Apple trademarks its Stores to deter copycats

Apple has trademarked the design of its retail stores in an attempt to prevent copycat shops from being set up.

The US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) approved Apple's request to trademark the?design and layout of its stores?last week, according to patent?office records.?

The approval was granted more than two years after the company first filed the?application to trademark its stores?in May 2010.?

Apple has requested that no store be allowed to replicate various features, including "a clear glass storefront surrounded by a panelled facade" or an "oblong table with stools... set below video screens flush mounted on the back wall".

A fake Apple Store in the Chinese city of Kunming received international news coverage in 2011 after a blogger published photos showing the white Apple logo and long wooden tables inside. Several other?fake Apple Stores?were opened in the same city but were later?ordered to shut down?by Chinese authorities.?

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was heavily involved with the design of Apple Stores and is listed as the inventor on the patent for Apple's all-glass staircase.

The trademark on Apple Stores does not extend beyond the US, according to a?Reuters source, who added that companies that file for domestic protection usually go for similar protection in other countries they operate in.?

Apple declined to comment on the trademark approval.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/apple-trademarks-its-stores-to-deter-copycats-7000010564/

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Fed says growth pause temporary, keeps up stimulus

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the U.S. economy "paused" in recent months because of temporary factors and reaffirmed its commitment to try to stimulate growth by keeping borrowing costs low for the foreseeable future.

The Fed took no new action at its two-day policy meeting. But it stood behind aggressive steps it launched in December to try to reduce unemployment, in a statement released after the meeting.

In December, the Fed said it would keep its key short-term interest rate at a record low at least until unemployment falls below 6.5 percent. Unemployment is currently 7.8 percent. And the Fed said it would keep buying $85 billion a month in Treasurys and mortgage bonds to try to keep borrowing costs low and encourage spending.

The Fed's decision to continue its stimulus programs was largely expected and had little impact on stock and bond prices.

Earlier in the day, the Commerce Department said the economy unexpectedly shrank at an annual rate of 0.1 percent from October through December. The first quarterly drop in growth since the final months of the Great Recession was mainly because companies restocked at a slower rate and the government slashed defense spending.

In its statement, the Fed said "economic activity paused in recent months, in large part because of weather-related disruptions and other transitory factors."

Despite the slowdown, the statement noted that hiring continued to expand at a moderate pace, consumer spending and business investment increased and the housing sector showed further improvement. And it said strains in global financial markets have eased somewhat, but cautioned that risks remain.

The statement made no mention of deep cuts in defense and domestic spending that will take effect in March if Congress and President Barack Obama don't reach a deal to avert them. Those cuts threaten to keep growth weak in 2013.

Diane Swonk chief economist at Mesirow Financial, suspects the minutes of the meeting, which will be released in three weeks, will reveal some concerns members hold about the budget issues' impact on the economy.

"The Fed is very cognizant about how it characterizes the economy," Swonk said. "They are worried about a self-fulfilling prophecy of talking the economy down too much."

The statement was approved on an 11-1 vote. Esther George, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, cast the lone dissenting vote. George, who is a new voting member, expressed concerns about the risk of higher inflation caused by the Fed's aggressive policies.

In December, the Fed signaled for the first time that it will tie its policies to specific economic barometers. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear during a news conference that even after unemployment falls below 6.5 percent, the Fed might decide that it needs to keep stimulating the economy. Other economic factors will also shape its policy decisions, he said.

The guidance was designed to give consumers, companies and investors a clearer sense of when super-low borrowing costs might start to rise.

The Fed also said it would continue its bond purchases until the job market improved "substantially."

When it buys bonds, the Fed increases its investment portfolio and pumps more money into the financial system ? something critics say could eventually ignite inflation or create dangerous bubbles in assets like real estate or stocks.

On Friday, the government will release its jobs report for January. The unemployment is expected to remain 7.8 percent. That still-high rate, 3? years after the Great Recession officially ended, helps explain why the Fed has kept its key short-term rate at a record low near zero since December 2008, just after the financial crisis erupted.

Still, some private economists think the Fed will decide to suspend its bond purchases in the second half of this year. They note that the minutes of the Fed's December meeting revealed a split: Some of the 12 voting members thought the bond purchases would be needed through 2013. Others felt the purchases should be slowed or stopped altogether before year's end.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-says-growth-pause-temporary-keeps-stimulus-203058299--finance.html

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Unions.Org Blog? Blog Archive ? Join the Communications ...

Join the Communications Department for its 2013 Editors Association Conference and Training. Registration is now open!

The Editors Association Training is designed to educate AFGE members about communications tools and techniques they can use to communicate with union members, bargaining unit employees, the press and other audiences. Training sessions will be held during AFGE?s Annual Legislative and Grassroots Mobilization Conference on Tuesday, Feb. 12 and Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013.

For more information email blandc@afge.org or call (202) 639-6419.

Filed under: Events, Trainings, Uncategorized Tagged: social media

Source: http://www.unions.org/home/union-blog/2013/01/29/join-the-communications-department-for-the-2013-editors-association-conference-and-training/

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Facebook gives Graph Search privacy tips

3 hrs.

Suzanne Choney , NBC News

Facebook's new search feature, still being rolled out to users, promises to be pretty nifty if you want to find friends who, say, moved to another city or use a certain doctor. But if you don't want to be found???and pestered??? the social network wants you to know there are steps you can take to remove your information from its new Graph Search.

Privacy advocates are understandably concerned about Graph Search because, like other personal information you can't hide on Facebook, this is another feature?you cannot opt out of; you can only change your settings to try to?minimize what others find out about you.

"Ultimately, Graph Search will make everything you share with the public and with friends a whole lot easier for people to find," notes security software maker Kaspersky, on its blog. (For a funny???but scary???look at how Graph Search can be used, see Tom Scott's Tumblr blog;?hat tip to NPR's On The Media.)?

On Facebook, users can find a handy Q-and-A about Graph Search and a helpful video, shared below as well, about changing privacy settings.?

Facebook wants users to believe it takes their privacy seriously, especially after a settlement last summer?of federal charges that Facebook deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they had intended. As part of the settlement, the Federal Trade Commission requires Facebook to get user consent for some changes to privacy settings. Facebook is?also subject to 20 years of independent audits about privacy.

Michael Richter, Facebook privacy officer for product, writes on the Q-and-A page that "privacy works consistently across Facebook, not just on Graph Search. When you control who you share your information with, you determine who it's shared with across Facebook???including News Feed, timeline and in Graph Search."

There are also two other Graph Search info pages that are very useful, one on How Privacy Works with Graph Search and another, Graph Search Privacy. Bookmark those pages, because you'll want to refer to them often once Graph Search is completely rolled out.

In a related move this week, Facebook said its Chief Privacy Officer of policy, Erin Egan, now has an "Ask the CPO" feature on the site's "Facebook and Privacy" page, where you can ask Egan?questions. Not all will be answered, but Facebook says, "Each month, Erin will respond to some of your questions."

Here's Facebook's video that?walks?you?through?the?steps you can take to help ensure privacy when it comes to Graph Search:

Check out Technology, GadgetBox, Digital?Life and InGame on?Facebook,?and on?Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/facebook-gets-ahead-graph-search-privacy-panic-educating-users-1C8160706

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Lawrence teacher watches as House advances union bill

Deena Burnett was visibly, if not always audibly, disappointed Wednesday after the Kansas House advanced a bill aimed at limiting public employee unions from engaging in political activity.

