results of what people voted and not something else," Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo, the archbishop of Kinshasa, told Reuters after Sunday mass.
Monsengwo said the Church would have an accurate picture of the results based on a network of 30,000 observers monitoring some 24 percent of the country's 63,000 polling stations.
When asked if the Church would publish their version of the results if the election commission published different figures, he said: "I hope that will not be the case."
With fears growing that the release of full preliminary results in two days' time will lead to unrest, both the African Union and local church leaders said candidates should make any challenges to results through legal channels.
Results from about a third of polling stations give Kabila a clear lead over his main rival, veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who has strong support in the capital Kinshasa where outbreaks of violence occurred before the poll.
Congo's election commission defied all odds to hold the presidential and parliamentary poll last Monday. But the voting was often chaotic, at times violent and had to be stretched over three days due to delays in places.
International observers have warned that the various steps of the counting process after the initial tally at polling stations have been poorly organised, with ballots and results sheets often being lost or destroyed in the process.
The partial tally released by the commission so far shows Kabila leading with 3,275,125 votes, while Tshisekedi trails with 2,233,447 votes, based on 33.3 percent of polling stations counted. Both camps say they are confident of winning.
The count includes virtually no results from Kinshasa and the percentage varied widely by province. Geographical trends will likely have a strong influence on the overall figure as voting is often on ethnic lines in much of the country.
The opposition says the preliminary results are skewed and were released early to prepare the country for a fraudulent final outcome. It has called for African mediation.
The election commission says it was obliged to publish the early figures because hackers put bogus results on its website showing Tshisekedi in the lead.
Kabila's camp has said the president would accept defeat. But it accused the opposition of readying people for protests and said he will not tolerate any threats to his authority on the streets in the event of him winning.
Earlier Bishop Nicolas Djomo, president of the Congolese bishops' conference CENCO, appealed for calm and warned that the country could see protracted civilian unrest similar to 1991 when locals in Kinshasa joined riots led by unpaid soldiers.
"We feel today as if there is a high-speed train heading straight for a wall, and no one wants to put on the brakes," he said, urging political leaders to act responsibly.
CENCO also called on election authorities to publish more information, including the number of spoiled ballots.
AU CHIMES IN
The November 28 poll was the first locally organised and funded election since the official end of years of war in 2003. Kabila won a United Nations-backed vote in 2006, offering hope that the mineral-rich, crisis-riddled giant may stabilise.
But the vote has put the nation on edge.
Congo's government has beefed up security in anticipation of the announcement of the results. Overnight, U.N. peacekeepers, Congolese riot police and heavily armed presidential guard soldiers patrolled the streets of Kinshasa.
"(AU Commission President Jean) Ping strongly calls on the entire political class to show restraint and responsibility so that the announcement of the ... results represent a moment of political maturity and reinforce democracy," the AU said in a statement.
While appealing for high-level African mediation, Congo's opposition leaders, who have only united after the poll, rejected the idea of a unity government with Kabila, such as those put in place to calm post-election disputes of recent years in countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
Romney faces 2 big rivals: Gingrich and Obama (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Suddenly Mitt Romney is fighting a two-front political war.
The Republican presidential contender has skated along for much of the year as GOP challengers surged and faded. But now he faces an unexpected, more serious threat from Newt Gingrich ? just as Barack Obama's team is sharpening its criticism of Romney, whom the president's aides view as his likeliest foe next fall.
With only a month before the Iowa caucuses kick off the nominating fight, Gingrich's rise has forced Romney's campaign to evaluate a new reality: He no longer has the luxury of staying above the Republican primary fray, avoiding tough questions about his own record and hammering Obama at will while essentially ignoring his GOP rivals.
Well aware of the new challenge, Romney has started fighting back against two opponents from opposite ends of the political spectrum ? no easy feat ? while also defending himself from continuing criticism of reversals, equivocations and shifts on a range of issues.
What does he have to say now about Gingrich?
"He's a lifelong politician," Romney declared this week, signaling his intention to go after the former House speaker and long-time Washington insider in hopes of knocking him off course. Romney also is set to air his first television commercials on Friday in Iowa, where polls show Gingrich and Romney locked in a tight race. It's another indication of how seriously Romney is taking the Georgian's rise.
