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Berlusconi Loses Majority After Ally Asks Him to Resign

2011-11-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy won a budget vote in Parliament on Tuesday but the tally showed that he no longer has the support of the majority, a huge humiliation that raised the pressure on him to resign in the face of an escalating debt crisis that has hobbled Greece, threatens Italy and could infect the rest of Europe.

Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition received 308 votes in favor of passing the bill, but 321 lawmakers did not vote — a clear sign that “Mr. Berlusconi no longer has a majority,” said Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party. He also called on the prime minister to immediately hand in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.

“Let the president find a solution, we will do our part,” Mr. Bersani said.

Mr. Bossi asked the prime minister to relinquish his post in favor of Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Mr. Berlusconi’s Peoples of Liberty Party.

Expressing alarm about Italy’s rapidly rising borrowing costs, a reflection of investor fears over the country’s economic future, he said: “We all know that Italy runs the real risk of not being able to access the financial markets in the next few days.”

The vote came after yields on 10-year Italian government bonds — the price demanded by investors to loan Italy money — approached 7 percent, the highest levels since the adoption of the single euro currency 10 years ago and a far cry from the 0.3 percent that Germany pays.

Mr. Berlusconi had said earlier that he would decide his political future based on the outcome of the vote, a routine verification of the 2010 budget. The vote had taken on immense political importance for the prime minister after the defection in recent days of a number of lawmakers in his party.

Still, by late afternoon, Mr. Berlusconi had given no indication what course of action he was preparing to take.

The prime minister had reiterated repeatedly in recent days that the coalition must stick together to pass a series of austerity measures that will placate the financial markets that have targeted Italy’s financial vulnerabilities, just as they have done in Greece, the euro zone’s other crisis-ridden member. No less than the future of the euro and Europe is at risk, Mr. Berlusconi has said, playing on a national sense of responsibility to rein in his detractors.

But critics countered that Mr. Berlusconi was among the chief reasons for the financial attacks on Italy. The scandal-plagued prime minister, who is on trial for corruption, tax fraud and paying for sex with a minor, has worn away what had been left of his international credibility, they say. And after months of parliamentary deadlock, Mr. Berlusconi has shown that he does not have the political backing to push through the measures that are required of Italy to remedy its financial ills.

Italy has been under the watchful eye of its European counterparts and international organizations since the summer, when the government pushed through two sets of austerity measures that financial markets nonetheless deemed insufficient to bolster the country’s economy and make a dent in its huge public debt of 1.9 trillion euros. At 120 percent of gross domestic product, Italy’s debt level is second only to Greece’s in the euro zone.

Last month, Mr. Berlusconi pledged to the European Union that he would approve a new round of restructuring, including the privatization of state assets, liberalizations of the labor market and a modest pension change, but his promises did little to quell market anxieties.

Even the decision taken at the Group of 20 Summit last week to allow the International Monetary Fund to monitor Italy’s implementation of the pledged reforms did little to bolster investor confidence.

Opposition parties had said they would abstain from the vote on the budget, which meant that Mr. Berlusconi did not need to reach an absolute majority to pass the measure. But even so, the numbers were closely watched to see whether Mr. Berlusconi could muster a healthy majority that would ensure at least a measure of stability in the short run.

President Giorgio Napolitano, who is constitutionally required to manage a political crisis, has a number of options open to him.

Mr. Berlusconi and his coalition allies are pressing for new elections, though recent polls indicate that they would not win the numbers to return to power.

Some opposition leaders, numerically empowered by the poll predictions, are also tempted by a return to the polls 18 months ahead of the scheduled end of the legislature.

But neither the current majority or any of the opposition parties are likely to garner a solid majority on their own, and it is probable that a multiparty coalition with conflicting vested interests would not have the political cohesion necessary to pass unpopular measures.

Another option is to appoint a technocrat — Mario Monti, a former European commissioner, is commonly mentioned — as head of the government for a fixed period of time that would allow for reforms to be enacted.

Despite the crisis, it remains to be seen whether a government led by someone like Mr. Monti would actually come up with the unity to govern.

The country’s political crisis has been exacerbated by coalition partners in both the majority and the opposition that are openly hostile to Europe, remaining “at the margin of the European political network,” and making it more difficult to push through reforms demanded by Europe, said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the School of Government at Luiss University in Rome. In this situation, a changeover in government is unlikely to make much of a difference, he said.

Europe Seeks Chinese

2011-10-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

A day after European leaders unveiled their latest plan to save the euro, top officials opened talks with China in an effort to lure tens of billions of dollars in additional cash, giving China perhaps its biggest opportunity yet to exercise financial clout in the Western world. A senior Chinese official, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, said China — like the rest of the world — was still waiting for the Europeans to deliver crucial details on how the rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, would operate and be profitable before deciding on whether to participate.

“This would be a tectonic shift,” said Pieter P. Bottelier, an expert on China who teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “It would be so important economically and politically.”

Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said Europe’s appeal was another sign that China is already a dominant global power.

The fear is that a failure to contain the crisis would lead to contagion in global financial markets on par with the Lehman Brothers debacle, and deliver a blow not only to the economies of Europe, but also to the United States and other major trading partners.

