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Experts doubt that the 2,000-year-old bones, unearthed?in 1904 in what is now Turkey, belonged to?Arsinoe IV, Cleopatra's younger half-sister whom she ordered killed.?
The site of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, where Cleopatra had her sister Arsinoe murdered.
Adam Carr distributed by Wikimedia under a Creative Commons License
EnlargeA Viennese archaeologist lecturing in North Carolina this week claims to have identified the bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister or half-sister. But not everyone is convinced.
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That's because the evidence linking the bones, discovered in an ancient Greek city, to?Cleopatra's sibling Arsinoe IV is largely circumstantial. A DNA test was attempted, said Hilke Thur, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a former director of excavations at the site where the bones were found. However, the 2,000-year-old bones had been moved and handled too many times to get uncontaminated results.
"It didn't bring the results we hoped to find," Thur?told the Charlotte News-Observer. She will lecture on her research March 1 at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.
Arsinoe IV was Cleopatra's younger half-sister or sister, both of them fathered by Ptolemy XII Auletes, though whether they shared a mother is not clear. Ptolemic family politics were tough: When Ptolemy XII died, he made Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII joint rulers, but Ptolemy soon ousted Cleopatra. Julius Caesar took Cleopatra's side in the family fight for power, while Arsinoe joined the Egyptian army resisting Caesar and the Roman forces. [Cleopatra & Olympias: Top 12 Warrior Moms in History]
Rome won out, however, and Arsinoe was taken captive. She was allowed to live in exile in Ephesus, an ancient Greek city in what is now Turkey. However, Cleopatra saw her half-sister as a threat and had her murdered in 41 B.C.
Fast forward to 1904. That year, archaeologists began excavating a ruined structure in Ephesus known as the Octagon for its shape. In 1926, they revealed a burial chamber in the Octagon, holding the bones of a young woman.
Thur argues that the date of the tomb (sometime in the second half of the first century B.C.) and the illustrious within-city location of the grave, points to the occupant being Arsinoe IV herself. Thur also believes the octagonal shape may echo that of the great Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the?Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That would make the tomb an homage to Arsinoe's hometown, Egypt's ancient capital, Alexandria. ?
The skull of the possible murdered princess disappeared in Germany during World War II, but Thur found the rest of the bones in two niches in the burial chamber in 1985. The remains have been debated every step of the way. Forensic analysis revealed them to belong to a girl of 15 or 16, which would make Arsinoe surprisingly young for someone who was supposed to have played a major leadership role in a war against Rome years before her death. Thur dismisses those criticisms.
"This academic questioning is normal," she told the News-Observer. "It happens. It's a kind of jealousy."
In 2009, a BBC documentary, "Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer," trumpeted the claim that the bones are Arsinoe's. At the time, the most controversial findings centered on the body's lost skull. Measurements and photographs of the incomplete skull remain in historical records and were used to?reconstruct the dead woman's face.
From the reconstruction, Thur and her colleagues concluded that Arsinoe had an African mother (the Ptolemies were an ethnically Greek dynasty). That conclusion led to splashy headlines suggesting that Cleopatra, too, was African.
But classicists say the conclusions are shaky.
"We get this skull business and having Arsinoe's ethnicity actually being determined from a reconstructed skull based on measurements taken in the 1920s?" wrote David Meadows, a Canadian classicist and teacher, on his blog?rogueclassicism.
Not only that, but Cleopatra and Arsinoe may not have shared a mother.
"In that case, the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window," Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard wrote in the?Times Literary Supplement?in 2009.
Without more testing, the bones remain in identification limbo.
"One of my colleagues on the project told me two years ago there is currently no other method to really determine more," Thur told the News-Observer. "But he thinks there may be new methods developing. There is hope."
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?@sipappas?or LiveScience?@livescience. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.
Copyright 2013?LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Target:?President Barack Obama
Goal:?Appoint activist, professor, and author Susan Crawford as FCC Chairman
The Federal Communications Commission needs new leadership, someone who understands not only the need for regulation that promotes competition and innovation in high-speed internet markets, but also the technical details that would make such regulation possible.?Susan Crawford, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of ?Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,? has the appropriate qualifications for the position. She served as Special Assistant to the President in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy during 2009, and she has been hailed as a champion of net neutrality, open internet, and freedom of speech online.
Early this year, in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Susan Crawford laid out a plan for a reasonably priced, globally competitive, ubiquitous communications infrastructure that would open the door to innovation and competition. She understands policy and the regulations that are needed to combat incumbents with tremendous market power. More than that, she understands the technology itself, to a degree that has won the respect of industry players like Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber.
She believes ?internet access is the heart of a democratic society,? and that high-speed internet should be a utility, just like electricity, federally regulated and available to everyone at an affordable price.?Indisputably, a reliable high-speed internet infrastructure is crucial to almost every aspect of our nation?s success and our people?s well-being: education, energy, business, health care, public safety, environmental conservation. Yet that success is being throttled by profit-driven giants and limited to those who can afford it. The FCC has done little in recent years to combat this.
For the majority of us, mention of the FCC likely brings to mind censorship: bleeping out expletives or blurring nudity. But their responsibilities go far beyond enforcement of ?moral decency? in public broadcast stations of television and radio. The FCC is pivotal to the growth of our national telecommunications. As a government agency, the FCC has a responsibility to?support the nation?s economy by ensuring an appropriate competitive framework for the unfolding of the communications revolution.
Ten years ago, the United States was at the fore of the Internet revolution, with fast speeds and bargain prices. But now, the broadband and wireless internet landscape is vastly different. Our nation?s high-speed needs are met by a handful of restrictive monopolies that have carved out their territories and jealousy guard their expensive (and limited) fiber infrastructures. Alarmingly, not only do they control how we access information, but they have begun to control what information we have access to. They are waging war on the concept of ?net neutrality,? wherein content is not blocked by service providers, and they are driving deeper the wedge of the ?digital divide,? the gulf between those who can afford service and those who cannot. Already, one-third of Americans cannot afford high-speed internet, and those who can pay higher prices for substandard service. The U.S. lags behind nearly every other industrialized country in terms of speed, price, and broadband penetration.
So what has the FCC done to counteract the will of these giant, entrenched corporations? The answer is surprisingly little, with a few, rare exceptions, such as opposition to the Comcast-NBC merger from former FCC Chairman Michael Copps, or the recently-proposed public super wifi networks by current Chairman Julius Genachowski.
What we need now is new leadership at the FCC.?Susan Crawford is well-qualified and she understands the technology, the players, and the landscape. She knows that with a truly pro-competition agenda, the FCC can unleash American ingenuity. Let?s put her at the helm.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear President Obama,
At the beginning of the year, you said that during your second term, Americans must act together to ?build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.? If the U.S. is to regain its global competitive edge in business, energy, and education, we need pro-innovation, pro-competition regulation in a high-speed internet market that is dominated by incumbent powerhouses with little desire to see change.
Please appoint Susan Crawford as the next Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is in dire need of leadership who both understands the need for policy that stimulates competition and growth, and holds the technical knowledge to make those regulations feasible. Susan Crawford is well-qualified and she demonstrates a profound vision for the future of high-speed internet for all.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
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I met my now husband back in 2009. Everything seemed great and things couldn't have been going better. The summer of 2010 I discovered that my husband had once taken anti depressants but was not doing so anymore. I didn't think much of it at that point. The only thing I knew my husband struggled with from the beginning was anxiety which he was taking a medicine for. Later on in the relationship I found out that his mom's side of the family had some more major mental health issues going on (ie BiPolar, Major depression, etc). My husband told me he never had the same feelings that they were experiencing and at that point I let it go because for one, it wasn't any of my business what types of issues his family was going through, and he seemed normal. Once we got married in 2012 things began to slowly change. He became more distant and snapped at me easier. He decided to go back to school and left a full time job for a part time job and always stated that he was "bored". I always showed concern asking if there was anything I could do to make it better or tired to get him to open up to why he felt the way he did with being bored and distant but I would always get shut out. He didn't care that it bothered me and he became very disrespectful to me with his language and telling me to "f off", etc. He also was drinking every night, sometimes almost a 12 pack a night which really upset me because i don't like to be around that. In October I basically told him that we needed to do something about how things were going and that we needed to go and talk to someone or he needed to as he was the one that was having the anger issues and not me. I even offered to go and talk to someone as well about how I should cope with this. He eventually told me he felt like he "had a problem" and needed to go back on anti depressants. I talked to him about it and suggested that he should have a doctor decide if he needed to go down that path. He then blamed his issues on his side of the family saying that he got his problems from there. I went to the doctors (psych) with him, where he basically just told the doctor that he needed to go back on anti depressants and told him how he was feeling. Doctor also told him maybe he needed to go on Abilify for light Bi-Polar but he had to promise he was going to stop the drinking. Well, that was almost 6 months ago and he still drinks and is now taking meds for anxiety, depression and bi-polar disorder and still acts the same as how he was before going in. I don't know what to do and I feel stuck. I don't want to give up on my marriage but I don't see how I am going to be happy with my life 5 years from now if nothing changes. How he acts and treats me makes him sexually unattractive which has now started arguments about not showing enough physical attention to one another. I am now questioning if I even want to have children anymore because I don't want my children to grow up around this and have some of the same mental issues as him (I have no mental history on my side of the family). I know this is bad to say because I don't know what goes through his head but I feel he uses some of the medicine as an excuse or an escape. For example, I had a low point last spring with a job and because I wasn't as happy as I usually was he told me I just needed to go on anti-depressants and that would make everything better.....which is not right. Everyone has not so great times in their lives but that doesn't automatically mean one has to go on drugs to supposedly make things better. I just need some advice. I don't know what to do anymore 
?
??live goats were stabbed, had their organs yanked out, and had their limbs broken and cut off with tree trimmers during a military training drill, all while the animals moaned and kicked??
Editor?s Note: If this sounds shocking, revolting, actually, it?s because it is. Seldom has the banality of evil been so starkly demonstrated than in this instance of mass cruelty done to animals by institutions that society actively endorses.?
We take no pleasure in bringing this kind of material to our audience?s attention. For on top of everything else that justifiably concerns humans?from hyperexploitation to endless wars and the annihilation of the planet itself?there?s always this massive, taken for granted crime, the tyrannization of animals by humans in scales so massive and with a violence so staggering as to defy comprehension and stunt the senses.
But consistent with our mission to combat all forms of injustice, we must publish this kind of material and we do, often to the frustration and consternation of many progressives for whom the quest for justice ends at our species? boundary. Yet the horror, the ugliness that occurs right under our noses, under the cloak of ignorance, indifference, and ?normalcy?, ?always omitted by the media?s presstitutes as they squander precious mass communications time on frivolities, cannot continue unchallenged.
Many more people have to join this cause?which is, incidentally, inextricably bound up with the salvation of the planet?if humanity is ever to emerge from the moral swamp in which superstition,?Speciesism, and misleadership have sunk it. Please take a moment to read the PETA report on this important subject and take action. Incidentally, we naturally support any and all campaigns to help the animals, but we are not formal members of nor affiliated with PETA in any fashion.
