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Actor Ben Affleck poses backstage with the award for best cast in a motion picture for "Argo" at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday Jan. 27, 2013. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Dick Van Dyke accepts the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday Jan. 27, 2013. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actors, from left, Phyllis Logan, Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Amy Nuttall and Sophie McShera pose backstage with the award for best ensemble in a drama series for ?Downton Abbey? at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday Jan. 27, 2013. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A few weeks ago, the Oscar race looked wide open. The stately, historical "Lincoln" seemed like the safe and likely choice, with the provocative "Zero Dark Thirty" and the quirky and inspiring "Silver Linings Playbook" very much in the mix for the Academy Award for best picture.

But now, an "Argo" juggernaut ? an "Argo"-naut, if you will ? seems to be rolling along and gathering momentum as we head toward Hollywood's top prize.

The international thriller from director Ben Affleck, who also stars as a CIA operative orchestrating a daring rescue during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, received the top honor of best ensemble cast in a movie at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, their equivalent of the best-picture Oscar. It's a decent indicator of eventual Academy Awards success, with the two matching up about half the time.

The film, which also stars John Goodman and Alan Arkin as Hollywood veterans who help stage a fake movie as a cover, has received nearly unanimous critical raves and has proven to be a box-office favorite, as well, grossing nearly $190 million worldwide.

But "Argo" also won the Producers Guild of America Award on Saturday night, which is an excellent Oscar predictor, and it earned best picture and director statues from the Golden Globes two weeks earlier. The Directors Guild of America Awards next Saturday will help crystallize the situation even further.

The one tricky thing at work here: Affleck surprisingly didn't receive an Academy Award nomination in the director category, which most often goes hand in hand with best picture. (There are nine best-picture nominees but only five slots for directors.) Only once in modern times has a film won best picture without a directing nomination: 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy." The other two times came in the show's early years, at the first Oscars in 1929 with "Wings" and for 1932's "Grand Hotel."

Asked backstage at the SAG Awards what might happen when the Oscar winners are announced Feb. 24, Affleck said: "I don't do handicapping or try to divine what's going to happen down the road with movies.

"I didn't get nominated as a director and I thought, 'OK, that's that.' Then I remembered that I was nominated as a producer," said Affleck, who already has an original screenplay Oscar for writing 1997's "Good Will Hunting" with longtime friend Matt Damon. "Nothing may happen but it's a wonderful opportunity to be on the ride and I'm really honored."

Many of the usual suspects throughout the lengthy awards season heard their names called again Sunday night, including Daniel Day-Lewis as best actor for his intense, deeply immersed portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in "Lincoln." Accepting the prize on stage, he gave thanks to several of his colleagues including "The Master" star Joaquin Phoenix (who did not receive a SAG nomination), Leonardo DiCaprio and Liam Neeson.

Backstage, Day-Lewis elaborated for reporters that DiCaprio urged him to stick with Steven Spielberg's project, which was in the works for many years.

"He said, 'Don't give up, he's the greatest man of the 19th century,'" Day-Lewis said. "So this is all Leo's fault."

His co-star, Tommy Lee Jones, also won again in the supporting-actor category for his lacerating portrayal of abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens in Spielberg's Civil War epic.

Anne Hathaway, the front-runner for best supporting actress at the Oscars and a winner already at the Golden Globes, won at the SAGs for her performance as the doomed prostitute Fantine in the gritty musical "Les Miserables."

"I'm just thrilled I have dental," Hathaway joked on stage.

But in the already-tight best actress race, Jennifer Lawrence made things a little more interesting in winning for the drama "Silver Linings Playbook." The 22-year-old plays a damaged young widow opposite Bradley Cooper, whose character is fresh out of a mental institution. Jessica Chastain, the winner at the Golden Globes, has been her main competition as a driven CIA operative searching for Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty."

Lawrence said on stage that she got her SAG card at 14 ? which was only eight short years ago ? for a promo for the MTV reality series "My Super Sweet 16," which she said felt like the best day of her life.

"And now I have this naked statue which means that some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling," she said.

On the television side, the popular PBS series "Downton Abbey" bested more established shows like "Mad Men" to win the TV drama cast award in just its first nomination. "Modern Family won the comedy cast prize for the third straight year.