Such a deterioration would certainly be bad news for China, which could hardly afford to see two of its biggest markets hobbled at the same time.

Talley Prepares Museum Exhibition

2011-10-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

“Walls are being painted, all of the dresses are basically in place,” said André Leon Talley, on the phone from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was putting the finishing touches on the first exhibition in the André Leon Talley Gallery in the school’s new museum of art. The gallery will be one of the central features of the museum, which is reopening on Saturday within the ruins of a 19th-century Greek Revival building that was once home to the Central of Georgia Railway.

Mr. Talley, a longtime contributing editor of Vogue and a board member at the college, has recruited major designers like Miuccia Prada, Tom Ford and Manolo Blahnik to appear at the college over the years, and now he is helping to build a costume collection that will include many of his own archives and donations from friends. The first exhibition will focus on iconic designs by past recipients of the ALT Lifetime Achievement awards, which SCAD presents at a fashion show for its graduating class each year.

Oscar de la Renta sent long slim black gown that was worn by Penélope Cruz at a Costume Institute gala. Diane Von Furstenberg provided a black sequined wrap dress. There is a coat trimmed with plastic fringe and feathers from the fall 2007 Prada collection, and Mr. Ford’s evening column trimmed with natural string from his first signature women’s show. From Mr. Blahnik, he chose those blue satin shoes from the “Sex and the City” film.

“People love fashion exhibits because they can fantasize,” Mr. Talley said. “They can respond to a dress even if they can never wear a dress like that.”

Mr. Talley is becoming something of an expert in museums. With Mr. de la Renta, he is also preparing an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla, called “Joaquín Sorolla and the Glory of Spanish Dress,” that will open at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in Manhattan in December.

The SCAD museum’s expansion, part of a $26 million project, also includes exhibition space for a range of contemporary artists. Mr. Talley’s gallery is sandwiched between works by Bill Viola and Kehinde Wiley. Naturally, he wanted his to stand out and added a video display that shows Mr. Blahnik making milkshakes on “The Martha Stewart Show.” Mr. Talley said he will have music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” playing in the background.

“The only thing I haven’t thrust upon them yet is that I want fragrance wafting through the ventilation system,” he said. “Either Oscar de la Renta’s Live in Love, or Diane Von Furstenberg’s Diane.”

Paula Wallace, the president and a founder of the college, later said that Mr. Talley could do anything he wants. “He has not mentioned that to me, but if André wants it, he gets it,” she said. “The multisensory concept is so important. We learn, we feel, we think, we smell. Actually, I think it’s a grand idea.”

Life as a Runway: African Style Glows in Brooklyn

2011-10-27T17:14:00.001-07:00

A salvaged shipping container may seem an unpromising showcase for cutting-edge style. But not to Hekima Hapa, who set up shop in one of the rectangular spaces scattered throughout the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn on Saturday.

She deftly exploited her cramped quarters as an intimate backdrop for her African-themed, Brooklyn-sewn designs. Ms. Hapa and her retail partner, Alicia Piller, a jewelry designer, were participating in the Afrika21 Mixtape Project, part of the market conceived as a platform for emerging African artists of every stripe.

“All things African are high trend right now,” Ms. Hapa maintained. At one time, people who picked up African objects on their travels treated them as collectibles, she said. “They didn’t wear them. But they’re wearing them now.”

Her vibrant fashions were a hit with visitors strolling this sprawling parking-lot bazaar at Flatbush Avenue and Willoughby Street. Some, like Nomsa Mazwai, a South African pop star, festooned themselves in Ms. Piller’s jewelry. Delphine Fawundu piled tribal bangles atop colorful leg warmers she had repurposed as elbow-length gloves. Izetta Henderson, a fashion buyer and designer, said it was refreshing to see so much enterprise in the shadow of Forest City, the monolithic apartment towers. “This,” she said of the thrumming market, “is what Brooklyn used to be about.”

NYT

Naughty Necklace

2011-10-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

RISING hemlines get all the attention, but what about necklines? They’re one of the few things on the rise lately, reaching a recent high — on shirts buttoned all the way to the chin — on spring 2012 runways at Jason Wu, Céline and Dior. It makes a kind of sense, then, as the eye moves north of the collarbone, that chokers, those much maligned neckpieces synonymous with the 1990s, would stage a comeback.

These are not Victorian-style velvet ribbons adorned with cameos or hearts, but clean metal bands, tougher and more graphic. At Lanvin and Rag & Bone, many spring 2012 looks were accessorized with severe bands, tight to the neck. And just as with those buttoned-up collars, chokers confer a naughty/nice suggestiveness. Early proponents include anything-but-uptight dressers like Lauren Santo Domingo, Margherita Missoni and Taylor Tomasi Hill.

Zanna Roberts Rassi, the senior fashion editor of Marie Claire, has been wearing a minimalist metal choker — a half-inch silver band by Robert Lee Morris — day and night. By day, she wears it with a long skinny chain, a T-shirt and leather pants; by night, with off-the-shoulder sequins, her hair scruffily pinned up. “Earrings drag my face down, but a choker seems to frame it,” Ms. Rassi explained. “There is something elegant and a little sexy at the same time. It make you hold your head up high!”