Thank you.?Patrice Greanville
Our years of campaigning for the use of more?humane and effective training methods?recently pinnacled when President Barack Obama?signed a bill?requiring the Department of Defense to submit to Congress, by this-coming Friday, a detailed strategy and timeline for the phase-out of these deadly exercises. This is the first time in history that Congress has passed a bill that seeks to protect animals from being abused in military training exercises.
As?The Washington Post?story discusses, this effort was bolstered last year when PETA released disturbing,?never-before-seen undercover footage?showing live goats as they were stabbed, had their organs yanked out, and had their limbs broken and cut off with tree trimmers during a military training drill, all while the animals moaned and kicked. The video prompted action by federal authorities and Congress and led to an international outcry from compassionate people like you, including high-profile military veterans?Oliver Stone,?Bob Barker, and?Gideon Raff?as well as current and former military doctors and medics.
On top of that, PETA researchers and military doctors?published a first-of-its-kind study?in the military?s own medical journal showing that the U.S. is shamefully one of the last NATO nations that still maims and torments animals for medical training.
In recent years, we?ve convinced the Army and Navy to replace cruel training laboratories involving?monkeys,?cats, and?ferrets?in favor of human-like simulators. Now we?re close to ending the abuse of the animals most frequently and violently killed by the military.
Thank you for supporting these efforts. We urge you now to take a moment towrite to the Department of Defense?so that it hears loud and clear that the public wants an immediate switch from cruel animal laboratories to modern and humane simulation tools.
Justin Goodman
Director
Laboratory Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
The war between animal activists and the Pentagon has raged for decades. You could say there?s been a fair amount of collateral damage: thousands of goats and pigs have been mutilated, though the military argues the animals have not died in vain.
So it?s no surprise the animal rights camp is salivating over the blow it?s about to inflict on the enemy. This week, by order of Congress, the Pentagon must present lawmakers with a written plan to phase out ?live tissue training,? military speak for slaying animals to teach combat medics how to treat severed limbs and gunshot wounds.
The demand, tucked into the?National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, marks the first time Congress has ordered the Pentagon to provide a detailed plan to start relying less on animals and more on simulators. The military must also specify whether removing animals from training sessions could lead to a ?reduction in the competency of combat medical personnel,? according to the bill.
?Congress now acknowledges that it is wrong to harm animals for crude medical training exercises if modern and superior alternatives are available,? said Justin Goodman, the director of laboratory investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, which has been fighting the use of animals in combat medic training since the early 1980s. ?If the military is too entrenched to make changes on their own, Congress is going to bring pressure to bear and force that change.?
The military?s use of animals for medical training dates back to the Vietnam war, but it drew relatively little scrutiny until the summer of 1983, when activists caught wind of a training exercise planned at a facility in Bethesda. The plan to shoot dozens of anesthetized dogs strung on nylon mesh slings in an indoor, sound-proof firing range enraged animal activists and some lawmakers.
Dog lovers protested in front of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, one with a leashed dog wearing a shirt with a bull?s eye. They took their rage to the home of then Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, demanding to know how he could stand for the training as the owner of an adorable collie named Kilty.
Weinberger acted swiftly, issuing a one-sentence statement saying he had ?directed that no dogs be shot for medical experimentation or training.? But to the consternation of animal activists, Weinberger did nothing to spare goats.
The military was not alone in using animals to prepare medics for trauma. Thomas Poulton, a Texas anesthesiologist who served in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps , said many civilian trauma training courses used dogs when he was a young physician three decades ago. He found wounding animals during courses jarring, but not particularly formative.
?In terms of actually learning skills, eye-hand coordination or learning much intellectually, it didn?t really add anything I wasn?t already learning,? said Poulton.
In recent years, civilian trauma courses have largely abandoned the use of animals, chiefly because human simulators have come a long way, spurting blood-like liquid and reacting much like the human body when it?s wounded. Poulton says civilian schools have ditched live-tissue training in part due to ethical concerns.
?There?s a creepiness factor for many people,? he said. ?These were healthy dogs from the pounds and healthy farm animals.?
Michael Bailey, a former Army combat medic who served two tours in Iraq, disagrees. He first went to Iraq after taking basic courses that did not include treating wounded animals. He had the doctrine down. But when Bailey first treated a casualty in the northern city of Kirkuk after an artillery attack, he froze.
?This guy in front of me is missing a leg,? said Bailey, who writes a blog called the?Madness of the Combat Medic. ?I went blank. I was like, woah. It took someone asking me what to do for me to snap out of it.?
He later took a more advanced course in which he and two other medics treated a sedated goat?s bleeding femoral artery after the instructor slashed it without warning. Bailey said the mannequins used in that training course were extraordinarily effective. But the goat exercise provided a sense of urgency that only real life trauma can provide.
?You don?t get that feeling from a mannequin,? he said. ?You don?t get that feeling of this mannequin is going to die. When you?re talking about keeping someone alive when physics and the enemy have done their best to do the opposite, it?s the kind of training that you want to have in your back pocket.?
Pentagon officials have made that argument for decades, emphasizing that combat medics need unique, specialized training.
?The use of live animals in medical training teaches warfighters to save lives on the battlefield,? Pentagon spokeswoman Jennifer D. Elzea said in a statement. ?Comprehensive combat medic training is vitally important because the medic is the first responder who provides treatment to an injured service member or civilian.?
PETA scored two tactical victories last year. After polling all NATO nations, Goodman and other investigators determined that?only six of the 28 members?of the alliance use animals in combat medic training. Britain is among those that use animals, but its trainees are sent to Denmark because using live animals for medical training is not permitted in Britain.