After the House voted 66-54 to advance HB 2023 to final action, she placed a piece of duct tape over her mouth to demonstrate her belief that teachers and other public employees would be silenced if the bill becomes law.

It didn't stay there long, though, because Burnett was really in a mood to talk.

"It discourages me that public school teachers lose their opportunities to free speech," Burnett said.

The bill is being called the "Payroll Protection Act," and it basically says that union dues and contributions that are automatically deducted from members' paychecks may not be used to fund political activities.

Currently, teachers who join the union can have their regular dues deducted from their paychecks, but they have to agree separately to have an additional $20 per year ($1.67 per month) taken out as a contribution to the union's political action committee.

For its part, the Lawrence school board's legislative priority list for 2013 includes no mention of changing collective bargaining laws one way or the other. Superintendent Rick Doll has said the district has always had pretty good relations with the teachers union.

Supporters of the bill say it simply takes government institutions - school districts, state agencies and municipal governments - out of the business of processing financial contributions to political organizations. If public employees want to contribute to PAC's, they say, those employees can write a check, or arrange to have the contributions automatically deducted from their personal bank accounts.

They also say it protects employees from being coerced at the workplace into contributing to union political activities.

But Mark Disetti, lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association, the statewide parent organization of the Lawrence union, says the bill goes beyond that. Specifically, it prohibits public employee unions from using any of the money they do collect through payroll withholding for any kind of political purpose.

"So when you go to the school board and you say, 'we'd love for you to pass this policy limiting class size in kindergarten,' that's a public policy decision by an elected body, and I believe under this bill that's prohibited if we did it with any money collected though payroll deduction," Disetti said.

Burnett, a language arts teacher at West Middle School, said she was able to attend the House debate on a school day because her position as the local union president allows her to spend half of her time attending to union business.

Source: http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/first-bell/2013/jan/30/lawrence-teacher-watches-as-house-advanc/

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Egypt opposition wants dialogue to end violence

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's liberal opposition leader called for a broad national dialogue with the Islamist government, all political factions and the powerful military on Wednesday, aimed at stopping the country's eruption of political violence that has left more than 60 dead the past week.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei's appeal appeared to be aimed at responding to a sharp warning by the head of the armed forces a day earlier that Egypt could collapse unless the country's feuding political factions reconcile.

Two more protesters were killed Wednesday when they were hit with birdshot during clashes with police near Cairo's Tahrir Square, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

So far the opposition National Salvation Front headed by ElBaradei and the government of President Mohammed Morsi have been at loggerheads, with the front demanding Morsi make major concessions as a condition for any dialogue. Morsi has ignored their demands, holding his own "national dialogue" program, mainly with his own Islamist allies.

Meanwhile, violence has spiraled after first erupting in Cairo on eve of last Friday's second anniversary of the uprising that toppled authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak. It since spread around the country, with the worst violence in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, which has virtually declared itself in revolt against Morsi's government.

In response, Morsi declared a 30-day state of emergency and night curfew in Port Said and two other Canal cities, Suez and Ismailiya, and their surrounding provinces. But every night since it went into effect, tens of thousands of residents in the city have defied the curfew with nighttime rallies and marches, chanting against Morsi and the Musllim Brotherhood, which forms the backbone of his rule.

In a Tweet, ElBaradei called for an immediate meeting between Morsi, the defense and interior ministers, the Brotherhood's political party, the National Salvation Front and parties of the ultraconservative Salafi movement "to take urgent steps to stop the violence and start a serious dialogue."

He said stopping the violence is the priority, but stuck by the front's previous conditions for holding a dialogue ? that Morsi form a national unity government and form a commission to amend contentious articles of the Islamist-backed constitution.

There was no immediate response from the presidency or the Muslim Brotherhood on ElBaradei's new call. Morsi was on a brief visit to Germany and was expected back in Egypt later Wednesdsay.

Over the past week, Morsi ignored ElBaradei's demands, and the Brotherhood said they don't accept conditions for talks.

The Front has depicted the unrest as a backlash against Islamists' insistence on monopolizing power and as evidence that the Brotherhood and its allies are unable to manage the country on their own.

Morsi has been holding his own national dialogue program for more than a month, touting it as a chance for non-Islamists to make their voice heard in decision-making. But almost all opposition groups have shunned it as mere window dressing.

Officials in the presidency and the Brotherhood have blamed the opposition for instigating the violence, accusing them of trying to bring down Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.

Late Tuesday, Morsi authorized governors of the three provinces to either cancel or limit curfew hours in an attempt to assuage public anger. Suez Governor Gen. Samer Aglan said that he will ease up the curfew while deploying more troops to the streets after midnight.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-opposition-wants-dialogue-end-violence-132300215.html

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Purdue University Hires First In-House Counsel

Purdue University has appointed Steven Schultz as its first in-house legal counsel, effective February 1. As manager of Purdue?s legal function, Schultz will advise Purdue president Mitch Daniels and the Board of Trustees on a range of legal issues, and he?ll oversee the provision of external legal services.

For more than 130 years, Lafayette, Indiana, firm Stuart & Branigin has served as the neighboring university?s primary legal counsel. In a statement provided to CorpCounsel.com, partners at the firm expressed support for Purdue?s decision to change its practices.

In a memo sent to faculty and staff Monday, Daniels said that the adoption of an internal legal counsel model is ?now the general rule among major U.S. universities.? Purdue had been the last of the Big Ten schools to rely exclusively on outside legal representation.

In a press release, Daniels said that by hiring internal counsel, Purdue expects to ?identify opportunities to improve the way we procure and manage legal services and thereby realize certain risk-management, oversight, and cost-savings benefits.?

The change comes at a time when university faculty are expressing frustration with the status quo. At a meeting of the Purdue University Senate Monday, faculty members addressed their concerns with recent legal bills.

According to Purdue spokesman Chris Sigurdson, the university has made $6.8 million in payments to Stuart & Branigin over the last three fiscal years. Fees were split roughly evenly among those years: $2.4 million in 2010, $2.1 million in 2011, and $2.3 million in 2012 .

In an email to CorpCounsel.com, Sigurdson said that specific cases or legal matters were not addressed during the faculty meeting and that the discussion was limited to legal bills incurred over the last 18 months.

University Senate chair J. Paul Robinson said in an email to CorpCounsel.com that the faculty has become concerned about what appears to them to be ?runaway? legal expenses.

Robinson says there hasn?t been sufficient oversight and incentive to resolve legal issues reasonably without ?jumping directly to litigation.? He anticipates the installation of an internal lawyer will cut down on unnecessary use of outside counsel. ?The faculty see central management and review as a welcome process,? he says.

Schultz says that bringing ?oversight of the legal function a little closer to the internal decision-making process? was a goal of hiring in-house counsel, adding that cost controls were a perceived benefit of making the change.

The new in-house counsel is taking the position at Purdue after concluding a stint as VP and first-ever general counsel of Southeastern Indiana Health Organization, and a seven-month appointment as special adviser to the State of Indiana on the Ohio River Bridges Project. He was previously executive director of the Louisville and Southern Indiana Bridges Authority.

Schultz earned his bachelor?s degree from Butler University in 1988, majoring in history and political science. He has a J.D. from Yale Law School and an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge.

After graduation, he practiced corporate law at Barnes & Thornburg in Indianapolis and worked in the London office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, where he specialized in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, and capital markets financings.

Schultz joined Irwin Financial Corporation in 2001 and became general counsel in 2004. Schultz served as then-governor Daniels?s first chief legal counsel from 2005-2006, before returning to Irwin.

