Maaii app vs Viber, WhatsApp, BBM for Android and iOS

When it comes to chat and messaging apps the choices are immense and choosing the one that works best for you is tough, the three main applications we would like to discuss today include the Maaii app, Viber and WhatsApp. These are our top choices even though we cannot count out the upcoming cross-platform BBM for Android and iOS release, BBM could be a great contender to rival these apps.

Below we will give you a few details about the applications and what features they have to offer, and then you can pass judgement in what you prefer, many of you will be using Maaii, Viber or WhatsApp already and you no doubt have your favorite, we would like to hear from you to learn why. BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) is all set to go cross platform and will be releasing in the summer sometime for both Android and iPhone users, it is going to be a battle and half for BlackBerry to take a piece of the pie from those already using Maaii, WhatsApp and Viber, can they do it?

Viber, WhatsApp, Maaii and BBM all offer similar services and core functionality, they all have the ability of sending photos and text messages for free using internet connection, 3G and 4G, three of the apps are already available for both Android and iOS devices with BBM coming soon. Some have said that Viber comes with many bugs, which of course updates occur to fix these; all applications have problems to be fair.

No one knows how BBM will fair on Android and iOS, so we cannot sit here and include our views on how this will run and if it will be popular or not, we will have to wait and see on this one.

Here are the key features of what these apps have to offer:

Maaii App (Android ? iOS)
This application will allows users to call, text as well as sending audio notes, stickers, photos, animations, videos and even private messages all for free. It has already been reviewed by the masses and is said to be as popular as Viber, Tango and even Skype, one reviewer of the app said that Maaii is like WhatsApp on Steroids.

Main features include: Free calls and messages, video and audio chat, timeout messages, video and audio mail can be sent, users can send funny stickers and animations, which allows you to be creative. Maaii also allows users to do Facebook calls where no numbers are required, share photos and locations. Send emoticons, use call and chat themes, call any landline or mobile phone using Maaii thanks to using Maaii credit and so much more. You can also use Maaii using 3G, 4G and WiFi

Viber?s Main Features (Android ? iOS)
These include texting and making calls to friends for free, HD sound quality; you can create groups of up to 40 participants, send stickers and emoticons, also share photos/locations/videos, send doodles and receive push notifications.

WhatsApp Goody Bag (Android ? iOS)
WhatsApp Messenger is available for both Android and iOS users, it is a free app for the first year and then will cost $0.99 USD year after. This allows you to send free messages, photos, notes in audio and video messages.

You can create group chats, you will not be charged internationally, allows you to chat with friends all over the world, and unlike BBM you do not need PINS and usernames, you just simply use your contacts. You do not need to add anyone, if they are on your contacts list you are good to go.

What is my favorite app!
I would have to say WhatsApp because it is easy to set up, simple to use and one major reason is because most of my friends and family use it. I have started to use the Maaii app and love this one a lot, but to get friends or family to join me on this one seems a hard task, they say they prefer WhatsApp.

BBM is going to be released soon for both Android and iOS users, but we cannot be doing with the PINS etc, we will give it a go and then pass judgement. Please let us know what app you prefer?

Source: http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2013/08/03/maaii-app-vs-viber-whatsapp-bbm-for-android-and-ios/

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Fort Hood and the rarity of military executions

FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2009, file photo, Sgt. Anthony Sills, right, comforts his wife as they wait outside the Fort Hood, Texas, army base where their young son was in daycare. Nidal Hasan is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett, File)

FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2009, file photo, Sgt. Anthony Sills, right, comforts his wife as they wait outside the Fort Hood, Texas, army base where their young son was in daycare. Nidal Hasan is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett, File)

FILE- In this Nov. 6, 2009, file photo, Col. (P) John Rossi, Deputy Commander General of Fires and Effects, and Col. Steven Braverman, Commander of Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, address reporters during a news conference following a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/Killeen Daily Herald, David Morris, File)

FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2010, file photo, Staff Sgt. Joy Clark of the 467th Combat Stress Control Detachment takes a moment to run her fingers over the engravings of the names of her fellow soldiers at a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base, in Fort Hood, Texas. Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Sonya N. Hebert, File)

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows Nidal Hasan, who is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/Bell County Sheriff's Department, File)

FILE - This June 11, 2013, file courtroom sketch shows U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, right, sitting by his former defense attorneys Maj. Joseph Marcee, far left, and Lt. Col. Kris Poppe, center, during a hearing at Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan is charged in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded. Hasan doesn?t deny that he carried out the rampage, but military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead. (AP Photo/Brigitte Woosley, File)

DALLAS (AP) ? Hundreds of unarmed soldiers, some about to deploy to Afghanistan, were waiting inside a building for vaccines and routine checkups when a fellow soldier walked in with two handguns and enough ammunition to commit one of the worst mass shootings in American history.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan doesn't deny that he carried out the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, which left 13 people dead and more than 30 others wounded. There are dozens of witnesses who saw it happen. Military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. But if he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead.

He may never make it to the death chamber at all.

While the Hasan case is unusually complex, experts also say the military justice system is unaccustomed to dealing with death penalty cases and has struggled to avoid overturned sentences.

Eleven of the 16 death sentences handed down by military juries in the last 30 years have been overturned, according to an academic study and court records. No active-duty soldier has been executed since 1961.

A reversed verdict or sentence on appeal in the Hasan case would be a fiasco for prosecutors and the Army. That's one reason why prosecutors and the military judge have been deliberate leading up to trial, said Geoffrey Corn, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and former military lawyer.

"The public looks and says, 'This is an obviously guilty defendant. What's so hard about this?'" Corn said. "What seems so simple is in fact relatively complicated."

Hasan is charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 specifications of attempted premeditated murder. Thirteen officers from around the country who hold Hasan's rank or higher will serve on the jury for a trial that will likely last one month and probably longer. They must be unanimous to convict Hasan of murder and sentence him to death. Three-quarters of the panel must vote for an attempted murder conviction.