Europe’s Deal Brings Cheer to Markets

2011-10-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

World financial markets powered higher on Thursday in giddy hope that Europe’s plan to solve its sovereign debt crisis would finally lift the uncertainty over the global economy and markets. In the United States, a sharp jump in stocks continued what has become the biggest monthly rally in 47 years.

But even as stock markets from Paris to New York joined in the euphoria, some bond and credit market rates, especially in Italy, barely flinched. That suggests doubts that the agreement will be a long-term fix for Europe’s mountainous debt problem or the pressing challenge of restoring growth to the continent’s moribund economies.

“Clearly, there is a massive celebration going on, but there are lots of worries, too,” said Jens Nordvig, an analyst with Nomura Securities in New York, who said it was still not clear where the billions of euros in new money pledged by European leaders after overnight negotiations in Brussels were going to come from. “Not one new euro has been committed,” he said. “Not one.”

The same sort of lift was seen after the last grand European summit meeting in July. But stocks fell and the interest rates on European debt and the insurance against default on those bonds spiked in the following weeks, as Europe’s economies slowed and it soon became evident that the plan was not going to be enough.

After the July 21 deal, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in the United States fell below 1,300 after about a week and eventually sank to its lowest level for the year.

Since Oct. 3, however, the S.& P. has been on the rebound on expectations of a European deal and slightly better economic conditions in the United States and China. On Thursday, the broad market index jumped 3.4 percent, moving back into positive territory for 2011. Financial stocks were up more than 6 percent. If stocks do not lose any ground again this month, the S.&P. 500 is on track for the biggest monthly rally since 1974.

In Europe, stock markets in France and Germany soared, by 5.4 percent in Germany and 6.3 percent in France. The stocks of European banks, which the crisis has threatened to overwhelm, bounced back by as much as 23 percent.

Some analysts and investors said they feared another set-back could happen again and that the markets would remain volatile.

“You still have these great problems with the global economy,” said Richard Cookson, global chief investment officer of Citi Private Bank in London. “Growth is going to fall, and I don’t think we have seen the European crisis solved. And if it is not solved, it will get worse, because these things do not stand still.”

Jonathan Loynes, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in a research note: “Over all, then, while the plans represent a step forward, we suspect that they will soon be viewed in the same way as every other policy response during this crisis — as too little, too late.”

Mr. Loynes wrote that he still expected a “prolonged recession in the euro zone” and further market turbulence, and he continued to have doubts about the future of the euro itself “in its current form.”

Just a few weeks ago, stocks were dropping precipitously as the United States seemed headed toward a double-dip recession and Greece, and potentially other weakened European countries, appeared headed for default. But since then, stocks have risen as economic data suggest that the United States has fended off the immediate threat of a recession and that China appeared to be preparing for a soft economic landing as its economy slows. Stocks have also been helped by stronger than expected corporate earnings in the current reporting season.

There are still questions about whether the pickup in United States growth can be maintained, although gross domestic product figures released Thursday showed 2.5 percent annualized growth in the third quarter, the strongest showing in a year, boosting the stock market rally.

And now Europe has a three-pronged agreement to force private investors to write off half of the value of the Greek bonds they own, force European banks to raise about 106 billion euros ($150 billion) in new capital, and create on the face of it a much more powerful bailout fund to stop crises spreading to nations like Italy.

Slapping at Syria, Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Fighters

2011-10-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.

On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.

Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group’s commander, Col. Riad al-As’aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the “officers’ camp” as purely humanitarian. Turkey’s primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.

“At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads ‘I am a soldier’ or ‘I am an opposition member,’ ” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue.”

At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.

“We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria,” Colonel As’aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. “We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people.”

The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As’aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.

The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.

Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad’s repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.

“This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria,” said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey’s apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army “completely new territory.”

NYT

Fight Against Securities

2011-10-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

That is the way I felt last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had agreed toa measly $285 million settlement with Citigroup over. After years of lengthy , the mortgage securities at the heart of the financial crisis. And low-level bankers did not, and could not, act alone. Neither the Citigroup settlement nor any of the others come close to matching the profits and bonuses that these banks generated in making these deals. They were not rogues, hiding things from their bosses. The S.E.C. has also devoted adequate resources to the issue. Pause, and think about that. The boss was looking for credit, but as far as the S.E.C. was concerned, he got no blame. It cannot investigate and wring a prosecution or settlement out of every corrupt deal. This seems to be our fate: our bankers took reckless risks, but our regulators take none.

Reason and Morality

2011-10-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

In a book awash with empirical data and analysis, it is remarkable that Pinker’s capstone explanation (developed on pp. 647-650) is not based solely on empirical facts. Historians and psychologists will scrutinize Pinker’s empirical claims. Here I discuss his crucial philosophical argument, which I think faces some serious problems. Pinker’s argument recalls many similar efforts by modern philosophers since Immanuel Kant to develop a rigorous case for morality. Henry’s claim is logically consistent as long as he agrees that, were their positions reversed, Peter would have a right to harm Henry and Henry would not have a right to harm Peter. If morality requires treating everyone equally, then it’s wrong to privilege, say, my spouse, children, friends, or neighbors over others. A similar problem arises from a famous line of thought developed and endorsed by Peter Singer (who, as we noted, influenced Pinker’s ethical ideas). We all agree that it would be morally wrong not to pull a drowning child from a nearby lake, even if that meant ruining a suit of clothes worth, say, $500. Both of these conclusions—that it’s wrong to try to save my wife and wrong for a well-off couple to spend $500 on an anniversary dinner—are counter-intuitive. But they seem to follow from Pinker’s assumption that “you can’t favor members of your own group [family, neighborhood, country, etc.] over members of another group.” At a minimum, then, this key assumption of Pinker’s argument from reason to morality requires a lot more support than he gives it. If, as I suspect, this support can’t be provided, then we may have to accept that morality has its roots more in feeling than in reason.