Schultz plans to meet with partners at Stuart & Branigin on his first day on the job at Purdue to discuss how to proceed with their partnership. He says he?ll have a better sense of which matters will be farmed out once he starts. ?I?m going to be laser-focused on identifying those,? says Schultz, adding that he feels fortunate that the firm will still be available to help evaluate legal risks and necessary controls.

Thomas Parent, a partner with Stuart & Branigin, said, ?This change has been under discussion for a long time, and we have been actively engaged with Purdue?s Board of Trustees in evaluating various models for the provision of legal services to the university.? He added that the firm would remain dedicated to advancing the school?s mission.

Purdue?s first in-house lawyer looks forward to helping the school navigate what he anticipates will be great changes on the horizon in the field of higher education law.

Schultz, a life-long Hoosier, says he was honored that he was offered the position at Purdue. ?It?s a world-class institution,? he says, ?renowned for its reputation, research and educational rigor, and the high caliber of its people.?

Schultz?s father was a student athlete at Purdue, and at least a dozen other members of his family attended school there. ?I always rooted for the Boilers,? he says. ?I?ve recently been joking to the Purdue folks that although I became a naturalized citizen of the Butler nation, I was born a Boilermaker.?

Source: http://www.law.com/corporatecounsel/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202586195446&rss=rss_cc

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Alberta issues record setting fine to Chinese state-owned oil firm

January 30, 2013

Alberta issues record setting fine to Chinese state-owned oil firm

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

An Alberta judge has ordered the Canadian arm of a Chinese state-owned oil company to pay the biggest workplace safety fine in the province's history after the death of two foreign workers at a massive construction project about five years ago.

?The fine is good, but no amount of money can make up for what they did wrong in the first place,? said Wayne Prins, Alberta director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC).

?In our view, the fine sends the right message to contractors and people in the industry that you must follow the procedures and rules in place.?

Alberta Provincial Judge John Maher ordered Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company (SSEC) to pay a $1.5 million fine in a St. Albert court room on Jan. 24.

The fine is related to the deaths of a welder named Ge Genbao, 27, and an electrical engineer named Lui Hongliang, 33, at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Horizon oilsands project.

They were killed on April 27, 2007 at the facility located north of Fort McMurray.

The Chinese temporary foreign workers were welding the wall structure inside a massive storage tank when the roof support structure collapsed onto them.

Two other foreign workers were seriously injured.

Under Alberta?s Occupational Health and Safety Act, 53 charges were laid against three companies in the deaths of Genbao and Hongliang and the injuries of the other workers.

CNRL, who was in charge of the construction site at the Horizon oilsands project, hired SSEC to build the storage tanks.

SSEC is the Canadian subsidiary of Chinese state ?owned oil company Sinopec.

Sinopec hired more than 100 temporary foreign workers in China and began work on the construction of two oil storage tanks in late 2006.

SSEC pled guilty to three charges in September 2012 of failing to ensure the health and safety of workers.

The company was given the maximum $500,000 fine for each charge. Despite this fact, some people believe the fine will do nothing to deter them from practices that endanger workers.

?Sinopec didn?t just import workers from the third world, they also imported third-world health and safety standards,? said Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan.

?Alberta missed its chance to send a message that Chinese companies working in the oilsands need to play by Canadian rules.?

McGowan argued that the fines are too small to make a difference to the massive corporation.

?One and a half million dollars doesn?t even amount to a rounding error in the annual budget of a monstrous global corporation like Sinopec,? he said.

?This fine does nothing to dissuade them from playing fast and loose with the safety of their workforce.?

The original plan was to build the tank walls first, then use them to support the roof while it was under construction.

That plan changed when the project fell behind schedule.

CNRL approved the construction change, but SSEC did not prepare any formal written procedures that should have been certified by a professional engineer.

As a result, other charges in this case include failing to ensure that a professional engineer prepared and certified drawings and procedures; failing to ensure the roof support structure inside the tank was stable during assembly; failing to ensure that U-bolt type clips used for fastening rope wire were installed properly; and failing to ensure that wire rope being used was safe.

?We shouldn?t forget the circumstances that led to the deaths of Genbao and Hongliang,? McGowan added.

?The company did not get the construction plans certified by an engineer. The wires weren?t strong enough to hold up against the wind. It was a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the employer.?

Crown prosecutors and SSEC lawyers came up with an agreement, which allocates $1.3 million of the fine to create an education program to train temporary foreign workers about their legal rights, as well as workplace health and safety.

The program aims to hire 45 instructors to train about 5,500 workers in a three year period.

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Source: http://www.joconl.com/article/id53797

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Golden India: A solid buffet and spicy specialties (resto review)

Photo by Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen

Golden India
408 McArthur Ave, 613-842-9153, restaurantgoldenindia.com
Hours: seven days a week, lunch buffet 11:30 a.m.
to 2 p.m., dinner 5 to 10 p.m.
Prices: Lunch buffet $11.99, ? la carte main dishes, $11.99 to $14.99
Access: no stairs

The heat-loving eater in our party was licking his chops in anticipation.

Golden India, I told my co-worker, promised to outdo other Indian restaurants on the spice scale. The eatery, which opened in late 2011 in a modest Vanier strip mall, serves not only vindaloo curries (the fiery dishes at which other Indian menus usually draw the line) but two preparations that are hotter still, dubbed Bangalore Pal and Ceylon and made with ?special green chilis.?

He was stoked. I had taken a premptive hit of yogurt to line my stomach. Two other spicy-food aficionados, including one who had travelled in India, jumped in the car too. Heading east on the Queensway, we were a veritable heat-seeking missile.
We had reason other than scorching curries to look forward to lunch. Golden India was one of four Ottawa eateries that cracked last year?s Urbanspoon list of Canada?s most popular new restaurants. On that website, the crowd-sourced comments are pretty much rave after rave ? not for incendiary fare per se, but for mild and mellow dishes too.

We arrived to find two very well-stocked steam tables, but alas, the lunch buffet offered no Bangalore Pal or Ceylon curries.
The restaurant?s only customers at the time, we immediately heaped our plates with choices such as beef dhansak (tender meat in a sauce that nicely balanced heat and sourness), baigan bharta (a mash of luscious, well-spiced eggplant), and comforting dal that tasted of turmeric.

Flavourful cauliflower bhaji and bhoona chicken, mild but no less tasty for it, also made us happy. If there was one quibble, it was that the spinach in the sag lamb was overly salty on its own ? but with forkfuls of the falling-apart meat, it went down just fine.

For all of us, lunch was quite a bit better than satisfactory. Of the Indian buffets I?ve tried over the years, Golden India?s might rank in the top three.

After my meals there, I found out that an experienced hand was turning out the food at Golden India. Its chef and owner, Sailesh Deb, cooked at the Light of India on Bank Street for 27 years.

Deb has decorated his restaurant of 40 or so seats ? a former Fat Albert?s location, it turns out ? in a simple style, adorning its ochre walls with artwork depicting the Taj Mahal, Mahatma Gandhi and the like.

During a subsequent dinner visit, my fellow eaters and I branched out. We found the food that we ordered a little more uneven than what had been served at the buffet, even as the service was more attentive and personable.

Golden India?s hospitable touches included red carnations in vases on every table, tea-candle-powered hot plates to keep dishes warm, continually refilled water glasses and complimentary bowls of sliced pineapple and grapes to end the meal.
Long before dessert came, deep-fried appetizers (potato-filled samosas and some chickpea fritters), were fresh and ungreasy, both served with a mango sauce. Vegetable dishes generally seemed assembled with care. The spinach in sag paneer had some structure to it, as did strips of homemade cheese. Basmati rice came nicely studded with not just peas, but also bits of fig and slices of fried plantain.