And Dick Van Dyke received the guild's life-achievement award, an honor he presented last year to his "The Dick Van Dyke Show" co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.

After receiving a lengthy standing ovation from the audience, he asked his fellow actors, "Aren't we lucky that we found a line of work that doesn't require growing up?"

____

Contact AP Movie Writer Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-28-SAG%20Awards/id-831b70270e7448ae9ed2e5aaab1f7156

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese equities rose on Monday as the yen extended losses to fresh lows, further improving earnings prospects for exporters as Japan's corporate reporting season enters full swing this week.

Global investor sentiment improved on Friday due to brighter prospects for the European economy and its debt crisis as well as solid U.S. corporate earnings.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> traded 0.7 percent higher after jumping 2.9 percent on Friday to log an 11th straight week of gains, its longest such run since 1971. <.t/>

Against the yen, the dollar hit 91.26 early on Monday, its highest level since June 2010 while the euro touched 122.91, its highest point since April.

New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for aggressive monetary easing and huge fiscal spending to beat deflation. The yen has fallen some 13 percent since mid-November when he began making those calls as part of his election campaign.

"The potent mix of Abenomics and strong risk appetite abroad is continuing to soften the yen, which means investors will still be buying stocks," said Masayuki Doshida, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities.

South Korean shares <.ks11> fell 0.7 percent, after closing on Friday at an eight-week low, weighed by caution ahead of fourth-quarter earnings and a stronger won hitting exporters.

U.S. stocks extended a rally to an eighth day, their best run since late 2004, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> both closing at their highest in more than five years on solid U.S. corporate earnings.

The improving global macroeconomic environment has curbed interest in safe haven assets such as gold.

Spot gold steadied around $1,658.54 an ounce on Monday, still below its 200-day moving average. As riskier equities rallied on Friday, bullion saw its biggest weekly drop this year on Friday.

U.S. crude inched up 0.1 percent to $95.94 a barrel.

Investors pumped $5.65 billion into stock funds worldwide in the latest week, with most of the sum flowing into emerging market stock funds, data from EPFR Global showed on Friday.

The euro hovered near an 11-month high of $1.3480 hit on Friday. The Australian dollar stumbled to an eight-month low against the euro early on Monday.

The European Central Bank said on Friday banks will repay 137.2 billion euros ($185 billion) in 3-year loans, more cash than expected, in a sign at least parts of the financial system are returning to health. The ECB lent banks a total of more than 1 trillion euros in twin 3-year, ultra-cheap lending operations in December 2011 and February 2012, easing funding concerns.

German Ifo business morale index improved for a third consecutive month in January to its highest in more than half a year, further evidence that Europe's largest economy is gathering speed again after contracting late last year.

European shares scaled fresh multi-month peaks on Friday, led by Frankfurt's DAX index <.gdaxi> scaling five-year highs.

Data on Sunday also showed profits earned by China's industrial companies rose 17.3 percent in December from a year earlier to 895.2 billion yuan ($143.9 billion).

Investors will focus this week on the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee statement on Wednesday and U.S. nonfarm payrolls due on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul and Sophie Knight in Tokyo; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nikkei-rises-yen-extends-loss-lows-011704703--finance.html

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The third quarter of fiscal 2013 wasn't especially awesome for Logitech, despite the fact that I personally spent 30 of my own dollars on a wireless keyboard within that time frame. Whereas the same period last year saw a net profit of $55 million, Logitech posted a net loss of $194.9 million in its most recent earnings report.

As a result, some of Logitech's divisions will be scaled back, while others will be discontinued altogether. "We have initiated the process to divest our remote controls and digital video security categories, and we plan to discontinue other non-strategic products, such as speaker docks and console gaming peripherals," said Logitech president/CEO Bracken P. Darrell.

While Logitech's console peripheral business will disappear, the company's PC gaming offerings will remain unchanged. We've also been able to confirm that Logitech console accessories that have already been purchased will continue to exist, and will not crumble into piles of dust. These cost reduction measures are expected to take place "by the end of Calendar Year 2013."

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/01/26/logitech-to-phase-out-production-of-console-gaming-accessories/

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? About 1,000 Iranian workers have staged a protest rally in front of the South Korean Embassy in Tehran demanding the return of $70 million allegedly held by Seoul after a collapsed business deal.