The jury will likely hear from victims and relatives of the dead. A handful of victims still carry bullet fragments in their body. Others have nightmares.

"It never goes away ? being upset that it's taken so long for this trial to come," said Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot in the head, stomach and upper body. "So now's the day of reckoning, which is positive ? very positive."

The trial's start has been delayed over and over, often due to requests from Hasan. Any of the hundreds of decisions large or small could be fair game on appeal. The entire record will be scrutinized by military appeals courts that have overturned most of the death sentences they've considered.

"A good prosecutor, in military parlance, would be foolish to fight only the close battle," Corn said. "He's got to fight the close battle and the future battle. And the future battle is the appellate record."

Hasan has twice dismissed his lawyers and now plans to represent himself at trial. He's suggested he wants to argue the killings were in "defense of others" ? namely, members of the Taliban fighting Americans in Afghanistan. The trial judge, Col. Tara Osborn, has so far denied that strategy.

Hasan has grown a beard while in custody that he says expresses his Muslim faith, but violates military rules on decorum. After a military judge ordered him forcibly shaved, an appeals court stayed that order and took another judge off the case.

The last man executed in the military system was Pvt. John Bennett, hanged in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl. Five men are on the military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., but none are close to being executed.

An inmate was taken off death row just last year. Kenneth Parker was condemned for killing two fellow Marines in North Carolina, including Lance Cpl. Rodney Page. But Parker was given life without parole last September by an appeals court. The court found his trial judge should have not allowed him to be tried for both murders at the same time, nor should the judge have allowed testimony that the appeals court said was irrelevant to the crimes.

Parker's accomplice in the killings, Wade Walker, was also sentenced to death, only for the sentence to be overturned.

Examples abound of other death sentences set aside. They include William Kreutzer Jr., who killed one soldier and wounded 18 others in a 1995 shooting spree at Fort Bragg, N.C.; James T. Murphy, who killed his wife in Germany by smashing her head with a hammer; and Melvin Turner, who killed his 11-month-old daughter with a razor blade.

Part of the problem, experts say, is that death penalty cases are rare in military courts.

A study in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology identified just 41 cases between 1984 and 2005 where a defendant faced a court-martial on a capital charge. Meanwhile, more than 500 people have been executed since 1982 in the civilian system in Texas, the nation's most active death-penalty state.

While lawyers and judges in Texas may get multiple death penalty cases a year, many military judges and lawyers often are on their first, said Victor Hansen, another former prosecutor who now teaches at the New England School of Law. The military courts that are required to review each death-penalty verdict are also more cautious and likely to pinpoint possible errors that might pass muster at a civilian court, Hansen and Corn said.

Hansen compared the military's conundrum to small states that have a death-penalty law on the books, but never use it.

"You don't have a lot of experience or institutional knowledge," said Hansen, who compared it to "the reinventing of the wheel every time one is done."

If Hasan is convicted and sentenced to death, his case will automatically go before appeals courts for the Army and the armed forces. If those courts affirm the sentence, he could ask the Supreme Court for a review or file motions in federal civilian courts.

The president, as the military commander in chief, must sign off on a death sentence.

"If history is any guide, it's going to be a long, long, long time," Hansen said.

___

Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.

Follow Nomaan Merchant on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nomaanmerchant

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-08-03-US-Fort-Hood-Shooting-Delays/id-751f47b6895b45ec9fa252903cf50319

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Top US officials meet to discuss embassy threat

Map shows U.S. embassies and consulates that will close; 3c x 3 inches; 146 mm x 76 mm;

Map shows U.S. embassies and consulates that will close; 3c x 3 inches; 146 mm x 76 mm;

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Top U.S. officials met Saturday to review the threat of a terrorist attack that led to the weekend closure of 21 U.S. embassies and consulates in the Muslim world and a global travel warning to Americans. President Barack Obama was briefed following the session, the White House said.

Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, led the meeting and then joined Lisa Monaco, Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, in briefing the president, the White House said in a statement.

"The president has received frequent briefings over the last week on all aspects of the potential threat and our preparedness measures," according to the statement.

Among those at the meeting Saturday afternoon were the secretaries of state, defense and homeland security and the directors of the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency, according to the White House. Also attending was Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In an interview Friday with ABC News, Dempsey said officials had determined there was "a significant threat stream" and that the threat was more specific than previous ones. The "intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests," he said.

The global travel warning was the first such alert since an announcement before the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The warning comes less than a year since the deadly September attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American embassy or consulate.

The State Department's warning urged U.S. travelers to take extra precautions overseas. It cited potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists, and noted that previous attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats.

Travelers were advised to sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula. The diplomatic facilities affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida's most dangerous affiliate and the network blamed for several notable plots against the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

"Current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August," a department statement said.

Yemen's president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. This past week, Yemen's military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group's southern strongholds.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

"In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should," Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency's much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

___

Online:

State Department alerts: www.travel.state.gov

Smart Traveler Enrollment Program: www.step.state.gov

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-08-03-US-US-Embassy-Security/id-866e63d5e7884f4e93deb75be02a5d1e

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Dems hit GOP on immigration in top critic's home

AMES, Iowa (AP) ? Kicking off an August of likely intense debate over immigration, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat traveled to Iowa Friday to rebuke House Republicans who oppose major changes embraced by the Senate.

Sen. Richard Durbin's strategically targeted visit was a fairly small and calm foretaste of planned demonstrations by opponents and supporters of the proposed immigration changes during Congress' summer recess. The Senate measure would heighten border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants living here illegally.

Durbin, of Illinois, joined Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin at a forum in a college town represented in Congress by Republican Rep. Steve King. King is among Congress' fiercest opponents of granting citizenship to immigrants now here illegally. Republican leaders have denounced King's most inflammatory remarks, but some Democrats depict him as a symbol of widespread GOP resistance.