Butter chicken, it struck a few of us, hit its sweet notes a little hard. The tandoori platter?s various items ? shrimp, chicken tikka, lamb tikka, sheek kebab, a portion of chicken ? were tender, although I would have liked some of the meats more if they had been more vibrantly seasoned.

That complaint did not apply to the beef vindaloo, the most powerful dish that my dinner mates allowed me to order. It delivered sharp, long-lasting hits of heat after its initial taste of tomato. My first, too-big mouthful left me panting and seeking relief in a mango lassi.

When I asked our server, who had until then been pretty matter-of-fact in her dealings with us, about Golden India?s hottest dishes, she smiled and laughed. They were too much for her, she said. But the restaurant does have customers who delight in its most searing curries, she said, describing with a giggle the happy ordeals of profusely sweating patrons.

I resolved to bring my spice-loving co-worker a tub of the hottest Golden India Ceylon lamb curry. At home, I tried not more than a teaspoon of the dish, chased down by some drinkable yogurt. It didn?t register as hotter than the vindaloo, but after I transferred the food into a freezer-friendly container and rinsed the takeout tub, the fumes practically made my eyes water.

But in a good way, some might say. When the curry thaws, we?ll see if it satisfies my colleague?s quest for fire.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/keenappetite

Source: http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/01/30/golden-india-a-solid-buffet-and-spicy-specialties-resto-review/

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Metals - Mexico - Barclays ups 2012-13 GDP growth forecast for the Mexican economy

By Ulric Rindebro - Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Barclays Capital has revised upward its GDP growth forecasts for the Mexican economy in 2012 and 2013 on stronger than expected economic activity at the...

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This news article is one of hundreds published daily by Business News Americas about the commodities, markets, movements, companies, projects, economics and politics integral to the development of Latin America. Including news and insight from South America, Central America and the Caribbean, BNamericas includes Metals insight and forecasts for business opportunities in Mexico. The business development service focuses on major projects, active companies, such as Barclays; and business and sales contacts, providing networking opportunities with leading executives throughout Latin America.

Source: http://member.bnamericas.com/news/metals/barclays-ups-2012-13-gdp-growth-forecast-for-the-mexican-economy4

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Government mistrust deters older adults from HIV testing

Jan. 29, 2013 ? One out of every four people living with HIV/AIDS is 50 or older, yet these older individuals are far more likely to be diagnosed when they are already in the later stages of infection. Such late diagnoses put their health, and the health of others, at greater risk than would have been the case with earlier detection.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 43 percent of HIV-positive people between the ages of 50 and 55, and 51 percent of those 65 or older, develop full-blown AIDS within a year of their diagnosis, and these older adults account for 35 percent of all AIDS-related deaths. And since many of them are not aware that they have HIV, they could be unknowingly infecting others.

Various psychological barriers may be keeping this older at-risk population from getting tested. Among them are a general mistrust of the government -- for example, the belief that the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves -- and AIDS-related conspiracy theories, including, for example, the belief that the virus is human-made and was created to kill certain groups of people.

Now, a team of UCLA-led researchers has demonstrated that government mistrust and conspiracy fears are deeply ingrained in this vulnerable group and that these concerns often -- but in one surprising twist, not always -- deter these individuals from getting tested for HIV. The findings are published Jan. 29 in the peer-reviewed journal The Gerontologist.

"Our work suggests that general mistrust of the government may adversely impact peoples' willingness to get tested for HIV/AIDS," said Chandra Ford, an assistant professor of community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the study's primary investigator. "HIV/AIDS is increasing among people 50 and older, but there's not a lot of attention being paid to the HIV-prevention needs of these folks. Older adults are more likely to be diagnosed only after they've been sick, and as a result, they have worse prognoses than younger HIV-positive people do.

"Also, the CDC recommends that anyone who's in a high-risk category should be tested every single year," she said. "These findings mean that the CDC recommendations are not being followed."

The researchers sought to test the association between mistrust of the government, belief in AIDS conspiracy theories and having been tested for HIV in the previous year. For the cross-sectional study, they worked with data from 226 participants ranging in age from 50 to 85. Participants were recruited from three types of public health venues that serve at-risk populations: STD clinics, needle-exchange sites and Latino health clinics.

Of the participants, 46.5 percent were Hispanic, 25.2 percent were non-Hispanic blacks, 18.1 percent were non-Hispanic whites and 10.2 percent were of other races or ethnicities. The data were collected between August 2006 and May 2007.

The researchers found that 72 percent of the participants did not trust the government, 30 percent reported a belief in AIDS conspiracy theories and 45 percent had not taken an HIV test in the prior 12 months. The more strongly participants mistrusted the government, the less likely they were to have been tested for HIV in the prior 12 months.

Several of the findings surprised the researchers -- for example, the fact that HIV testing rates among this population were not higher at the locations where the participants were recruited, given that these locations attract large numbers of people with HIV.

"This finding is concerning because the venues all provide HIV testing and care right there," Ford said.

And there was an even bigger, perhaps counterintuitive surprise. The more strongly participants believed in AIDS conspiracy theories, the more likely they were to have been tested in the previous 12 months.

"We believe they might be proactively testing because they believe it can help them avoid the threats to personal safety that are described in many AIDS conspiracies," Ford said. "For instance, if I hold these conspiracy beliefs and a doctor tells me I tested negative, I might get tested again just to confirm that the result really is negative."

By contrast, individuals who reported mistrusting the government may not have been tested because the venues where they were recruited were, in fact, government entities, Ford said.

The study has some weaknesses. For instance, the study design did not allow the researchers to determine whether the participants held their beliefs before or after being tested; thus, the researchers couldn't tell what prompted their mistrust of the government or conspiracy beliefs. Also, it's possible that the prevalence of these theories is higher in this group than it is in the general public and that some participants may have been afraid to tell the truth.

The next step in the research is to study other groups of older adults to determine if these views are more widely held than just among the at-risk population the researchers studied.

Steven P. Wallace, Sung-Jae Lee and William Cunningham, all of UCLA, and Peter A. Newman of the University of Toronto co-authored the study.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. C. L. Ford, S. P. Wallace, P. A. Newman, S.-J. Lee, W. E. Cunningham. Belief in AIDS-Related Conspiracy Theories and Mistrust in the Government: Relationship with HIV Testing Among At-Risk Older Adults. The Gerontologist, 2013; DOI: 10.1093/geront/gns192

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/5R2fZxkn8Ew/130129171343.htm

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NYC auction house to offer Warhol works online

This undated photo provided by Christies's auction house in New York shows Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Chicken with Rice Soup," tin soup can filled with concrete, with a pre-auction estimate of $50,000-70,000. It is one of about 125 artworks being offered from Feb. 26 through March 5 in Christie's first online-only Warhol sale. The works can be previewed online prior to the sale. Bidders can browse, bid and receive instant updates by email or phone if another bid exceeds theirs. (AP Photo/Christie's)

This undated photo provided by Christies's auction house in New York shows Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Chicken with Rice Soup," tin soup can filled with concrete, with a pre-auction estimate of $50,000-70,000. It is one of about 125 artworks being offered from Feb. 26 through March 5 in Christie's first online-only Warhol sale. The works can be previewed online prior to the sale. Bidders can browse, bid and receive instant updates by email or phone if another bid exceeds theirs. (AP Photo/Christie's)

This undated photo provided by Christies's auction house in New York shows Andy Warhol's "Self-Portrait with Fright Wig screenprint on t-shirt," with a pre-auction estimate of $15,000 - $20,000. It is one of about 125 artworks being offered from Feb. 26 through March 5 in Christie's first online-only Warhol sale. The works can be previewed online prior to the sale. Bidders can browse, bid and receive instant updates by email or phone if another bid exceeds theirs. (AP Photo/Christie's)

This undated photo provided by Christies's auction house in New York shows Andy Warhol's "New Coke III B.44," screenprint in colors, on colored graphic art paper, with a pre-auction estimate of $25,000-35,000. It is one of about 125 artworks being offered from Feb. 26 through March 5 in Christie's first online-only Warhol sale. The works can be previewed online prior to the sale. Bidders can browse, bid and receive instant updates by email or phone if another bid exceeds theirs. (AP Photo/Christie's)

NEW YORK (AP) ? A New York City auction house will offer an online auction of Andy Warhol's works, giving a broader audience the chance to own a piece of his art.