Employees of Iran's Entekhab Industrial Group claim South Korea has blocked a refund of the money after a failed bid in 2010 to buy Daewoo Electronics, a former subsidiary of the now-defunct Daewoo Group.

Iranians believe the deal was called off because of South Korean worries over mounting international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

"Return our money," the protesters shouted Sunday in the third such rally in recent months.

Daewoo officials were not immediately available for comment.

Entekhab produces home appliances in Isfahan, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Tehran.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-27-Iran-South%20Korea/id-ea7678aa362641d0a89e6adac21eb27b

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ROME (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has dropped former allies accused of corruption and mafia association as election candidates, in a bid to shed the image of scandal that has dogged sections of his center-right party.

Late on Monday, Berlusconi's party secretary Angelino Alfano said Nicola Cosentino, a former junior economy minister whose power base is in the heartland of the Camorra or Naples mafia, would not return to parliament after the election.

Cosentino has denied any wrongdoing and party officials have said the decision was taken only to avoid the issue being exploited by electoral rivals.

"This choice does not imply a judgment that those involved are guilty," said Fabrizio Cicchitto, head of the PDL party group in the lower house of parliament.

"I continue to believe that Nicola Cosentino is innocent and has been the target of an extremely harsh campaign by media and judges," he said.

Cosentino, who was forced to resign from Berlusconi's last government in 2011 over an influence-peddling scandal, is under investigation for association with the Camorra in the Casal di Principe region near Naples.

Berlusconi, who is himself on trial over accusations of paying for sex with a minor as well as tax fraud, has been under heavy pressure to clean up his People of Freedom (PDL) party ahead of elections on February 24-25.

It is unclear what impact the decision will have on the vote but the Corriere della Sera daily said Berlusconi's office had seen projections which estimated it could add 2 percent to build on a strong recovery seen since the start of the year.

A poll last week by the SWG institute last week showed the center-left bloc led by Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani on 33 percent, ahead of Berlusconi's alliance between the PDL and the Northern League party on 27.2 percent.

ANGER

Both the Democratic Party and outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti's centrist bloc have pledged to present only candidates not under investigation or facing criminal charges.

Berlusconi has long defended Cosentino and others who have also been excluded from the PDL's electoral list but growing public anger with corrupt politicians and a string of high-profile scandals, many involving the PDL, has forced him to act.

However the move risks causing ructions in the party, where Cosentino and some of the other parliamentarians now excluded, command strong local voter loyalty.

Italian newspapers reported that the decision was only taken after fierce resistance from Cosentino, who faces the threat of immediate arrest once he loses his parliamentary immunity. Some newspapers reported that he had almost come to blows with Alfano at a heated meeting over the weekend.

The move, which Italian newspapers speculated could cost Berlusconi heavily in Cosentino's home Campania region, follows several other high-profile exclusions of former allies.

At least seven other former ministers or prominent allies, including four politicians from the Naples region, have also been dropped from the list presented by Berlusconi's People of Freedom party on Monday evening.

Also not returning to parliament is Marcello Dell'Utri, a senator from Sicily and one of Berlusconi's oldest associates, who is appealing a conviction for mafia association and who has other convictions for tax fraud.

Under Italian electoral law, voters do not vote for individual candidates but must choose a single list put forward by a party or coalition.

(Reporting By James Mackenzie; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-berlusconi-drops-allies-accused-mafia-links-110621128.html

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BELFAST (Reuters) - The Bank of England's inflation-targeting remit needs to be fine-tuned but should not undergo fundamental change, central bank governor Mervyn King said in a wide-ranging speech on Tuesday.

King also said the central bank was ready to restart bond purchases or cut interest rates if needed to boost the economy, but that Britain needed more fundamental reforms if it was to exceed the "gentle recovery" which he expects for 2013.

King steps down in June, and his successor Mark Carney, who currently heads the Bank of Canada, has promoted long-term commitments to low rates - which are also in favour at the U.S. Federal Reserve - as well as discussing the merits of targeting the size of the economy in cash terms instead of inflation.

