Greece MPs back austerity cuts

7 November 2012 Last updated at 18:27 ET

Lawmakers in Greece have narrowly backed a fresh round of austerity measures, despite violent protests across the country.

The austerity package aimed at securing the next round of bailout funds was passed with 153 MPs in favour – a majority of just three.

The 13.5bn-euro ($ 17.3bn; £10.5bn) bill includes tax rises and pension cuts.

Earlier, riot police fired tear gas towards protesters when they were attacked with petrol bombs in Athens.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned before the vote late on Wednesday that without the bailout Greece would run out of money this month and face “catastrophe”.

The austerity package – Greece’s fourth in three years – is meant to close the nation’s budget deficit, lower its huge debt burden and make its economy more competitive.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Many of these measures are fair and should have been taken years ago, without anyone asking us to”

End Quote Antonis Samaras Greek PM

But the level of resistance on the streets is a reminder that implementing the measures will be extraordinarily difficult, the BBC’s Mark Lowen in Athens reports.

The approval of the bill means that Greece will stay afloat, but the decision will go down very badly among this exhausted nation, our correspondent adds.

Samaras’s warning

The crucial vote was held after a lengthy debate in the 300-strong parliament.

Immediately after the bill was adopted, co-governing New Democracy and Pasok parties expelled seven lawmakers from their ranks for failing to back the package.

The adopted plan includes a two-year increase in the retirement age from the current average of 65, as well as salary cuts and labour market reforms, including cuts to holiday benefits, notice periods and severance pay.

Continue reading the main story

Measures in austerity package

• Retirement age up from 65 to 67


• A further round of pension cuts, of 5-15%


• Salary cuts, notably for police officers, soldiers, firefighters, professors, judges, justice officials; minimum wage also reduced


• Holiday benefits cut


• 35% cut to severance pay


• Redundancy notice reduced from six to four months

Workers fear this will just make it easier and cheaper for them to be fired at a time when unemployment has already soared to 25% and a five-year recession means there are few job prospects.

“Many of these measures are fair and should have been taken years ago, without anyone asking us to,” Mr Samaras said.

“Others are unfair – cutting wages and salaries – and there is no point in dressing this up as something else,” the prime minister said, adding that Greece was, nevertheless, obliged to take the measures.

Mr Samaras has said that without this money, which will be used largely to recapitalise the country’s banks, the country will be bankrupt by 15 November.

The vote on the cuts will be followed by a second vote this Sunday on Greece’s revised budget for 2013.

A positive vote on both is required for Greece to secure 31.5bn euros in fresh loans from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

‘Mother of all strikes’

Earlier on Wednesday, tens of thousands of protesters held a rally in Syntagma Square – outside the parliament building in the heart of the capital.

Continue reading the main story

Key dates

• 6-7 Nov General strike


• 7 Nov Vote on austerity package


• 11 Nov Vote on budget


• 12 Nov Eurozone finance ministers to discuss releasing new cash for Greece


• 16 Nov Deadline for Greece to repay 5bn euros in debt

The protesters chanted: “People – don’t bow your heads!”

Some in the crowd held giant flags of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain – four of the eurozone’s most heavily-indebted states.

The riot police – who sealed off parliament – later fired tear gas after the demonstrators attacked them with petrol bombs and flares.

Protests also took place in other big cities across Greece.

The Greek unions were staging what they described as the “mother of all strikes” – a 48-hour walkout which culminated on Wednesday.

The third major strike in just two months brought public transport to a halt and shut schools, banks and government buildings.

BBC News – Business

Read More..

Officials: New mass graves found in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Up to 10 new mass graves have been discovered near the site of a July attack on a camp for displaced people, officials said Tuesday, amid allegations that initial casualty totals were downplayed to mask killings carried out by the national army.

Rights groups claim summary executions were carried out by the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, known by its French acronym of FRCI. Last month, officials found six bodies in a well close to the former campsite in the western town of Duekoue.

Government, army and U.N. officials toured 10 more graves in the same area on Saturday, said Paul Mondouho, vice-mayor of Duekoue. He said the graves had first been identified by civilians, and that officials did not know the number of bodies they contained because they had not yet been properly exhumed.