It's Christie's first online-only Warhol sale. About 125 paintings, drawings, photographs and prints will be offered from Feb. 26 through March 5. Pre-sale estimates range from $600 to $70,000.

The auction is being held in partnership with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The works can be previewed online prior to the sale.

Bidders can browse, bid and receive instant updates by email or phone if another bid exceeds theirs.

Christie's and the foundation entered the partnership last fall.

The first live auction raised $17 million for the Warhol Foundation's endowment.

___

Online: www.christies.com/warhol

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-01-30-US-Warhol-Foundation-Christie's/id-26a0fcc625c54fdc988252455b40bfbd

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The Few Who Bought PlayBooks Can Look Forward to BlackBerry 10 Update

For the few of you who actually bought a BlackBerry PlayBook, you can now look forward to a BlackBerry 10 update coming to the tablet soon.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/GTWajpbucYI/

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Crysis 3 player complains of SLI issues, Crytek says ?buy a 360 ...

You know when a joke goes too far that it becomes simply offensive?

Here?s an example of that. Imagine paying hundreds of dollars to buy an expensive gaming rig and expecting something to work only to be told to buy something else instead.

Crysis 3 beta just came out today, and some PC players have been having troubles running the game on SLI.

A gamer was not able to get SLI to work and asked what to do on the?MyCrysis forums:??Haven?t been able to get SLI working. Running dual 660 Ti.?Got the beta drivers installed, added the beta game to the list, SLI is checked, r_multigpu is set to 2?What do??

A Crytek employee responded by posting, ?Buy a 360??. He later retracted his comment by saying it was a ?joke?, but it just kind of feels really unprofessional to post something like that.

People were understandably pissed off at the reply.

?Seriously ?! such as nice support!! trolling about Crytek problem. We won?t replace our hardware because you have broken game engine, fix it!?

People can interpret the comment in different ways and some may find it?genuinely?funny. What are your thoughts on this?

Source: http://www.gamechup.com/crysis-3-player-complains-of-sli-issues-crytek-says-buy-a-360/

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Policeman protecting Pakistani polio team killed

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? Gunmen riding on a motorcycle shot and killed a police officer protecting polio workers during a U.N.-backed vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, the police said.

The attack took place as dozens of polio workers ? including several women ? were going door-to-door to vaccinate children in Gullu Dheri village of Swabi district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said senior police officer Izhar Shah. None of the polio workers the police officer was protecting were hurt in the attack, he said.

"The polio workers were terrified and immediately went back to their homes after the attack," Shah told The Associated Press. "The anti-polio drive in that village has been suspended."

Elsewhere in the northwest, a man wounded a polio worker, Mohammed Mumtaz, with an axe. Mumtaz was marking houses in Machi village to indicate where vaccines had been administered, he said. The attacker became irate after his door was marked and swung the axe at Mumtaz, injuring him on his left arm.

The attacks occurred on the second day of a three-day campaign against polio that was launched by the provincial government. No one claimed responsibility for the shooting in Gullu Dheri, but suspicion fell on militants.

Some Islamic militants oppose the vaccination campaign, accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

Suspicion of vaccination campaigns heightened considerably after it became known that a Pakistani doctor helped in the U.S. hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The physician, Shakil Afridi, ran a hepatitis vaccination campaign on behalf of the CIA to collect blood samples from bin Laden's family at a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan's northwest, where U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida leader in May 2011.

The samples were intended to help the U.S. match the family's DNA to verify bin Laden's presence in the garrison city.

In the recently-released film "Zero Dark Thirty" about the search for bin Laden, a short scene shows a man going to the compound where bin Laden was hiding as part of a vaccination campaign. But in the movie, it's portrayed as an anti-polio campaign instead of anti-hepatitis.

In December, gunmen killed nine polio workers in similar attacks across Pakistan, prompting authorities to suspend the vaccination campaign in the troubled areas. The U.N. also suspended its field operations in December as a result of the attacks. They have since resumed some field activities, said Michael Coleman, a spokesman with UNICEF's polio campaign.

The latest campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was launched Monday to give oral drops to those children who had missed it the first time round.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where the crippling disease is endemic. The virus usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions; it attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze. As many as 56 polio cases were reported in Pakistan during 2012, down from 190 the previous year, according to the United Nations.

Most of the new cases in Pakistan were in the northwest, where the presence of militants makes it difficult to reach children.

Pakistan is also struggling to maintain control of its southern province of Baluchistan.

On Tuesday, gunmen driving in a car opened fire on two police constables who were patrolling on motorcycle in a neighborhood of the provincial capital, Quetta, said Nadir Khan, a local police chief. Both the police officers were killed instantly, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but similar attacks against security forces are believed to be the work of Baluch nationalists who have been pushing for a greater say in how the province's resources are dispersed.

__

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/policeman-protecting-pakistani-polio-team-killed-120627955.html

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'Scary': Up to 50 million home network devices vulnerable to hack

3 hrs.

Jim Finkle , Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - Bugs in widely used networking technology expose tens of millions of personal computers, printers and storage drives to attack by hackers over the regular Internet, researchers with a security software maker said.?

The problem lies in computer routers and other networking equipment that use a commonly employed standard known as Universal Plug and Play or UPnP. UPnP makes it easy for networks to identify and communicate with equipment, reducing the amount of work it takes to set up networks.?

Security software maker Rapid7 said in a white paper to be released Tuesday that it discovered between 40 million and 50 million devices that were vulnerable to attack due to three separate sets of problems that the firm's researchers have identified with the UPnP standard.

The long list of devices includes products from manufacturers including Belkin, D-Link, Cisco's Linksys division and Netgear.?

Representatives for Belkin, D-Link, Linksys and Netgear could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.?

Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer of security software firm Veracode, said he believed that publication of Rapid7's findings would draw widespread attention to the still emerging area of UPnP security, prompting other security researchers to search for more bugs in UPnP.

"This definitely falls into the scary category," said Wysopal, who reviewed Rapid7's findings ahead of their publication. "There is going to be a lot more research on this. And the follow-on research could be a lot scarier."?

Rapid7 has privately alerted electronics makers about the problem through the CERT Coordination Center, a group at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute that helps researchers report vulnerabilities to affected companies.?

"This is the most pervasive bug I've ever seen," said HD Moore, chief technology officer for Rapid7. He discussed the research with Reuters late on Monday.