To date the Bank has been unenthusiastic about explicit interest rate commitments - arguing its existing policy framework is clearer than other central banks'.

And Chancellor George Osborne, who ultimately decides the bank's goals, said last month that while he welcomed debate, there would need to be a strong case for change.

However, in what is likely to be his last speech outside London, King told members of Belfast's business community that it was time for the Bank and the government to think again.

"Recent actions by central banks and governments in a number of industrialised countries have raised questions about the frameworks within which monetary policy is being conducted," he said.

"In the UK, the inflation target was introduced almost 21 years ago, and it has now come of age. It would be sensible to review the arrangements for setting monetary policy," he continued at the Confederation of British Industry event.

The changes King appears to have in mind are relatively small. In the speech, a text of which was provided by his office, King said Osborne may want to be more explicit about how fast the central bank is expected to return inflation to target.

Inflation has been above its 2 percent goal since December 2009, and King said he expected it to remain so for most of 2013. The central bank's forecasts do not see it firmly back at 2 percent until the second half of 2014.

This is in line with the bank's current interpretation of its mandate, under which it sets monetary policy to get inflation to 2 percent within 2-3 years.

King also referred to the Fed's decision to state levels which unemployment would probably need to fall to before it started to raise interest rates.

"Is there a gain from trying to quantify how the (bank's) Monetary Policy Committee should manage the trade-off between growth and inflation in the short run?," King asked.

"How much discretion to give to the MPC and how much should remain with the Chancellor is an interesting question that was raised, but not fully resolved, in 1997," he added, referring to the date when the Bank gained operational independence.

Earlier on Tuesday, former MPC member Adam Posen argued against both long-term policy commitments - saying markets did not take them very seriously - and targeting nominal GDP, saying it would lead to higher inflation than inflation-targeting.

NO POLICY PANACEA

In his comments about the more immediate outlook for British monetary policy, King left his options open, though his remarks are unlikely to change economists' expectations that the central bank will not add to its 375 billion pounds mervyn king

of asset purchases any time soon.

"We are ready to provide more stimulus if it is needed," King said, adding the bank would continue to assess whether to cut interest rates again - something it has resisted since March 2009 lest it hurt fragile banks or building societies.

Although inflation was likely to remain above target for most of 2013, the MPC could look past this while it was driven by semi-regulated prices like university tuition fees rather than market-generated price rises, King said.

Nonetheless, more asset purchases or rate cuts would not be enough to get Britain's economy back on track.

"Relying on generalised monetary stimulus alone ... is not a panacea," King said.

Britain's economy shrank around 6 percent in the 2008-09 financial crisis, and has recovered much more slowly than its peers. Growth in the last three months of 2012 was likely to have been "considerably weaker" than in the previous quarter, continuing a trend of zig-zagging growth rates, King said.

A more solid recovery required three things, King said, citing supply-side reforms, stronger euro zone growth and restructuring Britain's banks.

Some banks needed more capital and others - like state-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group - would benefit from selling non-core assets and a prompt return to private ownership, King said.

"With proper implementation, there is no reason why the two banks with significant state shareholdings could not largely be back in the private sector within a relatively short period," King said.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, writing by David Milliken; editing by Ron Askew)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-englands-king-says-time-review-inflation-targeting-195013654--business.html

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Source: http://iskander1988.blogspot.com/2013/01/malagao-narrate-cynicism-education.html

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The recently published Pound Foolish: Exposing The Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry by Helaine Olen has gotten a lot of buzz lately. I have not read the book but I did listen to this interview that Barry Ritholtz posted and in 11 short minutes she managed to take down much of the personal finance industry including naming names and bashing cliches. I'd never heard of Olen before but her biography says she is a New York based journalist.

Based on the interview Olen seems to feel there is very little hope for Americans to accumulate enough for their retirement. She also seems to believe that most market participants will not come anywhere close to getting the returns they need. Financial literacy won't solve the problem she believes for a couple of different reasons including that the people doing most of the teaching are industry professionals with seriously conflicted interests. Although she never used the word charlatan that seemed to be what she was saying about people like Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey of whom she said that they did not get rich and then start helping people but instead have gotten rich by helping people but of course it is not real help.