More strikingly, the animal advocacy group got?a leaked video?of a Coast Guard combat medical training exercise that featured an instructor whistling as he severed a goat?s limbs with tree trimmers. The disclosure triggered a federal investigation into allegations that the animals had not been properly anesthetized. Members of Congress sent a letter to the Pentagon expressing concern. Elzea said the Pentagon has revised training modules over the year to ?provide more oversight.? The company was cited for violations of the federal animal welfare Act.
The congressional mandate does not compel the military to abandon animal training altogether. And it?s clear the armed forces aren?t keen to. The Army recently announced a $5 million contract bid for goats to use at combat medic training facilities across the country over the next five years. The solicitation baffled PETA because work for the contract is scheduled to start March 1, the same day the Pentagon?s report to congress is due.
?This is a case of the real world and the political world colliding,? said Bailey, 29, the former Army medic. Because the military is about to enter a period of peace, he predicted, ?the real world is going to lose out.?
ADDENDUM
?More Than Three-Quarters of NATO Allies Use Simulators, Other Non-Animal Models
For Immediate Release:
August 8, 2012
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Norfolk, Va.?? A new?study?published in the August 2012 issue of?Military Medicine, the journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S., reveals that 22 of 28 NATO nations do not use animal laboratories for military medical training.
Researchers from PETA, in collaboration with current and former military medical personnel, surveyed officials in all 28 NATO nations during 2010 and 2011. Twenty-two NATO countries?including?Albania,?Belgium,?Bulgaria,?Croatia, the?Czech Republic,?Estonia,?France,?Germany,Greece,?Hungary,?Iceland,?Italy,?Latvia,?Lithuania,?Luxembourg, the?Netherlands,?Portugal,Romania,?Slovakia,?Slovenia,?Spain, and?Turkey?confirmed that they do not use animals in military medical training. Officials reported that they use exclusively non-animal methods?such as lifelike human simulators in realistic battlefield scenarios?for various reasons, including legal prohibitions against animal use and the superiority of simulation technology.
Six NATO countries?Canada,?Denmark,?Norway,?Poland, the?U.K., and the?U.S.?reported using animals in invasive and often deadly procedures.
?The overwhelming majority of NATO allies have moved beyond stabbing and dismembering animals in crude and cruel training exercises,? says coauthor of the study and PETA Associate Director Justin Goodman. ?Our military?s regulations require using non-animal methods whenever they are available?and PETA?s report illustrates that modern trauma-training technology is widely available around the world.?
Each year, the U.S. military and its contractors shoot, stab, mutilate, and kill more than 10,000 live animals in cruel trauma-training exercises, even though modern simulators that breathe and bleed have been shown to better prepare doctors and medics to treat injured better than animal laboratories.
To learn more, visit?PETA.org/Trauma.?
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Over the course of the next several days our participating ISPs will begin rolling out the system. Practically speaking, this means our content partners will begin sending notices of alleged P2P copyright infringement to ISPs, and the ISPs will begin forwarding those notices in the form of Copyright Alerts to consumers. Most consumers will never receive Alerts under the program. Consumers whose accounts have been used to share copyrighted content over P2P networks illegally (or without authority) will receive Alerts that are meant to educate rather than punish, and direct them to legal alternatives. And for those consumers who believe they received Alerts in error, an easy to use process will be in place for them to seek independent review of the Alerts they received. CCI and its partners have worked hard to meet our goal of implementing a system that educates consumers about copyright and P2P networks, encourages the use of legal alternatives, and safeguards customer privacy.
Full Story: CopyRightInformation.org
AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, will be using the, ?Copyright Alert System.? After six strikes your internet service could be suspended.
Source: http://realtalkny.uproxx.com/2013/02/topic/topic/news/a-look-at-the-copyright-alert-system/
While stateside users might complain that we get all the good stuff in Europe first, Apple's iTunes in the Cloud for movies and TV shows has finally got around to rolling in to France and other parts of Europe, eons after it came out in the US. We confirmed that the new functionality works in France, which lets you buy films and TV shows from a computer, Apple TV or iOS device, then download it for free from the cloud on another. Others have reported by Twitter that it's working in Holland and Sweden as well, making it the first big move for the service since it rolled into the UK, Australia and Canada last summer. Until now, users in those nations were only able to download books, apps and music purchased in iTunes from the cloud. There's still no word from Apple about the move, however, and the list of supported countries hasn't been updated for those features -- so we'll enjoy it for now and hope Cupertino doesn't change its mind.
Update: We've confirmed with Apple that this rollout has indeed taken place. Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden all get movies in the cloud, while France gets both movies and TV series in the cloud.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, Apple
Via: TNW
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syria is ready for talks with its armed opponents, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday, in the clearest offer yet to negotiate with rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
But Moualem said at the same time Syria would pursue its fight "against terrorism", alluding to the conflict in which the United Nations says 70,000 people have been killed.
His offer of talks drew a dismissive response from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was starting a nine-nation tour of European and Arab capitals in London.
"It seems to me that it's pretty hard to understand how, when you see the Scuds falling on the innocent people of Aleppo, it is possible to take their notion that they are ready to have a dialogue very seriously," Kerry said.
He said U.S. President Barack Obama was evaluating more steps to "fulfill our obligation to innocent people", without giving details or saying whether Washington was reconsidering whether to arm the rebels, an option it has previously rejected.
"We are determined that the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind," Kerry said.
Obama has carefully avoided deeper U.S. involvement in Syria, at the heart of a volatile Middle East, as he has withdrawn troops from Iraq and extracts them from Afghanistan.
Assad and his foes are locked in a bloody stalemate after nearly two years of combat, destruction and civilian suffering that threatens to destabilize neighboring countries.
Syria's Moualem said in Moscow that Damascus was ready for dialogue with everyone who wants it, even with those who have weapons in their hands "because we believe that reforms will not come through bloodshed but only through dialogue".
"WAR AGAINST TERRORISM"
Russia's Itar-Tass, which reported his remarks, did not say if Moualem had attached any conditions for the dialogue.
"What's happening in Syria is a war against terrorism," the agency quoted him as saying. "We will strongly adhere to a peaceful course and continue to fight against terrorism."
Moaz Alkhatib, head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, told reporters in Cairo he had not been in touch with Damascus following Moualem's offer. "We have not been in contact yet, and we are waiting for communication with them," he said.
Syria's government and the political opposition have both suggested in recent weeks they are prepared for some contacts - softening their previous outright rejection of talks to resolve a conflict which has driven nearly a million Syrians out of the country and left millions more homeless and hungry.
The opposition says any solution must involve the removal of Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1970. Disparate rebel fighters, who do not answer to Alkhatib or other politicians in exile, insist Assad must go before any talks start.
Brigadier Selim Idris, a rebel military commander, told Al Arabiya television that a ceasefire, Assad's exit, and the trial of his security and military chiefs must precede any talks.
Damascus has rejected any preconditions and the two sides also differ on the location for any talks, with the opposition saying they should be abroad or in rebel-held parts of Syria, while the government says they must be in territory it controls.
"STATE COLLAPSE"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed alarm about events in Syria, which he said was at a crossroads.
"There are those who have set a course for further bloodshed and an escalation of conflict. This is fraught with the risk of the collapse of the Syrian state and society," he said.
"But there are also reasonable forces that increasingly acutely understand the need for the swiftest possible start of talks ... In these conditions the need for the Syrian leadership to continue to consistently advocate the start of dialogue, and not allow provocations to prevail, is strongly increasing."
Lavrov's warning that the Syrian state could founder appeared aimed to show that Russia is pressing Assad's government to seek a negotiated solution while continuing to lay much of the blame for the persistent violence on his opponents.
Russia has distanced itself from Assad and has stepped up its calls for dialogue as his prospects of retaining power have decreased, but insists that his exit must not be a precondition.
A deputy to Lavrov said the West had not matched Moscow's peace efforts. "Our Western partners ... have to some degree encouraged (the opposition) to continue the armed fight," Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.
The Syrian National Coalition said on Friday it was willing to negotiate a peace deal, but insisted Assad could not be party to it - a demand that the president looks sure to reject.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said Assad had told him he would complete his term in 2014 and then run for re-election.
International deadlock over how to bridge the political chasm between Assad and his opponents has allowed an increasingly sectarian conflict to rage on for 23 months.
Assad, announcing plans last month for a national dialogue, said it would exclude "traitors" and "puppets made by the West".
Kerry is to meet Lavrov in Berlin on Tuesday, but a senior U.S. official said he expected no breakthrough on Syria there.
The new secretary of state is also to meet Syrian opposition leaders at a "Friends of Syria" conference in Rome on Thursday.
The Syrian National Coalition said on Monday it would attend the Rome meeting, reversing a decision it made last week to stay away in protest at Syrian government missile strikes on Aleppo.
The change of mind came after Kerry called Alkhatib to urge him to attend.
"I want our friends in the Syrian opposition council to know we are not coming to Rome simply to talk. We're coming to Rome to make the decision about next steps," Kerry said earlier.
(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Ayman Samir in Cairo, Arshad Mohammed and Mohammed Abbas in London; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Michael Roddy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-government-says-ready-talk-armed-opposition-agency-091612112.html
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Tuesday arrested Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful head of the country's teachers' union, on suspicion of embezzling the union's funds, the Mexican attorney general said.
Authorities accuse Gordillo, who is viewed as one of the key obstacles to education reform in Mexico, of siphoning off millions of pesos of union money into private accounts, Jesus Murillo told reporters at a news conference.
"Clearly, we're facing a case in which the money of education workers has been misused illegally for the benefit of various people, including Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo said. "Under this government nobody is above the law."
The arrest of Gordillo, who critics have for years accused of corruption, came a day after the Mexican government signed a broad education reform into law.
The Mexican teachers' union fought against the law, which limits union control over hiring and teaching standards, and aims to improve Mexico's failing school system.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Jackie Frank)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-arrests-head-teachers-union-suspicion-fraud-022004391.html
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ASUS takes the stage at Mobile World Congress 2013 today, and ahead of their event they have announced the Fonepad -- a 7-inch tablet with full 3G data and voice services using a new Intel ATOM processor.
ASUS and Intel have a long partnership and Hermann Eul, Intel vice president and co-general manager of the Mobile and Communications Group, states that the "new Atom Z2420 processor delivers the power, performance and flexibility required to accommodate a range of devices and market needs. We think the ASUS Fonepad is a very innovative device in an emerging category of 3G tablets with telephony features.”
The full specs of the Fonepad weren't given but we do know the ATOM Z2420 is paired with 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and sit under a 7-inch 1280 x 800 display with 10-point multitouch.
We were told ASUS has no plans to release the Fonepad in North America, but we should see it in UK late Q2 2013. Pricing will start at a suggested retail of £179 (inc VAT). Exact pricing and specification will be confirmed closer to launch. Follow the break for the full press release.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/GeNAICGjJxY/story01.htm
In a motion filed Feb. 18, attorneys for SourceGas and its partner, Rocky Mountain Natural Gas, argued that the foundation of CMC's case is not supported by the facts, and asked District Judge James Boyd to deny a CMC motion for summary judgment, or dismissal.
The case currently is set for trial starting June 26.
At issue is last year's decision by the CMC board of trustees to declare invalid a lease for roughly five acres of college property.
The lease, arranged by former CMC president Stan Jensen and his staff, was to allow SourceGas to build a compressor station along a natural gas line that crosses college property.
The company says the compressor station is needed to maintain the correct pressure on natural gas supplies headed for the Eagle Valley.
After public opposition to the compressor station erupted last year, the college trustees decided the lease was not valid because they had not made a formal ?finding? that the land was appropriate for leasing and was not ?immediately needed? for college purposes, as provided under state law.
District Judge Boyd ruled last August that, because the college is a ?public entity? under state law, he could not force the college to allow the compressor station to be built.
But he did not rule that the lease itself was void, and the trial now is based primarily on the question of whether monetary damages are due to SourceGas for expenses incurred in engineering and planning for the compressor station.
In the Feb. 18 motion, SourceGas and its partner, Rocky Mountain Natural Gas, argued that the trustees had delegated authority to negotiate leases to Jensen, and that Jensen had passed that authority on to his staff.
That, the company maintains, made the lease valid, prompting SourceGas to spend considerable amounts of money on engineering and planning for the compressor station.
According to the motion, Jensen informed the board at a board retreat in May 2011 that SourceGas had proposed building the compressor station on college property.
Jensen, at that meeting, described the terms of a lease being negotiated with SourceGas, and got the board's permission to proceed with the negotiations, according to the motion.
The motion cited statements by Jensen, current CMC board president Glenn Davis and former CMC board president Stanley Orr in support of the company's arguments against dismissal of the case.
Given this evidence, the SourceGas motion continues, the judge should deny CMC's attempt to have the case dismissed, and should instead let it proceed to trial.
The CMC response to the SourceGas motion had not yet been filed on Feb. 22.
Source: http://www.summitdaily.com/ARTICLE/20130224/NEWS/130229911/-1/RSS
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We'll get this out of the way upfront: you will probably never be able to buy this phone. And by "you" we mean the American consumer. The Arrows X F-02E will, at least for the immediate future, be a NTT DoCoMo only device. But, now that you know not to get your hopes up, lets get a feel for just what you'll be missing. Fujitsu's waterproof flagship is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Tegra 3 and 2GB of RAM. And that horsepower is put to good use pushing pixels to a brilliant five-inch 1080p display. We'd stop short of saying its the best phone screen we've seen, but it's definitely in the running. Colors are bright, text is crisp and viewing angles need to be seen to be believed. Thankfully, all that lovely screen real estate isn't being eaten up by some insanely outdated version of Android. On board you'll find Android 4.1.2 -- not the latest and greatest, but at least it's Jelly Bean.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/fujitsu-arrows-x-f-02e-hands-on/
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Famed 007 singer honors franchise's musical tradition during Sunday's (February 24) ceremony.
By Kevin P. Sullivan
Shirley Bassey performs at the 2013 Oscars
Photo: Mark Davis/ Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702513/shirley-bassey-james-bond-oscars-tribute.jhtml
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2013/02/ap-niger-drone-base-africa-022313/
Julie Pace and Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 23, 2013 14:41:25 EST
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama said Friday that about 100 American troops have been deployed to the African nation of Niger. Two U.S. defense officials said the troops would be setting up a base for unarmed drones to conduct surveillance.
Obama announced the deployment in a letter to Congress, saying that the forces "will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region."
The move marks a deepening of U.S. efforts to stem the spread of al-Qaida and its affiliates in the volatile region. It also underscores Obama's desire to fight extremism without involving large numbers of U.S. ground forces.
The drone base will allow the U.S. to give France more intelligence on the militants its forces have been fighting in Mali, which neighbors Niger. Over time, it could extend the reach not only of American intelligence-gathering but also U.S. special operations missions to strengthen Niger's own security forces.
One of the two U.S. defense officials who discussed the development confirmed the American troops would fly drones and other surveillance platforms from Niger military airstrips, tracking militant and refugee movement inside Mali and around the border. The U.S. will share that intelligence with Niger's military, the official said.
Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the project.
The drones at the Niger base will be unarmed and used for surveillance, not airstrikes. Still, the development of a base in Niger raises the possibility that it could eventually be used for launching strikes.
Obama said in his letter to Congress that the U.S. forces have been deployed with the consent of Niger's government. The forces were also deployed with weapons "for their own force protection and security," the president said.
Last month, the U.S. and Niger signed a status-of-forces-agreement spelling out legal protections and obligations of American forces that might operate in Niger in the future.
Africa is increasingly a focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, even as al-Qaida remains a threat in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Last month's terrorist attack on a natural gas complex in Algeria, in which at least 37 hostages and 29 militants were killed, illustrated the threat posed by extremists who have asserted power propelled by long-simmering ethnic tensions in Mali and the revolution in Libya.
A number of al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist groups operate in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahara, including a group known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, which originated in Algeria and is active in northern Mali. Last month, French forces intervened to stop the extremists' move toward Mali's capital, and Washington has grown more involved by providing a variety of military support to French troops.
France has said it will eventually pull out of its Mali operation so that African forces can help stabilize the West African country.
AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.
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Source: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2013/02/ap-niger-drone-base-africa-022313/
While Melissa McCarthy was presenting at Sunday night's show, she also took back the #1 spot at the box office.