Moore, who created a widely used platform known as Metasploit that allows security experts to simulate network attacks, said that he expected CERT to release a public warning about the flaw on Tuesday. A spokesman for the CERT Coordination Center declined to comment.?

A source with a networking equipment maker confirmed they had been alerted that CERT would issue an advisory on Tuesday and that companies were preparing to respond.?

Taking control
The flaws could allow hackers to access confidential files, steal passwords, take full control over PCs as well as remotely access devices such as webcams, printers and security systems, according to Rapid7.?

Moore said that there were bugs in most of the devices he tested and that device manufacturers will need to release software updates to remedy the problems.?

He said that is unlikely to happen quickly.?

In the meantime, he advised computer users to quickly use a free tool released by Rapid7 to identify vulnerable gear, then disable the UPnP functionality in that equipment.?

Moore said hackers have not widely exploited the UPnP vulnerabilities to launch attacks, but both Moore and Wysopal expected they may start to do so after the findings are publicized.?

Still, Moore said he decided to disclose the flaws in a bid to pressure equipment makers to fix the bugs and generally pay more attention to security.?

People who own devices with UPnP enabled may not be aware of it because new routers, printers, media servers, Web cameras, storage drives and "smart" or Web-connected TVs are often shipped with that functionality turned on by default.?

"You can't stay silent about something like this," he said. "These devices seem to have had the same level of core security for decades. Nobody seems to really care about them."?

Veracode's Wysopal said that some hackers have likely already exploited the flaws to launch attacks, but in relatively small numbers, choosing victims one at a time.?

"If they are going after executives and government officials, then they will probably look for their home networks and exploit this vulnerability," he said.?

Rapid7 is advising businesses and consumers alike to disable UPnP in devices that they suspect may be vulnerable to attack. The firm has released a tool to help identify those devices on its website.?

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/researchers-warn-widespread-home-networking-gear-bugs-1C8156547

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Arizona Latinos say Obama's immigration push overdue

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Student Maxima Guerrero welcomed Democratic President Barack Obama's drive to give millions of illegal immigrants like her a pathway to U.S. citizenship on Tuesday, saying it cannot come soon enough for many in the tough-on-immigration state of Arizona.

"It was a good step forward," said Guerrero, 22, a student in Phoenix. But one speech will not stop deportations, which are separating some local children from their parents, who entered the country illegally, she said.

Brought to the United States from Mexico by her parents at age 5, Guerrero watched Obama's push for a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents with caution.

Speaking to a cheering crowd in neighboring Nevada, Obama said he would let the undocumented get on a path to citizenship if they undergo national security and criminal background checks, pay penalties, learn English and get behind those foreigners seeking to immigrate legally.

Arizona, a border state, has been embroiled in a fight over immigration since 2010, when Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed a law cracking down on illegal immigrants that set her on a collision course with the White House. To illegal immigrants in the state, Obama's promise is no longer enough.

"It brings hope. I am happy to see action," said Michael Nazario, 24, an undocumented Mexican immigrant living in Phoenix. "But until I see comprehensive immigration reform being signed by the president, I won't be (celebrating)," he added.

While pledging reform, Obama's administration has deported a record number of illegal immigrants, focusing on lawbreakers.

PATIENCE WEARING THIN

Arizona state law requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop, if police suspect they are in the country illegally. Some immigrants in Phoenix say they can be detained for an offense as small as driving with a broken taillight. Their patience is wearing thin.

"We've heard it before," said graphic designer Carla Chavarria, 20, who watched Obama's televised address in the Phoenix's heavily Hispanic Grant Park neighborhood. "But it would give me a chance to live the dream I've hoped for after all this time, and continue with my education and help my parents out," added Chavarria, who said she would go to college in California if she was granted citizenship.

The president's speech came a day after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators endorsed a plan offering a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, if the Mexico border is secured first.

Young immigrants in Phoenix remained skeptical about renewed interest from Republicans, who are still smarting from Obama's re-election with overwhelming support from Latino voters.

"Are Republicans really doing it for the benefit of society? Or are they just looking out for themselves for re-election?" said Lily Canedo, 26, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

"At this point, I wouldn't say 'yes' or 'no' to a Republican or Democrat. But I have seen more input and a little more on the positive side toward the undocumented from the Democrats," she added.

Mindful of the Republican-backed state crackdown on illegal immigrants, and drives by controversial Republican Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to target the undocumented, economics student Gustavo Lopez, 21, was clear he would not support them if he one day gained citizenship.

"I would vote Democrat," said Lopez, who was brought to Arizona as a child from Mexico. "Republicans have always been pushing for anti-immigrant reforms, and I remember that."

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-latinos-obamas-immigration-push-overdue-040618852.html

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Legal initiative launched to fight back against harassment of ...

A security officer removes a student who disrupted the Israeli ambassador's speech at the Irvine campus of the University of California ?(Photo: UprisingRadio.org)

Legal help for Palestine solidarity activists facing harassment and repression in the U.S. is on the way. Two leading civil liberties groups in the U.S. have launched what they?re calling the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support initiative, a resource for activists focused on Palestinian rights.

The initiative is being run by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The website dedicated to the project indicates that the initiative is focused on providing legal support for Palestine solidarity activists. The harassment and repression solidarity activists face includes spying from police agencies and legal claims filed against universities.

?This legal support initiative comes at a crucial time and responds to growing efforts to obstruct advocacy in support of Palestinian rights and brand it as anti-Semitic,? Baher Azmy, CCR?s legal director, said in a statement.

Here?s more from a press release:

The initiative will track incidents of repression and provide legal support to advocates facing legal and other challenges to their activism. Attorneys familiar with the issues that activists face will respond to questions related to Palestine solidarity organizing and to requests for advice and legal assistance. The initiative also provides advocacy support, as well as trainings and other resource materials.

CCR and NLG stand with advocates for Palestinian rights as part of their mission to fight for human rights accountability more broadly. Both organizations are dedicated to supporting activists and movements engaged in efforts to achieve social justice. The Student Speech Working Group is a coalition dedicated to supporting the free speech of students advocating for Palestinian rights, and other Muslim and Arab student activists. The coalition includes the Asian Law Caucus, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, the Council on American-Islamic Relations ? San Francisco Bay Area, American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other individual lawyers and students.

Activists who have questions or need support can request help and resources by going to palestinelegalsupport.org, calling (312) 212-0448, or emailing info@palestinelegalsupport.org. Attorneys cautioned that confidential facts about a situation should not be shared on the webform or via email. Attorneys working with CCR, NLG and other partners will respond to inquiries.

The initiative represents a concerted effort to forge coalitions between student groups, other Palestinian rights activists and civil liberties lawyers.

The formation of the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support group comes at an opportune time. For years, Israel lobby groups have filed Title VI claims against universities in California for allegedly allowing an ?anti-Semitic? environment to flourish. Title VI is a key part of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against anyone on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Last Spring, Israel lobby groups led by the Zionist Organization of America successfully lobbied the Obama administration?s Department of Education to extend that protection to Jewish students. That decision opened the gates for a number of so far unsuccessful Title VI claims against universities.?Many of the claims of anti-Semitism center around Palestine solidarity activism like mock checkpoints and fake separation walls that Students for Justice in Palestine groups utilize to mobilize action against Israeli human rights abuses.

California campuses have been at the center of many of these battles. A Title VI complaint filed against the University of California, Berkeley alleges that the university has allowed a ?hostile environment? for Jewish students to flourish.?

In December 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union said that the complaint against Berkeley raises ?constitutional red flags? and reflects ?either a profound misunderstanding of the First Amendment, or an attempt to persuade the government to use its power to restrict speech based on its content and political viewpoint.?