Harkin said Iowans "are compassionate, caring people and we don't characterize people with hateful, spiteful, degrading language."

King said in a July interview that some Hispanics brought to the country illegally as children become high school valedictorians. But for each of those, he said, "there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds, and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

Durbin focused on the so-called DREAM Act, which would offer eventual citizenship to some immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

"If we can fix this immigration system, we can build the American economy and we can do the right thing," Durbin told the Ames gathering. "To suggest these are petty criminals or drug smugglers just doesn't square with the reality of the DREAM Act."

The forum featured potential DREAM Act beneficiaries.

Hector Salamanca, 20, came from Mexico as a child with his parents, who stayed in the United States after their tourist visas expired. His undocumented status made him ineligible to attend a state university or receive government-sponsored grants or loans, he told the audience of about 200.

Now studying politics and law at Drake University in Des Moines, Salamanca said he hopes to become an immigration lawyer. "I engage Latino youth," he said, and he urges them to pursue their goals regardless of their legal status.

Some House Republicans have expressed interest in a version of the DREAM Act, although King calls it "backdoor amnesty."

The Obama administration and many activist groups have said they will not settle for the DREAM Act alone. They are pressing the GOP-controlled House to embrace something similar to the Senate bill.

Many House Republicans resist the idea. They point to GOP primary voters in their districts who oppose "amnesty" for people here illegally, and who say a Democratic administration can't be trusted to keep promises to tighten the border with Mexico.

Durbin noted that President Barack Obama won re-election with strong backing from Hispanic voters. Many Republican strategists say their party must improve its relationship with the fast-growing Hispanic electorate, and backing broad immigration changes could help.

If House Republicans don't embrace some version of "comprehensive" immigration reform, Durbin told reporters, the issue will dominate politics in crucial parts of the country.

Opponents of the Senate bill say they will use the August recess to stiffen House resistance. About 100 individuals and groups, led by the Tea Party Patriots, sent a letter this week to all House members expressing opposition to any legislation "that bears any resemblance to ... the Senate amnesty bill."

Meanwhile the pro-immigration-reform group America's Voice said its activists "are on the move with hundreds of grassroots events planned from coast to coast" this summer.

Demonstrators, who support legalization for millions now here illegally, blocked a major street outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, and some were arrested.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said such protesters do their cause more harm than good.

"People just see it as a campaign," Nunes said in an interview Friday. "People get their feet set in cement when they see campaigns going on."

King, meanwhile, said he was mourning the death of a Vietnam War hero on Friday rather than responding to Durbin's and Harkin's visit to his district.

----

Editor's Note: Associated Press writer Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report. Babington reported from Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dems-hit-gop-immigration-top-critics-home-160455883.html

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DevExpress Previews Windows XAML Controls with Windows 8.1 Support

With Full Support for Windows 8.1 Preview

Glendale, California ? July 30, 2013 ? DevExpress is proud to announce the immediate availability of DevExpress Windows 8 XAML Controls 13.2 Preview with full support for Windows 8.1 Preview. The entire product line of over 30 controls has been overhauled to take full advantage of the new operating system features.

Windows 8.1, code-named "Blue", is a highly anticipated update to the Microsoft operating system and scheduled for release within the next month. We have updated and tested all our Windows 8 Controls against the new OS version and utilized the newly available API to provide the following benefits:

• A new application resizing mechanism.
• Faster XAML load thanks to the ability to precompile to a binary format.
• On-demand style loading.

Once Microsoft officially releases Windows 8.1, we will issue an update that will target the final version.

Release Timeline

The Preview release with Windows 8.1 support is tagged as version 13.2. When Windows 8.1 is released to manufacturing in August, we will immediately release a separate installer for the final version 13.2 of the Windows XAML controls. They will remain in a separate installer until we release the full version 13.2 in late 2013, when we will merge them back into the main installer again.

Compatibility Questions

Subscribers will only be able to use DevExpress Windows 8 XAML Controls v13.2 with Windows 8.1, and not an unpatched Windows 8, since certain APIs will be missing. If customers are writing AppStore apps for Windows 8, they should continue using v13.1.

Note that they can still use version 13.1 of the DevExpress Windows XAML controls in Windows 8.1 in compatibility mode. In this particular case they may encounter warnings caused by changes in Windows 8.1 API. It may also be noticed that the non-optimized controls load slower than the optimized ones.

Try the Preview Release

The Preview release requires Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013 Beta software.

Active Windows 8 XAML Controls subscribers can obtain the release by logging in to their DevExpress Accounts. It can also be freely downloaded by anyone for evaluation purposes. Note that the release does not grant any redistribution rights and is set to expire on September 7th, 2013.

Download the Preview Release

About DevExpress

DevExpress builds tools with you in mind. Our .NET products are built for those who demand the highest quality and expect the best performance?for those who require reliable controls, libraries and frameworks engineered for both today and tomorrow. We are at your service.

For more information, contact Bobby Edgar by email at bobbye@devexpress.com
All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Source: http://www.devexpress.com/Home/Announces/2013-Windows-8-1-XAML.xml

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Baby owls spotted sleeping like baby humans

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Baby birds have sleep patterns similar to baby mammals, and their sleep changes in the same way when growing up. This is what a biologists found out working with barn owls in the wild. The team also discovered that this change in sleep was strongly correlated with the expression of a gene involved in producing dark, melanic feather spots, a trait known to covary with behavioral and physiological traits in adult owls. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that sleep-related developmental processes in the brain contribute to the link between melanism and other traits observed in adult barn owls and other animals.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/jpKZOdz3dCs/130802094840.htm

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UN experts to probe alleged Syria chemical attacks

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? U.N. experts will travel to Syria as soon as possible to investigate three alleged incidents of chemical weapons, the United Nations announced Wednesday.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said the green light for the investigation followed "the understanding reached with the government of Syria" during last week's visit to Damascus by U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane and the head of the chemical weapons investigation team, Ake Sellstrom.

