Lawmakers: Syria chemical weapons could menace US

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, April 26, 2013, with Secretary of State John Kerry as he and national intelligence advisers came to the Capitol to update members of the House on Syria's alleged use of poisonous gas in its ongoing civil war. U.S. intelligence has concluded with "varying degrees of confidence," that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its fierce civil war, the White House and other top administration officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, April 26, 2013, with Secretary of State John Kerry as he and national intelligence advisers came to the Capitol to update members of the House on Syria's alleged use of poisonous gas in its ongoing civil war. U.S. intelligence has concluded with "varying degrees of confidence," that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its fierce civil war, the White House and other top administration officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons could be a greater threat after that nation's president leaves power and could end up targeting Americans at home, lawmakers warned Sunday as they considered a U.S. response that stops short of sending military forces there.

U.S. officials last week declared that the Syrian government probably had used chemical weapons twice in March, newly provocative acts in the 2-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. The U.S. assessment followed similar conclusions from Britain, France, Israel and Qatar ? key allies eager for a more aggressive response to the Syrian conflict.

President Barack Obama has said Syria's likely action ? or the transfer of President Bashar Assad's stockpiles to terrorists ? would cross a "red line" that would compel the United States to act.

Lawmakers sought to remind viewers on Sunday news programs of Obama's declaration while discouraging a U.S. foothold on the ground there.

"The president has laid down the line, and it can't be a dotted line. It can't be anything other than a red line," said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. "And more than just Syria, Iran is paying attention to this. North Korea is paying attention to this."

Added Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.: "For America to sit on the sidelines and do nothing is a huge mistake."

Obama has insisted that any use of chemical weapons would change his thinking about the United States' role in Syria but said he didn't have enough information to order aggressive action.

"For the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus and how the United States approaches these issues," Obama said Friday.

But Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, said Sunday the United States needs to consider those weapons. She said that when Assad leaves power, his opponents could have access to those weapons or they could fall into the hands of U.S. enemies.

"The day after Assad is the day that these chemical weapons could be at risk ... (and) we could be in bigger, even bigger trouble," she said.

Both sides of the civil war already accuse each other of using the chemical weapons.

The deadliest such alleged attack was in the Khan al-Assal village in the Aleppo province in March. The Syrian government called for the United Nations to investigate alleged chemical weapons use by rebels in the attack that killed 31 people.

Syria, however, has not allowed a team of experts into the country because it wants the investigation limited to the single Khan al-Assal incident, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged "immediate and unfettered access" for an expanded investigation.

One of Obama's chief antagonists on Syria, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., said the United States should go to Syria as part of an international force to safeguard the chemical weapons. But McCain added that he is not advocating sending ground troops to the nation.

"The worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground on Syria. That would turn the people against us," McCain said.

His friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also said the United States could safeguard the weapons without a ground force. But he cautioned the weapons must be protected for fear that Americans could be targeted. Raising the specter of the lethal bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Graham said the next attack on U.S. soil could employ weapons that were once part of Assad's arsenal.

"Chemical weapons ? enough to kill millions of people ? are going to be compromised and fall into the wrong hands, and the next bomb that goes off in America may not have nails and glass in it," he said.

Rogers and Schakowsky spoke to ABC's "This Week." Chambliss and Graham were interviewed on CBS's "Face the Nation." McCain appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press."

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Philip_Elliott

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-29-US-Syria/id-bb8127aff67648438a9f114f86e20968

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Euro mayors try to keep youths from going to Syria

MECHELEN, Belgium (AP) ? From his city hall under Belgium's most imposing cathedral, Mayor Bart Somers is wracking his brains trying to figure out how to keep young Muslims from going to fight "holy war" in Syria against the Assad regime.

Through much of western Europe, scores of Islamic youths have heeded the call to take up arms for a cause that is only a few hours away by plane. The phenomenon has alarmed authorities amid signs that the insurgency is becoming increasingly radicalized, with strong infiltration by al-Qaida. European authorities see a double danger, one that's summed up by Somers who describes the youths as "cannon fodder" in Syria ? and potential "full-blown terrorists" if they make it back home alive.

But it all raises a conundrum: In a free society, how can you prevent these young people from packing up and leaving?

"The major challenge of each democrat is to see what we can do in the fight against fundamentalism without sacrificing our own democratic laws," said Somers. "Otherwise we play into the hands of the terrorists."

That dilemma was again put to the test two weeks ago when Belgian authorities organized a major anti-terror sweep seeking to weed out agitators inciting young Muslims to fight against the Assad regime. In a high-profile raid of four dozen homes, police put six people behind bars, raising criticism among some that they had overstepped their bounds by infringing on freedom of speech.

In the Brussels municipality of Schaarbeek, the mayor even banned a soup kitchen for the needy, among them young Muslims, fearful that the charity workers were inciting youths to fight in Syria. The action came after two Muslim schoolboys disappeared, apparently to Syria ? departures that Mayor Bernard Clerfayt linked to soup kitchen recruitment.

There have been mounting calls to confiscate passports from youths who seem on the verge of leaving, something that many civil libertarians criticize as an anti-democratic restriction on movement.

Those who do go to fight often leave behind distraught parents. At least one Belgian father went to look for his son, to no avail. Concerned families seek any help to prevent the outflow of young people to Syria.

"We do not want people to go, especially the young men," said Abu Yamen, a Syrian who runs the El Rass pharmacy in Schaarbeek.

But the daily suffering shown on television can push the young into extreme, foolhardy decisions, mayor Somers said. The fighting has exacted a huge toll on the country, killing more than 70,000 people, laying waste to cities, towns and villages, and forcing more than a million people to seek refuge abroad. It has all created an opportunity for al-Qaida to win new converts to its cause, as the hardcore Syrian regime has also tried to present itself as one of the Middle East's most secular.

Insurgencies in Iraq and Libya also attracted foreign fighters. What is different in Syria is the extent to which fears are rising of the rebellion being hijacked by radical Islamist elements under the thumb of al-Qaida.