In addition, California activists are battling HR 35, a bill that conflates activism with anti-Semitism and singles out the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Palestinian rights activists are also concerned about a ?campus climate? report on Jewish students that recommends prohibiting so-called ?hate speech.?

But it?s not only campus activists that are experiencing trouble with authorities over Palestine solidarity activism. As Mondoweiss has reported, both the New York Police Department and the Boston Police Department (working with the FBI) have spied on Palestine solidarity activists. And the ?material support? law related to terrorist groups has been used in a variety of contexts to crack down on Palestine solidarity.

For instance, in 2011 the U.S. government warned activists on the U.S. Boat to Gaza that they were at risk of prosecution if they delivered ?material support? to Hamas.
?

Alex Kane is an assistant editor for Mondoweiss and the World editor for AlterNet. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

Source: http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/initiative-harassment-solidarity.html

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Women driving demand for rental apartments

12 hrs.

Diana Olick , CNBC.com

The housing market is supposedly roaring back. Home prices are seeing their biggest annual gains since 2006.

Renters must be rushing back to buy, right?

Not exactly.

In fact, even as housing and the greater economy improve, a shift in demographic trends will likely favor the rental apartment market for the foreseeable future. It is all about women.

"I rent in an apartment building because it gives me a certain amount of freedom: I'm not positive that I want to stay in D.C. long term, so I could leave at year's end if I wanted to," says 25-year-old Caitlin Huey-Burns, a journalist. "My building has nice, built-in amenities, and it's in the location I want, but where I know I wouldn't be able to afford to buy."

Most of Huey-Burns' single, female friends, some in their thirties, who live in major cities also rent in apartment buildings. Just one owns, and she lives in Canton, Ohio.

"What drives demand for single family homes is, 'Oh honey, I'm pregnant,'?" says Buck Horne, a housing analyst at Raymond James.

Read More:?America's Most Expensive Rentals 2013

But those words are being uttered less and less. Horne claims the shift in female education, marriage and fertility rates will drive rental apartment demand going forward. He points to a growing educational imbalance -- 3.1 million more women enrolled in college than men and 4 million more college-educated women in the workforce than men.

"That creates a structural imbalance in the number of suitable partners. Women leave college with good income prospects and are not finding suitable husbands and fathers," says Horne.

Consequently, the millennial generation is delaying marriage and motherhood, and birth and fertility rates are dropping. The female fertility rate is at its lowest level in recorded U.S. history, according to the Centers for Disease Control/Raymond James research. About?41 percent of children are born out of wedlock. Horne's research finds single mothers prefer living closer in to cities and staying in full-amenity apartment rentals. This all points to more structural, long-term demand for rental housing.

Read More:?Home Builders Turn to Rental Apartments

But, again, shouldn't that rebound in home prices and growing confidence in housing still push more renters to buy, despite the female argument? Investors certainly think so. While stocks of the nation's homebuilders are up over 60 percent from a year ago on the?PHLX Housing Sector Index,?multi-family REIT's actually under-performed and inversely correlated to home builders. Investors were concerned about the single-family home recovery stealing renters. But should they be?

No, according to a recent Raymond James report:

Renter household formation remains at the strongest level in decades. Roughly 1.32 million new renter households were formed in the past year (including owner conversions), while the number of owner-occupied households declined by 175,000. Resident turnover and move-outs to homeownership remain near historic lows for most operators. Incoming leasing traffic is more than offsetting move-outs while paying higher rates.

The home-ownership rate declined yet again in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the U.S. Census. It now stands at 65.4 percent, down from 66 percent a year ago and from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004. If you include the 5.3 million borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgages or in the foreclosure process, per Lender Processing Services, the real home-ownership rate is even lower.

"The fact that the housing recovery is being driven principally by investor demand means that the slight decline in the homeownership rate in the fourth quarter is unlikely to be the last," notes Paul Diggle of Capital Economics.

Read More:?World's Most Expensive City to Rent Is...

There is also a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for the rental market, as nearly 23 million young adults, male and female, under age 35 (31 percent of the cohort) are currently classified as "living at home"?with parents, according to Raymond James' analysis. As job growth improves, they will move to rental apartments; the homeownership rate for this group is only 34 percent.

Investors are also concerned about a 49 percent jump in multi-family construction permits from a year ago, but those permits are still running well below normal levels, and every year about 150,000 units are removed from housing stock for various reasons, like age and damage.

The apartment sector and the multi-family REITs will likely see a surprise to the upside in 2013. Rents will still rise, despite housing affordability and growth in the single-family market.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/women-driving-demand-rental-apartments-1B8166178

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PhotoSocial Just Updated Your iPhone?s Photo Gallery For The First Time Since 2007

Apple has made some amazing upgrades to the iPhone since it launched in 2007. We've met Siri, moved from plastic to glass to anodized aluminum, and experienced a number of design changes both physically and on the software level. But one thing that has changed very little since 2007 is Apple's Photo gallery. But 1UP Industries founder Jeff Bargmann has plans to change all that with a new iOS app called PhotoSocial. In his own words, it's a modern day photo gallery that's socially aware.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fimj8Vi89LI/

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Michael Dell Seeking Majority Control Of Dell Inc., Contributing As Much As $1 Billion Of His Own Personal Funds

Michael Dell is trying to get control of Dell, Inc. with as much as $1 billion of his own personal funds. His goal: shift the company's focus from PC sales to a more enterprise focused company that can operate without the pressures of being a publicly traded company.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gw1pT02f0EQ/

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Tons and Tons of Security Cameras Are Wide Open to Hackers

Apparently security cameras are even less secure than we thought. Eighteen popular brands of cameras have been found to have serious flaws in their own security, leaving at least 58,000 unsecured, open-to-basically-anyone security cams out there. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/0NoAZNqOghg/tons-and-tons-of-security-cameras-are-wide-open-to-hackers

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Italy's comeback kid Berlusconi defends Mussolini

Vincenzo Pinto / AFP - Getty Images

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, seen giving a speech during a campaign rally in Rome Friday, appears to have shrugged off recent scandals.

By Claudio Lavanga, Producer, NBC News

ROME ? He is the comeback kid of Italian politics, but Silvio Berlusconi's attempt to revive his career is under the spotlight after he defended fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony for victims of the Nazi Holocaust.?

The former prime minister said Mussolini's decision to echo Nazi Germany's anti-Jewish laws had been his "worst fault" as a leader "who in so many other ways did well."

---

He said: "It is difficult now to put yourself in the shoes of people who were making decisions at that time. Obviously the government of that time, out of fear that German power might lead to victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it."

The remarks, given?to reporters in Milan on Sunday, prompted outrage from many quarters in Italy and overseas.

?He has lost the plot," said David Patsi, president of the Italian school Dante Alighieri in Jerusalem and whose father was killed in a concentration camp. "He is an idiot. But I am not surprised. Sometime he even reminds me of Mussolini."

He added: "But I don?t think he is the problem. The problem is that a large number of Italians agree with him.??

That helps explain why Berlusconi could still make his comeback, despite a track record would have forced almost any other politician to retire from public life.

In November 2011, he was forced to resign as prime minister after it became clear that his denial of the economic crisis was bringing Italy to the brink of disaster.

In October last year, he was sentenced to four years in prison for an epic offshore tax fraud, put off pending appeals to higher courts.

And, if that weren't enough, he is still on trial for allegedly paying an underage exotic dancer for sex.