“People were suspecting the presence of bodies in these graves because of the smell coming out of them and because of the shoes we saw nearby,” Mondouho said.

Prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau, who is based in the commercial capital of Abidjan, confirmed that multiple new graves had been discovered but could not provide details. U.N. officials and the local prosecutor in charge of investigating the suspected killings could not be reached Tuesday.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg confirmed that U.N. forces helped Ivorian authorities secure a perimeter around 10 wells “similar to the one in which six bodies were found,” and that “some of those wells are suspected mass graves.”

She stressed that Ivorian authorities were leading the investigation but that the U.N. was able to provide assistance.

Army spokesmen could not be reached Tuesday. The Justice Ministry has previously vowed to investigate the discovery of the initial grave.

On the morning of July 20, a mob descended on the U.N.-guarded Nahibly camp, which housed 4,500 people displaced by violence in Ivory Coast, burning most of the camp to the ground. Officials said at the time that six people were killed.

The attack was prompted by the shooting deaths of four men and one woman on the night of July 19, according to local officials and residents. In response a mob of some 300 people overran the camp on the morning of July 20 after the perpetrators of the shootings reportedly fled there.

The victims in the July 19 attack lived in a district dominated by the Malinke ethnic group, which largely supported President Alassane Ouattara in the disputed November 2010 election. The camp primarily housed members of the Guere ethnic group, which largely supported former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office despite losing the election to Ouattara sparked months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives.

Albert Koenders, the top U.N. envoy to Ivory Coast, said one week after the attack that U.N. security forces had been inside and outside the camp at the time but that no Ivorian security forces were present. He said the U.N. forces decided not to fire at a large group of people that were attacking the camp in order to avoid “a massacre.”

Several witnesses have said soldiers and traditional hunters, known as dozos, participated in the attack on the camp. Both military and dozo leaders have denied the claims, saying they had tried to protect the camp.

In a statement released Friday, the International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym of FIDH, said it had information — including the preliminary results of autopsies — confirming that the six bodies found in October were men who had been summarily executed by the army.

“The disappearance of dozens of displaced persons after the attack, as well as confirmation of cases of summary and extra-judicial executions, suggest a much higher victim rate than the official figures report,” said the organization, which counts Ivorian civil society groups among its members.

Duekoue was one of the hardest-hit towns during the post-election violence. The U.N. has established that at least 505 people were killed in and around the town, including during a notorious March 2011 massacre that claimed hundreds of lives and was allegedly carried out by fighters loyal to Ouattara.

Duekoue residents belonging to ethnic groups that supported Gbagbo have long complained about abuses carried out by the FRCI, with some pointing to the direct involvement of the local commander, Kone Daouda. FIDH said in its statement that Daouda had been transferred following the discovery of the grave in October, and called for him to be interrogated over the matter.

The group also said two FRCI members were being “actively sought” after failing to return to their barracks on Oct. 16, noting that they are believed to have fled to neighboring Burkina Faso.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Apple Hides its Second Faux-pology to Samsung

For all that its products are (arguably unfairly) associated with elitism, Apple as a company has a pretty good track record when it comes to apologizing for screw-ups.

For example: When people complained about the iPhone 4′s poor reception, back in 2010, Steve Jobs took reporters on a tour of Apple’s antenna testing center, and gave everyone who bought an iPhone 4 a free case if they wanted one. More recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized for “the frustration [iOS 6's maps have] caused our customers,” and suggested they use Google’s app instead. The Wall Street Journal even reported that Scott Forstall — formerly Apple’s exec in charge of iOS — was asked to leave the company for refusing to be the one to apologize.

But when the British courts ordered Apple to apologize to Samsung for accusing the Korean tech giant of copying Apple’s designs? Cue the snark and passive-aggressiveness.

The lawsuit(s)

Apple filed suit against Samsung in numerous courts worldwide, claiming its designs infringed on Apple’s and seeking injunctions to ban them. (Pseudonymous Redditor MarsSpaceship published a graphic which ironically points out the uncanny similarities.) Courts in Australia and the United States ruled in Apple’s favor, and Samsung was ordered to pay more than $ 1 billion to Apple in damages.