By Ryan J. Downey
Melissa McCarthy in "Identity Thief"
Photo: Universal Pictures
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702538/identity-thief-oscars-weekend-box-office.jhtml
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Facebook Exchange (FBX) was, without doubt, the hottest thing that launched in online advertising in 2012. It opened up Facebook?s massive audience and ad inventory to programmatic buying, specifically retargeting, an online advertising channel already exploding in growth. Facebook?s standard ad products, powered by Facebook demographic and psychographic data, are tremendously effective for a number of marketing strategies. However, relying on intent data, Facebook Exchange acts more like a direct response channel geared towards the bottom of the funnel and performance-driven campaigns rather than a demand generation channel.
AdRoll was one of the first partners Facebook brought onto FBX, and today we have over 700 advertisers running on the platform. In Facebook?s last earnings call, Sheryl Sandberg stated FBX currently supports more than 1300 advertisers. This means that over half of the advertisers leveraging Facebook do so using AdRoll.
Given the rampant success of FBX campaigns, many in the industry have begun to wonder, should an advertiser put all their eggs in one basket and choose Facebook Exchange over standard web retargeting when allocating a set marketing budget? We too were curious and looked to our data to answer the question. Of the 700+ advertisers running on FBX, we looked at 468 that ran both standard web retargeting and FBX campaigns during the last 6 months of 2012. The results are surprising!
Facebook Exchange performed better among several key performance indicators:
However, web retargeting won out in other ways:
Most surprising, when we compared audience overlap among the campaigns, we found that, on average, only 8.3% of an advertiser?s total audience was retargeted to by both their FBX and their standard web retargeting campaigns.
Our research showed that both web retargeting and Facebook Exchange have their strengths and are incremental to one another. We found that by leveraging both platforms for retargeting campaigns, advertisers can maximize their return on investment. To do otherwise would be leaving money on the table!
Source: AdRoll.com
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PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain (AP) ? Protesters jeered the Spanish king's son-in-law before he was questioned Saturday by a judge about allegations he and a partner funneled away millions of euros through fraudulent deals.
The investigation has deeply embarrassed the monarchy in a country hard hit by a financial crisis and sky-high unemployment. The scandal ranks among the worst public relations mishaps the royal household has experienced in the 37-year reign of King Juan Carlos.
Inaki Urdangarin, who has not been charged with a crime, made his way into a courthouse in Palma de Mallorca amid tense street scenes where a contingent of around 170 police kept noisy protesters away from the building. Urdangarin, married to the 75-year-old king's second daughter, Princess Cristina, has denied any wrongdoing.
Urdangarin, facing his second appearance in court, did not stop to say anything, but wished about 100 journalists accredited to cover the event a curt "good morning" as he walked in, accompanied by his lawyer Mario Pascual Vives.
The Duke of Palma, the title held by Urdangarin, had been called to answer questions at a courthouse on this Mediterranean island about whether he used his high-profile status to secure lucrative deals for a nonprofit foundation he ran and then fraudulently diverted money for personal gain.
But the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has moved to try and shield the king from potential collateral damage inflicted by the Urdangarin case, emphasizing Juan Carlos' value to the nation.
Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria defended the king's role three times during a news conference following Friday's Cabinet meeting, highlighting how the monarch had worked "for stability and democracy" in Spain.
Judge Jose Castro will question Urdangarin about three alleged offenses against the Treasury, including corporate tax fraud related to his foundation and matters linked to his personal income tax returns.
As stated in the writ of summons, the judge also intends to ask about alleged bank accounts in tax havens such as Andorra, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Carlos Garcia Revenga, Cristina's personal secretary, was also scheduled to answer questions Saturday.
A week ago, Urdangarin's former partner, Diego Torres, faced detailed questioning by Castro and it is reported many potentially damaging documents were handed over to the judge. Urdangarin was summoned by Castro to the same court last February when the duke was quizzed over large contracts he secured from regional governments for his foundation.
He is suspected of then subcontracting the work to private companies he also oversaw, sometimes charging the public purse unrealistically inflated prices and syphoning some of the income to offshore tax havens.
Newspapers have reported that the revenues Urdangarin and associates are suspected of having handled may have exceeded ?6 million ($8 million).
The duke's alleged misdeeds took place in 2004-2006. Urdangarin, the princess and their four children moved to Washington in 2009 as the investigation began to heat up. They returned to Spain in August.
The case exploded in the media late 2011 as Spain was buffeted by Europe's debt crisis, its economic growth grinding to a halt and already huge jobless numbers swelling.
Under Spanish law, the court will decide whether the prosecution has adequate evidence to file charges against the duke.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-kings-son-law-makes-court-appearance-123656782.html
In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI, right, delivers his message concluding a weeklong spiritual retreat, at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Benedict XVI has lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that has defaced God's creation in a final address to the officials who run the Vatican bureaucracy. Benedict spoke off-the-cuff Saturday at the end of a weeklong spiritual retreat coinciding with the Catholic Church's solemn Lenten season. For the past week, Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi has led the Vatican on meditations that have covered everything from the family to denouncing the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho)
In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI, right, delivers his message concluding a weeklong spiritual retreat, at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Benedict XVI has lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that has defaced God's creation in a final address to the officials who run the Vatican bureaucracy. Benedict spoke off-the-cuff Saturday at the end of a weeklong spiritual retreat coinciding with the Catholic Church's solemn Lenten season. For the past week, Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi has led the Vatican on meditations that have covered everything from the family to denouncing the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho)
In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI kneels in prayer at the end of a weeklong spiritual retreat, at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Benedict XVI has lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that has defaced God's creation in a final address to the officials who run the Vatican bureaucracy. Benedict spoke off-the-cuff Saturday at the end of a weeklong spiritual retreat coinciding with the Catholic Church's solemn Lenten season. For the past week, Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi has led the Vatican on meditations that have covered everything from the family to denouncing the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho)
Italian police, left, and carabinieri cars are parked outside St. Peter's Square, at the V atican, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013 As 100.000 pilgrims are expected to crowd St. Peter's Square for the last Angelus prayer of Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday morning, the Rome municipality is expected to increase by more then 30% the law enforcement agents, volunteers and transportation, while more then 2000 cctv security cameras will monitor the Roman territory with dozens aiming only at the areas surrounding the Vatican. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election.
Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents.
The reports have suggested the revelations in the dossier, given to Benedict in December, were a factor in his decision to resign. The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the "strength of mind and body" to carry on.
On Saturday, the Vatican secretariat of state said the Catholic Church has for centuries insisted on the independence of its cardinals to elect their pope. Now, it said, the "pressures of public opinion" is in play in a bid to influence their vote.
"It is deplorable that as we draw closer to the time of the beginning of the conclave ... that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions."
It was issued as Benedict met for the last time with the Vatican bureaucracy before stepping down Feb. 28. The occasion was the final session of the Vatican's Lenten spiritual retreat, a weeklong series of meditations composed by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, himself a papal contender.
In one of his final meditations Friday, Ravasi denounced the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy ? divisions that were exposed by the leaks of documents taken from the pope's study. The documents revealed the petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism and even allegations of a gay plot at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
The three cardinals who investigated the theft of the documents had wide-ranging powers to interview even cardinals to get to the bottom of the dynamics within the Curia ? the Vatican bureaucracy ? that resulted in the gravest Vatican security breach in modern times.
Benedict has referred obliquely to the Vatican's dysfunction in recent days, deploring how the church is often "defiled" by attacks and divisions and urging its members to overcome "pride and egoism."
On Saturday, in his final comments to the Curia, he lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that has defaced God's creation. But he also thanked the Vatican bureaucrats for eight years of work, love and faith and promised them he would continue to be spiritually close to them in retirement.
___
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LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britain suffered its first ever sovereign ratings downgrade from a major agency on Friday when Moody's stripped the country of its coveted top-notch triple-A rating, dealing a major blow to finance minister George Osborne.
Moody's said weak prospects for British economic growth, which have thrown the government's deficit reduction strategy off course, lay behind its decision to cut the rating by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa.
Austerity has been the watchword for Osborne's fiscal policy since his Conservative-led coalition came to power in 2010 after an election in which he vowed to defend Britain's triple-A rating, which can help keep down borrowing costs.
But a very slow recovery from the financial crisis has pushed back by at least two years the government's goal of largely eliminating the budget deficit by 2015's election.
The opposition Labour Party blames the deficit on too much austerity.
Nonetheless, Osborne insisted now was not the time to change course. His annual budget due on March 20 is expected to show a further deterioration in the country's fiscal outlook.
"Tonight we have a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country and the clearest possible warning to anyone who thinks we can run away from dealing with those problems," he said in a statement. "Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it."
However, the downgrade may fuel unease amongst members of his own party and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners that Osborne's gamble that he could slash the deficit and ensure a return to growth by the May 2015 election is failing to pay off.
Sterling fell by almost a cent to around $1.5160 after the downgrade, just off Thursday's fresh 2-1/2-year low, and analysts expected it to weaken further on Monday, even if many had seen a downgrade coming sooner or later.
"It's a pretty big deal," said Kathy Lien, managing director at BK Asset Management in New York. "We didn't see a huge reaction in the pound because it's late in the New York session. But you'll see some more aggressive selling when the markets open (in Asia) on Sunday."
Moody's said the outlook on its rating on Britain was now stable, meaning any further change is unlikely for the next year or so.
Britain joins the United States and France in having lost its triple-A rating from at least one major agency, after holding a top-notch rating from Moody's and Standard & Poor's since 1978, and from Fitch Ratings since 1994.
SLUGGISH GROWTH
Moody's said that despite considerable economic strengths, Britain's growth was likely to be sluggish due to a mix of weaker global economic activity - especially in the euro zone - and a drag "from the ongoing domestic public and private-sector de-leveraging process."
"This period of sluggish growth poses challenges to the government's fiscal consolidation program, which we now assume will extend well into the next parliament," Moody's analyst Sarah Carlson said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
But Ed Balls, the Labour Party's main spokesman on finance issues, said the Moody's decision should be a wake-up call for Osborne ahead of his annual budget statement as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"This credit rating downgrade is a humiliating blow to a Prime Minister and Chancellor who said keeping our AAA rating was the test of their economic and political credibility."
"The issue is no longer whether this Chancellor can admit his mistakes but whether the Prime Minister can now see that, with UK economic policy so badly downgraded in every sense, things have got to change."
Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said a new approach from Osborne was improbable.
"The strong likelihood is though that it will not materially lead to a change in his plans."
Changes are more likely from the Bank of England, which surprised markets earlier this week after it revealed that Governor Mervyn King and two other policymakers favored restarting bond purchases to boost the economy.
They remained in the minority among their fellow policymakers but economists increasingly expect more stimulus eventually by the central bank.
This - and the central bank's tolerance of above-target inflation - have combined to put pressure on sterling while leaving British government debt relatively shielded.
Charles Diebel, a fixed income strategist at British bank Lloyds, was sanguine about the impact of the downgrade on gilts, as U.S. and French debt was not badly affected when these countries lost their triple-A ratings.
"This has been speculated as inevitable and is most likely largely in the market. I would expect only very limited damage to the gilt curve and to sterling. Historically, losing your AAA is actually a bond bullish event," he said.
(Additional reporting by Steven C. Johnson in New York and Michael Holden in London; Editing by James Dalgleish, Jon Hemming and Eric Walsh)
