Benghazi victim’s sister: Go after the terrorists already

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

New York, Jan 1 : The sister of one of the Americans killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi said now that the State Department seems to be done assigning blame for various failures leading up to the assault, the U.S. government should take action against the people who actually perpetrated the attack.

“There’s been a lot of finger pointing within our own government,” Kate Quigley, the sister of former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, told ABC News. “I would love to see that energy start to shift to finding those individuals [attackers] … I won’t be satisfied until I know who did it, where they are and what’s happening to them.”

Quigley said she is pleased with the State Department’s recent internal investigation into the deadly Sept. 11 incident that claimed the life of her brother and that of three other Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The report blamed a “systemic failure” by the State Department to address the security needs of the Benghazi facility, but did not cite any individual dereliction of duty. Still, four State Department officials have been “relieved from their duties,” a spokesperson for the department said, and are on administrative leave.

While the State Department report provides the most detailed timeline of the attack to date, it does not go into who may have been behind it, saying “the key questions surrounding the identity, actions and motivations of the perpetrators remain to be determined by the ongoing criminal investigation.”

Quigley said she’s frustrated that even privately, more than three months after the attack, the government hasn’t told her family anything more.

“The company line is, ‘It’s under investigation and when the investigation is complete there will be a full sit down briefing,’” she said. “I haven’t heard any conversation about that at all.”

Glen Doherty was killed alongside fellow former SEAL Tyrone Woods on the roof of a U.S. government annex as the two fought off attackers, according to the State Department report. Doherty was reportedly part of a reaction team sent from Tripoli to help the besieged diplomats. The report said everyone on the ground “performed with courage and readiness to risk their lives to protect their colleagues, in a near impossible situation.”

Just weeks before his death, Doherty told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he was working in Libya on an intelligence mission related to the State Department’s effort to round up dangerous shoulder-fired rocket launchers that had been looted during the revolution there last year. He has since been identified publicly as a private contractor with the CIA.

READ: American Killed in Libya Was on Intel Mission to Track Weapons

After his death, Doherty’s family and friends set up an education foundation in the fallen SEAL’s name that aims to provide scholarships and grants for children of current or former special operations personnel. The foundation’s website says it’s meant to “pay forward Glen’s love for learning and his passion for igniting the spirit through adventure.”

Quigley said that the foundation is obviously just a few months old, but she’s excited for what 2013 may bring.

“We know we can do good with a little bit of money and a lot of good with a lot of money,” she joked.

A spokesperson for the FBI, which is conducting the criminal investigation into the attack, did not immediately return request for comment for this report.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Ex-Florida governor candidate McBride dies at 67

Miami, Jan 1 : Bill McBride, the Florida Democrat who defeated Janet Reno for the party's gubernatorial nomination in 2002 but lost to Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, has died at the age of 67.

His wife Alex Sink said that McBride suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting with family in Mount Airy, N.C. Sink was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, losing to now-Gov. Rick Scott. The couple lived outside of Tampa.

Sink said McBride, an attorney, had long suffered from heart problems.

McBride defeated Reno, who was U.S. attorney general under President Bill Clinton, in the Democratic primary to run against Bush. Before entering politics, he was managing partner at the prestigious Holland & Knight law firm.

Sink said McBride's true legacy was as a longtime civil rights champion.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Reports: Rolling stones guitarist wood ties knot

London, Jan 1 : Two British newspapers say Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has married his fiancee Sally Humphreys at a ceremony at London's Dorchester Hotel.

The Sun and the Daily Mirror carried photographs of the 65-year-old rocker with a pale boutonniere and a dark blue suit, and his 34-year-old bride in a traditional white gown and a clutch of matching white flowers.

The Sun quoted Wood as saying "I'm feeling great" as he and his bride kissed and posed for pictures outside the exclusive hotel in London's upscale Mayfair district.

The newspapers said the guests included singer Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster as well as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Police: US Sen. Crapo arrested, charged with DUI

Alexandria, Jan 1 : US Sen. Michael Crapo was arrested and charged with driving under the influence in a Washington, D.C., suburb, authorities said.

Police in Alexandria, Va., said that the Idaho Republican was pulled over after his vehicle ran a red light. Police spokesman Jody Donaldson said Crapo failed field sobriety tests and was arrested at about 12:45 a.m. He was transported to the Alexandria jail and released on an unsecured $1,000 bond at about 5 a.m..

"There was no refusal (to take blood alcohol tests), no accident, no injuries," Donaldson said. "Just a traffic stop that resulted in a DUI."

Police said Crapo, who was alone in his vehicle, registered a blood alcohol content of .110. The legal limit in Virginia, which has strict drunken driving laws, is .08.

"I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance," Crapo said in a statement. "I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter. I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated."

Currently in his third term, Crapo has been in the Senate since 1998, and served for six years in the U.S. House of Representatives before that. He was easily re-elected in 2010, and won't have to run again until 2016.

In Congress, Crapo has built a reputation as a staunch social and fiscal conservative. It was expected he would take over the top Republican spot next year on the Senate Banking Committee. He also serves on the Senate's budget and finance panels. Crapo was a member of the so-called "Gang of Six" senators that worked in 2011 toward a deficit-reduction deal that was never adopted by Congress.

A Mormon who grew up in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Crapo was named a bishop in the church at age 31. He is an attorney who graduated from Brigham Young University and Harvard Law School. He has five children with his wife, Susan, and three grandchildren.

The Mormon Church prohibits the use of alcohol, as well as caffeine and other mind-altering substances. The state has a significant Mormon population.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Head-on crash amid holiday travel kills 4 in Ohio

Cincinnati, Jan 1 : Four people were killed when a minivan carrying a family leaving a Christmas party went the wrong way on a southwestern Ohio highway and hit another minivan whose driver and family were going to see grandparents for the holidays, police said.

The 2:30 a.m. head-on collision on Interstate 75 near Franklin claimed the lives of three adults and a 7-year-old boy and critically injured two other children, said Ohio State Patrol Sgt. Stan Jordan.

Alcohol was a suspected factor, Jordan said. Investigators smelled liquor in the minivan that was going the wrong way and found a bottle of alcohol in the vehicle, he said.

Jordan said Joshua Nkansah, 40, of Fairfield, was driving with his children when he turned his minivan around on the highway and started driving the wrong way. The vehicle hit another minivan carrying Scott and Michele Barhorst of Madisonville, Tenn., and their four children, who range in age from 8 to 18, the officer said.

Nkansah was killed along with his 7-year-old son, David, and 31-year-old Michele Barhorst, Jordan said. Scott Barhorst, 37, later died at a Cincinnati hospital.

Jordan said Nkansah's 4-year-old son, Darius, and the Barhorsts' 9-year-old daughter, Haley, were in critical condition.

The Barhorsts were headed to St. Mary's in western Ohio to visit the children's grandparents for Christmas, Jordan said. Nkansah's wife was home at the time of the accident, he said.


Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Yacht school friends missing without a trace

New York, Jan 1 : The disappearance of two friends has baffled authorities, who have searched by air, water and in wooded areas for the men, who seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

Zachary Wells, 21, and Prescott Wright, 23, were last seen hanging out at home in Kennebunkport, Maine, police chief Craig Sanford told ABC News affiliate WMTW-TV.

Both men are students at The Landing School in Arundel, Maine., where they were learning boat building and yacht design.

When the men failed to show up for classes, administrators at the school contacted police.

Authorities found no signs of a disturbance at the home, Sanford said, and searches of the nearby area did not turn up any clues. Only one of the men owns a vehicle, and it remained parked in the driveway of the house, according to ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston.

"There's no one area to pinpoint because we don't know where they might have gone," Sanford said, calling it one of the strangest cases he has ever seen.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Anti-tax conservatives say no to tax-increase deal

Boston, Jan 1 : In the city where a protest over tax policy sparked a revolution, modern day tea party activists are cheering the recent Republican revolt in Washington that embarrassed House Speaker John Boehner and pushed the country closer to a "fiscal cliff" that forces tax increases and massive spending cuts on virtually every American.

"I want conservatives to stay strong," says Christine Morabito, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party. "Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they get better."

Anti-tax conservatives from every corner of the nation echo her sentiment.

In more than a dozen interviews said, activists said they would rather fall off the cliff than agree to a compromise that includes tax increases for any Americans, no matter how high their income. They dismiss economists' warnings that the automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1 could trigger a fresh recession, and they overlook the fact that most people would see their taxes increase if President Barack Obama and Boehner, R-Ohio, fail to reach a year-end agreement.

The strong opposition among tea party activists and Republican leaders from New Hampshire to Wyoming and South Carolina highlights divisions within the GOP as well as the challenge that Obama and Boehner face in trying to get a deal done.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans worry about the practical and political implications should the GOP block a compromise designed to avoid tax increases for most Americans and cut the nation's deficit.

"It weakens the entire Republican Party, the Republican majority," Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, said shortly after rank-and-file Republicans rejected Boehner's "Plan B" — a measure that would have prevented tax increases on all Americans but million-dollar earners.

"I mean it's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward," LaTourette said. "If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority very long."

It's a concern that does not seem to resonate with conservatives such as tea party activist Frank Smith of Cheyenne, Wyo. He cheered Boehner's failure as a victory for anti-tax conservatives and a setback for Obama, just six weeks after the president won re-election on a promise to cut the deficit in part by raising taxes on incomes exceeding $250,000.

Smith said his "hat's off" to those Republicans in Congress who rejected their own leader's plan.

"Let's go over the cliff and see what's on the other side," the blacksmith said. "On the other side" are tax increases for most Americans, not just the top earners, though that point seemed lost on Smith, who added: "We have a day of reckoning coming, whether it's next week or next year. