maputo regalement: June 2013

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

How To Set Up A Sex Abuse / Molestation ... - Sports Insurance

Sex abuse / molestation (SAM) is an even bigger issue in youth sports and recreation as a result of the Sandusky incidents and Penn State?s failure to properly deal with the situation. Insurance carriers that write General Liability policies that include coverage for sex abuse / molestation are concerned that publicity from Sandusky may open the floodgates for more victims to come forward and more litigation.

Whenever a SAM incident occurs, a civil lawsuit will likely be filed against not only the alleged perpetrator, but also the organization, officers, board, and others for failure to adequately screen staff, failure to implement policies and procedures to prevent an incident, and failure to appropriately respond to an allegation. Most insurance carriers that write SAM coverage on sports organizations won?t offer the coverage unless the organization has implemented certain controls that impact these areas.

Most sports and recreation organizations rely exclusively on running criminal background checks on all staff with access to youth. While this is required by case law and is a minimum level of due diligence, the effectiveness of solely relying on criminal background checks is questionable. The reason is because studies indicate that only about 5% of all predators have a criminal background that could even be discoverable upon running a background check. Therefore, the question becomes what is your sports organization doing to protect against the other 95%? What it should be doing is educating administrators and staff to create a hostile environment for predators, implementing simple policies and procedures, and implementing an allegation response plan that requires notification of law enforcement.

Many sports organizations get into SAM risk management by just shooting from the hip and running background checks without putting much thought into the entire process and what can go wrong along the way such as:

slander, libel, and invasion of privacy lawsuits against the organization if background check results are not kept confidential
illegal questions on staff application form and consent to run background check form
unequal treatment of different candidates and resulting litigation due to lack of pre determined, written disqualification criteria
failure to properly understand the nature of a conviction on a criminal background check and misclassification of the offense
failure to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other similar laws
failure to have written policies and procedures in place to make an incident less likely to occur
failure to have allegation response procedures in place including a requirement to notify law enforcement

Long Form Sex Abuse / Molestation Risk Management Program (7 pages):
RECOMMENDED

Due to the problems outlined above, before running the first criminal background check, we recommend that a sports organization implement our written Sex Abuse / Molestation Risk Management Program which provides important administrator and staff education on the topic and protects against the above mentioned pitfalls. This program can be found at?Sadlersports.com/riskmanagement??in a word doc format (7 pages) entitled Sample Abuse / Molestation Plan that can be easily customized for a specific sports organization. Just make a few decisions about what policies and procedures you want to activate and fill in a few blanks and your custom program is available for adoption by board action, implementation, and distribution to all administrators and staff. Current clients of Sadler should access the latest and most up to date version of this document under the password protected section (right hand side of page) after entering the password that they are provided with their proof of coverage email upon binding of coverage. On the other hand, sports organizations that are not current Sadler clients should access this document under the unrestricted access section of the webpage available to general public (left hand side).

Short Form Sex Abuse / Molestation Risk Management Program (1 page)

However, we realize that some sports organizations may not want to adopt and implement our recommended 7 page SAM risk management program even though it is incredibly simple and we have already done just about all the work on their behalf. For these organizations, we offer a 1 page SAM risk management program that provides a basic educational program for administrators and staff; includes written policies and procedures to make an incident less likely to occur; and provides instructions on how to appropriately respond to an allegation. This 1 page SAM program can be found under the unrestricted access section (left hand side of webpage) at?Sadlersports.com/riskmanagement under the document entitled Child Abuse / Molestation Protection Program ? Administrators (short form).

Educational Videos

In addition, we offer the following free educational training videos to our clients that can be found under the password protected section of our risk management page:

How To Implement An Abuse / Molestation Risk Management Program ? Administrators 14 minutes
Abuse / Molestation Awareness Training ? Administrators And Staff (28 minutes)

John Sadler

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Source: http://www.sadlersports.com/blog/set-sex-abuse-molestation-protection-program/

Born Sinner

Gary David Goldberg: 1944-2013

Gary David Goldberg, the Emmy-winning creator of the iconic ?Must-See TV? sitcom ?Family Ties? who also branched out into directing features, died Sunday of brain cancer in Montecito, Calif. He was 68.

Introduced in 1982, ?Family Ties? became one of the linchpins of NBC?s successful Thursday-night lineup and made Michael J. Fox ? who will return to the network in the fall ? a star. The series ran for seven seasons, earning Goldberg a writing Emmy. He won another during a stint on the ?Mary Tyler Moore Show? spinoff ?Lou Grant.?

?Basically, those parents are me and Diana,? Goldberg explained during an interview with the Archive of American Television regarding the genesis of ?Family Ties,? referring to his wife, Dr. Diana Meehan, and their hippie roots.

Goldberg initially resisted the choice of Fox, as did then-NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff, who famously said he couldn?t picture the actor?s face on a lunchbox. A collection of his papers donated to USC shows Tartikoff holding just such a lunchbox, autographed by Fox.

Although the series is remembered as a huge hit, the ratings didn?t take off until its third season, when NBC introduced ?The Cosby Show.?

Goldberg later reunited with Fox on ?Spin City,? which proved a modest hit for ABC. But the show closest to his heart might have been ?Brooklyn Bridge,? an autobiographical half-hour for CBS, derived from his own youth growing up under the watchful eye of his grandmother in Brooklyn, where he was born in 1944. The show earned critical acclaim, a Golden Globe and a Humanitas prize but garnered tepid ratings and was canceled by the Eye network after two seasons.

?He touched so many with his enormous talent and generous spirit,? Fox said in a statement. ?He changed my life profoundly.?

All of Goldberg?s shows featured the memorable closing credit for his Ubu Prods., ?Sit, Ubu, sit,? named for the producer?s Labrador. It was also the title of his 2008 autobiography.

Beyond his work in television, Goldberg directed such features as ?Dad,? starring Jack Lemmon; ?Bye Bye Love,? with Paul Reiser; and ?Must Love Dogs.?

Goldberg launched his writing career in the mid-1970s on ?The Bob Newhart Show,? working on a series of MTM productions (?The Tony Randall Show,? ?Lou Grant,? ?The Last Resort?) before creating ?Family Ties,? which struck a nerve with its template of counter-culture parents raising a conservative son.

Asked in the archive interview what gave him the most pride about his career, Goldberg said, ?I think it?s the fact that I?m still really close with almost everyone I?ve worked with, and a lot of the young writers I started have gone on to great careers. ? It?s an idea that writers matter.?

Former NBC Entertainment chief Warren Littlefield, who worked as a development exec when ?Family Ties? premiered, recalled shooting the pilot with Goldberg, and the producer finally hurling a chair when they couldn?t get a shot right during a party scene, before looking up and asking, ?You think I overreacted??

?It was at that moment I realized how passionate he was, how much he cared,? Littlefield said. ?But he also had a sense of humor about it. And once ?Family Ties? was a massive hit, nothing changed.?

Goldberg was also surrounded by a media family. His wife, Meehan, is a producer, author, professor and advocate who taught in the UCLA and USC communications studies departments, produced documentaries through Ubu?s non-fiction wing, VU, and is co-founder of the Archer School for Girls. They had two daughters: Shana, a comedy-writer producer who ran ?Friends? with her husband/partner, Scott Silvestri; and Cailin, a freelance writer and Huffington Post contributor.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927720/news/1927720/

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Vertu's Perry Oosting steps down as CEO, replaced by CMO Max Pogliani

According to a statement we received earlier, Vertu's Perry Oosting (pictured left) has stepped down after his successful four year stint as President and CEO, though he'll continue to invest in the company. Despite the relatively short run, the Dutch exec oversaw Vertu's departure from Nokia and subsequently launched the company's first-ever Android device, the TI. Little is known about the reasons behind this change, but judging by Oosting's considerable knowledge of the luxury goods market, he'll have plenty of options for his next move.

The luxury phone maker will now be led by CMO Massimiliano "Max" Pogliani (pictured right), who's probably best known for building up Nespresso, Nestlé's premium coffee brand, prior to joining Vertu last November. Pogliani will be assisted by ex-Jimmy Choo COO Jonathan Sinclair, who joined Vertu this month under the same title. Press release after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/60qDSyhUzGw/

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Could Snowden make Ecuador's leader 'the new Ch?vez?'

Just a year after opening his London embassy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has another chance to taunt the US government.

Mr. Correa?s administration is weighing a request to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, the man who leaked classified National Security Agency intelligence. Mr. Snowden?s exact plans are unknown ? he left Hong Kong for Russia, and Venezuela, Cuba, and Ecuador have all been mentioned as final destinations.

Ecuador?s Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Pati?o hinted Monday that his asylum request was likely to be granted.

Speaking to reporters in Vietnam, Mr. Patino said the request ?has to do with freedom of expression and with the security of citizens around the world.?

If Snowden, who is wanted in the US on espionage charges, does wind up in Ecuador, it will provide Correa with another notch in his anti-imperialist belt. With the March death of Venezuela?s firebrand President Hugo Ch?vez, Correa is seen as one of the most prominent Latin American leftist leaders to oppose the US. Granting Snowden asylum only raises his standing.

?I do think it makes Correa the new boogeyman in the region for Washington,? says David Smilde, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. ?It makes him the regional personality who is willing to poke the US in the eye.?

RECOMMENDED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.

Correa has been criticized for limiting freedom of expression, including a far-reaching media law ? referred to as a ?gag law? by press freedom advocates?approved by Congress this month.

By granting Snowden asylum, Correa can turn the tables on the US in a case that comes down to freedom of information. ?It allows him to criticize the criticizers,? says Mr. Smilde.

While less confrontational and less vocal than Mr. Ch?vez, Correa has a history of standing up to the United States.

In 2009, he threw out a US military base and high-ranking diplomats. In 2011, he declared the US ambassador persona non grata after WikiLeaks published a State Department diplomatic cable alleging corruption. And last year, he took in the founder and spokesman of the WikiLeaks organization. Mr. Assange, who was wanted by the Swedish government for questioning related to allegations of sexual misconduct, has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 19, 2012.

None of the previous incidents seriously damaged relations between the US and Ecuador. The Obama administration might view this case with more urgency, says Jonas Wolff, a senior research fellow at the Frankfurt-based Peace Research Institute.

?In spite of all of those issues, bilateral relations have been OK,? Mr. Wolff says. ?In this case, the US position is clearly different. Here, I would expect a reaction from the US.?

Wolff says the US is limited in the severity of its response. The US Congress was already unlikely to renew trade preferences for Ecuador that are set to expire this summer.

?The US doesn?t have too many measures it can utilize, other than to criticize,? he says.

What?s more, the case has been a source of embarrassment for the Obama administration.

?The US does not look very good in this case,? he says.

While the US may pursue an agreement that would bring Snowden home to face charges, Smilde does not foresee a major diplomatic response, such as withdrawing its ambassador. "Logic would tell me that the US will let it blow over once he gets asylum, simply because it?s not a very flattering case for them," he says.

RECOMMENDED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.

Wozniak on Jobs' Biopic: 'Young Steve Wasn't a Saint'

The first trailer of the upcoming Steve Jobs' biopic starring Ashton Kutcher is here. I asked Steve Wozniak, close friend of Steve Jobs and Apple co-founder about it. Here's what he said:

?Friends of Syria? meeting adds pressure: What is US ready to do?

Other countries and the Syrian rebels are awaiting specifics about new US aid, but President Obama is still weighing what steps to take and how far to go, reflecting continuing deep divisions across the administration.

By Howard LaFranchi,?Staff writer / June 21, 2013

This Wednesday citizen journalism image, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other Associated Press reporting, shows homes damaged by Syrian government airstrikes and shelling, in the Jouret al-Chiyah neighborhood of Homs, Syria.

Lens Young Homsi/AP

Enlarge

Secretary of State John Kerry attends a meeting of the Friends of Syria group in Qatar Saturday where the coalition of countries supporting Syria?s opposition forces ? as well as the opposition forces themselves ? await fresh details of US policy, following President Obama?s decision last week to begin arming the Syrian rebels.

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The problem is, Mr. Obama is still weighing what steps to take and how far to go in aiding the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, reflecting continuing deep divisions across the administration.

Representatives of the Free Syrian Army said this week that they would press at Saturday?s meeting for heavy weapons such as antiaircraft missiles and for imposition of a no-fly zone over parts of Syria.

The Assad regime has stepped up its use of aerial bombardments of rebel-held territory in recent weeks, a move that has helped shift the war?s momentum in Mr. Assad?s favor, some military analysts say. But the shift has also resulted in a spike in casualties among civilians and rebel fighters.

Some rebel leaders scoffed at Obama?s decision to begin providing weapons as ?too little, too late? after some US officials said privately that the aid would initially consist of small arms and ammunition and perhaps some anti-tank weaponry.

But administration officials are cautioning against expectations of any announcements from Secretary Kerry specifying what lethal assistance the United States will be providing ? or of any US decisions on more complex and consequential steps, such as creation of even a partial no-fly zone.

People should expect the Qatar meeting ?more to be a discussion? of the ongoing ?decisionmaking process? on aid to the rebels and ?how we can all work together to better coordinate? that assistance, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday. Kerry ?will be discussing, to the degree he can, what [Obama?s decision] means, how to coordinate that, and [the] other options that we?re considering moving forward.?

On Friday, Ms. Psaki appeared to go a bit further, telling reporters that Saturday?s meeting was likely to include a discussion on how to coordinate military aid from different countries and how to ?change the balance? on the ground in Syria.

Also on Friday, a Free Syrian Army spokesman told CNN that ?brotherly nations that support the Syrian revolution? were starting to provide the rebels with the anti-tank and antiaircraft weaponry they need to ?change the rules of the war on the ground.? But rebel military leaders insist they are receiving nothing near the heavy weaponry they need, and they continue to call on the US to provide such weapons.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/mrX35VkeWCs/Friends-of-Syria-meeting-adds-pressure-What-is-US-ready-to-do

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Biking With Growlers Just Got Easier

There are always problems when you're trying to balance a lot of stuff on a bike. It either all in bags on the handlebars, or in one of your arms or in a backpack. It messes with your center of gravity. But at least with these Growler Cages you can transport your growlers (as you often do) from point A to point B without having to worry about anything.

Kerry: Syria urgently needs a political solution

DOHA, Qatar (AP) ? Unless the bloodshed in Syria stops, the region could descend into a chaotic sectarian conflict, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday, as he called for an urgent political resolution to the war that has dragged on for two years and claimed 93,000 lives.

The top U.S. diplomat and his counterparts from 10 Arab and European nations agreed at a daylong meeting in Qatar to step up military and other assistance to the Syrian rebels. But Kerry would not disclose details of the aid, saying only that it would re-balance the fight between the rebels and President Bashar Assad's better-equipped forces that are increasingly backed by Iranian and Hezbollah fighters.

"The continued bloodshed at the hands of the Assad regime and the increasing involvement of Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, threaten the very prospects of a political settlement and of peace," Kerry said, adding that the U.S. and other nations are not backing the rebels to seek a military victory in Syria.

"We do so to ... find a political settlement," he said. "Reliable civilian governance and a stronger and more effective armed opposition will better enable the opposition to be able to provide the counterweight to the initiative of Assad to reach out across borders ... to bring Iranians and to bring Hezbollah - again, a terrorist organization - to the table."

Rebels say they have already received new weapons from allied countries? but not the U.S. ? that they claim will help them to shift the balance of power on the ground where regime forces have scored recent military victories. Experts and activists said the new weapons include anti-tank missiles and small quantities of anti-aircraft missiles.

"Our information from Doha says that five countries have decided to start arming us immediately, and four other countries will give us logistical and technical support and, at a later stage, arm the Free Syrian Army," a spokesman for the opposition fighters, Loay AlMikdad, said in an interview with Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV. He said the nations were both Arab and non-Arab, but he would not elaborate.

It was Kerry's first meeting with his counterparts about aid to the Syrian rebels since President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would send lethal aid to the opposition despite concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists in Syria. That decision was partly based on a U.S. intelligence assessment that Assad had used chemical weapons, but Kerry expressed deeper concern about how Iran and Hezbollah fighters had joined the fight.

"That is a very, very dangerous development," Kerry said. "Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran. ... Hezbollah in addition to that is a terrorist organization."

Kerry blamed Hezbollah and Assad with undermining efforts to negotiate a settlement and set up a transitional government.

"We're looking at a very dangerous situation," that has transformed "into a much more volatile, potentially explosive situation that could involve the entire region," Kerry said.

The war already has spilled into neighboring countries and is increasingly being fought along sectarian lines, pitting Sunni against Shiite Muslims and threatening the stability of Syria's neighbors.

Kerry said top U.S. diplomats are ready to go to Geneva to meet with U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and other officials next week to advance the political process.