There is of course truth to what Olen is saying and while it is probably correct that a large percentage of Americans will never understand the full extent of the conflicts and other warts on the industry I don't think anything new is being unveiled with this discussion.

When I hear these kinds of threads I circle back to the idea of simply staying on your own mat (this is a yoga term which means don't be concerned with how someone else is doing the poses, just focus on your own practice). Financial literacy may not work for most people (although I am not as pessimistic as Olen) but it can work for you. Maybe most people can't save enough but that doesn't have to mean you can't. Maybe most people can't overcome their own behavioral quirks but that does not mean you can't learn to overcome yours. You obviously see where I am going here.

When I go down this road there will often be comments left about the "penalty" for being responsible that many people think is coming like social security means testing as one example. I do think means testing is coming but I choose to view more positively (that may not be the right word). While I hope the following is an extreme example I think it makes the point; I don't ever want to have wait in line all day for a free bag of groceries stressing out over the possibility that they might run out of free grocery bags before my turn comes up. That is just a made up example but the concept influences my ideas on savings, spending and debt.

Human nature being what it is there will be people who know better who use Olen's argument (she's not the only one making it) as an excuse for not taking care of their own business; there will be people playing the victim in addition to actual victims.

One last point on this which is a repeat from the other day is that no one will care more about your savings or retirement or financial plan more than you.

The picture is not a metaphor, just a neat shot of a buggy stuck in the mud from the Dakar Rally which ended over the weekend.

Source: http://randomroger.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-book-craps-all-over-personal.html

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Author Mary Mycio (L) author of "Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl" with Valentina, 65, pointing out the healing herbs in a special spot of the forest.

In the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Valentina Sachepok (right) points out herbs to author Mary Mycio.

Courtesy Mary Mycio.

Valentina Sachepok darted ahead while I chased her through a forest in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

A camera crew followed us; they were shooting a documentary about the babushkas of Chernobyl. The 1986 disaster forced the permanent evacuation of 300,000 people, but a smattering of women still live semi-legally in their old homes.

Sachepok, a retired nurse in her 60s with tufts of gray hair peering from under a maroon kerchief, didn?t walk but trotted, sprinting abruptly while the rest of us scrambled to keep up. After collecting fat yellow mushrooms from a clump of moss, she led me to a pine tree. ?This one is for the hedgehog,? she said of the spiny creature beloved in Slavic folktales. She pierced a mushroom on a pine branch close to the ground.

That?s where radioactivity is highest these days. The explosion and fire here spewed the equivalent of at least 20 Hiroshima bombs? worth of radiation, mostly within about 25 miles of the reactor building. The most radioactive isotopes have long since decayed, and rain has washed the rest into the soil and the food chain. Two of the most persistent isotopes are cesium-137, which chemically mimics potassium, and strontium-90, which imitates calcium in living things. As these isotopes have been taken up by plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria, radioactivity is no longer on the zone, but of it.

This is a unique ecosystem, twice the size of Rhode Island and about evenly divided between Belarus and Ukraine. A generation after most humans abandoned the area, forests and wetlands have consumed once-tended fields, villages, and towns. Only the occasional carcasses of crumbling buildings mutely testify to the former occupants.

Sachepok stuck another mushroom a foot higher on the tree. ?That?s for the roe deer. It?s hard for them to find food under the snow.? The late October day was still warm, but Ukraine?s winters are frigid.

Few wild animals lived in the region in 1986; their habitats had been destroyed for Soviet dairy farms and pine plantations. But large mammals started appearing almost immediately after the evacuations, and the animal populations soon exploded.

Roe deer and wild boar caught here in the early 1990s packed more than 2,000 times the safety norms for cesium-137 in meat. Though internal radiation levels have since dropped dramatically, some animals recently tested in Belarus still exceeded safe levels by dozens of times.

But in a surprise to just about everyone, the animals all looked physically normal. The same was true of other species tested?radioactive but normal-looking. The few known exceptions include albino spots and some deformities in barn swallows.

Standing up straight, Sachepok pierced the highest mushroom. ?And this is for the moose.?

Of the dozen moose sightings I?ve had in my lifetime, all were in the exclusion zone, where in the course of many journeys I?ve spent more than a month?s time researching my book Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl. It?s a strange and beautiful place where I?ve spotted wolves in broad daylight; lynx tracks in the snow; and huge herds of boar, roe deer, and elk. I?m still drawn back.