At Friday prayers in Brussels, Sheikh Mohamed El Tamamy has sought to discourage youths from leaving. "Some of these youngsters think that is jihad, when youngsters go from Belgium or Holland to Syria," he said. "But in truth, jihad in Islam has conditions and rules. For jihad, you must get permission from the authorities."

Many Europeans, however, fear fighters coming back more than volunteers heading to Syria.

The EU's law enforcement agency, Europol, said in the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report it published last Friday that returning fighters "have the potential to utilize their training, combat experience, knowledge and contacts for terrorist activities inside the EU."

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization, an international group of five major academic institutions, estimates that up to 590 Europeans have left, accounting for about 10 percent of the foreign fighter total in Syria. Europol said Friday that in 2012, "Syria emerged as a destination of choice for foreign fighters."

This month's bombings at the Boston Marathon reinforced Europe's fears about youths leaving the West to be radicalized overseas, and coming back to carry out attacks. U.S. authorities are investigating whether one of the suspects, ethnic Chechen Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was influenced by religious extremists when he spent six months in Russia's Caucasus in 2012.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after a meeting with his Belgian counterpart, Didier Reynders, that "we just had a young person who went to Russia and Chechnya who blew people up in Boston. So he didn't stay where he went, but he learned something where he went and he came back with a willingness to kill people."

It's a trajectory that some Europeans fear carries parallels to the youths traveling to Syria to fight in the insurgency.

"We have to follow them to protect our society," said Reynders. "We have a real terrorist risk because of such behavior."

In the neighboring Netherlands, anxiety has spread to the historic city of Delft, until recently known for its blue-and-white pottery, canals, and burial site of kings and queens. Now, you can add suspected jihadists as well.

In the Netherlands, as in Belgium, there has been alarm over some Muslim youths leaving for Syria, with estimated departures going as high as 100. "It was known that some Delft youngsters were radicalizing," Delft mayor Bas Verkerk wrote to his city council, after unconfirmed reports that two fighters from Delft had died.

And last month the nation raised its terror alert to "substantial," with the terrorism coordinator citing "signs of youngsters radicalizing in the Netherlands and the increased number of jihad travelers to Syria."

As a liberal, Somers is hesitant to choose between freedom and added security and intrusion into people's lives. But he is also sensitive to the need for strong surveillance ? and is seeking compromises.

Somers says he wants security personnel to be "the eyes and ears in our cities" to see who plans to leave ? "and then we try to influence him in a positive way."

"We try it with the police and the secret service. We try to find out who is behind those people," he said. Somers is now coordinating surveillance and outreach efforts with the mayors of Antwerp and Vilvoorde, which is close to Brussels.

But some human rights organizations argue that fundamental rights are being trampled in the process.

"We are talking about views that these youngsters hold, and you cannot change opinions with a repressive approach," said Jos Vander Velpen, the chairman of the Belgian League of Human Rights. "To the contrary, they will become even more convinced, and win more status because of it."

___

AP videojournalists Bishr Eltouni and Mark Carlson contributed to this article.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/euro-mayors-try-keep-youths-going-syria-154244490.html

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Some say immigration bill is bad deal for the GOP

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Some feisty Republicans are challenging a claim widely held among GOP leaders that the party must support more liberal immigration laws if it's to be more competitive in presidential elections.

These doubters say the Republican establishment has the political calculation backward. Immigration "reform," they say, will mean millions of new Democratic-leaning voters by granting citizenship to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants now living illegally in the United States.

The argument is dividing the party as it tries to reposition itself after losing the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. It also could endanger President Barack Obama's bid for a legacy-building rewrite of the nation's problematic immigration laws.

Many conservatives "are scared to death" that the Republican Party "is committing suicide, that we're going to end up legalizing 9 million automatic Democrat voters," radio host Rush Limbaugh recently told Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a leader of the bipartisan team pushing an immigration overhaul.

Strategists in both parties say several factors, including income levels, would make many, and probably most, newly enfranchised immigrants pro-Democratic, at least for a time.

Rubio says the risk is worth taking.

"Every political movement, conservatism included, depends on the ability to convince people that do not agree with you now to agree with you in the future," he told Limbaugh.

Politically, Republicans face two bad options.

They can try to improve relations with existing Latino voters by backing a plan that seems likely to add many Democratic-leaning voters in the years ahead. Or they can stick with a status quo in which their presidential nominees are losing badly among the electorate's fastest-growing segment.

In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who suggested that vanishing job opportunities would prompt immigrants to "self deport," carried only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. A Republican Party study of that election concluded, among other things, that the GOP must appeal to more Hispanics, and to do so it must "embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform."

Party leaders say the harsh language that some Republicans use when discussing illegal immigration has angered many Americans with Hispanic heritages.

Rubio's bipartisan group has proposed legislation to strengthen border security, allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status, and provide an eventual path to citizenship for some 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally.

Even if the bill survives the Democratic-controlled Senate, stiff resistance is expected in the GOP-dominated House. Many House Republicans dislike the idea of "amnesty" for those who crossed the border illegally, and some say it's foolish to enfranchise likely Democratic voters.

Obama embraces the Rubio plan, and it won crucial praise from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., last year's vice presidential nominee.

Rubio and his allies challenge the notion that creating a way to citizenship for millions of people here illegally will dramatically increase Democratic turnout in future elections.

"Not all 11 million illegal immigrants here today will qualify to become citizens, and not all of the 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanic," according to Rubio's "Myth vs. Fact" website. The site says many immigrants will not choose to become citizens, and many new citizens, like many current ones, will not bother to vote.

Some Republican campaign strategists, however, say the political damage would be worse than party leaders acknowledge.

Republican consultant and pollster Mike McKenna said one of his surveys shows that most Americans favor "immigration reform" and they believe it will benefit Democrats more than Republicans.

In an interview, McKenna said Republican leaders are embracing Rubio's plan without sufficient data on where it might lead. "I think about two months from now, the folks in the establishment are going to wish they hadn't started this conversation," McKenna said.

Party leaders erred, he said, by couching the immigration debate in political rather than moral terms. "The argument that it's going to be politically advantageous is not going to be sustainable over time," McKenna said.