M. United and Arsenal Advance at League Cup

2011-10-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Manchester United rebounded from its humiliating league loss to Manchester City by cruising to a 3-0 victory over fourth-tier club Aldershot in the League Cup on Tuesday night, while Arsenal overcame Premier League rival Bolton 2-1 to advance to the quarterfinals.

Dimitar Berbatov, Michael Owen and Antonio Valencia scored United's goals at Aldershot after being left out of the lineup that lost 6-1 Sunday.

"Sometimes you need a kick in the teeth to get going again," Owen said. We were under a little bit of pressure after the result at the weekend. We had United's reputation to look after."

Arsenal, which lost last season's League Cup final to Birmingham, rallied against visiting Bolton on goals by Andrei Arshavin and Chu-Young Park. Fabrice Muamba had put Bolton ahead.

Arsenal center back Thomas Vermaelen played his first match in two months following ankle surgery, but picked up a calf injury toward the end of the match. Manager Arsene Wenger said he didn't think the injury was serious, but that Vermaelen would likely miss the Premier League match against Chelsea on Saturday.

In Tuesday's other cup matches, Cardiff beat Burnley 1-0 while second-tier leader Southampton lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace.

There are four all-Premier League matches in the competition on Wednesday.

Man City, which is five points clear at the top of the Premier League, travels to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Chelsea is at Everton, Stoke hosts Liverpool and Blackburn faces Newcastle.

AP LONDON

HPV for Boys of age 11

2011-10-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

The committee recommended that boys ages 11 and 12 should be vaccinated. It also recommended vaccination of males ages 13 through 21 who had not already had all three shots. Vaccinations may be given to boys as young as 9 and to men between the ages of 22 and 26. controversy is likely to intensify with the committee’s latest recommendation since many of the cancers in men result from homosexual sex. “This is cancer, for Pete’s sake,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department ofpreventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a nonvoting member of the committee. “A vaccine against cancer was the dream of our youth.” The burden of disease in males results mostly from oral or anal sex, but vaccinating boys will also benefit female partners since cervical cancer in women results mostly from vaginal sex with infected males. The committee has become increasingly concerned about the cost effectiveness of vaccines, since the newest vaccines tend to be very expensive while protecting against diseases that affect fewer people.

Germany’s lower house.

2011-10-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

The German lawmakers authorized Mrs. Merkel to negotiate an expansion of the lending capacity of the fund to roughly $1.4 trillion, more than double its current size of about $610 billion. “France is totally mobilized and engaged in the success of today’s summit,” Mr. Sarkozy’s budget minister, Valérie Pécresse, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg News in Cannes, France, where she was preparing for a Group of 20 summi ther nect month. The fear going in to the Wednesday summit was that it would result in a another agreement on a general plan but without many specifics, and possibly without the massive “wall of money” to protect vulnerable Italy and Spain that the markets have demanded. Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy upbraided Mr. Berlusconi on Sunday for not following through on his promises. Mr. Berlusconi like an inoperable Siamese twin.

Largely ceremonial post of president of the Irish Republic

2011-10-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, after a 40-day campaign as the candidate political wing of the Republican movement, Mr. McGuinness will be one of seven candidates in an election for the largely ceremonial post of president of the Irish Republic. Should he upset heavy odds and win, Mr. McGuinness would move from his current base in Belfast, the Northern Ireland capital, to the Irish president’s residence, an 18th-century mansion outside Dublin that was home to Britain’s viceroys in Ireland. Irish commentators have seen his candidacy as part of a long-term plan to create a new “normal” in Ireland, slowly erasing the barriers between north and south. “Clearly, the people of Ireland would see me as president for all the 32 counties,” he said in an interview as he prepared for a speech in Galway to a hall packed with thunderously enthusiastic Sinn Fein loyalists. On an autumn evening beside the storied beauty of Galway Bay, with a chilly breeze blowing off the Atlantic, breezed into a popular tourist hotel that looks out across the bay with the air of a man who has found a measure of peace after a lifetime gripped by Ireland’s troubled past.

Arctic Village

2011-10-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

North Slope Borough, the local government based in Barrow that presides over Point Hope and other Arctic villages, depends on onshore production from the aging Prudhoe Bay fields for more than 95 percent of its revenues. Mr. Itta said that the borough had pressed Shell to improve its spill-response capabilities, to shut down its operations during the fall whale hunt, not to discharge drilling waste into the ocean and to hire local residents. In the 1840s, commercial whalers from New England and elsewhere came here and started a brutal industry from the bowheads. Perhaps more than any other village in the Arctic, Point Hope has a history of uniting against outside forces and, if not prevailing over them, at least outlasting them. Now it is divided. Mr. Tuzroyluk is chairman of the $30 million Tikigaq Corporation here, one of more than 200 native corporations in Alaska authorized by Congress.