Gingrich sought Thursday to stay above board, telling The Associated Press while campaigning in Iowa, "I'm not going to focus on Romney or anybody else." He made the comment just days after saying in South Carolina that he was "a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney" and added: "It's wrong to go around and adopt radically different positions based on your need of any one election."
Romney also has started subtly contrasting his character with Gingrich's once rocky private life. He said on Fox News that he's a person "who has devoted his life to his family, to his faith, to his country."
At the same time, Romney intends to keep the heat on Obama, convinced that his best chance at clinching the GOP nomination is to persuade Republican primary voters that he's the strongest candidate to take on the Democratic incumbent on their biggest issue, the economy, next fall.
Romney's response was swift when the Democratic National Committee rolled out TV ads this week attacking Romney for flip-flopping on a series of issues, including abortion and health care.
The Republican's team quickly organized conference calls with top supporters in about a dozen states ? a demonstration of organizing power meant to serve as a warning to both Gingrich and Obama.
"They don't want to see me as the nominee, that's for sure," Romney chided in response to the ads. "It shows that they're awfully afraid of facing me in the general election. They want to throw the primary process to anybody but me, but bring it on. We're ready for them."
Obama's aides privately say they see Romney as the Republican most likely to win the party's nomination and they have been flummoxed that no GOP rival has gone after him aggressively. By stepping up the heat, the president's aides hope to bloody Romney so he emerges from the GOP fight as a damaged nominee. Or, in what many Democrats view as a less-likely scenario, the Republicans would pick a candidate who would be weaker in the general election.
Gingrich has advantages of his own, in the primary fight or a general election. He's universally known within the GOP with broad grassroots support, and he has a deep grasp of policy issues.
"Conservatives now have a credible, nationally known alternative in Gingrich," said longtime GOP consultant Rick Wilson, who works in Florida. "That's more of a problem for Romney than some other candidates have posed."
But Gingrich lacks any significant campaign organization after his staff resigned en masse in June. His fundraising dried up, and his campaign is still paying off debts from earlier this year. He also carries personal baggage ? including two divorces and acknowledged infidelity ? that could turn off conservative Republicans in Iowa, where voters will first choose among Romney, Gingrich and their rivals. And he has some political problems, having backed proposals now considered conservative apostasy such as an individual mandate for Americans to buy health insurance.
All that opens the way for Romney to employ a strategy he used as other, more conservative alternatives to him have risen and fallen over the past six months. As in those cases, Romney's campaign expects the media to shine a light on Gingrich's long record. The campaign also has spent much of the year compiling research to criticize rivals who rise to challenge him ? and never stopped plotting for Gingrich despite the former speaker's summer problems.
Romney allies say his campaign started picking up early on Gingrich's surge by noting he was frequently the second choice among Republicans who preferred a different conservative candidate to the former Massachusetts governor.
Either by coincidence or by design, other candidates also have started helping Romney.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian-leaning candidate with a big bank account, rolled out a blistering online video this week ? that may eventually end up on TV ? accusing Gingrich of "serial hypocrisy." The spot showed Gingrich alongside former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic boogeyman to Republicans.
But time is not on Romney's side as it was when other rivals ? Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and businessman Herman Cain among them ? enjoyed bursts of momentum only to fall after missteps.
Until now, Romney's biggest challenge this year had come from Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He entered the race in August, months after signaling he probably would run. That gave Romney's campaign plenty of time to prepare. When Perry immediately rose to the top of polls, Romney castigated him as a career politician, much as he's doing with Gingrich now. If that didn't work, Romney still had four months before the Iowa caucuses to try to take Perry down. It helped that Perry was unknown to much of the primary electorate, so Romney could help define him in voters' minds.
Perry ended up fading without Romney having to seriously engage for much more than week.
But only four weeks remain before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, and Gingrich, who has risen steadily in polls nationally and in early voting states, already is known nationally. That will make it much more difficult for Romney to define him.
Still, Romney is counting on his superior campaign organization, which is designed to keep him in the race for the long haul by winning significant numbers of key convention delegates even if he loses in a particular state.
