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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Google?s Newest Search Result? An FTC Antitrust Investigation [Google]
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan Shows Us Project Fiona And The Blade Notebook
We couldn't go to CES and not see what Razer had on display, and fortunately, CEO Min-Liang Tan was on hand to take us on a quick tour through the company's booth. In between talking about the company's new gaming accessories and their Synapse cloud storage system for game settings, we were (thankfully) able to get our hands on the Project Fiona tablet and the long-awaited Razer Blade gaming notebook.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/824jqSfK7uM/
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Housing market blooms in Cuban provinces (Reuters)
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba (Reuters) ? Hundreds of handwritten signs stuck on doorways and in windows announce "se vende" or "for sale" in provincial cities and towns across Cuba as the island's nascent housing market begins to bloom.
Buyers walk the streets looking at homes the whereabouts of which were passed along by word of mouth as sellers outside of Havana have limited access to the Internet or other means to advertise their sales.
There are hovels and there are splendid little places tucked between crumbling buildings. There are two-story homes in need of repair and a few in immaculate condition. Some places go for the equivalent of a few thousand dollars, others for much more.
Buying and selling homes was banned for decades in Cuba. The best one could do was trade dwellings in what Cubans call a "permuta" and expand or decrease the size of where you lived by a single room.
That all changed when the ban was lifted in November, along with much of the previous paperwork and bureaucratic tangles, though Cubans can still own just one home and vacation place and non-resident foreigners are excluded from the market.
The measure appears to be the most popular yet as President Raul Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, works to reform the Soviet-style economy and gradually lifts some of the more onerous restrictions on people's daily lives.
Trading one's home was a nightmarish process that could take months and even years under the old system, and often required bribes and under-the-table payments.
The new system requires a simple notary and payment through the bank and appears to be working relatively well according to more than a dozen people selling their homes from one end of the island to the other.
"The new law is really good because there are people who get divorced, or who have money but no place to live, or live in a big place and want a smaller one, or have big families in a little place and want something larger and now with this law they can meet their needs much more easily," Tania Vigaroa, in the process of selling her home in eastern Holguin, said.
Most of the sellers say they would like to move to a smaller home and that permutas plus payments are now to difficult to find because people prefer to buy or sell.
In neighboring Santiago de Cuba the other day a haggard looking receptionist at the San Pedro notary office, where the waiting room was full, said the three notaries working there had no time to talk.
"This place has been overflowing since they changed the law, every day is the same," said receptionist Milaidy, who asked that her last name not be used, adding there were three other offices in the city.
Most sellers have become used to strangers on the prowl for a home. They are a hospitable lot, welcoming the passerby to come in for a look.
"I'm asking $55,000. The house has three rooms, two bathrooms, a big back yard, kitchen, dining room and living room and this is right near the center of town," said Jose Ramirez in the city of Ciego de Avila, in central Cuba.
"A number of people have come by so we will see. It's a respectable sum, but my daughter was recently divorced and lives across town and I want to be near her for support. There is a house over there that costs exactly the same amount," he said.
Some 60 miles to the east, in the city of Camaguey, bicycle-taxi driver Roberto Sosa says "no problem," when asked to peddle the Cuban version of a rickshaw around town for a look at what's on the market.
OVERSEAS INTEREST
An hour and five homes later one place catches the eye on Virgin Street. The neighborhood needs a plaster and paint job and the road needs paving, but the half-block-long, five bedroom single story house, freshly painted and with new tile floors, is splendid.
"We want $35,000 and have a possible buyer, but she is checking with her family in Miami," said the owner's son, who gave his name only as Santiago.
Bicitaxi peddler Sosa wasn't surprised.
"Most of the houses sold are (being bought) with the help of family abroad, if not it wouldn't be possible because their value is going up a lot now," he said, pointing out most local residents make only the equivalent of $20 or $30 per month.
Emilio Morales in Miami wasn't surprised either.
"A number of law firms, mainly here in the United States and Spain, have already called asking about the law for clients who want to know how they can buy property in Cuba," the former marketing strategist for CIMEX, one of the largest state-run trading and retail corporations on the island, said in a telephone interview.
Morales, now CEO of The Havana Consulting Group, a startup company specializing in potential Cuban markets, including residential real estate, said there was plenty of interest.
"Here in Miami there are a lot of people interested in buying property in Cuba for diverse reasons, some to start restaurants, cafeterias or other businesses and others to have a place to retire and live out their old age," he said.
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Cynthia Osterman)
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Friday, January 13, 2012
Taliban: Afghan talks won't mean end to fighting (AP)
KABUL, Afghanistan ? The Taliban's political wing is ready to enter peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, but the insurgents will in the meantime continue their armed struggle, the group said Thursday.
The militant movement's emailed statement suggests that efforts to bring Afghan factions to the table are gathering momentum, but also highlights some of the roadblocks on the way to any settlement ? in particular, the Taliban's insistence that the government of President Hamid Karzai is an illegitimate "stooge" of the West.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the militants had been fighting for the past 15 years to establish an Islamic government in Afghanistan "in accordance with the request of its people."
"It is for this purpose and for bringing about peace and stability in Afghanistan that we have increased our political efforts to come to mutual understanding with the world in order to solve the current ongoing situation," Mujahid said in an emailed statement.
"But this understanding does not mean a surrender from jihad and neither is it connected to an acceptance of the constitution of the stooge Kabul administration."
One of the international community's and Afghan government's conditions for reconciliation is that the Taliban must accept the Afghan constitution, meaning they must recognize Karzai's government. Mujahid's outright rejection of this is likely to be a key obstacle in the peace process.
For the past month, rumors have swirled about the possibility of peace talks between the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan and the Taliban in the Gulf nation of Qatar.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to acknowledge U.S. efforts to jump-start a peace process with the hard-line Islamist militants in order to help bring an end to the decade-long war. Washington has been mulling releasing several Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo as a confidence-building measure.
Clinton also indicated progress on the related effort to open a political representative office for the Taliban in Qatar, whose role as would-be host for peace talks gained reluctant approval from President Karzai last month.
But she said that any power-sharing deal would also have to involve insurgents renouncing violence, breaking with al-Qaida and respecting Afghanistan's constitution, including rights guaranteed to women and minorities.
The United States and its coalition allies are preparing to withdraw most of their forces and end their combat role in 2014, when responsibility for security will be in the hands of the greatly expanded Afghan army and police.
But despite a surge of foreign troops into Afghanistan in the past two years, and an overwhelming superiority in both numbers and firepower, the military effort has been unable to defeat the insurgency. Many now fear that a resurgent Taliban will be able to exploit the withdrawal of the 130,000-strong NATO-led force over the next three years by recapturing wide areas of the south and east.
The Obama administration and its allies appear to have gradually embraced talks as the best way to end the war, even if fighting continues beyond the deadline to withdraw foreign combat forces in 2014. Although the U.S. says those talks must be led by the Karzai government, it has made its own contacts with Taliban representatives over the last year.
Unlike those earlier exploratory discussions, any negotiations that might take place in Qatar will likely be aimed at drawing the Taliban movement formally into the political process.
In the latest violence, a suicide car bomber in the southern province of Kandahar rammed into the vehicle of the chief of Panjwayi district, killing the official, his two sons and two bodyguards, provincial spokesman Zalmai Ayubi said.
Fazluddin Agha is the latest in a long string of government officials assassinated by militants trying to undermine the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalia said nine civilians also were wounded in the explosion, which occurred on a road between Panjwayi district and Kandahar city.
The NATO force in Afghanistan meanwhile said a service member died in eastern Afghanistan from a "non-battle-related" injury Wednesday. A statement from the coalition did not give details or provide the service member's nationality.
The death brought to 12 the number of international troops killed this month in the country.
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
bellabellini: @SuStokes But I go through more bandwidth than business ADSL in South Africa provides. SA is far behind EU & North America.