Sachepok smiled with more mischief than seemed possible for a lone woman in a radioactive no-man?s land. ?The animals all know me,? she said, a gold tooth glinting, before lecturing me on healthy living, including avoiding what she called the ?zombie box??television.

I think she meant it politically. Ukrainian TV is pure propaganda. But when it comes to Chernobyl, it is only a matter of time before zombies or mutants come up. Whenever I tell anyone about my encounters with Chernobyl wildlife, the questions are always the same: Do they have two heads? Do they glow? Do you glow?

Actually, in the early years, when contaminated dust coated everything, researchers found countless examples of the monstrous mutations imagined in 1950s horror movies: malformations, dwarfism, gigantism, strange growths, and, yes, even some glowing.

But those effects were seen only in plants. While Attack of the Giant Leaves doesn?t seem as horrible as the Creature With the Atom Brain, no one has ever found seriously deformed wild animals (or zombies) after the Chernobyl accident. Mutant animals born in the wild die or get eaten before they can be discovered. Whatever the biological costs of radiation to individuals, the fittest survived.

Chernobyl?s abundant and surprisingly normal-looking wildlife has shaken up how biologists think about the environmental effects of radioactivity. The idea that the world?s biggest radioactive wasteland could become Europe?s largest wildlife sanctuary is completely counterintuitive for anyone raised on nuclear dystopias.

The news isn?t good for all animals. Many species that like human company?swallows, white storks, pigeons?mostly left the region along with the people. Also, small creatures seem to be more vulnerable to the effects of radiation than large ones. That may be why Chernobyl rodents studied in the 1990s had shorter life spans and smaller litters than their counterparts outside the zone. Stag beetles had uneven horns. But it didn?t affect their population numbers.

And because the health of wild animal species is usually judged by their numbers rather than the conditions of individuals, Chernobyl wildlife is considered healthy. According to all the population counts performed by Ukraine and Belarus over the past 27 years, there is enormous animal diversity and abundance. The prevailing scientific view of the exclusion zone has become that it is an unintentional wildlife sanctuary. This conclusion rests on the premise that radiation is less harmful to wildlife populations than we are.

In an effort to challenge that view, biologists Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Moller of the University of Paris have published a series of papers claiming that populations of insects, birds, and mammals are declining in Chernobyl?s most contaminated regions. They also contend that birds avoid nesting in highly radioactive areas. They dismiss contrary reports of animal abundance as anecdotes.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=f05c77f8227e6d4c1f0bc48e66f0ca0c

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So Happy Just to See You Smile Women represent an important segment of the car buying public. Automobile manufacturers and dealerships are keen to attract the business and good favor of female car buyers. Women routinely purchase new and pre-owned automobiles, and even when not making a purchase directly, may influence purchases within their families.

The days of male dominated automobile showrooms and car auctions are long gone. However, for any women in need of extra encouragement or a confidence boost in the car buying process, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Women Car Buyers are Vital to a Dealership?s Success

Know this women car buyers. Auto dealerships value your business more than you might think! Dealerships recognize the immense market that women car buyers represent. Smart dealerships will work with women car shoppers in earnest to make your buying process informed, efficient, and even enjoyable.

Be honest and direct with your salesperson about what?s important to you. When interacting with salespeople don?t worry about whether you?re asking the ?right? questions. There are no right or wrong questions. If something?s important to you then let your salesperson know about it. A professional salesperson will give it the required attention.

2. The Internet Is Your Ally and a Great Equalizer

Men have absolutely no skill advantage over women insofar as using the internet to perform research on automobiles. Today?s car shoppers of either gender have more information available to them than at any time before in history. Twenty years ago car buyers were often required to physically travel to all the car dealerships that carry the cars they?re considering, in order to collect information and promotional material for reference. Now all that is online and in most cases there?s more information available than a prospective car buyer can effectively process.

Learning about cars of interest in advance to visiting a dealership or auction site will give prospective car buyers confidence in the buying process. Knowledge is indeed power.