Except in the United Kingdom

The courts in the UK not only found that Samsung’s designs don’t infringe, they ordered Apple to publicly apologize to Samsung on its website and in newspapers, in words big enough to be read. Apple faux-pologized by stating the facts — that the court found Samsung’s designs don’t infringe — then going on to point out how every other court in the world said otherwise, and quoting the judge when he said that the reason people wouldn’t mistake Samsung’s products for Apple’s is because “They are not as cool.”

Try again, Apple

The British courts were not amused, and told Apple to try it again. You can read Apple’s new “apology” on its UK website, assuming you can translate the legalese which calls an iPad a “Community registered design No. 0000181607-0001″ … and assuming you can find it.

Say what, now?

Another anonymous Redditor, Dismiss, discovered that Apple had reprogrammed its UK website to hide the apology to Samsung. Not only did it redesign the site’s front page, making graphics larger and pushing the legal text out of view, it used custom code to make it so that you have to scroll to see the apology, no matter how big your screen is. This effectively hides it from view for most people, unless they go out of their way to look for it.

Round three, coming up?

The UK courts haven’t responded to Apple’s second faux-pology, which may be partly because they aren’t aware of what Apple did yet. Either way, Apple seems to have come out the winner worldwide, and Samsung’s latest designs — like the Galaxy S III smartphone — are much less derivative of Apple’s.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Controversial “SEAL Team Six” Film Gives Nat Geo Highest Ratings in a Year

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden” might have drawn cries of partisan bias, but despite the controversy – or perhaps because of it – the film about the killing of the terrorist leader yielded big numbers with its premiere on National Geographic Channel on Sunday night, handing the network its best ratings in more than a year, and the sixth-highest ratings in the network’s history.

Sunday’s premiere of “Seal Team Six,” which was initially slated for theatrical release before getting snapped up by National Geographic Channel, posted a 1.4 rating in the 25-54 demographic – four times the network’s average in the Sunday 8 to 10 p.m. timeslot this season. In total viewers, the military dramatization drew 4.7 million people, with an average 2.7 million tuning in throughout the premiere.

“SEAL Team Six” posted the highest performance in the demographic since the August 2011 special “George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview,” which drew a 1.7 in the 25-54 demo.

“We are overwhelmed that viewers across the country responded en masse to this socially relevant, factually based and entertaining film that highlighted the real inside story behind the manhunt for bin Laden and the heroes in our military and intelligence agencies,” said David Lyle, CEO National Geographic Channels. “It proved that no matter who Americans are planning to vote for, a good film is a good film, and we are happy to have had such success with our first original broadcast of a feature film inspired by real-life events.”

The film’s premiere date – just two days before the election – drew suspicion from some of the more conspiracy-minded segments of the population, who suggested that the premiere might have been planned to boost President Barack Obama‘s chances in the election by reminding the public of one of his major accomplishments during his first term. The criticism was fueled by the fact that unabashed Obama supporter Harvey Weinstein served as an executive producer on the film.

The network denied the allegations, with Lyle telling TheWrap last month, “The movie itself is its own defense; it’s a perfectly straightforward dramatization of what happened.”

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Illness, Injury Risks Linger After Sandy

It’s been a week since superstorm Sandy unleashed flooding, power outages and wind damage on the east coast, and although recovery efforts are underway, doctors warn that residents are not out of the woods for new health hazards.

Mold Causes Breathing Problems

With flooding comes mold, and it can make victims sick even if it’s invisible, doctors warned.

“Even if you’re not allergic, mold spores tend to be irritating to the airways and can cause respiratory symptoms,” said Dr. David Rosenstreich, the director of Allergy and Immunology at Montefiore Medical Center. He said that an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent of the population is allergic to mold.

Dr. Christopher Portier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Environmental Health, said mold can trigger asthma and even cause headaches when it’s in a certain growth phase.

“Mold is going to be a serious problem unless you take care of it right now,” said Portier, who also directs the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. “It’s very tricky to predict what’s going to happen with it and the bottom line is that you really don’t want it in your home.”