As Romney faces more scrutiny in the coming weeks, one of his main challenges will be to keep his well-known defensiveness in check.
For the better part of a year, his campaign has executed a steady strategy vastly different from his reactive, aggressive and unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid. So far, Romney has been able to watch his rivals cut each other down on the debate stage and elsewhere, while he has barely been forced to defend himself. He kept his cool as one conservative rival after another rose to potentially challenge his long-held position as the GOP field's most plausible nominee.
But there are signs that Romney's temper may be rising along with the pressure of waging two political fights.
In a Fox News interview this week, anchor Bret Baier pressed Romney on being on both sides of issues, including climate change, immigration, abortion and gay rights. And Romney appeared irritated, telling Baier: "Your list is just not accurate. So, one, we're going to have to be better informed about my views on issues."
The coming weeks will tell whether Romney can withstand the scrutiny ? and wage two fights at once.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
1st Penn State abuse suit comes from new accuser
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Lawyers for a young man described in a grand jury report of a victim of sexual abuse by former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky said Thursday they settled a legal action regarding a charity's assets.
Harrisburg attorneys Ben Andreozzi and Jeffrey Fritz said the settlement protected the claim their client plans to assert to the assets of The Second Mile, a nonprofit for at-risk children Sandusky founded in 1977.
"We intend to initiate a civil lawsuit seeking damages from the organizations and individuals responsible for the sexual assaults upon our clients," the lawyers said in a release. "However, our priority at this time is to support our clients, including Victim No. 4, who will be testifying against Mr. Sandusky at the preliminary hearing."
Sandusky, 67, has been charged with sexual abuse of eight boys over a 15-year period. His preliminary hearing on 40 criminal counts is scheduled for Dec. 13 at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte.
Andreozzi and Fritz said that under terms of the settlement, The Second Mile has agreed to obtain court approval before transferring assets or closing and give their client the ability to weigh in before a judge regarding any distribution of assets.
The Second Mile released a statement calling the agreement a reiteration of its existing legal liabilities and saying it does not include a finding of liability.
The Second Mile said earlier this week that its donors should consider giving money to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, the latest sign that the charity may not be a going concern much longer. The Second Mile said its December programs would go on as scheduled, however.
Prosecutors said Sandusky found his alleged victims through The Second Mile, which is based in State College.
Also Thursday, state Rep. Ronald Waters, D-Philadelphia, asked the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare ? the agency that licenses programs dealing with youth and children ? to provide him with detailed information about The Second Mile's activities.
Penn State President Rodney Erickson said Thursday the school would conduct a wide-open search for a new football coach, following the dismissal of head coach Joe Paterno shortly after Sandusky was arrested. Paterno has not been charged with any crime, although two other high-ranking administrators, former athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, have been charged with lying to a grand jury and failure to properly report suspected child abuse.
They have denied the allegations and await a preliminary hearing in Harrisburg Dec. 16.
Penn State's trustees said Thursday they would hold an early morning session on Friday to formally approve decisions made in the immediate aftermath of the arrests of Sandusky, Curley and Schultz.
The conference call meeting at the Nittany Lion Inn in State College begins at 8 a.m. and is open to the public.
Erickson said the university will donate $1.5 million in bowl proceeds to a pair of sex-crime advocacy organizations in the wake of shocking sex-abuse allegations levied against a once-revered assistant football coach.
He said Big Ten bowl revenue, which usually goes back to the athletic department, will go instead to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
"This presents an excellent opportunity for Penn State to raise the national visibility of this issue," Erickson said. "Our students and fans are focused on a cause to play for, to cheer for."
In addition on Thursday, Sandusky's lawyer said he has not discussed pleading guilty with his client and that the former coach continues to maintain he is innocent of the charges against him.
Joe Amendola said Sandusky has never considered a plea in his case and the topic of a guilty plea came up as a "what-if" question from a reporter about potential additional charges.
"My answer to the 'what if' question was analogous to saying, if weather forecasters were predicting a blizzard next week, which they are not, I would have to at least consider the possibility of postponing my scheduled trip to Philadelphia," Amendola said in an email.