Doha was the first stop on Kerry's two-week trip through the Mideast and Asia. He is to discuss a wide range of bilateral issues on Sunday and Monday with Indian officials in New Delhi ? just one stop on a seven-nation tour where he will tackle prickly U.S. foreign policy issues ? from finding peace between the Israelis and Palestinians to trying to gain traction on U.S. talks with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan war.

James Dobbins, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, arrived in Doha on Saturday, but talks with the Taliban, which were supposed to take place in coming days, have not been scheduled. They are to be held at a controversial new political office the Taliban just opened in Doha.

Kerry said the Americans and Qataris were on board to help negotiate a political resolution to the war, but it was up to the Taliban to come to the table. "We are waiting to find out whether the Taliban will respond, Kerry said, lowering expectations about the prospects for negotiation.

"We will see if we can get back on track. I don't know whether that's possible or not," Kerry said. "If there is not a decision made by the Taliban to move forward in short order, then we may have to consider whether the office has to be closed."

At the close of the meeting, the eleven nations ? the U.S., Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Britain, Germany, France and Italy ? expressed concern about the growing sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, renewed their call on the regime to let U.N. investigators probe the reported use of chemical weapons and condemned the intervention of Hezbollah militias and fighters from Iran and Iraq.

In a joint press conference in Tehran, Iran Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and his Lebanese counterpart Adnan Mansour lambasted Western powers that arm and support Syrian opposition fighters.

"I am shocked to see how Western powers speak of human rights and act otherwise when it comes to Syria ? where they arm cannibals who fought in Syria so that they (opposition fighters) continue their atrocities more than before," Salehi said.

In their communique, the ministers expressed support for a transitional governing body that would take charge of military and other government institutions. But they added that "Bashar Assad has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter."

That is a sticking point with Russia, a key Assad ally that has resisted calls for his removal.

Russia may have worked to assure Assad government's attendance at any future peace conference, but Moscow also has been undermining peace efforts by sending more weapons to help the Syrian government's counteroffensive against the rebels.

Russian leaders warn that if Assad steps aside, the resulting power vacuum could be quickly filled by al-Qaida connected rebels, who are well-armed and aggressive.

___

Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-syria-urgently-needs-political-solution-192130086.html

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Gaza singer gives Palestinians a reason to smile

Palestinians watch the performance of Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, a contestant in a regional TV singing contest, on a large screen in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, June 21, 2013. Palestinians relished a rare moment of pride and national unity Saturday after a 23-year-old wedding singer from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip won ?Arab Idol,? a regional TV singing contest watched by millions of people. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

Palestinians watch the televised performance of Mohammad Assaf, 22, a Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

A Palestinian girl carries a poster of singer Mohammad Assaf, 22, while watching the televised performance of the Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol." The poster, front, reads "Vote to Arab Idol Mohammed Assaf," "we have the same dream, our dream is close," and "Vote and the Bank of Palestine votes with you." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Palestinians dance and sing while watching the televised performance of Mohammad Assaf, 22, a Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol". Arabic on the sign on the table reads ?Vote to the son of Palestine NO. 3" and "Vote and the Bank of Palestine votes with you." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? Palestinians relished a rare moment of pride and national unity Saturday after a 23-year-old wedding singer from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip won "Arab Idol," a regional TV singing contest watched by millions of people.

With the announcement of Mohammed Assaf's victory, fireworks lit up the sky over the West Bank and Gaza.

Thousands who had watched the final show on outdoor screens in the two territories broke into cheers and chants of "Palestine, Palestine." In Gaza City, young men on motorcycles waved Palestinian flags and women dropped candy from balconies.

Rasha Salman, 42, an engineer in Gaza City, was moved to tears. "He brought joy to our hearts and dried some of our wounds," she said. "For a few moments, he united us behind his cause, which is art."

The singer with the bright smile and warm voice had put Palestinian pride center stage during the competition.

In a performance Friday, many in the audience in the TV studio in Beirut jumped to their feet when he struck up his signature anthem to Palestinian nationalism, "Raise the kaffiyeh."

The show, produced by the Saudi-owned MBC Group, was broadcast from the Lebanese capital. Now in its second season, this year's competition began in March with 27 contestants.

Assaf, who was born to Palestinian parents in Libya and grew up in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp, almost didn't get to compete. He says he had to plead with Hamas to let him leave Gaza, then bribe Egyptian border guards to let him enter the country en route to Lebanon. A fellow Palestinian gave up his slot during the audition phase because he believed Assaf had a better chance at winning.