Visible mold can be wiped away with a bleach and water mixture. Never mix bleach and ammonia because the gas it creates can be deadly.

Portier suggested removing and discarding drywall and insulation that came into contact with floodwater and discarding items that can’t be washed. These include mattresses, carpeting, rugs and stuffed animals.

“It’s a long-standing problem. Even if you remove the visible mold, there still might be mold growth between the walls,” said Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, who chairs the environmental health department at Tulane University School of Public Health. In New Orleans, Lichtveld experienced the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Lichtveld said children and elderly people with asthma and chronic lung disease are most likely to get sick because of mold. It’s also possible many children lost their asthma inhalers or didn’t have time to refill their prescriptions, putting them at greater risk for an attack.

In the months following Katrina, people in the gulf coast began complaining to their physicians about “Katrina cough,” which was thought to be caused by extra bacteria and mold in the air after floodwaters remained for six weeks. However, Lichtveld studied the cough and debunked it as a rumor. She blamed it on the combination of flu season and the dry autumn that followed Hurricane Katrina, resulting in more dust particles in the air.

Rosenstreich said he is most worried about children’s bedrooms, but Lichtveld said indoor environments at risk for mold contamination include school, day care and nursing homes.

Bacteria Causes Illnesses and Infections

Floodwaters are dangerous because they often contain raw sewage, as ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser proved last week, when he tested a sample from lower Manhattan and found gasoline, e.coli and coliform.

But the health risk isn’t gone when the water recedes because contaminated puddles and surfaces remain, Portier said.

People, especially children, can get sick by touching contaminated objects and putting their hands in their mouths, causing gastrointestinal problems like diarrhea and vomiting, Portier said. They can also get infections from coming in contact with the bacteria with open sores and cuts, which can be “very difficult to treat.”

Katrina’s Health Lessons for Sandy Victims

“Keeping hands clean is very, very important.” Portier said. “If you’re not sure the water is safe, boil the water before you wash your hands with it.”

Rosenstreich added that people can’t get sick from simply breathing near the dirty water, but they should wear a mask and gloves when they come in contact with it. Even an unnoticed paper cut can become a big problem.

“I’m looking at my hands now, and I’ve got a million little cuts from cleaning my backyard,” he said. “People have to be really careful.”

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning from Back-up Generators

Superstorm Sandy left millions of people without power Monday night, prompting many of them to use back-up generators and coal stoves inside their homes to keep warm. But without proper ventilation, a cozy, alternative heating source can turn deadly when exhaust gets trapped and causes carbon monoxide poisoning.

So far, 439 carbon monoxide exposures have been reported to poison control centers in 12 states in the week since the storm, and four people in Pennsylvania died as a result, according to the CDC.

“It’s odorless,” Portier said. “You can’t tell it’s there, and then you start getting a headache, lay down and don’t get up.”

Carbon monoxide poisoning affects red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body. However, the blood cells pick up carbon monoxide faster than they pick up oxygen, so when there’s a lot of carbon monoxide in the air, they don’t pick up enough oxygen. The result is tissue damage from oxygen deprivation that can ultimately result in death.

Wood stoves, fireplaces and even generators placed outdoors can produce lethal amounts of carbon monoxide if the ventilation is bad.

Sometimes, people in apartments put the generators outside, and open enough windows to keep their homes ventilated, but the exhaust poisons an unsuspecting tenant in another nearby apartment who wasn’t told to open his or her windows.

Home Repairs Gone Awry and Other Injuries

Dr. Joseph Guarisco, the chief of emergency services for Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, said he saw it all in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina filled his ER with patients for months after the storm.

“It’s going to be a new environment, and you have to be really mindful and that’s the key thing,” Guarisco said. “There are dangers lurking everywhere that were not there before the storm.”

For the first several weeks, Guarisco’s patients ran into problems because they were evacuated outside their health networks and couldn’t see their regular physicians or get their prescriptions. He saw many patients with chronic issues, such as renal failure, who couldn’t get access to normal treatment like dialysis.

He also saw hydration and nutrition issues, as well as patients who tried to ride out being sick on their own but eventually needed to see a doctor. Some patients tried to eat contaminated or unrefrigerated food, and came down with gastrointestinal ailments.