Authorities say the sex abuse allegations were not immediately brought to the attention of authorities even though investigators say high-level people at Penn State apparently knew about at least some of them.
School President Graham Spanier was ousted as a result.
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Funding crunch imperils progress on AIDS (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) ? The international community has made extraordinary progress in the past decade in the fight against AIDS, but a funding crisis is putting those gains at risk, the United Nations health agencies said on Wednesday.
A World Health Organization-led report said the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS and now infects about 34 million people around the world has proven a "formidable challenge" for scientists and public health experts.
"But the tide is turning," it added. "The tools to achieve an AIDS-free generation are in our hands."
A severe funding crisis at the world's largest backer of the fight against AIDS and a decline in international donor money to battle the disease is dampening optimism in the HIV/AIDS community about an eventual end to the pandemic.
Annual funding for HIV/AIDS programmes fell to $15 billion in 2010 from $15.9 billion in 2009, well below the estimated $22 billion to $24 billion the U.N. agencies say is needed by 2015 to pay for a comprehensive, effective global response.
The public-private Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world's largest financial backer of HIV treatment and prevention programmes, said last week it was cancelling new grants for countries battling these diseases and would make no new funding available until 2014.
"Just as the world is making huge strides in the fight against HIV and AIDS, the goal of creating an AIDS-free generation, where no children are born with HIV, will not be possible unless the Global Fund is able to continue scaling up its work," said Patrick Watt, Save the Children's global campaign director.
"With the main funding body...now out of cash, there is a serious crisis," said Tido von Schoen-Angerer of the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontires. "It's like a car going full speed has suddenly run out of gas."
In an interview with Reuters as the U.N agencies' report was released, Gottfried Hirnschall, the WHO's director for HIV/AIDS, said progress in cutting the number of new HIV infections and dramatically increasing access to life-saving AIDS drugs made this a critical time in the battle.
Scientific studies in the past year have also shown that getting timely AIDS drug treatment to those with HIV can significantly cut the number of people who become newly infected with the virus.
"This is a really exciting year, because we're seeing downward trends in those areas where we want to see downward trends - in new infections and in mortality - and we're seeing upward trends where we'd like to see them, primarily in (treatment) coverage rates," Hirnschall said
Latest figures in Wednesday's report and from a UNAIDS global study last week show the number of new HIV infections fell to 2.7 million in 2010, down from 3.1 million in 2001, while the number of people getting life-saving AIDS drugs rose to 6.65 million in 2010 from just 400,000 in 2003.
Hirnschall said the data suggested the WHO's goal to have zero new infections, zero deaths and zero stigma associated with HIV "could in the not too distant future become a reality."
But the big risk lies in the funding, he said.
"We already have a $7 billion shortfall for this year and what's even more alarming is that we also had almost a billion dollars less this year than we did last."
With many large international donor countries struggling with recession and debt crises, public health experts said it was crucial for countries affected by HIV/AIDS to do all they can to fund their own programmes and make resources go further.
Wednesday's report, released ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1 by the WHO, the United Nations AIDS programme UNAIDS and the United Nations children's fund UNICEF, said treatment, prevention and outreach programmes are becoming more efficient, with health clinics integrating services and local communities finding more effective ways to get medicines to HIV patients.
"2011 has been a game changing year. With new science, unprecedented political leadership and continued progress in the AIDS response, countries have a window of opportunity to seize this momentum," said Paul De Lay, deputy director of UNAIDS.
"However, gains made to date are being threatened by a decline in resources."
Hirnschall said donors should recognize that stepping up investment now will save lives, and more money in the long run.
"The risk is that we carry on as we are for the next 20 years and the whole epidemic will just linger on and on. Or we could load up front and make a big investment now, and then the numbers will really start to come down and it will pay off."
"The question is, is the world ready to do that?"
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Questions and answers about Europe's debt crisis (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The coordinated plan that the Federal Reserve and other central banks announced Wednesday is intended to ease financial strains that threaten Europe's common currency and could tip the global economy into recession.
The Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland said they would make it easier for banks to get dollars if they need them. Stocks soared in response.