AA

“Five Little Monkeys”

2011-10-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Jaden Lender, 3, sings along softly with the “Five Little Monkeys” app on the family iPad, and waggles his index finger along with the monkey doctor at the warning, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed!” He likes crushing the ants in “Ant Smasher,” and improving his swing in the golf app. But he is no app addict: when the one featuring Grover from Sesame Street does not work right, Jaden says, “Come on, iPad!’” — then wanders happily off to play with his train set. The study, by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit group, is the first of its kind since apps became widespread, and the first to look at screen time from birth. It found that almost half the families with incomes above $75,000 had downloaded apps specifically for their young children, compared with one in eight of the families earning less than $30,000.

Now a more mature 14 months, Alex’s attention span for apps has grown. “If we’re stuck on the subway, he’ll play with them for three, maybe five, minutes,” Mr. Wingard said.

He and his wife still don’t use them much, he said: “We’re scared he’ll break the phone.”

Troubles With Heart !!

2011-10-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

The senior author of the study Dr. Kenichi Fuji said a cardiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the research evolved from his quest to find out why some people have a heart attack, although they do not have the usual risk factors such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Dr. Fuji decided to study HPV because the virus is a gene called p53, which normally protects the body against cancer and may also help prevent heart disease to be able to sabotage. The inactivation of p53 occurs in a variety of cancers, and the gene will be a kind of guardian of the genome. Disabling p53 can also lead to inflammation and thickening in the walls of the arteries. Had women with human papillomavirus, or HPV infected, are two to three times as likely as uninfected women to have a heart attack or stroke. According to a report published Monday in The Journal of American College of Cardiology.

Was Kaddafi paid over ?

2011-10-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

Dictators typically spend a lot on the military in order to protect themselves from people who might want to take their lucrative jobs, which itself is a sure sign that a dictator is overpaid. Libya also spent less of its national income on social security than the typical dictatorship does, although perhaps a bit more than an economically and demographically similar democratic country would.
Obviously, $200 billion, or even $10 billion, is a lot for wealth for one person. But $200 billion is but a fraction of Libya’s national wealth. Its proven oil reserves alone total 46 billion barrels. If those barrels were valued at $100 each, the oil reserves alone would be $4.6 trillion, or 23 times Colonel Qaddafi’s wealth. By most measures, the former dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi looks to have been overpaid, even as dictators go.

World has 7 billion inhabitants

2011-10-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

The world is starting on Monday of more than 7 billion inhabitants. It is expected that in 2100 there are 10 billion people on earth.

The exact increase depends on several factors, such as the development of life expectancy and birth rates. According to figures released by the United Nations (UN) have announced Wednesday.

In Asia, 4.2 billion people currently live with sixty percent of the entire world. The continent, making it the continent's most populous.

The population is growing quickly, however, people in Africa, which currently houses 15 percent of the world. The population of Africa is growing twice as fast as in Asia.

In 2060 many people live in India, then with 1.7 billion inhabitants the most populous country on earth. Currently this is China, with 1.35 billion inhabitants, followed by India (1.24 billion).

- Notify News

Alcohol kill Amy Winehouse

2011-10-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

Amy Winehouse was deceased at the effects of alcohol abuse.
At her death she had more than five times more alcohol in their blood.

Amy Winehouse was July 23 at her home in London was found dead in bed. Police found three empty vodka bottles. She had taken to drink alcohol after three weeks had been drinking. She struggled for years with addictions to alcohol and drugs.

The drink was probably in a coma. ''She had 416 milligrams of alcohol per deciliter of blood and the effect of such a potentially fatal dose of her sudden and unexpected death,''the coroner ruled.

Winehouse is world famous for her album Back to Black in 2006, for which she won five Grammy Awards. She sang the song Rehab about her refusal to leave us for her addictions. After her death, the album shot up the charts. It is now the best selling British album of the century.

Nuclear Bomb

2011-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

Japanese city of Hiroshima atomic bomb during the Second World War, 600 times stronger than the last parts of the B53 bomb, today Pantex Plant in Texas will be destroyed.

For the first time the Cuban Missile Crisis Cold War period with the peak voltage produced B53 bomb in 1962, 4 thousand 500 kilograms in weight and size of a minibus.

Designed to destroy underground facilities in the United States that may be running after the breakup of the B53'ün the largest bomb, will be B83.

Engineers, to provide security during the shredding process was forced to develop new methods and tools for the complex.

Most of B53 bombs in the 1980s, was destroyed.

After the U.S. atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 1945, approximately 66 thousand people lost their lives.

U.S. Expected to Charge Executive Tied to Galleon Case

2011-10-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Federal prosecutors are expected to file criminal charges on Wednesday against Rajat K. Gupta, the most prominent business executive ensnared in an aggressive insider trading investigation, according to people briefed on the case.