As Assaf advanced in the competition, excitement and national pride kept building in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories where the Palestinians one day hope to establish a state.

Rooting for the talented performer has allowed Palestinians to feel as one people, forgetting at least briefly their political and geographic split.

Gaza is cut off from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which lie on the other side of Israel. Israeli travel restrictions over the past decade have deepened that separation. Since the Hamas takeover in 2007, Gaza has become more isolated, amid growing animosity between the Islamic militants and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who administers part of the West Bank.

Politicians have tried to latch on to Assaf's popularity.

The Western-backed Abbas called Assaf last month to congratulate him on his strong showing and later, in a statement, urged people across the region to vote for the singer.

After Assaf's victory, Abbas issued a statement saying that "this is a moment of pride and victory for our people, on the way to achieving the dream of establishing the independent state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Hamas at first seemed critical of the "Arab Idol" fever sweeping Gaza, with a spokesman saying last month that the name and idea of the show are blasphemous.

However, Hamas is known for not going against public opinion. In a sign of a shift, a Hamas lawmaker in Gaza, Yehiyeh Moussa, this week praised Assaf as the "ambassador for Palestinian art."

Some religious leaders, though, remained harshly critical. Mohammed Salim, delivering a sermon Friday at Islam's third holiest shrine, the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, said Palestinians lost sight of their struggle for independence by getting preoccupied with the show.

"Voting for songs and immorality, evil and sin is not only forbidden, it is a crime against the cause of our people," he said.

___

Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-22-Palestinians-Arab%20Idol/id-159e4f1ce3c241bf96456128bd160a98

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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Building demolition to shed light on earthquake fault

USGS

Sometime in August, contractors will implode Warren Hall at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, near San Francisco.

By Becky Oskin
LiveScience

A planned demolition of a building that can't endure California's earthquakes will also help geologists better understand a fault that could have destroyed the structure.

Sometime in August, contractors will implode Warren Hall at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, near San Francisco. The 13-story building was deemed the most seismically dangerous structure in the state university system by a seismic review board. Geologists plan to use the demolition to study the Hayward Fault, which runs just below campus and is due for an earthquake as strong as magnitude 7.0.

"Hayward is the one that worries us the most," said John Evans, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Earthquake Science Center in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's in the midst of a heavy urban area with lots of lifelines going through it ? power and water, roads and communications. It would be quite devastating if one or more of the segments of that fault go."

Because the East Bay is densely populated, it's difficult for researchers to employ traditional methods to study the Hayward Fault, Evans said. Residents aren't keen on sharing their backyards with controlled explosions or open trenches that reveal signs of past earthquakes.

The demolition, which will produce shaking that mimics a magnitude-2.5 quake, offers a rare opportunity to investigate the fault, Evans said. The USGS plans several studies in collaboration with geologists and students from CSU East Bay.

Before the implosion, the USGS will set up some 500 temporary seismometers ? sensors that measure ground motion ? throughout the hills and flats east of the San Francisco Bay. The supersensitive monitors will pick up the shaking produced as the building collapses. The network will give researchers their most detailed view yet of the structure of the Hayward Fault. As the seismic waves travel through the Earth, the little hiccups caused by discontinuities such as the Hayward Fault or different geologic layers help scientists see these underlying structures more clearly.

The study will also help predict how regions of the East Bay may shake during a future earthquake. Soft sediment, such as that found in the former marshes along the bay, often shakes harder than the bedrock in the hills. The dense seismic monitoring network will help researchers detect such differences.

Evans is also trying to get permission to install a series of tiltmeters on the rubble, to look for signs of an imminent ground collapse. "This is not directly (earthquake-related), but I'm trying to take care of our colleagues, the first responders," he said. "There may be small signals that presage an impending collapse."

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2da0daf8/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C210C190A76690A0Ebuilding0Edemolition0Eto0Eshed0Elight0Eon0Eearthquake0Efault0Dlite/story01.htm

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom hands-on: 10x telephoto, 100x intrigue (video)

It's easy enough to describe the Galaxy S4 Zoom, since it's essentially a Galaxy S4 Mini with a 10x zoom lens stuck on the back. But that sort of summary doesn't do it justice. When you hold the phone-slash-camera and look at the optically stabilized image captured by its 16-megapixel, point-and-shoot grade sensor, you begin to realize that -- at least for those who do a lot of snapping and sending -- this combo of components holds some serious power.