Once that subsided, the home repair injuries started pouring in.

“As people return [home] it kind of evolves to a different nature of patients trying to put things back together,” he said. “They fall off the roof into standing water, lots of eye injuries from branches and debris. Lots of soft tissue stuff.”

He said people who had never used power tools in their lives suddenly felt compelled to use power chain saws, power drills and nail guns. Many of them came in with hand injuries.

Also Read
Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

France to give businesses $25 billion tax break

PARIS (AP) — France‘s government has promised €20 billion ($ 25 billion) in tax credits to businesses as part of a “competitiveness pact” that it hopes will spark innovation and lower unemployment – but falls short of calls in a recent report for a “shock” to the economy.

The announcement of the plan Tuesday came a day after a government-commissioned report — by Louis Gallois, former head of Airbus parent EADS — said the country’s ailing economy needed a big kick to stay globally competitive.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government‘s plan, which includes a €500 million fund to help struggling small businesses, would put the country “back at the heart of the world economy.”

“This new French model will consist of finding a way back to creating jobs and will no longer be financed by permanent deficits,” he said.

However, the government plan has fallen short of some of the recommendations in the Gallois report and raises fears that the Socialist administration of President Francois Hollande is not doing enough to revitalize the French economy.

For example, the $ 20 billion tax credit is to be implemented over three years — with €10 billion available in 2013 and the rest split over the following two years. Gallois recommended in his report for the government that the breaks should happen over one or two years to have the maximum effect.

The measure also takes the form of an income tax credit, rather than a reduction in the social charges employers pay on salaries, as Gallois had suggested. The government argues that its method is designed to have immediate impact, while deferring payment until 2014 when next year’s tax bill comes due. That, however, assumes that companies will start spending and hiring right away in anticipation of the credit.

France faces several major economic challenges, including an unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, and labor regulations that make firing so difficult it has discouraged hiring. Growth has ground to a halt, and several major companies have announced thousands of layoffs in recent weeks.

France has largely sidestepped the massive budget cuts and reforms undertaken by its neighbors, despite having one of the world’s highest proportions of state spending. Unions and companies are currently in discussions to overhaul the labor market – but the issues are so touchy in France that it’s unclear how far they’ll go.

Gallois warned in his report that the biggest problem in France is that because of high labor costs, companies have to slash prices in order to compete. Without high profit margins, companies have very little to invest in product innovation and quality. Ayrault promised that the pact would give companies more room to maneuver and address this problem.

The government’s plan focuses on small businesses, often the motors of innovation and employment. It calls for small businesses to receive special help to compete internationally, and billions of euros in a new public investment bank will be reserved for smaller companies.

The government also promised to reduce red tape and to limit changes to its tax and other policies over the next five years. France has a very complex tax code – a major thorn in the side of companies, especially small ones that spend tremendous resources to figure out what they owe.

Half of the money will come from spending cuts between 2014 and 2015. However, Ayrault did not detail what would be cut. The rest will come from new taxes, including a hike to most sales taxes – apart from basics like food which will benefit from a cut – in 2014.

The new measure follows a similar plan by former President Nicolas Sarkozy to lower the tax burden on companies via a blanket increase in sales tax. At the time, the Socialists campaigned against the plan and one of their first moves in office was to scrap it. The new government’s plan is similar, but lowers the sales tax on basic necessities, a move the Socialists hope will ensure the poorest people aren’t unduly burdened.

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

“The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country’s labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report’s release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission’s report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a “major error” by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Staples to have Amazon lockers in U.S. stores: spokeswoman

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Staples Inc, the largest U.S. office supply retailer, has agreed to install “Amazon Lockers” in its U.S. stores, a Staples spokeswoman said on Monday.

The Amazon lockers at Staples will allow online shoppers to have packages sent to the office supply chain’s stores. Amazon already has such storage units at grocery, convenience and drug stores, many of which stay open around the clock.

Amazon.Com Inc, the world’s largest Internet retailer, is trying to let customers avoid having to wait for ordered packages due to a missed delivery.