The case against Mr. Gupta, 62, who is expected to surrender to the authorities on Wednesday, would extend the reach of the government’s inquiry into America’s most prestigious corporate boardrooms. Most of the defendants charged with insider trading over the last two years have plied their trade exclusively on Wall Street.

The charges would also mean a stunning fall from grace of a trusted adviser to political leaders and chief executives of the world’s most celebrated companies.

A former director of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble and the longtime head of McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm, Mr. Gupta has been under investigation over whether he leaked corporate secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund manager who was sentenced this month to 11 years in prison for trading on illegal stock tips.

While there has been no indication yet that Mr. Gupta profited directly from the information he passed to Mr. Rajaratnam, securities laws prohibit company insiders from divulging corporate secrets to those who then profit from them.

The case against Mr. Gupta, who lives in Westport, Conn., would tie up a major loose end in the long-running investigation of Mr. Rajaratnam’s hedge fund, the Galleon Group. Yet federal authorities continue their campaign to ferret out insider trading on multiple fronts. This month, for example, a Denver-based hedge fund manager and a chemist at the Food and Drug Administration pleaded guilty to such charges.

A spokeswoman for the United States attorney in Manhattan declined to comment.

Gary P. Naftalis, a lawyer for Mr. Gupta, said in a statement: “The facts demonstrate that Mr. Gupta is an innocent man and that he acted with honesty and integrity.”

Mr. Gupta, in his role at the helm of McKinsey, was a trusted adviser to business leaders including Jeffrey R. Immelt, of General Electric, and Henry R. Kravis, of the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company. A native of Kolkata, India, and a graduate of the Harvard Business School, Mr. Gupta has also been a philanthropist, serving as a senior adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Gupta also served as a special adviser to the United Nations.

His name emerged just a week before Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial in March, when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an administrative proceeding against him. The agency accused Mr. Gupta of passing confidential information about Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble to Mr. Rajaratnam, who then traded on the news.

The details were explosive. Authorities said Mr. Gupta gave Mr. Rajaratnam advanced word of Warren E. Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs during the darkest days of the financial crisis in addition to other sensitive information affecting the company’s share price.

At the time, federal prosecutors named Mr. Gupta a co-conspirator of Mr. Rajaratnam, but they never charged him. Still, his presence loomed large at Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial. Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman, testified about Mr. Gupta’s role on the board and the secrets he was privy to, including earnings details and the bank’s strategic deliberations.

The legal odyssey leading to charges against Mr. Gupta could serve as a case study in law school criminal procedure class. He fought the S.E.C.’s civil action, which would have been heard before an administrative judge. Mr. Gupta argued that the proceeding denied him of his constitutional right to a jury trial and treated him differently than the other Mr. Rajaratnam-related defendants, all of whom the agency sued in federal court.

Mr. Gupta prevailed, and the S.E.C. dropped its case in August, but it maintained the right to bring an action in federal court. The agency is expected to file a new, parallel civil case against Mr. Gupta as well. It is unclear what has changed since the S.E.C. dropped its case in August.

An S.E.C. spokesman declined to comment.

The case could be a challenge for the government. Many of the defendants convicted of insider trading, including Mr. Rajaratnam, have been caught on wiretaps swapping secret information.

At Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial, the government played a recorded conversation between Mr. Gupta and Mr. Rajaratnam in July 2008. On that call, Mr. Gupta divulged that Goldman was considering a purchase of either Wachovia or American International Group.

Evidence that Mr. Rajaratnam traded on this information was never presented, however.

Two of the most incriminating calls played in court pertained to tips that the government said had come from Mr. Gupta. But those calls were conversations between Mr. Rajaratnam and his employees, which could make them inadmissible in a trial of Mr. Gupta.

In one call played for the jury, Mr. Rajaratnam told a colleague, “I heard yesterday from somebody who’s on the board of Goldman Sachs that they are going to lose $2 per share.” In the other, Mr. Rajaratnam said to his trader, “I got a call saying something good is going to happen to Goldman.”

The S.E.C.’s original case also outlined evidence that could potentially be used at trial. That includes Mr. Gupta’s phone records of on Sept. 23, 2008. That day, the Goldman board met via telephone to consider Mr. Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Goldman.

“Immediately after disconnecting from the board call, Gupta called Rajaratnam from the same line,” the S.E.C. filing says. A minute later, Galleon funds bought more than 175,000 shares of Goldman just before the market closed, the agency says, and later netted a $900,000 profit when the deal was announced.

Though he had an enviable résumé and earned millions of dollars a year at McKinsey, Mr. Gupta became fixated on the extraordinary wealth showered on hedge fund managers and private equity chiefs, according to trial testimony. Consultants are well paid, but the compensation pales in comparison to those Wall Street titans.

Around the time of his retirement in 2007, he and Mr. Rajaratnam helped start New Silk Route, a private equity firm focused on investments in India. Though Mr. Rajaratnam never had an active role in the firm, he and Mr. Gupta were good friends, having met through their philanthropic interests.

Mr. Gupta periodically visited Mr. Rajaratnam’s hedge fund, Galleon, on Madison Avenue and 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The two would order Indian or Chinese takeout and kibitz in Mr. Rajaratnam’s office. Mr. Gupta became an investor in Galleon’s hedge funds.