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@SuStokes But I go through more bandwidth than business ADSL in South Africa provides. SA is far behind EU & North America. 
bellabellini Bella Bellini
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Blood-thinning drug linked to heart attack risk
People who take the recently approved blood-thinning medication dabigatran could have a slightly increased risk of heart attack compared with people who use the old standby drug warfarin, new research suggests.
When dabigatran was approved in 2010, it became the first new medication for blood-clot prevention in about 50 years. Sold under the brand name Pradaxa, dabigatran has been taken by an estimated 500,000 people to prevent blood clots that could cause stroke.
The drug is primarily given to patients with atrial fibrillation, who are at higher risk for this kind of stroke, as well as to patients undergoing joint replacement and other surgeries, to prevent blood clots.
But the fanfare over dabigatran's approval has been clouded somewhat by lingering questions over its effects on the heart. Several clinical trials showed a slightly increased risk of heart attacks in people who took the drug compared with people taking warfarin, but a reanalysis of the data at the request of the Food and Drug Administration concluded there was no statistically significant increased risk.
The new paper, published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, sought to clarify the situation, said lead author Dr. Ken Uchino, a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. It pooled data from seven studies ? involving 30,514 people ? that compared dabigatran to warfarin, the injected blood-thinner enoxaparin or a placebo. Most of the data came from the same clinical trials that had earlier led to approval of dabigatran, called the RE-LY studies.
Rates of heart attack or angina (chest pain caused by oxygen deprivation to the heart) were increased 33% in dabigatran-takers, although the risk remained very small: Only 237 heart-related events ? 1.19% ? occurred among 20,000 dabigatran users, compared with 0.79% of people taking another drug or a placebo, Uchino said.
It's unclear what causes the elevated risk seen in patients taking dabigatran compared with warfarin, said Dr. Stuart J. Connolly, director of the division of cardiology at McMaster University in Canada, who was lead investigator on the RE-LY studies. One possibility is that warfarin confers some heart benefits that dabigatran lacks, he said.
"When we say that dabigatran has a higher risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] than warfarin, that doesn't mean dabigatran is causing myocardial infarction," Connolly said. "It just means ? and evidence is supporting this view ? that warfarin is reducing myocardial infarction compared to dabigatran."
But Dr. Jeremy M. Jacobs, a senior physician at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, said doctors should ratchet down their enthusiasm for dabigatran until more research can be done to clarify the potential heart attack risk.
"I think caution is needed, especially among patients with known active ischemic heart disease," said Jacobs, who co-wrote an editorial published with the report.
Recent history has taught medical professionals that the full effects of a new medication may not be apparent until it is in widespread use ? sometimes years after FDA approval, Jacobs said. For example, the painkiller Vioxx was on the market for almost five years before it became clear that it was associated with an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes; it was withdrawn in 2004.
Still, the possible link between dabigatran and heart attacks is far from settled. In another paper designed to look only at people with atrial fibrillation that was published online last week in the journal Circulation, the RE-LY investigators found no significant increased risk of heart problems in dabigatran users.
The study concluded that dabigatran is superior to warfarin in people with atrial fibrillation when looking at the overall incidence of strokes, blood clots, heart attacks, bleeding and other problems.
Connolly and Uchino said the risk-benefit balance still appeared to be in favor of dabigatran, which is preferred by many doctors because warfarin can cause serious bleeding and patients taking it need close monitoring.
"I think we have to keep in mind all drugs have potential side effects, and it's always a question of benefit and harm," Uchino said.
shari.roan@latimes.com
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
2010 West Virginia 3rd House District Race: Republican Spike Maynard Takes on Incumbent Democrat Nick Rahall (ContributorNetwork)
The race for West Virginia's 3rd House District seat is as contentious as the candidates are flawed. Democratic contender Nick Rahall allegedly used his position in Congress to affect a lenient court sentence for his 27-year-old son in the wake of a felony robbery charge. Elliot "Spike" Maynard used to be a judge and state Supreme Court justice. He came under immense criticism when it was discovered that he was vacationing with a defendant whose case he heard and whose multimillion-dollar verdict he dismissed.
Candidates for West Virginia's 3rd Congressional District (two-year term)
(The district spans the southern portion of the state. It includes Beckley, Princeton and Huntington. See a boundary map here.)
Candidate: Nick Rahall
Party: Democrat
Political experience: From 1977 to 1992, Rahall represented West Virginia's 4th District. From 1993 to now, he has represented the 3rd District. He currently chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources and holds basic membership in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Professional experience: Prior to his congressional tenure, Rahall worked as a sales representative, travel agent and business executive.
Key issues: Rahall voted in favor of the health care reform bill, the stimulus package and TARP. Gov Track identifies him as a rank-and-file Democrat, who has thus far sponsored 167 bills, of which only seven have been enacted. He has co-sponsored 2,690 bills.
Endorsements: Rahall received endorsements from the West Virginia AFL-CIO, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, Ocean Champions, the National Education Association, the National Right to Life Committee and the National Rifle Association.
Chances of maintaining his seat: Voting for a host of now-unpopular congressional legislation took its toll on Rahall's popularity. Even so, OpenSecrets.org shows he managed to raise $808,936 of which 39 percent came from grassroots donors. Another 57 percent stemmed from PAC contributions. In the May 11 primary election, he received 67 percent of the vote as compared to his Democratic opponent, who only received 33 percent. It is clear that Rahall has a lot of grassroots support.
Candidate: Elliott "Spike" Maynard
Party: Republican
Political experience: In 1976, Maynard was elected as Mingo County's prosecuting attorney. He was re-elected in 1980. After appointed as a trial judge, he was twice elected to continue his judgeship. In 1996 he was elected to a 12-year state Supreme Court term.
Professional experience: In addition to his extensive legal experience and practice, Maynard worked as managing director of the Tug Valley Chamber of Commerce and also served in the United States Air Force.
Key issues: Maynard defines the same tenets as major issues that propelled the GOP to roll out the Pledge to America. He speaks out against cap and trade, the health care bill, the growing national deficit, stimulus spending bills and TARP.
Endorsements: Maynard stands firmly endorsed by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which has declared him to be a "Young Gun." He also received the endorsement of the West Virginians for Life Political Action Committee.
Chances of unseating Nick Rahall: Open Secrets shows that Maynard raised $186,026, of which 95 percent come from individual contributors and only five percent from PACs. The numbers outline a very strong grassroots appeal to the electorate. That said, during the primary elections, he managed to secure only 30 percent, which placed him precariously close to the runner-up (27 percent). It is unclear if Republican voters will follow the party line in an effort to see the congressional seat returned to the party.
Key Differences between Nick Rahall and Spike Maynard
Jobs: Maynard favors open competition and free enterprise. He opposes TARP and speaks out against overly burdensome regulations of West Virginia's coal industry. Rahall believes that employment comes from transportation infrastructure investments.
Seniors: Rahall opposes the use of Social Security funds for other programs and also strongly stands against Medicare cuts. Maynard agrees that Medicare cuts are unacceptable and further works to keep electrical rates inexpensive for residents of West Virginia.
Mining: Maynard says that he favors "common-sense environmental" rules but keeps out a wary eye for burdensome rules that cripple the coal mining industry. Rahall opposed the Bush Administration's efforts to increase the allowable levels of breathable dust in the coal-mining environment.
West Virginia's 3rd U.S. Congressional District
Location: West Virginia 3rd District is a southern locale that includes Huntington, Beckley, Bluefield and Princeton.
2008 results: Rahall fought off the Republican contender for the seat with 66.9 to 33.1 percent.
Demographics: According to the U.S. Census, 95.1 percent of the district is white, 4.4 percent is black and less than one percent accounts for other races. Less than 1 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino of any race. Proximity One shows that 19.90 percent of residents live at the poverty level.
The Cook Partisan Index rates the West Virginia 3rd District as R+6, which gives it a slightly Republican edge.
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