His popularity hit an all-time low and the 76-year-old with a net worth of almost $6 billion --?according to Forbes magazine -- might have been expected to retire to one of his many mansions.

But he was simply waiting for the chance to strike back in the flamboyant style that won him three terms as prime minister.

Following the resignation of Mario Monti -- the technocratic prime minister who replaced him in 2011 promising to reinvigorate Italy's languishing economy -- Berlusconi has done what he does best: He carpet-bombed the Italian media with guest appearances, clocking up an impressive 63 hours of airtime in only 21 days.

In essence, it's as if during the recent U.S. presidential election, former president George W. Bush was given more airtime than Barack Obama and Mitt Romney combined.

Crisis 'wasn't my fault'
Seems inconceivable, but then Italy has always been an exception in the Western world, and flamboyant and media-friendly Berlusconi, even as an outsider, draws a bigger audience than his closest competitors combined.

Officially, Berlusconi is not actually running as a candidate prime minister -- because this was the price it took to persuade the Northern League party to join?Berlusconi's People of Freedom party in a coalition.

But a good result in the elections could mean that all bets are off.

Karima el Marough, better known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer," was called to testify over allegations that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid to have sex with her when she was still a minor. NBC's Claudio Lavanga reports.

?Italy?s economic crisis wasn?t my fault. It was the consequence of the wider international crisis,? a defiant Berlusconi recently told a TV host, before he refused to apologize for previously denying the extent of the crisis.

It would seem to be an uphill task for Berlusconi to win the premiership for a fourth time -- in polls his coalition is trailing the center-left Democratic Party by at least 12 points.

But, after his TV onslaught, Berlusconi's bloc saw its poll rating rise by 3 percentage points.

Berlusconi 'very clever'

Italians are tired of painfully high unemployment rates, rising taxes, tax-evasion clampdowns and plummeting spending power.

But it remains to be seen whether they really believe Berlusconi when he claims that the economic crisis wasn't his fault and that his tax-cutting strategy is the solution.

?Berlusconi has been very clever. He stepped aside when the new government introduced very unpopular austerity measures and has come back in the limelight only now, saying that the cure was worse than the illness,? Maurizio Caprara, a journalist for the daily Corriere della Sera, said.

?Now he is trying to rally again his troops. Many became disillusioned following his many scandals, but many, as the polls show, may decide to give him one more try,? he added.

Monti recently called Berlusconi the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," who ?leads the mice to drown in the river, having fooled Italians three times already.?

And yet, at least according to his recently rising popularity, many Italians seem to find his tune irresistible.??

Related:

Italy's 'bunga bunga' man Berlusconi, 76, unveils girlfriend, 27

Witness: Italian ex-PM Berlusconi hosted strippers dressed as nuns

Woman dressed as burlesque Obama for Berlusconi, court told

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/29/16697505-italys-comeback-kid-berlusconi-defends-wartime-fascist-mussolini?lite

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Two in five young Japanese women need a social detox

By Ken Y-N ( January 28, 2013 at 22:50) ? Filed under Internet, Lifestyle, Polls

japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey by Neo Marketing into the true feelings (honne) of SNS users and found rather a lot getting a bit tired of the social grind.

Demographics

As with most non-goo Research surveys, the demographic information was lacking; 1,000 SNS users of both sexes between the ages of 20 and 49 completed a (presumably private) internet-based questionnaire at some unspecified date.

I keep my SNS usage to a minimum; indeed, my wife uses my Facebook account more than me, every day checking up on a few people to see what they are up to, whereas my usage is 99% automated reposts of this blog. I am more active on Google Plus, but as I find nothing wrong with just ignoring people (sorry, that?s just my character!) it never gets too burdensome.

Regarding Q3 and the dissatisfaction of getting requests from unknown people, I believe that when you sign up with Facebook and enter where you live, Facebook prompts you with a list of people nearby, so I occasionally get requests from Facebook newbies who live in the same town and probably think it would be cool to have a foreign friend. I, of course, just ignore them.

The article also had a quote from the head of a psychiartric clinic in Tokyo, saying that they are seeing a few patients having stress from work through SNS, which they have termed ?social harrassment?. The doctor recommended taking a break from SNS now and again, and suggested avoiding it just before bedtime and/or Sundays.

Research results

Q1: About how long per day do you spend on SNS? (Sample size=1,000)

Less than five minutes	17.7%
Less than ten minutes	23.7%
Less than thirty minutes	27.7%
Less than one hour	18.6%
Less than two hours	6.7%
Less than three hours	3.9%
Less than six hours	1.3%
Less than nine hours	0.3%
More than nine hours	0.1%

When asked how they accessed SNS, 91.7% said via computer, 53.9% via smartphone, and 21.1% via standard mobile phone.

When asked when they accessed SNS, the most popular time was 9 pm to midnight, with 41.5% online then, followed by 17.8% between 6 pm and 9 pm

Q2: What are the good things about using SNS? (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

Can occupy my free time	50.2%
Can meet old friends	30.4%
Can make more friends	25.3%
Can communicate more with friends	25.1%
Can find out what friends are doing	24.9%
Have more chances to get recommendations, latest info, etc	20.5%
Have more chances to publish my own info	17.7%
Can broaden the scope of my hobbies	14.8%
Can easily participate in communities	12.8%
Can easily participate in real-life events, meet-ups	5.4%
Other	0.7%
Don?t think there?s anything good about it	10.4%

When asked if they had any dissatisfactions about SNS usage, 57.2% of men but 70.8% of women said yes. Those dissatisfied were then asked the following.

Q3: What dissatsifactions do you have regarding using SNS? (Sample size=those dissatisfied, multiple answer)

?	Male	Female
Requests from people I?ve never met before	14.6%	21.2%
I become shackled to SNS	14.4%	17.6%
Worry about whether my posts, comments will get a reply	13.2%	22.%
Difficult to refuse friend requests	12.6%	15.0%
Other people can learn about my activites on SNS	11.8%	19.6%
There are sales pitches	11.0%	8.8%
Feel obliged to reply to other people?s posts, comments	8.6%	15.6%
Made-up stories, libel	7.8%	8.6%
Difficult to defriend people	7.6%	12.8%
Must choose my words to prevent flame wars, etc	6.6%	10.6%
Interpersonal relations become diluted	5.6%	5.0%
Feel obliged to post text, photos	5.2%	7.2%
Worry about whether people will become real-life friends	4.4%	3.2%
Other	1.6%	1.4%

When asked if they ever think they?d like to spend a whole day on SNS, 71.1% answered in the negative, and just 1.5% strongly agreed.

Q4: Have you ever felt that using SNS is bothersome? (Sample size=1,000)

Very much so	9.7%
Somewhat so	41.9%
Can?t say	32.7%
Not really so	12.1%
Not at all so	3.6%

Tying in with another new term, ?social harrassment?, a couple of the bothersome issues were having to ?Like? one?s boss?s post and being unable to refuse one?s boss?s friend requests.

Q5: Would you like to take a break from SNS? (Sample size=1,000)

&nbsp	Yes	Can?t say	No
Men, twenties	38.6%	37.1%	24.3%
Men, thirties	28.4%	42.6%	29.0%
Men, forties	22.8%	44.5%	32.7%
Women, twenties	37.9%	24.8%	37.2%
Women, thirties	26.5%	42.5%	31.0%
Women, forties	24.5%	43.9%	31.6%

Read more on: detox,neo marketing,sns

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WhatJapanThinks/~3/HWbzAACG3Tk/

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