As part of his foray into Wall Street, Mr. Gupta took a senior adviser post at K.K.R., the firm co-founded by his friend Mr. Kravis. During Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial, prosecutors played a tape of the hedge fund manager gossiping with a friend about Mr. Gupta’s ambitions.

“My analysis of the situation is he’s enamored with Kravis, and I think he wants to be in that circle,” Mr. Rajaratnam said. “That’s a billionaire circle, right?”

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Table Dressing

2011-10-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Two great tastes don’t always taste great together. The same can be true for design collaborations. Heath Ceramics are beautiful. Alabama Chanin textiles are beautiful. Their respective designers, Catherine Bailey and Natalie Chanin, are friends. But could the twain meet?

First attempts were not promising. Alabama Chanin clothes and linens deploy embroidery and appliqué in a modern, layered, bohemian way. The embellishments are frequently mapped out with a stencil, and Bailey initially thought they might use the stencils on her company’s classic Coupe dinnerware.“Natalie transfers graphical images by making a stencil and spraying paint on it, but when we stenciled the plates it didn’t look crafted,” Bailey says. “It looked like spray-painted graphics.” Bailey quickly realized she needed a better way to translate the exacting techniques used by Chanin’s cast of local talent in and around Florence, Ala.

The final product had to be made by hand, line by line, just as Chanin’s textiles are produced stitch by careful stitch. Bailey calls the process “etching,” but it is closely related to the sgraffito technique used to decorate walls since the Classical era. In architecture, two layers of tinted plaster are applied to the wall, and then a craftsman scrapes through the top coat to reveal the color beneath. For the new ceramics, a white glaze is sprayed over a base coat of blue, red or gray and an artist then scratches through the top layer with a metal point, exposing the color below. There are no templates: the maker has to look at an example plate and recreate it as best as he or she can, just like Chanin’s stitchers. “The spacing of the marks, depth of the etching and overall feel of the pattern are all expressed by the maker of each piece,” Bailey says.

The collection, which also includes organic cotton tablecloths, place mats and napkins designed by Chanin, is available online and at Heath stores. Among the etched pieces are a shallow bowl, a dinner plate and a bread and butter plate with one of three different traditional embroidery motifs: small suns, called buttonhole eyelets; small stars, called whip-stitched eyelets; and free-form dots, which look like bubbles on the surface of the plate. The line also features unpatterned pieces in similar colored glazes. Bailey describes the blue as “denimy.” Chanin says: “It feels like it has a lot of history to it, like a blue you might find on a worn porch in the South.” The red, on the other hand, is the color of the Alabama soil Emmylou Harris was referring to in “Red Dirt Girl”: an earthy maroon.

The new colors and patterns are integrated with classic Heath shades like Opaque White, from the company founder Edith Heath’s original palette. “It’s not an exercise in matching, but in layering,” Bailey says. “You can’t get bowls and plates in the same pattern, so ideally you could layer three different colors.”

That’s how Chanin plans to use the collection in her own kitchen, currently undergoing a renovation and expansion that employs Heath’s white half-matte, half-gloss tile. “Food is an important part of who I am in my life, and Cathy and I talked about that as part of our collaboration,” she says. Her first two books (the third, “Alabama Studio Sewing & Design,” will be available in spring 2012) included recipes alongside the sewing projects.

- NYTimes -

Fashion Fair Deepens It's Coverage

2011-10-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

ON a recent rainy evening, Rose Estime, a 35-year-old accountant who lives in Manhattan, left the Macy’s Herald Square store with a small bag containing a cleanser by Fashion Fair that she was eager to try. Ms. Estime has been a loyal customer of the cosmetics line, which is meant for black women, for more than a decade. “It matches my skin color, and I have itchy, sensitive skin and it helps me,” she said. “They’re the only products I can use without issues.”

For many of the 38 years it has been in business, Fashion Fair, which is owned by the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, filled the makeup bags of women of color — because, in part, there were so few other options. But more recently brands including MAC, Nars and Bobbi Brown, all of which command significant counter space at Macy’s and other department stores, have been siphoning away Fashion Fair’s core demographic. In late September, Chanel introduced Perfection Lumière, a foundation line that includes 20 shades, including dark ones, available in the United States. Cover Girl has its Queen Collection, represented by Queen Latifah; niche lines like Iman Cosmetics and Black Opal have also built a loyal client base.

“We’ve been asleep,” said Desirée Rogers, the chief executive of the Johnson Publishing Company and the former White House social secretary. “Some women refer to the brand as their grandmother’s makeup, and we’re working to change that.”

As part of the division’s makeover, Ms. Rogers and the brand’s president, Clarisa Wilson, have appointed Sam Fine, 41, as creative director of Fashion Fair. Mr. Fine, a veteran makeup artist, has painted the faces of Iman, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, and more recently, Mary J. Blige, Tyra Banks and Jennifer Hudson. “I started out with Mikki Taylor and Brooke Shields doing Essence and Cosmo covers,” he said. “But it wasn’t until I really started dedicating my career to beautifying women of color that I found purpose, and really found a greater level of success, strangely enough.”