He said Sellstrom's team will visit Khan al-Assal, a village on the southwestern outskirts of the embattled city of Aleppo, which was captured by the rebels last week and was under attack by government forces Wednesday. The government and rebels blame each other for a purported chemical attack on the village on March 19 that killed at least 30 people.

Nesirky did not give any details of the other two incidents to be investigated. A well-informed U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions on the issue have been private, said Sellstrom is expected to choose the two other sites based on the technical and scientific information the U.N. has received.

Syria initially asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate the Khan al-Assal incident and balked at a broader investigation sought by the U.N. chief after Britain, France and the United States sent the U.N. information about a dozen other alleged attacks in Homs, Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere.

Last week's Damascus visit by Kane and Sellstrom led to Syria's agreement to the probe of three incidents.

Nesirky said "The secretary-general remains mindful of other reported incidents and the mission will also continue to seek clarification from the member states concerned."

The diplomat stressed that the chemical weapons experts should have access to all 13 sites.

The mandate of the investigation team is to report on whether chemical weapons were used, and if so which chemical weapon, but not to determine the responsibility for an attack.

In June, the United States said it had conclusive evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons against opposition forces. That crossed what President Barack Obama had called a "red line" and prompted a U.S. decision to send arms and ammunition to the opposition, not just humanitarian aid and non-lethal material like armored vests and night goggles.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-experts-probe-alleged-syria-chemical-attacks-193056332.html

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Move over Bordeaux: French premium winemakers eye China vintage

By Terril Yue Jones

BEIJING | Fri Aug 2, 2013 2:40am IST

BEIJING (Reuters) - In a few remote corners of China, two of France's top winemakers have more on their minds than a trade row with their most promising export market.

In three far-flung provinces, a world away from Beijing's allegations of European wine dumping, makers of such lofty French brands as Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and Dom Perignon champagne are investing millions of dollars to produce vintages they hope will put Chinese wine on the world map.

In a country where cheap plonk and overpriced mediocre wines still define the domestic industry, the French are partnering with Chinese investors to produce super-premium wines for increasingly discerning drinkers at the market's top end.

They will likely charge hundreds of dollars per bottle when the wines start appearing in a year or two, turning out deeply rich reds and elegantly sparkling wines for wealthy Chinese drinkers who they hope will be proud to serve local vintages that are the equal of their imported collections.

"China deserves the production of great wines," said Christophe Salin, president of Domaines Barons de Rothschild (DBR), which owns the vaunted Chateau Lafite, Ch. Duhart-Milon and Ch. L'Evangile, among other French labels. "Without wanting to copy Lafite, we wish to produce a great wine on Chinese soil," he added in an interview.

"SHANGRI-LA"

DBR is investing 100 million yuan with partner CITIC, a state investment firm, to develop 25 hectares (62 acres) of vineyards in eastern Shandong province to produce super-premium red wine for the Chinese market.

Moet-Hennessy, the wine and spirits arm of luxury group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (LVMH.PA), is also looking to make a top-end Chinese red and is planting 30 hectares (74 acres) of grapes in remote mountains of southern Yunnan province.

Moet-Hennessy studied climate and soil conditions at hundreds of locations around China before settling on an area the government calls "Shangri-La", abutting Tibet, to grow Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc and Merlot grapes.

Moet-Hennessy CEO Christophe Navarre won't divulge the investment there but says it is borne two-thirds by Moet-Hennessy and one-third by its Chinese partner, winemaker VATS.

"I dream one day to go back to France with a bottle of red wine produced in the region of Shangri-La and I can say it's the best wine in the world," Navarre said in announcing the venture last year.

Moet-Hennessy's wine portfolio includes the vaunted Ch. Cheval Blanc and Ch. d'Yquem, the world's most coveted dessert wine. Its champagnes include Dom Perignon, Moet & Chandon and Krug - and it is developing vineyards in Ningxia Hui autonomous region in north-central China with a view to producing China's first ultra-premium sparkling wine.

Neither DBR nor Moet-Hennessy plans to market its Chinese wines under existing brands. Both say they want to give the wines a unique Chinese identity - a strategy that is questioned by some within the Chinese wine industry.

"If they don't put their brand on it then people won't buy it at a very high price," says Monica He, who works with wine importer Menvis in Beijing.

GROWING THIRST

DBR's and LVMH's investments into China aim to capitalise on China's growing thirst for premium wines, but could also help their extensive line-ups of mid-priced wines and spirits.

Chinese consumers are drawn to either high-end or cheap wine, leaving a gap in the middle of the market. By producing a Chinese "halo" wine marque, the French winemakers could draw drinkers to their imported mid-range lineup.

The French investors do not have plans to produce still white wines in China, as red wine and champagne are more fashionable for upwardly mobile Chinese wine drinkers.

China is the world's fifth-largest wine consumer, according to a study last year for VINEXPO, an annual wine trade show that alternates between Bordeaux and Hong Kong. The study forecast annual consumption growth in China and Hong Kong at 54.3 percent between 2011 and 2015, or a billion more bottles every year.

China's wine market is dominated by a few large local producers that make bulk and mid-priced wine, and some premium-priced wines selling for more than $100 a bottle, but these are usually considered far inferior to much cheaper imported wines.

So can China produce something at the highest level?

"The potential there is to make something very, very good," says Jim Boyce, who follows China's wine industry on his blog Grapewallofchina. "There are a lot of people who've been telling me for years that Yunnan is where it's going to happen."

Meanwhile, Beijing and Brussels are in talks to end their trade dispute over wine, with a settlement seen as likely after the two sides struck a deal last week in a separate row over Chinese solar panel exports to Europe. [ID:nL6N0FX04U] Beijing had launched its investigation into European wine sales after the European Union moved to impose steep import duties on Chinese solar panels. (Reporting by Terril Yue Jones; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/INentertainmentNews/~3/hX1XUHdh6uE/china-wine-europe-idINDEE9700IF20130801

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Allegiant adds eight routes in Southwest Florida

Staff Tampa Bay Business Journal

Allegiant Airlines will almost double its service to Southwest Florida this fall, adding eight new routes to its existing 11 at the Charlotte County Airport.

Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport Director Rick Piccolo sees the elevated competition for his embattled airport, but said there is a bright side.

He told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune the new routes bringing people to Southwest Florida only can help to enlighten people from new areas across the country to the region's charms.

By comparison, Allegiant serves six cities out of St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, according to the Herald-Tribune.

The Las Vegas-based airline?s beefed up service to Punta Gorda will bring thousands of new tourists to the region each year.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bizj_tampabay/~3/dSXdcsM2plA/allegiant-adds-eight-routes-in.html

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Google's Hangouts 1.1.1 for Android Brings New Emoji

A new flavor of the Google Hangouts application is now available for download for the owners of Android-based devices, namely version 1.1.1 (build 753199).

Up for grabs for all smartphones and tablet PCs running under Android 2.3 or newer, the application now packs some more emoji. Various bug fixes have been included inside the new app flavor as well, it seems.

Furthermore, the app release comes with various performance enhancements. ?We added some butter to Hangouts to make it run faster and slicker,? Google notes.

Released as a replacement for Google Talk, the Hangouts for Android application was designed to provide users with a more appealing experience when engaging in one-on-one and group conversations, courtesy of support for photos and emoji, as well as due to free video calling capabilities.

Download the new Google Hangouts 1.1.1 for Android

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-s-Hangouts-1-1-1-for-Android-Brings-New-Emoji-371550.shtml

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First Baptist Church of Halfway to host centennial celebration this Sunday.

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Source: lubbockonline.com --- Friday, July 19, 2013
A Halfway Church is taking no shortcuts this Sunday. First Baptist Church of Halfway has planned quite a centennial celebration, and will dedicate it to the divinity for whom they credit a great century of faith and fellowship. ? ?To God be the glory for all of those 100 years? is going to be the existing theme,? said Pastor Willis Blair. ?We?re going to have a good day of celebrating 100 years of ministry in the Halfway community.? read more ...

Source: http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2013-07-19/first-baptist-church-halfway-host-centennial-celebration-sunday

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Malaysian bloggers face jail for Facebook pork pic

A Malaysian couple have been charged with sedition after posting a Ramadan greeting with them seen eating pork on Facebook.

Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee became notorious in Malaysia for running a sexually explicit blog. But now it seems that the government has charged them with sedition after posting a Facebook photo which showed them eating pork.

Apparently eating pork in a Muslim country in Ramadan is a threat to the government's stability.

They pleaded not guilty in a Kuala Lumpur district court, and the court denied them bail. It looks like the pork snap means that they will remain in jail at least until the next court date which is set for 23 August.

If found guilty of sedition, they face a jail term of up to three years.

According to ZDNet it looks like the government has all sorts of pain lined up for the pair. The bloggers are likely to face charges of causing disharmony on religious grounds and possessing or producing obscene content, which can lead to a jail term of up to five years.

The duo have apologised for the picture but Malaysia's Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin rejected it and demanded that they be punished.

The country's prime minister, Najib Razak, also issued a rebuke. "The insolent and impudent act by the young couple who insulted Islam showed that freedom of expression and irresponsible opinion can jeopardise the community".

Najib is currently trying to replace the current sedition act, but has been attacked by opposition groups saying that the new law is designed to stifle political dissent.

If the old law can jail a young couple for eating pork, then the new one could be even sillier.

Tan and Lee hit the headlines when they posted photographs and videos of their sexual exploits, including close-ups of their genitals.

Tan's scholarship at the National University of Singapore was terminated following the public outrage over their blog.?

Source: http://news.techeye.net/security/malaysian-bloggers-face-jail-for-facebook-pork-pic

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John Lewis Chief Heads Campaign to Relax China Visa Laws to Reap Tourist Cash

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Source: www.ibtimes.com --- Friday, July 19, 2013
Andrew Murphy named as UK China Visa Alliance chairman, a group working to ease visa restrictions to Chinese nationals ...

Source: http://www.ibtimes.comhttp:0//www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/492394/20130719/china-ukcva-andrew-murphy-john-lewis.htm

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URGENT FOR ALEXIA AND ELDON ?

This is the worst email our tips line received today. I look forward to having a drink with this dude.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/q5NmgP6qGGI/

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7 Reasons to Brand Yourself Before Your Startup

Starting a business is usually the result of a personal dream or need. Investors tell me that they invest in people, more than the idea. Customers buy from people, not from a company, at least at the startup stages. That?s why it?s important to build a personal brand, in parallel and before your business brand. This will kick-start your business, and improve your odds of success.

So what does it mean to ?brand yourself?? Branding yourself means making yourself visible, and communicating via all avenues your personal value and what your stand for, with total clarity and consistency. It?s especially important to highlight your uniqueness in some easy to remember way, so people will think of you and what you do, in case they need your product or service.

Then do the same to brand your company. Branding guru Catherine Kaputa, in ?Breakthrough Branding? says that branding is all about building a recognizable identity, and associating it with benefits and positive consequences. She outlines some positioning strategies that I recommend, with seven key drivers of brand growth:

1. Brand boldly ? for your business and you. A common way to position your personal and business brand is to boldly ?own? an attitude on a key attribute. Every product or service has specific attributes that are important to key customers, like integrity and trust, or customer focus. Craft a simple message to make that your identity.

2. Dominate the category (even if you have to create a new one). Small brands that break through to grow big find a ?small? idea that fills a gaping hole ? a need in the marketplace that wasn?t met before ? and they keep filling that need better than anyone. If you dominate the market, competitor copycats will only amplify your positioning.

3. Figure out how to grow and scale the business. Businesses that scale have leverage and more rapid brand growth. Technology businesses can be very scalable because you can develop a core set of assets, such as software systems, and then you can monetize them at low additional cost. Build your business model on systems, not on people.