Political activists have swapped estimates of how many people now living here illegally might choose to become citizens, register to vote and turn out for Democratic candidates if a path to citizenship is opened. Even the most conservative guesses assume that Democrats would benefit more than Republicans, initially, at least.

Rubio's allies play it down.

"The status quo is not acceptable to Republican voters," said GOP consultant Kevin Madden, who has worked for Romney and others. Republican leaders, he said, must push for the best rewrite of immigration laws they can achieve.

Texas-based GOP consultant Matt Mackowiak noted that evangelical leaders, major business groups and others that opposed immigration changes in 2007 are now on board. He said the Republican Party should focus on attracting Hispanic voters with its standard message of small government and free enterprise, and not worry too much if a new law produces more Democratic-leaning voters for a while.

"If we don't win 40 to 45 percent of Hispanics," Mackowiak said, "we're not going to win elections regardless of whether this happens."

Limbaugh is among those who don't buy it.

"I see polling data again that suggests that 70 percent of the Hispanic population in the country believes that government is the primary source of prosperity," he told Rubio in their recent exchange. "I don't, therefore, understand this contention that Hispanics are conservatives-in-waiting."

___

Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-bill-bad-deal-gop-132850249.html

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You say you don?t want it, again and again, but you don?t, you don?t really mean it (Unqualified Offerings)

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Credit Suisse shareholders back pay plan

By Katharina Bart

ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse investors backed a plan to issue new shares to pay staff bonuses after more than two hours of criticism from individual shareholders angered by high pay for executives at the bank.

Just over 75 percent of votes were cast in favor of the plan at an investor meeting on Friday, despite a recommendation to reject it from shareholder advisory group ISS.

Banker pay and bonuses have become hot-topics across Europe since the financial crisis, when a string of major banks including Switzerland's UBS and Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland had to be bailed out by taxpayers.

Julius Baer shareholders last week rejected the pay plans of the Swiss private bank after ISS, which advises investors on corporate governance and other issues, had recommended shareholders vote it down.

On Thursday, British bank Barclays promised its shareholders a rigorous review of executive pay, as investors they were not convinced big bonuses would be abandoned by its new bosses as part of a new ethical drive.

Generally, though, most institutional shareholders continue to vote through remuneration plans, arguing that banks must pay to attract the best talent.

Prior to the Credit Suisse vote, more than 1,700 largely retail shareholders pressed Chairman Urs Rohner, Chief Executive Brady Dougan and other top executives on pay.

"Would you leave Credit Suisse if you only earned 700,000 Swiss francs a year, or would the quality of your work suffer?" shareholder and politician David Roth asked Dougan.

Dougan, who didn't respond to Roth publicly, received 7.8 million Swiss francs ($8.2 million) for 2012.

Most shareholders criticizing pay referred to a Swiss vote last month that will impose some of the strictest controls on executive pay and force companies to hold a binding shareholder vote on compensation.

"Credit Suisse's top management still doesn't want to believe it, even after the Minder initiative passed," retail shareholder Beda Dueggelin said, referring to the new rule.

"Next year, they will feel it when a non-binding vote is no longer enough."

Credit Suisse's general pay plan was approved by almost 88 percent of voting shareholders.

For some, the new pay curbs don't go far enough. The center-left Social Democrats, which Roth represents, are already pushing for another referendum on even tougher restrictions on executive pay - they want to limit the annual compensation of top managers to 12 times that of their lowest-paid worker.

Roughly a dozen Young Social Democrat activists campaigned for the 1:12 initiative at the shareholder meeting by knocking down a pyramid of barrels with an oversized ball, the top barrel emblazoned with Dougan's picture.

Swiss activist investor groups Ethos and Actares had asked shareholders to vote down Credit Suisse's pay plan, while ISS backed it. Instead, ISS asked shareholders to vote down the plan to issue new shares to pay bonuses to staff, some of whom have volunteered to receive bonuses in stock rather than cash as part of measures to bolster capital.

($1 = 0.9474 Swiss francs)

(Editing by Emma Farge and Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/credit-suisse-shareholders-overwhelmingly-back-2012-pay-plan-113621506.html

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Police: Boston suspects planned to attack New York

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

Pedestrians pass the spot where the first bomb detonated on Boylston Street near the finish line of the Boston Marathon Wednesday, April 24, 2013, in Boston. Traffic was allowed to flow all the way down Boylston Street on Wednesday morning for the first time since two explosions killed 3 people and injured many on April 15. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Andrew Collier, left, puts his hand on his brother, Robert, after delivering the eulogy at a memorial service for their brother, slain Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus officer, Sean Collier, at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Sean Collier was fatally shot on the MIT campus Thursday, April 18, 2013. Authorities allege that the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were responsible.(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Michelle Littke, of Scituate, Mass., wites on a poster at a makeshift memorial in Copley Square on Boylston Street in Boston, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Traffic was allowed to flow all the way down Boylston Street on Wednesday morning for the first time since two explosions on April 15.(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Running shoes hang from a barrier at a makeshift memorial in Copley Square on Boylston Street in Boston, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Traffic was allowed to flow all the way down Boylston Street on Wednesday morning for the first time since two explosions on April 15. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

BOSTON (AP) ? The Boston Marathon bombing suspects had planned to blow up their remaining explosives in New York's Times Square, New York officials said Thursday.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his older brother had decided spontaneously Thursday night to drive to New York and detonate their remaining explosives ? a pressure-cooker bomb like the ones that blew up at the marathon, plus five pipe bombs.

The plan fell apart after the Tsarnaev brothers were intercepted by police in a stolen car and got into a fierce gun battle that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead, Kelly said.

Dzhokhar, 19, is charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260, and he could get the death penalty.

He was interrogated in his hospital room over a period of 16 hours without being read his constitutional rights. He immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered the room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to a U.S. law enforcement official and others briefed on the interrogation.

The Tsarnaev brothers "planned to travel to Manhattan to detonate their remaining explosives in Times Square," Kelly said, citing the task force that has been investigating the Boston Marathon attack.

"They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they hijacked after they shot and killed the officer at MIT," the police commissioner said. "That plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station."