Mr. Fine, however, has his work cut out for him. An informal survey of younger African-American women showed that brand awareness of was faint at best. “One day I was in Green Acres Mall in Queens and saw a Fashion Fair promotion or something,” said Danielle Byrd, 38, another shopper at Macy’s, who works at David’s Bridal in Manhattan and said she uses Iman foundation and MAC lip gloss. “I didn’t know they were still around,” she added, “I was surprised.”

“I love the shine and their color choices. My lips are very pink, and it’s hard for me to find stuff for my color.”

Natalie Pryor, 22, a senior majoring in advertising at Michigan State University, uses BareMinerals blush, lip color and eyeliner from Ulta. “I have heard of them and they have my attention, but I probably won’t buy any until I get a job,” she said in a phone interview about Fashion Fair, adding, “As a college student, I cannot afford them right now.” (In fact, at a list price of $17, a Fashion Fair blush is $2 cheaper than a comparable item by BareMinerals.)

Ms. Wilson said that she was working on re-educating the young, plugged-in consumer about Fashion Fair, in particular trying to make the brand a presence backstage at fashion shows, where MAC and Maybelline, which has no special line for black women, have long dominated. “We are going to transition every touch point within the Fashion Fair brand,” Ms. Wilson said. “So you’re going to feel it online, you’re going to feel it in store, you’re going to feel it with the personnel, our advertising, with our new products in color as well as skin care.”

But Krissy Reed, who runs the makeup blog Addicted to All Things Pretty, is unsure of the brand’s ability to evolve, though it introduced her to makeup as a teenager and she still wears their foundation. “Expecting Fashion Fair to have a strong online presence is like expecting your grandmother to be more social on Facebook and Twitter,” Ms. Reed, 28, wrote in a blog post. “I’ve always felt that they conformed too much to the expectations of their customers and failed to grow within the beauty industry as a whole.”

At least one promotional event has been successful, though. Fashion Fair partnered with Sony Pictures on a capsule makeup collection based on the movie “Jumping the Broom,” starring Angela Bassett and Paula Patton. When the movie had its premiere on May 6, the makeup company sent an e-mail blast to customers. Women’s Wear Daily reported that traffic on the company’s Web site’s went up 111 percent, and the site’s sales increased by 53 percent compared with the week before.

But the in-store experience, at least for now, is a different story. Over 650 stores across the United States and Canada, as well as locations in London and Paris, carry Fashion Fair products, but they are often sedate, if not deserted. At Macy’s Herald Square, there seemed to be a party going on at the MAC counter, with club beats pounding over speakers. Elaine Welteroth, until recently the beauty and style editor at Ebony, published by Fashion Fair’s parent company, was hopeful that the glamorous Ms. Rogers, who she said had “generated some really good buzz around the brand,” could turn things around, though she does see hurdles. “I’m in a generation where MAC is the reigning brand for a lot of women, black, white and other,” Ms. Welteroth said. “I think that has put Fashion Fair in a precarious situation, where they really need to rethink their strategy. They need to redefine what it means to be a black beauty company in this multifaceted market.''

NYTimes

Russia, Warned United Nations

2011-10-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

Russia, the UN doubts over Iran's nuclear program, diplomatic efforts increased, and therefore difficult to enter this field will lead to not take a new decision has warned.

The statement, released a report on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian-sensitive olunmasını, IAEA also leaked information about the topic and tone of the report criticized.

The current atmosphere of the approach is "absolutely" more difficult and may impede the start of negotiations, expressed serious statement, "This sensitive issue unbiased, sensitive and responsible way to address the need," the statement said.

IAEA report published in the last month trying to bomb Iran's why having to make a declaration that they are expected to clarify the issue heard.

Western powers, arguing that Iran's nuclear program is using to develop nuclear missiles, Tehran enriched uranium needed for nuclear power plants planned by the advocates.

Tunisia election: Partial results suggest Ennahda win

2011-10-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

Partial official results from Tunisia suggest victory for the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, in the first democratic elections prompted by the Arab Spring uprisings.

The electoral commission said Ennahda was well ahead in the vote for a new assembly that will write a constitution and appoint a caretaker government.

However Ennahda is not expected to have an overall majority. Coalition talks with secular parties have begun.

Sunday's vote was hailed by observers.

The polls were Tunisia's first democratic elections, and followed the fall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was overthrown in January after mass demonstrations. He had been in power for 23 years.

However, unlike its eastern neighbour Libya, Tunisia's transition from authoritarian rule has been largely peaceful.

Caretaker government

On Tuesday the electoral commission said Ennahda had won 15 out of 39 domestic seats declared so far in a new assembly of 217 seats.

This brings Ennahda's total to 24, after the party won nine of the 18 seats reserved for Tunisians living abroad, in results declared on Monday.

The party's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, has pledged not to set up an Islamist state and to respect multi-party democracy.

Ennahda officials named have named two centre-left secularist groups, the Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakatol, as possible coalition partners.

The CPR is in second place in the vote, officials said. Its leader, Moncef Marzouki, said he was ready to work with Ennahda and others.

"We wish to have a national government as wide as possible with all the parties," he told Reuters news agency.

Ettakatol leader Mustapha Ben Jafaar told AFP news agency coalition talks had already started.

The US and EU have praised Tunisia on the peaceful election process, with President Barack Obama saying the vote was "an important step forward".

BBC