4. Enchant your customers. At the end of the day, you?re only as good as your customers who love and appreciate you. That?s why having a special customer relationship model that?s hard to copy can propel your business growth. According to Guy Kawasaki, enchanted customers elevate your brand, like advocating a good cause.

5. Put ?growth agent? in everyone?s job description. Growth means change, and that doesn?t come naturally to most people. Keep everyone focused on one key objective and three measurable key results, so ?business as usual? is not an option. Find people smarter than you in each aspect of the business, and hand if off as you scale.

6. Strike the right balance between innovation and staying true to the brand. Ignore innovation and your competitors will quickly pass you by. Too much innovation will confuse your customers, and drain your resources. To stay true to the brand, use open innovation, and see the power of involving customers in the process of innovating.

7. Take advantage of good luck and bad. Sometimes a sprinkling of good luck after bad, along with pluck, can propel your business idea into a breakthrough brand. The early startup period (?valley of death?) is your most vulnerable time but also your most opportunistic, because it is the time when you can create tremendous brand value.

As much as we might like entrepreneurship and branding to be a science, because it would be simpler that way, it is not. Being a brand entrepreneur, both for you personally as well as your business, requires learning, and is an ever-changing art without easy formulas.

An entrepreneur these days can?t afford to hide behind an impersonal website or hole up in the corner office. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, connect your customers to one another, and you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you don?t take charge of your brand, someone else will ? and they are not likely to brand you in the way you want to be branded. Do you want the impossible task of undoing a negative brand?

Marty Zwilling

Source: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2013/07/7-reasons-to-brand-yourself-before-your.html

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Monitoring cockpit systems not easy for pilots (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/320022832?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Where Is the ?Post-Racial? America President After the Zimmerman Verdict?

?

After Zimmerman verdict, Obama needs to speak about racism

By Janet Langhart Cohen, Washington Post

Janet Langhart Cohen is the author of the play ?Anne and Emmett,? an imaginary conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till. She is on Twitter: @LanghartCohen.

In the wake of the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, President Obama has called on the American people to engage in calm reflection. Few expected the president to denounce the verdict or call upon people to take to the streets in protest, but we did expect him to speak in a way that touched the heartbreak, despair and quiet rage that so many of us feel at this moment.

On multiple occasions, Obama has asked blacks to understand the high wire he is forced to walk on the subject of race. He has pleaded that we cut him some slack. Most have done so even as conditions in the black community have become more desperate.

We have waited and watched the president address issues of importance to women, gays and lesbians, Latinos and the security of our allies. We praised his boldness in speaking to the issue of sexual orientation during his visit to Africa.

?

?

For the past four years, we have remained silent; some have been satisfied that Obama being the first black president was reason enough to seal our lips and muffle our voices. But most were convinced that, once he entered his second term, Obama would be liberated from the racial harness that politics forced him to wear.

During this period of self-imposed silence, we have watched our criminal laws become racialized and our race criminalized. Blacks continue to be faced with punishing unfairness and inequalities. Soaring rates of unemployment, discriminatory drug laws, disproportionate prison sentences, unequal access to health care and healthy food, unfair stop-and-frisk policies and ?accidental? shootings of unarmed black men by the police ? these and more are treated with indifference or contempt. We?re told to stop complaining, to get over it. No one cares.

But that?s just the point of living in the United States. Somebody is supposed to care. Our elected officials, beginning with the president, are charged with the responsibility of listening to the needs, the grievances, the voices of the people ? including people of color.

It?s the reason why every black leader from Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have urged us to speak up, agitate, march, brave the beatings from fire hoses, bull whips and dogs, to touch the conscience of the American people with the righteousness of our demands for equal opportunity and justice.

It is my hope that Obama will do what Nelson Mandela did when he was forced to stand trial before an Afrikaner court for the crime of fighting for freedom.?

Source: http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/07/17/where-%E2%80%98post-racial%E2%80%99-america-president-after-zimmerman-verdict

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Zimmerman book dies after Twitter campaign

A woman known as Juror B37 thought writing an anonymous book about her experiences on the George Zimmerman trial was a good idea.

Many people, including a powerful and tireless group of outraged Twitter users, thought otherwise.

News reports surfaced Monday morning that the woman, who gave an exclusive interview that night with CNN's Anderson Cooper about her experiences on the six-woman Zimmerman jury, had signed with a literary agent and was working on a book proposal about the trial. The agent was identified as Sharlene Martin, who has worked on such other post-trial tomes as O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" and Mary Jo Buttafuoco's "Getting It Through My Thick Skull."

Then came the Twitter backlash, led by 29-year-old New Yorker Genie Lauren, who goes by @MoreAndAgain on Twitter. Lauren saw the juror's interview on CNN and decided to take action.

"I was angry and I didn't think it was right that someone would make money off of this tragedy -- especially after they let Zimmerman go free," she told NewsOne.

Lauren tracked down contact information for Martin, including her Twitter handle, e-mail address, mailing address and phone number, and posted it on the social network and on Storify, which displays social media posts in a blog-like stream. She then asked her followers to write Martin and urge her to drop B37 as a client.

Next she launched a Change.org petition with the title, "Sharlene Martin: Drop Juror B37 from Martin Literary Management," which quickly hit 1,346 signatures.

Immediately, people began venting on Twitter and contacting Martin. In a matter of hours, Martin announced late Monday afternoon that she and the juror were no longer moving ahead with the book.

In a statement released by Martin, the juror said, in part, "I have realized the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury."

She elaborated in a statement Wednesday to CNN, saying, "There was an agreement with a literary agent to explore the concept of a book which discussed the impact of sequestration on my perceptions of this serious case, while being compared to the perceptions of an attorney who was closely following the trial from outside the 'bubble.'