The driver escaped and called police, Kelly said. That set off the gunbattle and manhunt that ended a day later with Dzhokhar captured and his brother dead.

___

Colleen Long reported from New York City.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-25-Boston%20Marathon-Explosions/id-9527472ab6e44b528ecde448108e2ef5

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Chiefs pick Central Michigan's Eric Fisher at No 1

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? The Kansas City Chiefs have a new anchor for their offensive line.

The Chiefs selected Central Michigan offensive tackle Eric Fisher first overall in the NFL draft Thursday night, grabbing a potential replacement for Branden Albert and someone to protect the blindside of new quarterback Alex Smith. The Chiefs picked Fisher over Texas A&M tackle Luke Joeckel to lead off a draft heavy on offensive and defensive linemen.

"I can't even process what's happening right now," Fisher said. "This is a dream come true, the fact that I was the No. 1 pick. I can't even understand what's going on right now, but what an honor. What an honor. A great opportunity."

Fisher is the third offensive lineman picked No. 1 since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.

The Chiefs had the top pick in the modern NFL draft for the first time in franchise history. But rather than announce their intentions early, like the Indianapolis Colts did in picking Andrew Luck last season, new general manager John Dorsey and coach Andy Reid decided to wait until they were on the clock before making their choice public.

Kansas City was still considering a handful of players early this week, including Joeckel, who many believed was the best available player. Dorsey also indicated that he would listen to offers from teams trying to trade up until the last possible minute.

When nothing materialized, Dorsey phoned in his selection to Radio City Music Hall, and Fisher became the first player from Central Michigan to be picked first overall.

He's only the third player in the past 20 years to be drafted first from a non-BCS school, and the first non-quarterback. The only other player out of Central Michigan to go in the first round was Joe Staley, the San Francisco 49ers' Pro Bowl left tackle.

With surprising athleticism in a 6-foot-7, 306-pound frame, Fisher rocketed up draft boards during the annual scouting combine. His ability to make blocks in the open field ? not to mention a bit of a mean streak ? made him a natural fit for Reid's offense.

The Chiefs were in a need of a quarterback after going 2-14 a year ago, but without a top-end talent available, they acquired Smith in a trade with San Francisco. That allowed them to spend the most coveted pick in the draft on who they believed to be the best player.

While Fisher doesn't play a marquee position such as quarterback or wide receiver, and may not push the needle for many Chiefs fans, he does fill a significant need.

Albert, who the Chiefs picked in the first round in 2008, was given the franchise tag in March when the two sides failed to reach agreement on a long-term deal. He ultimately signed the tender, which guarantees him about $9.3 million next season, but has repeatedly expressed his unhappiness with the lack of long-term stability. The Chiefs granted permission to the Dolphins to speak with Albert's agent, and it's possible a trade could happen during the draft. Kansas City was seeking a second-round pick.

That would allow Fisher to slide into the starting lineup at left tackle. Even if Albert plays for the Chiefs next season, one of them could shift to the right side.

Fisher's only scholarship offers out of high school came from Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan, and he said at the combine in February that he heard from Michigan State and Purdue but that "neither of them really wanted anything to do with me."

The Chiefs certainly have made him feel wanted.

While Fisher is a solid pass blocker, his real strength comes in the running game, where he helped the Chippewas' Zurlon Tipton run for 1,492 yards and 19 touchdowns last season.

Now, he'll be blocking for Pro Bowl running back Jamaal Charles.

Fisher is the 13th offensive lineman that the Chiefs have drafted in the first round, the most of any position. He also continues a trend: Dorsey helped to pick offensive linemen two of the past four years when he was working for the Packers, and Reid selected offensive guard Danny Watkins with the Eagles' first-round pick in 2011.

The only other offensive linemen picked first overall had been Orlando Pace, who the Rams selected in 1997, and Jake Long, the choice of the Dolphins in 2008.

Pace started 165 games over 13 seasons, and was voted an All-Pro three times while making seven Pro Bowls. Long started 68 of the 80 games he's played over the past five seasons, going to the Pro Bowl every year from 2008-11, but appeared to decline this past year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chiefs-pick-central-michigans-eric-fisher-no-1-002757222--nfl.html

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Pope hints at possible changes to scandal-ridden Vatican bank

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has indicated for the first time that he may make changes to the Vatican's scandal-ridden bank as part of a broad review of the Holy See's troubled administration.

Before Francis was elected last month, many of the cardinals who went on to choose him expressed concern about the harm done to the Church's image by three decades of scandals at the bank, which Italian magistrates are now investigating for money laundering.

A report last year by Moneyval, a European anti-money laundering body, found that the bank, officially the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), had failed to meet some of its standards on fighting financial crimes, and called for increased oversight.

In an impromptu sermon at a Mass for Vatican employees including staff from the bank, the pope said they should concentrate on the true mission of the Church and that Vatican departments were needed "only up to a certain point".

"The Church is not an NGO (non-governmental organization). It is a story of love," he said, according to a transcript published by Vatican Radio.

"I know that people from the IOR are here, so excuse me. Offices are necessary but they are necessary only up to a certain point."

It was the first time Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, had mentioned the Vatican bank in public since his election.

The account of the sermon in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, omitted the mention, however. Italian media said this was a sign of conflict within the Vatican on how to deal with the bank.

Vatican sources have said the pope could restructure the IOR and has the power to close it if he wants to.

Italian media have reported that the bank, which currently answers to a commission of cardinals and enjoys great autonomy, could be placed under the control of another Vatican department to enable tighter control.

Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's leading Catholic weekly, has called for the funds in the IOR, which manages money mostly for dioceses and religious institutions, to be administered by an independent "ethical bank" external to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he was not aware of any imminent changes affecting the bank.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-hints-possible-changes-scandal-ridden-vatican-bank-143811123.html

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Will the H7N9 Avian Flu Spread to People Outside Mainland China?

High-risk areas might include Shandong province (where the first case of 104 among humans was reported April 23) and a belt extending around the Bohai sea to Liaoning province in the north. But cases beyond China might be just a matter of time

By Declan Butler and Nature magazine

CLICK MAP FOR DATA: Flight routes from the outbreak regions would quickly carry any human-transmissible virus to huge population centers in Europe, North America and Asia. Estimated numbers of people residing within two hours' travel time of destination airport calculated using gridded population-density maps and a data set of global travel times. Image: A. J. Tatem, Z. Huang and S. I. Hay (2013). Unpublished data. (A.J.T., University of Southampton, UK; Z.H., University of Florida, Gainesville; S.I.H., University of Oxford, UK.)

Scientists do not yet fully understand how the H7N9 avian influenza virus is spreading in China, or why the pattern of sporadic human cases looks like it does. But mapping the risks of known factors in the past geographical spread of avian flu viruses and human infections might provide some clues.

The first known cases of human infection with H7N9 were reported in China on 31 March, with two cases in Shanghai on the eastern seaboard and one in the neighboring province of Anhui. As of 22 April, the World Health Organization (WHO) has tallied 104 confirmed cases, including 21 deaths, and the virus has expanded its geographical range to neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, as well as Beijing in the north and Henan in the center of the country.

On 23 April, China's state news agency, Xinhua, reported a 36-year-old man in serious condition in the city of Zaozhuang, midway between Shanghai and Beijing ? the first case from Shandong province (not shown on map). The biggest number of cases has been reported in Shanghai, with 32, and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, with 27; Huzhou in Zhejiang province has reported 10 cases, as has Nanjing in Jiangsu province.

To stem the current surge of human cases, scientists must identify the sources of the virus, and the route by which it infects humans. Birds at live markets have been suspected as one source, but tens of thousands of tests in poultry and other animals elsewhere have so far failed to turn up significant levels of the virus.

It is far from easy to devise effective ways to sample birds and animals for testing in a country with some 6 billion domestic birds and 0.5 billion pigs ? not to mention a vast population of wild birds, including many migratory species. Although the risk factors for the spread of H7N9 are not known, voluminous research on its cousin, the H5N1 virus that has caused 622 confirmed cases and 371 deaths since 2003, may help inform analyses. This, in turn, would help scientists and health officials to target their surveillance and control efforts.

For H5N1, researchers integrate large data sets that combine information on many potentially important factors, such as poultry trade routes, the numbers of birds being transported, the distribution of live-bird markets and their supply routes, waterfowl numbers, land use and human population densities. To these, they add the distribution of H5N1 cases in poultry, and as well as positive H5N1 results from active surveillance in markets.

Marius Gilbert, a co-author of one such study published in PLoS Pathogens in 2011 paper, and an expert in the epidemiology and ecology of avian flu viruses at the Free University of Brussels, says that although the risk factors for H7N9 may be different, given the current dearth of information, H5N1 risk maps are probably a good starting point for identifying areas most at risk.

Indeed, when human cases of H7N9 are overlaid on a risk map that Marius and his co-authors supplied to Nature, they seem to fall within the highest risk areas for H5N1. The map suggests that high-risk areas for H7N9 might include Shandong province (which reported its first case on 23 April) and a belt extending around the Bohai Sea to Liaoning province in the north.

Gilbert was one of more than 30 international experts who gathered at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome for a two-day meeting last week to discuss the current H7N9 outbreaks. At that meeting, he says, risk modeling and mapping were discussed as one means to devise targeted surveillance. Such information could also be used to help to modify farming and trade practices to reduce the risk of human exposure to the virus. As more is learned about H7N9, such models can be further refined.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=9eb6c68df5180939780c04aa702b7033

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Admits to Boston Marathon Bombing, FBI Source Claims

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-admits-to-boston-marathon-bombing-fbi-source-c/

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'Toggle switch' to burn fat identified

Apr. 23, 2013 ? For a long time, scientists have dreamt of converting undesirable white fat cells into brown fat cells and thus simply have excess pounds melt away. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now gotten a step closer to this goal: They decoded a "toggle switch" in mice which can significantly stimulate fat burning.

The results are now being presented in the journal Nature Communications.

Many people not only in industrialized nations struggle with excess weight -- but all fat is not alike. "Love handles" in particular contain troublesome white fat cells which store excess food. Brown fat cells are the exact opposite: they burn excess energy as the desirable "heaters" of the body. Scientists at the University of Bonn working with Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology, have spent years using animal models to explore how the undesirable white fat can be converted into sought-after brown fat. "In this way, excess pounds may be able to simply be melted away and obesity combated," says Prof. Pfeifer.

A kind of "trigger switch" spurs fat burning

The researchers have now decoded a "microRNA switch" in mice which is important for brown fat cells. Micro-RNAs are located in the genome of cells and very quickly and efficiently regulate gene activity. The researchers studied a specific microRNA: microRNA 155. The gene regulator micro-RNA 155 inhibits a certain transcription factor, that controls brown fat cell function. Surprisingly, Prof. Pfeifer and his team found that the transcription factor also regulates the levels microRNA 155 establishing a tight feed-back loop that works like a toggle switch: When the microRNA is highly expressed brown fat cell differentiation is blocked; conversely, if the transcription factor wins the upper hand, brown fat is produced at an increased level and this in turn boosts fat burning in the body.

In knockout mice, the gene for Micro-RNA 155 was silent

The researchers at Bonn University and their colleagues from the Federal Institute of Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and from the University of Regensburg worked with so-called transgenic and knockout mice in whom the gene for micro-RNA 155 was either increased or silenced. "The mechanism was already set in motion when the micro-RNA 155 was only halved in the mice," reports lead author Yong Chen, graduate student of the NRW International Graduate School BIOTECH-PHARMA. The mice then had significantly more brown fat cells available than did the control gro up -- and had even converted white fat cells into brown fat cells.

Clues to the causes of lipid metabolism diseases

The micro-RNA functions as an antagonist to the brown fat cells. "As long as enough micro-RNA 155 is present, the production of brown fat cells is blocked," says Chen. Only if it falls below a certain proportion does this brake let up; the blueprint for brown fat can be read and implemented by the cell -- the desired fat burners can develop. These findings help scientists better understand the causes of lipid metabolism diseases.