3. ?Gear heads? Aren?t the Typical Car Buying Customer

If you think it?s incumbent on car buyers to ask salespeople lots of mechanical or technical questions in order to be taken seriously then think again. For one thing today?s cars are so sophisticated in their engineering that most car owners are better off leaving a car?s mechanical details to trained technicians.

Instead most prospective car owners inquire about practical, down-to-earth things such as gas mileage, safety ratings, resale value and, depending on the buyer, about special features such as navigation and sound systems. If you?re visiting several dealerships or comparing different models it?s a good idea to write down the most important questions to ask, and ask them at each place, perhaps making a record of the responses for reference later on.

4. There Is a Car That Matches Your Needs Perfectly

Women and men sometimes have distinctly different tastes and preferences in the cars they buy. Rest assured that with so many makes, models, and product options, chances are excellent that there?s a perfect car for each person in the market, women of course included.

Following a disciplined purchase approach such as performing internet research before visiting dealerships, along with writing down your questions and recording answers, increases the likelihood of finding your perfect car and not being side-tracked by considerations not central to your needs.

5. Professional Salespeople Are There to Facilitate Transactions Not Sell You

Today?s professional automobile salesperson is of a different mold than in generations past. Their role has changed to one of facilitating the purchase process rather than applying persuasion. Selling in the traditional sense in years past was often a less than pleasant experience for salespeople and for customers.

Today?s auto shoppers have usually spent many hours online before ever setting foot in a dealership showroom. Since buyers have often settled on a particular model before visiting a dealer, and have focused their research accordingly, buyers may actually be more knowledgeable about a vehicle than an individual salesperson. This removes some of the educational responsibility from salespeople who can instead give attention to guiding the buying process, informing buyers of current sales promotions (for example), and generally making the purchase process as easy as possible.

?

About the Author

Ron McCoy is a freelance writer and a long-time observer of the automobile industry. He regularly writes on various automotive topics for Mile High Honda in Denver, Colorado.

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Source: http://www.informationgateway.org/5-women-car-buyers/

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By: David Morson

Are you excited to see the beautiful place in the province of Makkah named Jeddah? Jeddah has great importance for Muslims. It is the first place where Muslims land most probably for Umrah or Hajj. Both, Makkah and Madinah can be reached through Jeddah. So, Muslims have always great desire to visit that place as it is obligatory, as well. Contrary to this religious importance for the Muslims, Jeddahs locality is the other reason for its popularity. It has the largest seaport on the Red Sea. It has won the title of 4th innovative city in 2009. It is also famous for resorts. Economically, Jeddah holds strong position and is excelling further in engineering and scientific fields. These are all the reasons that demands from anyone having tourist heart to take flight to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We are here to offer you the cheapest flights to Jeddah.
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About the Author:
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Chrome users with something to hide have heretofore been required to sign in to Google to keep their omnibox searches hidden from prying eyes -- but today's Chrome 25 beta update changes that. Now all searches are automatically encrypted, whether you're signed in or not. It's certainly not the first browser to implement such a security feature -- Firefox 14 switched to HTTPS for all searches last year -- but it's a welcome change all the same. With web voice recognition and security whitelists on the docket as well, the latest version of Chrome is setting up to be quite the must-have, especially for those who want to keep their Justin Bieber search results to themselves.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Chromium Blog

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/18/chrome-25-ssl-encrypted-search-everyone/

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grantevan

Click here to read Modern Coffee Table Doubles As Barbie's Dreamhouse or G.I. Joe's HQ

To kids, living room furniture already doubles as everything from fortresses, to mountains. to mansions for their action figures and dolls. But designer Amy Whitworth has completely embraced the idea of multi-function furniture with this gorgeous modern Qubis Haus coffee table that easily transforms into everything from a dollhouse to a secret underground bunker thanks to sliding plastic panels. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/4C7kc4I2H1Q/modern-coffee-table-doubles-as-barbies-dreamhouse-or-gi-joes-hq

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grantevan

Google spending $2 billion on property in London and South Carolina, declares that it's good to have land