The plan helped boost confidence among investors and lenders and shows that the banks are able to take coordinated action to encourage lending. But it isn't a permanent fix for the broader crisis in Europe: Debt burdens are overwhelming Spain, Italy and other nations and raising fears that they'll go into default. Banks that hold much of that debt have been reluctant to lend to each other.
Earlier, markets had fallen after the finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro failed to reach an agreement on resolving the crisis. That means major disputes will now have to be addressed by the leaders of all 27 countries in the European Union who will hold their own meeting next Friday in Brussels.
Here are some questions and answers about the crisis:
Q: Why the urgency now?
A: Earlier efforts, like bailouts of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, haven't convinced investors that European policymakers can or will ease the crushing debts of some European nations. Jittery investors are demanding that European governments pay ever-higher interest rates on their bonds. Yields on Italian bonds, for instance, top 7 percent. That's considered unsustainable. Even Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, struggled to sell bonds last week.
Q: Why are higher interest rates such a problem?
A: Governments have to pay more interest on their debts. So they can't spend as much on goods and services that fuel economic growth. The economy slows. Tax revenue then falls. The cost of unemployment benefits and other social programs rises. Some countries might abandon the euro, plunging the continent and perhaps the world's economy into recession.
Q: Why would countries want to jettison the euro and go back to their own currencies?
A: To become more economically nimble. When they joined together 12 years ago, the 17 eurozone gave up their currencies and adopted the euro, and they surrendered control of their interest-rate policies to a new European Central Bank. That meant they couldn't cut rates to boost their economies. Nor could they reduce the value of their currencies, to give their exporters an edge. (A lower currency makes exports cheaper for foreigners to buy.) Abandoning the euro would let them escape an economic trap.
Q: How did Europe get into this mess?
A: The euro made it easier to do business across Europe and made the continent a potent economic bloc. Yet the experiment was flawed. Countries were harnessed to one another despite different economies and cultures. Banks lent at low rates even to weaker countries like Greece. The euro meant lenders didn't have to worry that individual countries would suffer inflation that would have reduced the value of their loans. Governments overspent for years and got away with it because they could borrow at low rates. But once the Great Recession hit hard, their debts became devastating.
Q: Why is a solution so hard?
A: The ECB and Germany have resisted aggressive action. Many economists want the central bank to buy the debt of Italy and other struggling countries. That would push down interest rates and ease those countries' borrowing costs. The ECB has bought Italian and Spanish bonds. But it's loath to do so in a big way. The ECB says it must control inflation, not be a lender of last resort to governments. And it doesn't want to set a precedent for bailing out financially ailing nations. Germany opposes one idea ? creating joint bonds backed by the whole eurozone ? because it fears its own borrowing costs would surge if it had to borrow jointly with weaker countries.
Q: What options have European officials considered?
A: Things that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago. One option would be to have countries cede control of their budgets to a central authority. That authority would stop countries from spending beyond their means. There has also been talk of forming an elite group of euro nations to guarantee each other's loans. It would require fiscal discipline from any country that wants to join. Once that happens, the ECB might be more willing to buy government bonds aggressively, thereby pushing down interest rates and easing governments' debt burdens.
Q: What would happen if some countries left the eurozone?
A: It could be catastrophic. Depositors would pull money from banks in weak countries that dropped the euro. Savers wouldn't want their euros replaced with weaker national currencies. If countries tried to repay their euro debts with their own currencies, they'd be considered in default. They'd struggle to borrow. So would corporations. Economists at UBS estimate that the economy of a weak country that left the eurozone would shrink 50 percent.
Q: Could a strong country like Germany leave the eurozone to avoid the damage?
A: Not necessarily. Germany's currency would likely shoot up if it did. Its exports would then become costlier for foreigners. UBS says that if Germany left the eurozone, its economy would decline 20 to 25 percent.
Q: Can Europe's leaders solve this mess?
A: The coordinated move the central banks announced Wednesday is expected to ease pressure on the financial system in the short run. But a real resolution to the crisis involves getting up to 17 countries and the ECB to agree on a solution for both easing government debt loads and imposing budgetary discipline. "This is not just a crisis of Greece or this or that country," says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. "It's a crisis of European institutions."
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