Hope for new therapies against obesity

The scientists at the University of Bonn see in their results a potential starting point for drugs to combat obesity. The researchers have clues to the fact that the results, if anything, can be transferred from mice to humans. Thus, for example, researchers in Leipzig found increased levels of micro-RNA 155 in significantly overweight patients. This corresponds to findings from animal models: A lot of micro-RNA 155 is associated with reduced fat burning. "However, we are still in the basic research stage," says Prof. Pfeifer. The path to suitable drugs is still a long one.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universit?t Bonn, via AlphaGalileo.

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Journal Reference:

1. Yong Chen, Franziska Siegel, Stefanie Kipschull, Bodo Haas, Holger Fr?hlich, Gunter Meister, Alexander Pfeifer. miR-155 regulates differentiation of brown and beige adipocytes via a bistable circuit. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1769 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2742

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/~3/2asP3gl0lPk/130423110742.htm

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Canada passenger train attack plot suspect set for court hearing

By Allison Martell

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Montreal man accused of helping plan an al Qaeda-backed attack on a passenger train is set for a court hearing in Toronto on Wednesday.

Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born PhD student, faces charges that include conspiracy to murder and working with a terrorist group. He and another suspect allegedly hoped to derail a passenger train, perhaps at a bridge near the U.S.-Canada border, with possible heavy loss of life, authorities said.

Esseghaier, 30, along with Raed Jaser of Toronto, were arrested on Monday in separate raids after what police said was a joint Canada-U.S. investigation that started last year after a tip from a member of the Muslim community.

Esseghaier declined an offer of legal representation at a separate procedural hearing in Montreal and sought to explain how the words and facts in police allegations were "only appearances."

Canadian police said the plot involved a passenger train route in the Toronto area but that there had been no immediate threat to rail passengers or to the public. They said the alleged plot had no connection to the Boston Marathon bombings.

But U.S. officials said that the suspects were believed to have worked on a plan to blow up a trestle on the Canadian side of the border as the Maple Leaf, Amtrak's daily run between Toronto and New York, passed over it.

Canadian authorities have linked the two to al Qaeda factions in Iran. But they added that there is no indication the attack plans, which police described as the first known al Qaeda-backed plot on Canadian soil, were state-sponsored.

Two hours before Wednesday's hearing, reporters and TV trucks were clustered outside Toronto's Old City Hall, a clock-tower-topped building of dark red sandstone.

(Writing by Cameron French; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canada-passenger-train-attack-plot-suspect-set-court-130711445.html

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House Built by Evolutionary Theorist Alfred Russel Wallace Up for Sale--?1.5 Million

Wallace, who came up with the concept of evolution by natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, had the house built in 1872 in Grays, England. The naturalist is said to have lived in the house for about four years

By Daniel Cressey and Nature News Blog

Image: Nature News Blog/Daniel Cressey

The house built by Alfred Russel Wallace after he returned from his exotic travels is about to come on the market.

Wallace ? who came up with the concept of evolution by natural selection independently of Charles Darwin and prompted Darwin to publish his own work ? had the house built in 1872 in Grays, UK, according to the website outlining the sale. Wallace?s pioneering continued in this construction. The house, which he named??The Dell? because it sat in a pit, was one of the first buildings in the United Kingdom made out of moulded concrete. The house is situated on the north of the Thames, east of London.

According to the Wallace Fund, which has a short history of the house online, the naturalist only lived in the house for about four years.

This year marks 100 years since the death of Wallace and a surge in interest in a man often consigned by history to a Darwinian footnote. In Nature recently, Harvard biologist Andrew Berry wrote that ?Alfred Russel Wallace is too often remembered as little more than Charles Darwin?s goad. ? Sidekick status does Wallace an injustice. He was a visionary scientist in his own right, a daring explorer and a passionate socialist.?

In a reappraisal of Wallace?s book ?The Malay Archipelago?, also in Nature, the American nature writer David Quammen calls him ?arguably the greatest field biologist of the nineteenth century?. Wallace?s letters have been made available online earlier this year.

If you fancy owning his old house, estate agents Stanley Hicks & Son suggest a guide price of ?1.5 million.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature and the Nature News Blog. The article was first published on April 22, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=235e43b26337314f55ace2c1b236fb38

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Apple Passes 45B Total Unique App Downloads At A Rate Of 800 Per Second With Over $9B Paid To Devs

Apple took time to update investors on the status of its ecosystem on today's call, revealing that it has crossed the 45 billion total app download mark, just over four months after it crossed the 40 billion download mark back in January. Apps are being downloaded at a rate of 800 per second, from a total pool of 850,000 iOS apps in total, with 350,000 apps designed for iPad alone.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GGte6oKr7Uc/

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Kerry urges NATO allies to up aid to Syrian rebels

BRUSSELS (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday urged NATO allies to boost their assistance to the Syrian opposition as a way to push President Bashar Assad's regime into accepting a political transition.

Attending his first meeting of the alliance's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, as America's top diplomat, Kerry said the Obama administration is "looking at every option that could possibly end the violence and usher in a political transition" and that plans need to be made now to ensure that there is no power vacuum when that takes place.

He said that increasing aid to the Syrian National Coalition and its military command, the Supreme Military Council, is critical to that effort.

"I want to urge all of your governments to increase your material and political support to the coalition and the (military council), which share our vision for Syria's future, and to ensure that all assistance is only funneled through them," Kerry told NATO foreign ministers.

On Sunday in Turkey, Kerry announced that the U.S. would double its non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, possibly including defensive military supplies for the first time.

Many of NATO's 28 members also belong to the European Union, which on Monday lifted its oil embargo on Syria to provide more economic support to the rebels and is now considering easing an arms embargo on the country to allow weapons transfers to those fighting the Assad regime.

The United States is not giving the rebels arms and ammunition but is not opposed to others doing so as long as the recipients are fully vetted and the supplies are channeled through the military council.

Kerry did not mention the possible easing of the E.U. arms embargo but he did say that NATO should begin to think about taking on a larger role in planning for a post-Assad Syria, particularly in dealing with the country's chemical weapons stockpiles.

NATO has deployed three Patriot anti-missile batteries to Turkey to protect against potential scud strikes from inside neighboring Syria. They have yet to be used.

"Planning regarding Syria, such as what (NATO) has already done, is an appropriate undertaking for the alliance," Kerry said. "We should also carefully and collectively consider how NATO is prepared to respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat."

An Israeli general said Tuesday that Israel believes the Assad regime has used chemical weapons in the conflict. Britain and France have made the same claim, although U.S. officials say the evidence to date is inconclusive. President Barack Obama has said the use of such weapons would be a "game changer" and hinted it could draw intervention but has not elaborated.

Despite the deterioration in the situation in Syria, NATO officials say there is virtually no chance the alliance will intervene in the bloody civil war. More than 70,000 people have died in the conflict, according to the United Nations.

The violence also has forced more than 1 million Syrians to seek safety abroad, and more are leaving by the day, burdening neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

"We can all see that the situation in Syria is getting worse," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on his way into the meeting Tuesday morning. "And we cannot ignore the risks of a regional spillover, with possible implications for allied security."

The NATO ministers on Tuesday were also working on defining how it will support Afghan forces after 2014, when NATO will no longer have a combat role.

With next year's transition date looming, Kerry will host three-way talks in Brussels on Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top Pakistani officials aimed at speeding possible reconciliation talks with the Taliban and improving trust and cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Shortly after the meeting started, the foreign ministers issued a statement condemning "in the strongest possible terms" North Korea's nuclear weapons program and threatening rhetoric, saying they violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and jeopardized the prospects of lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.

Kerry will also see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the session. Officials said those talks would likely include a discussion of the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of last week's Boston Marathon bombings.

Russian authorities ? who have long battled an Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya ? had alerted U.S. officials to suspected extremist links of the elder brother in 2011, but American investigators decided he was not a threat.

___

Don Melvin can be reached at https://twitter.com/Don_Melvin

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-urges-nato-allies-aid-syrian-rebels-122206671.html

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Planet hunting: How MIT's TESS will bring search for life closer to home

Scientists with MIT's TESS project hope to build on the lessons of the successful Kepler planet-hunting mission and find planetary systems close enough for telescopes to study in detail.

By Pete Spotts / April 20, 2013

Relative sizes of Kepler habitable zone planets discovered as of April 18, 2013, in this artist's rendition provided by NASA. Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have found the best candidates yet for habitable worlds beyond the solar system.

NASA Amers/JPL-Caltech/REUTERS

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The discovery of three new super-Earths by scientists with NASA's Kepler mission is helping to reveal the bounty of extrasolar planets across the Milky Way.

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Now another team is set to build a new orbiting planet hunter that, during a two-year mission, will search for other worlds closer to our sun's neighborhood.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which NASA approved under its Explorer program earlier this month, will be the first orbiting observatory to hunt for planets all around the sky.

NASA and the project's scientists, led by George Ricker of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., aim to launch the observatory in April 2017.

In essence, TESS?hopes to build on Kepler's pioneering role as an extrasolar-planet census taker and bring that nose count closer to home, where existing and future ground- and space-based telescopes can study in detail the planetary systems TESS uncovers.

Such studies "will allow us to really begin to figure out what their atmospheres are made of, what the temperature is like ? actually characterize those planets," says Doug Hudgins, project scientist for Kepler and TESS at NASA headquarters in Washington.

This kind of analysis not only will help astronomers uncover the range of solar system configurations and test ideas on how planets form and evolve. Such up-close looks also could provide evidence for life on any of the newly discovered worlds.

Among the signs researchers might look for: the presence of ozone ? a molecule made of three oxygen atoms ? and nitrogen oxides in a planet's atmosphere. On Earth, fossil evidence indicates that the first algae capable of photosynthesis, which produces oxygen, emerged some 3.5 billion years ago. On Earth, bacteria also produce copious amounts of nitrogen oxides.

The hunt for signs of life elsewhere in the galaxy is one of the drivers behind Kepler, and the inspiration for TESS. But Kepler isn't looking directly for life. Instead, it is looking for Earth-mass planets orbiting at Earth-like distances around sunlike stars in order to provide an estimate of how common such planets are.

On Thursday, Kepler's science team announced the discovery of three super-Earths in or on the boundary of their stars' habitable zones. The habitable zone is a region around the star far enough away so that a planet doesn't overheat, but close enough so it doesn't freeze either. In principle, a planet orbiting in its star's habitable zone should be able to host liquid water in stable quantities on its surface. Liquid water is seen as essential for organic life.

But the nearest of these new systems is 1,200 light-years away. Although the team speculates that one of the two super-Earths there is a water world and the other likely has a rocky surface, and while both fall into their star's habitable zone, they are too far away and their star is too dim to study with anything more than computer models.

TESS's targets should fall well within the gaze of a new generation of ground- and space-based telescopes. But those telescopes need to know where to look, Dr. Hudgins notes. And that's where TESS comes in.

Like Kepler, TESS is designed to detect planets as they pass in front of their host stars, dimming the starlight by a tiny fraction. If one could look back at the sun from beyond the solar system and watch for the wink an orbiting Earth would impart, the light would vary by just 0.000085 percent, a no-see-um in human terms.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/xS_epbvPKFw/Planet-hunting-How-MIT-s-TESS-will-bring-search-for-life-closer-to-home

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Windows RT and Server 2012 updates mentioned in recent 8.1 leak

Windows Blue, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 SP1... whatever Microsoft wants to call it, it's coming soon. And along with it there will be updates to its RT and Server products too. References to Windows RT 8.1 Preview and Windows Server 2012 R2 were found buried in a DLL of a leaked build of Blue. (Build number 9374, to be specific.) The mentions turned up in basebrd.dll.mui, if you're wondering what file to start rifling through. Don't get too excited, though: there's basically no info to glean other than their existence -- which is no surprise at all. Hopefully all of the much whispered about updates will arrive sooner, rather than later, and pack a few tweaks that will make the Microsoft faithful feel a little bit more at home.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/22/windows-rt-and-server-2012-updates/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Portable ATMs, phone-charging in China quake zone

A man squats near the collapsed remains of a building destroyed by Saturday's earthquake in Lushan county in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Monday, April 22, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed at least 186 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same seismic fault where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A man squats near the collapsed remains of a building destroyed by Saturday's earthquake in Lushan county in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Monday, April 22, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed at least 186 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same seismic fault where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

An elderly Chinese man waits for food to be distributed with his dog at a makeshift tent in Lushan county in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Monday, April 22, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed at least 186 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same seismic fault where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Residents line up for packets of instant noodles in the earthquake struck county of Lushan in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Monday, April 22, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed at least 186 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same seismic fault where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The head of a horse statue decapitated by Saturday's earthquake sits near tents set up for residents displaced by the quake in Lushan county in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Monday, April 22, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed at least 186 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same seismic fault where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A woman opens business in a shelter near her damaged shop after the earthquake in Yuxi village of Baosheng township in Lushan county in southwest China's Sichuan province Sunday, April 21, 2013. Saturday's earthquake in Sichuan province killed over 200 people, China's Xinhua News Agency said. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

LUSHAN, China (AP) ? The tent village that sprang up in two days to house quake survivors in mountain-flanked Lushan is no ordinary refugee camp. China's full range of disaster response is on display: Trucks with x-ray equipment, phone-charging stations, bank tellers-on-wheels ? even a tent for insurance claims.

The efforts under way Monday in mountainous Sichuan province after a quake Saturday that killed at least 188 people showed that the government has continued to hone its disaster reaction ? long considered a crucial leadership test in China ? since a much more devastating earthquake in 2008, also in Sichuan, and another one in 2010 in the western region of Yushu.

"Lushan was so heavily hit and my family's house toppled. It has been such a disaster for us," said Yue Hejun, 28, as he waited to recharge his family's three mobile phones at a charging stall, volunteered by a communications company and coordinated by the government in a new addition to the arsenal of services after natural disasters. "If we can charge our phones, we are at least able to keep in touch with our family members outside and that helps to set our minds at ease."

At a mini-clinic with two green cots in the open air and a small tent for doctors to sleep, a doctor said the government has learned the importance of fast coordination since the Yushu quake, which killed more than 2,600 people. Much of the initial relief in that disaster came from Buddhist monks and other non-government volunteers, partly because of the remoteness of much of the affected areas.

"After 24 hours or 48 hours in Yushu, things were not so orderly or settled in," said the doctor, who like many government officials would give only her surname, Luo. "The government's quick, organized response is very important. It's no use to blindly come here and try to save people."

Helicopters have been an obvious presence in the latest rescue efforts, used to reach outlying communities, unlike in 2008 when bad weather hampered their use in the critical first 36 hours. This time, better use of helicopters for reconnaissance ? with remote sensing technology ? and for the distribution of aid has allowed help to get out more quickly to where it is needed, said Teng Wuxiao, director of the Institute of Urban Public Security at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Still, complaints were common among the survivors of the latest quake, especially in the more hard-to-reach areas. While aid was being delivered, it was not getting out to all who need it. Yue said family members in his remote mountain village had received no help with shelter and were living under tarpaulins.

Huang Mingxian, 47, who was camped out with seven family members in a government-issued blue tent in a small public square, said the government's efforts were appreciated but that supplies were not always distributed fairly.

"This morning is the first time in three days that we have gotten instant noodles," Huang said, waving a pair of long chopsticks she was using to stir the noodles in a wok over a gas canister-powered mobile stove. "Other areas have electricity and water, what about us?"

Earlier Monday, about two dozen residents briefly gathered on a street corner near a camp area, shouting that they had not been given food in two days. A half-hour later, a large truck rolled up and dozens of evacuees ran up to it, jostling as the supplies were being handed out.

The death toll in Saturday's quake ? measured at magnitude 7.0 by Chinese authorities and at magnitude 6.6 by monitors in the U.S. ? may continue to tick upward, with about two dozen people still missing. More than 15,000 people have been sent to hospitals, with more than 300 of them seriously injured.

Central authorities' ability to respond to natural disasters has been seen as tests of legitimacy for centuries. Chinese emperors put state resources into controlling floods, and earthquakes and other disasters were believed to be signs that a dynasty was losing the "mandate of heaven."

The state-run tabloid Global Times boasted in an editorial of China's communal "disaster-relief" culture, and its "more mature" response to the latest quake, comparing it favorably to those overseas. "In its ability to mobilize people and in other indicators, China's disaster relief comes ahead of the United States, Japan and other developed countries," the newspaper said.

The Foreign Ministry said that Beijing is turning away foreign offers of assistance, saying China is capable of handling it on its own.

In Lushan county's town, where many of the buildings are unsafe for use, the grounds of schools, hospitals, a gymnasium and other government buildings have been converted into evacuee camps. Quake survivors formed long lines in front of trucks and stalls to receive instant noodles, bottled water and other supplies.

Beyond the bare necessities, there are also stalls for survivors to make insurance claims, a large vehicle that converts into a bank and ATM-on-wheels, and tents sponsored by Chinese telecoms companies providing numerous electrical extension cords for residents to recharge their electrical gadgets.

High school seniors in the disaster area will be moved this week to the provincial capital, Chengdu, along with 30 teachers so that they can continue classes and take the all-important university entrance exam, the state Xinhua News Agency reported.

As typically happens after disasters, Chinese with cars were packing them with supplies and heading to the disaster area. Anticipating traffic congestion that could hamper emergency teams, the government issued a notice Monday asking volunteers, tourists and others not trained as rescuers to stay out of the disaster area.

However, authorities were letting motorcyclists through.

Peng Song, 28, an outdoor equipment retailer who biked to Lushan from the provincial capital of Chengdu, had his motorcycle packed with tents and bottled water and was riding with 14 other bikers-turned-volunteers out to remote communities.

"Those in the disaster area need help. We just want to offer a hand to them, that's all," Peng said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-22-China-Earthquake%201st%20Ld-Writethru/id-c3373301248244f28121e9cfe09d71ae

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Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1560560/painter-ferrari-shoes-and-boots-newest-types-available-today-on-the-net.htm

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