Just like the first Galaxy Camera, it's all about fun and immediacy: the ability to edit, organize and share decent-quality images using Android apps and cellular data connectivity. The key advantages are that the GS4 Zoom can work as a regular phone for voice calls, and that it's just about portable enough to be used that way, whereas the Galaxy Camera was a lot bulkier. With these gains, the smaller zoom (10x instead of 21x) and lower-res screen (qHD instead of 720p) don't overly faze us, so long as the final selling price takes it all into account. Ultimately, our only hesitation is the impending arrival of the so-called Nokia EOS, likely due on July 11th, which takes a totally upside-down approach to smartphone photography and is likely to be much more pocketable as a result. Those are two devices we can't wait to put head-to-head, especially in terms of image quality, but our hands-on gallery (and impending video) might help to tide you over in the meantime.

Update: Hands-on video added.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy S 4 Zoom hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/20/samsung-galaxy-s4-zoom-hands-on/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Friday, June 21, 2013

Whale of a win: Environmental victory protects whales from noise pollution

Michael Jasny, director of the?NRDC?Marine Mammal Project, contributed this article to LiveScience's?Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

By Michael Jasny,?Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) / June 20, 2013

A gray whale attracts attention by blowing air out of its blowhole as it cruises just off the shore of Washington State, Wednesday, June 19, 2013. A landmark case will protect whales from the painfully loud blasts used in oil exploration.

Alan Berner / The Seattle Times / AP

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Here?s a recipe for an environmental train wreck: Take one of the world's most powerful industries, allow it to conduct harmful activities for years without obtaining the basic authorizations required by law, and produce a wealth of science making it plain that those harmful activities are putting endangered and vulnerable species at risk.

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Today (June 20, 2013), a number of conservation groups, including my own,?announced a landmark agreement?that may prevent one such train wreck ? this one in the already scarred Gulf of Mexico.

The underlying problem is airguns.?To search for deep deposits of oil, companies troll the ocean with high-volume airguns that, for weeks or months on end, regularly pound the water?with sound louder than virtually any other man-made source, save explosives. We now know that these surveys can have?a vast environmental footprint, disrupting feeding, breeding and communication for whales and other species over literally thousands of square miles.

It's the sort of activity that ordinarily requires approval under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act, and other federal laws. And yet the government has allowed it to proceed without authorization in the Gulf of Mexico, a body of water that may well be the most heavily prospected on the planet.

Industry runs dozens of exploration surveys each year in the northern Gulf, and many of them make use of large airgun arrays. For more than a decade now, the problem has languished, even as the threat posed by airgun exploration has loomed larger and larger.

Our alliance of conservation groups sued over the government's failure. In the end, we reached agreement with both federal officials and industry representatives that will help protect marine mammals while a comprehensive environmental review is underway.?

Among other things, our settlement puts biologically important areas off-limits to high-energy exploration, expands protections to additional at-risk species and requires the use of listening devices to help prevent injury to endangered sperm whales. Our agreement is also forward-looking, requiring industry to develop and field-test an alternative to airguns known as marine vibroseis, which could substantially reduce many of the impacts. Over the long term, the hope is that working together stands a better chance of saving species in the Gulf's biologically compromised, politically heated environment.

Marine conservation in the Gulf isn't like conservation in other places. Among other difficulties, the disruptive activities NRDC is concerned about are affecting the same populations still suffering from the?Deepwater Horizon?disaster.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/8mdPQNNuIAw/Whale-of-a-win-Environmental-victory-protects-whales-from-noise-pollution

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Baldur's Gate pulled from App Store over contractual issues

If you've been planning to get Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for your iPad but hadn't gotten around to it yet, it's too late. Overhaul Games has pulled the game from the App Store and the Beamdog Web site over what it describes as "a number of contractual issues."

Trent Oster, Beamdog founder, posted an apology and further details on the Baldur's Gate site:

Unfortunately, until this matter is resolved, we are unable to release the latest Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition patch or Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for Android.

This also prevents the launch of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. I sincerely apologize to the series' fans and promise we are working diligently to remedy the situation.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Z45Q2S2AKeo/story01.htm

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