With the service, Amazon sends customers an email with a pickup code, which is entered on a touchscreen to open the locker containing the package. Shoppers have three days from the delivery date to pick up the package.

The online giant pays a small fee to the owners of the stores that house its lockers.

Staples did not give any further details of the service.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

William Shatner – there’s an app for him

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Actor William Shatner is having a moment. A couple of years after CBS canceled his Twitter-inspired “$ #*! My Dad Says” TV comedy, Shatner is at the top of the tech world.

The former “Star Trek” captain, now 81, is featured in Blindlight Apps “Shatoetry”, which catapulted to the top of the entertainment app list on Apple iTunes last week on its first day of release.

The celebrity app allows users to choose from hundreds of words to arrange sentences, which Shatner will then recite in his trademark voice and style. There is also a mode that allows Shatner fans to collaborate on “Shatisms” and there are single-player challenges like creating Haiku and poetry.

Shatner, who is currently touring the country with his critically-acclaimed one-man Broadway show, “Shatner’s World,” took a few minutes to talk technology with Reuters.

Q: How would you like to expand this app moving forward? Perhaps adding music?

A: “Well, we have that in mind. Words to music. We have in mind holiday things. We have in mind events in your life, words so that you can use them as well. We will increase this if people love it and tell other people that they love it. When we get an audience we know that is worthwhile, we will add to it.”

Q: One audience you know you definitely have out there is “Star Trek” fans. Do you see any opportunities with special app add-ons for them?

A: “Well, yes. I don’t think we’ll leave opportunity unexplored, but I wanted to be very careful about how we introduce it so it is not something that is derogatory or stupid. I want to make sure that it’s used in the way it’s meant to be used, which is for your entertainment.”

Q: Do you see opportunities for other actors to work with you on this app?

A: “We hope that it becomes popular enough to interest people into doing some words.”

Q: So users would be able to mix your words with other actors’ words through this app?

A: “Yes. Exactly. Have them do keywords like ‘love.’ There are certain words that everybody wants to use like ‘love’ and ‘hate’ and words that you use somewhere in your conversation… Commonly used words that are positive, I think that would be a way of getting a well-known person to take a chance in interpreting that word several different ways and know that they won’t look foolish, or be made to look foolish.”

Q: How are you taking advantage of today’s technology to connect with fans?

A: “I’m using it in as many ways as feasible. I’m doing podcasts. I’m certainly doing everything else, Facebook, Twitter and all that kind of thing. I’m taking advantage of communicating with the people out there as much as possible, and this app is one of those ways.”

Q: What technology do you have?

A: “I have iPhone, an iPad and I will be getting an iPad Mini shortly.”

Q: How do you use those devices?

A: “I don’t play games. I read the newspapers. I’ve got a dictation sound-to-print app and since I don’t type very well, I find myself dictating to it and sending the notes on. It’s a truly creative tool with. Once you have a means of communicating – there’s so much wrong with the world and so many crises in the mix here that, if we can communicate faster and better, we may be able to fix them before the end of the world, as far as human beings are concerned.”

Q: How’s the tour going for your show “Shatner’s World”?

A: “I’m going to be in Connecticut and New Jersey this week. I’m playing about four different places that are just opening up now. My heart goes out to the nightmare that these people are in. I feel a little awkward in talking about providing a laugh or two, but on the other hand some people may need that, and that’s what I’ll be doing….I will be with my heart on my sleeve trying to entertain people who have had a great deal of hardship in the last week.”

Q: A lot of my friends in New York and New Jersey are still without power after Hurricane Sandy.

A: “I know, and hopefully by the time I get there, there will be power. And hopefully by that time, they’ll be of a mind to be able to want to be entertained.”

(Reporting by John Gaudiosi, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients’ own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone’s cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study’s leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

“You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there’s no delay,” Hare said. “It’s also cheaper to make the donor cells,” and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

“That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank,” he said. There’s an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

“It has been a life-changing experience,” said Lopez, who lives in Miami. “I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don’t have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don’t have any fluid in my lungs.”

And, he said happily, “My sex drive has improved!”

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

___

Online:

Heart Association: http://www.heart.org

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..