If you're ever curious about how much land you can get for your buck on either side of the pond, just check out Google's real estate accounts. It's spending $600 million on adding a third complex to its sprawling Berkeley County site that'll help the company process search queries and "other information." While $600 million can get you around 500-acres of Palmetto State, it takes two-and-a-half times as much to get a paltry 2.4-acres in London's Kings Cross. The $1.6 billion investment is going towards a new headquarters building that'll pull together its employees from across the big city and, let's hope, set aside some space for a British version of its X Lab -- after all, you can't be a mad scientist without a cool accent.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/18/google-sc-london-buildings/

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grantevan

Posted by CRM Resources on January 18, 2013 under Sales Software |

If you are like most other small business owners, your work day begins the minute you get out of bed and make that first phone call, and often does not end until late in the evening ? and you would not have it any other way! There is nothing more rewarding than running your own business, no matter how hard you have to work. That being said, just because you are not scared of hard work, does not mean you won?t appreciate how helpful sales management software can be.

How Much Does Salesforce.com Cost?

You have probably heard of Salesforce.com CRM, but found yourself surprised and discouraged at the expensive price. You might even assume that all Salesforce competitors will cost a similar amount, but this is not true.

Some Salesforce users pay $250 per month, but this does not meant that you have to somehow squeeze such a huge expense into your budget. Commence offers a CRM management system that is affordable, yet thoughtfully created to accommodate the needs of a small business owner.

Source: http://www.commence.com/crm-blog/index.php/2013/01/18/sales-management-software-for-the-small-business-owner/

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Lance Armstrong speaks at Livestrong Sporting Park in Kansas City, Mo., on June 9, 2011. (Getty Images)

Shortly after the first segment of Oprah Winfrey's two-part interview with Lance Armstrong aired on Thursday, officials at Livestrong?the Austin-based cancer charity Armstrong founded?released a statement saying they were disappointed in their former leader, but grateful he created the foundation in the first place.

?We at the Livestrong Foundation are disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us," the statement posted to the Livestrong website began.

Before taping the interview, during which the seven-time Tour de France winner and testicular cancer survivor admitted to doping and lying throughout his cycling career, Armstrong met with the Livestrong staff to apologize.

"We accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course," Livestrong continued. "We look forward to devoting our full energy to our mission of helping people not only fight and survive cancer, but also thrive in life after cancer."

Investors? bet on ?clean? China

Shares of environmental protection companies rise Tuesday after Chinese authorities say they plan to tackle the country's worsening pollution levels.

With Tuesday?s deal, ConocoPhillips has announced total asset sales of about $12 billion in the past year, more than its $8 billion to $10 billion target.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter, which would increase Denbury?s 2013 average production by 7,700 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Meanwhile, shares of Exxon Mobil declined 0.1%. Smaller rival Chevron Corp. /quotes/zigman/289939/quotes/nls/cvx CVX +0.52% ?turned higher and ended Tuesday advancing 0.5%.

Chevron has submitted a bid to explore and produce shale gas in Lithuania, according to media reports. The Baltic nation is looking to ease its dependency on Russia, as Russia?s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom is Lithuania?s only gas supplier.

Shares of Kinder Morgan Inc. /quotes/zigman/3811989/quotes/nls/kmi KMI -0.27% ?declined 0.3%. The company is slated to report fourth-quarter results on Wednesday.

/quotes/zigman/190110/quotes/nls/dnr

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 16.37M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:02p

/quotes/zigman/294662/quotes/nls/cop

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 6.06M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

/quotes/zigman/203975/quotes/nls/xom

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 8.88M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

Market Cap

$408.43 billion

/quotes/zigman/289939/quotes/nls/cvx

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 5.46M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:02p

Market Cap

$220.87 billion

/quotes/zigman/3811989/quotes/nls/kmi

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 2.91M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch. Follow her on Twitter @ClaudiaAssisMW.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B83CB8B92-5F22-11E2-AD22-002128040CF6%7D&siteid=rss&rss=1

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রবিবার, ২৭ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৩

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রবিবার, ২০ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৩

1. Women Car Buyers are Vital to a Dealership?s Success

2. The Internet Is Your Ally and a Great Equalizer

3. ?Gear heads? Aren?t the Typical Car Buying Customer

4. There Is a Car That Matches Your Needs Perfectly

5. Professional Salespeople Are There to Facilitate Transactions Not Sell You

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শনিবার, ১৯ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৩

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বুধবার, ১৬ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৩

Investors? bet on ?clean? China

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