Source: http://www.wyff4.com/news/money/technology/Zimmerman-book-dies-after-Twitter-campaign/-/9323972/21020280/-/bd1rvtz/-/index.html?absolute=true

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Egypt Cabinet has women, Christians; no Islamists

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's interim leader swore in a Cabinet on Tuesday that included women and Christians but no Islamists as the military-backed administration moved swiftly to formalize the new political order and present a more liberal face that is markedly at odds with the deposed president and his supporters.

The changes came at a time of deep polarization and violence in Egypt, including new clashes that killed seven people as part of the continuing bloodshed that has marked the days following the armed forces coup that swept President Mohammed Morsi from office and cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt's military already wields great influence behind the scenes, and the army chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi on July 3, was given a promotion in the Cabinet. He became a first deputy prime minister in addition to keeping his post as defense minister.

For most of the two years since the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the country has been split into two camps ? one led by Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, and another led by secular Egyptians, liberals, Christians and moderate Muslims.

The fault lines remain, except that the Islamist camp is no longer in power. It does not include members of any Islamist parties ? a sign of the enduring division that follows the removal of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.

The interim president's spokesman had earlier said posts would be offered to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the group promptly refused, saying it would not take part in the military-backed political process and would continue protests until the legitimately elected Morsi is reinstated.

"We refuse to even discuss it," a senior official of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, told The Associated Press. "What is built on illegitimacy is illegal," he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media before the party issued a formal statement on the formation of the Cabinet.

The only Islamist party that supported Morsi's ouster ? the ultraconservative Salafi el-Nour party ? was not represented and criticized the leadership as "biased," lacking inclusion and repeating "the same mistake the last government was blamed for."

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he had talked with el-Sissi about 10 times in the past week.

"We have encouraged publicly and privately the leaders of Egypt, including the interim president, the interim vice president, and the prime minister in particular, to be inclusive, to bring all political parties in, to allow them to participate in the writing of the constitution and the elections," Hagel told reporters in Florida. "That's the only way it will work. We've been very clear on that."

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist in his 70s, leads the government of 33 other ministers. Sworn in by interim President Adly Mansour, it reflected the largely liberal, secular bent of the factions who brought millions into the streets at the end of June calling for Morsi to step down and backed el-Sissi's removal of the president.

Women have a somewhat higher profile in the government, with three ministries ? including the powerful information and health ministries. Most past governments for decades have had at most only two women.

The Cabinet also includes three Christians, including one of the three women, Environment Minister Laila Rashed Iskander. That is also a first, since successive governments had no more than one or two Christians.

Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, appointed by Morsi, remains in his post, which oversees the police. Nabil Fahmy, who was Egypt's ambassador to the U.S. from 1999-2008 and a nuclear disarmament expert, becomes foreign minister.

In a nod to the revolutionary youth groups that engineered the 2011 uprising and this year's massive protests, Mansour renamed the Justice portfolio the Transitional Justice and National Reconciliation Ministry and gave it to Mohammed el-Mahdi, a career judge.

The groups have been campaigning to bring to justice those responsible for the killings of hundreds of protesters since Mubarak's fall. Reconciliation is a longstanding demand by most political forces to end Egypt's polarization, which often spills over into street violence.

At least three senior figures from the National Salvation Front ? the main opposition group during Morsi's year in office ? were included in the government. In addition, the new deputy prime minister in charge of international cooperation, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, is a member of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of the Salvation Front.

Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the Front's top leaders and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has already been installed as Mansour's vice president.

In a first, Mansour also swore in a leading figure in Egyptian soccer as sports minister. Midfielder Taher Abu Zeid starred in Cairo's el-Ahly club and the national team in the 1980s. He was a member of the national squad that won the African Nations' Cup in 1986.

The Cabinet is to run the country during a transition period announced last week by Mansour. The plan includes the formation of panels to amend the Islamist-drafted constitution that was passed under Morsi, then elections for a new parliament and president early next year.

After the swearing-in ceremony, the Cabinet held its first meeting and set the government's priorities as reviving the economy, bolstering public security and improving services, according to a palace statement.

El-Beblawy and his team face the formidable task of showing they are more efficient and resourceful than their predecessors. Egypt's economy has been worsening in the past two years with flight of capital and investors, slumping tourism and high unemployment among its 90 million people.

A $12 billion aid package from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates should help, but harsh reforms ? such as lifting or gradually phasing out fuel subsidies ? are still needed to put the economy on solid ground.

The new government will also have to tread carefully as it begins to deal with almost-daily street protests and violence by Morsi supporters if it is to revive the vital tourism industry and lure back investors.

Morsi's supporters are holding sit-ins in cities around the country, including two in Cairo. They accuse the military of carrying out a coup that has destroyed Egypt's democracy.

Riots broke out overnight with police firing volleys of tear gas at protesters, who burned tires, threw rocks and blocked traffic on a main road running through the heart of the capital. The Brotherhood said police used birdshot and live ammunition.

At least seven people were killed and 261 injured in the clashes in four different sites in Cairo, according to Khaled el-Khateeb, the head of the Health Ministry's emergency and intensive care department. Four of the seven were killed in fighting between residents and Morsi supporters staging a sit-in near Cairo's main university, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Egypt's state news agency said 17 policemen were injured and 401 people have been arrested.

Violence between Islamists and security forces on July 8 left another 54 people dead ? most of them Morsi supporters.?

Tuesday's violence broke out a day after Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the most senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since Morsi's ouster, concluded talks with Mansour, el-Beblawi and el-Sissi in which he called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process.

Burns also spoke by telephone with a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. Ventrell would not identify the Brotherhood representative or give details on the call.

___

Associated Press reporters Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-cabinet-women-christians-no-islamists-210718149.html

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NCAA to stop putting name, logo on EA video game

NEW YORK (AP) ? Hang on to NCAA Football 14, video game fans. It will be a collector's edition.

The NCAA said it will no longer allow Electronic Arts Inc. to use its logo starting next year. The move ends a lucrative business deal with the gaming industry giant and comes as the NCAA fights a high-profile lawsuit that says the governing body owes billions of dollars to former players for allowing their likenesses to be used for free.

The NCAA said it won't seek a new contract with EA Sports, which manufactures the popular game, beyond the current one that expires in June 2014. However, that won't stop EA Sports from producing a college football video game depicting powerhouse schools like Alabama, Ohio State and Oregon, and the Redwood City, Calif.-based company made that clear Wednesday.

"EA Sports will continue to develop and publish college football games, but we will no longer include the NCAA names and marks," said Andrew Wilson, executive vice president. "Our relationship with the Collegiate Licensing Co. is strong and we are already working on a new game for next generation consoles which will launch next year and feature the college teams, conferences and all the innovation fans expect from EA Sports."

The company reported $3.8 billion in net revenue during its last fiscal year and, aside from its NCAA Football franchise, is well known for Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer and other games.

EA Sports first began making an NCAA Football game in 1998 and it has generated more than $1.3 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, according to a spokesman for market tracking firm The NPD Group Inc. It wasn't known how much of what EA makes from NCAA Football goes back to the NCAA and its members in licensing deals.

Todd Mitchell, senior analyst with New York-based Brean Capital LLC, said losing the NCAA brand isn't likely to hurt EA Sports. He estimated NCAA Football accounts for only about 5 percent of EA Sports' revenue, or about $125 million.

"It's nice to have the brand, but it's more about the characters," he said.

Analyst Colin Sebastian of R.W. Baird said EA Sports likely expected to lose its partnership with the NCAA.

"I'm sure they have thought about this because of this pending litigation and the worst case scenarios," Sebastian said by telephone from San Francisco. "I don't expect it to have a significant impact on their business."

NCAA Football allows participants to play as any major college football team, though unlike in its professional sports games, the names of players are not used. The similarities between the avatars in the game and actual college athletes are at the root of a fight that could alter the way the NCAA does business in the future.

The NCAA is in the midst of a long court battle that started with a lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon after he was shown a video game with an avatar playing for the Bruins that played a lot like him.

The antitrust lawsuit also names EA and the Collegiate Licensing Co. that handles trademark licensing for dozens of schools, the NCAA and various conferences. The suit has expanded to include several former athletes who claim the NCAA and EA Sports used their names and likenesses without compensation and demand the NCAA find a way to give players a cut of the billions of dollars earned from live broadcasts, memorabilia sales and video games.

"We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games," the NCAA said. "But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the NCAA.

"The NCAA has never licensed the use of current student-athlete names, images or likenesses to EA. The NCAA has no involvement in licenses between EA and former student-athletes," it said in a statement.

Still, the NCAA said its members can seek arrangements with video game manufacturers if they wish.

"Member colleges and universities license their own trademarks and other intellectual property for the video game," the NCAA said. "They will have to independently decide whether to continue those business arrangements in the future."

Michael Hausfeld, the lead attorney on the O'Bannon case, said the NCAA cutting ties with EA could provide greater freedom for EA to make deals with conferences, schools and even players.

"No longer would EA have to pretend the avatars are not the likenesses of the real players," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-07-18-US-NCAA-EA-Sports/id-7dccd50b4b71406b90121d6ac1d506ed

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4:49 pm Jul 5, 2013 H823PUTT posted READING WEEK IDEAS !?

Hey guys. My son who is attending college this fall is now on reading week and we normally do a march break trip to Myrtle Beach, for the past 5 years. just wondering where togo as my sons reading week is in february a...

Source: http://www.titleist.ca/teamtitleist/ca/default.aspx?ActivityMessageId=a2340309-9e1a-43d9-a3bc-e31417bc76d2

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FBI busts duo for building dud death ray?

Your gadgets

Nidhi Subbaraman NBC News

14 hours ago

Skip Dickstein / Albany Times Union

Glendon Scott Crawford 49 of Providence, N.Y., leaves the Federal Courthouse Wednesday afternoon, June 19, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. after being arraigned.

Two middle-aged men from New York were arrested after the FBI caught them conspiring to build a machine that would fire radiation at people and kill them. The only problem: The machine the men had in mind would never have worked.

The FBI began watching the pair, Glendon Crawford, (49), and Eric Feight (54), in April last year after it was tipped off to the duo's plan. The two visited a Jewish organizations looking for help to build a machine that would take out "enemies of Israel." Shaken members of those organizations contacted the police.

Over a year of surveillance, an FBI Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force found out that Crawford and Feight were planning to build a death-ray that could be packed into a truck and driven around.

As the US Attorney's office in Northern New York described it, "the essence of Crawford's scheme" was to build a "mobile, remotely operated, radiation-emitting device capable of killing targeted individuals silently with lethal doses of X-ray radiation." According to the formal complaint, the two hoped "the target(s), and those around them would not immediately be aware they had absorbed lethal doses of radiation."

But radiation delivered in such lethal doses would need a tremendous amounts of energy to power up, and be cooled off, radiation and nuclear engineering researchers told the Albany Times Union, so it's unlikely the plan would have worked.

An FBI team led by Special agent Geoffrey Kent arrested the two on Tuesday, charging them with "conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists." According to the New York Times, Crawford was arrested as he tried to plug in a previously de-activated X-ray machine that undercover FBI agents had given him. In the release, they explain that the "device ... was rendered inoperable at all times and posed no danger to the public."

Crawford claimed to belong to the Ku Klux Klan, and as part of their watch, they FBI sent in undercover agents posing as members of the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan, the Times Union reports.

The two suspected they were being watched, the Times Union reports, and used a codewords in which Feight's alias was "Yoda."

We have contacted the U.S. Attorney's office in Albany and will update this story if and when we hear back.

Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and science. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2d92b239/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cfbi0Ebusts0Eduo0Ebuilding0Edud0Edeath0Eray0E6C10A393638/story01.htm

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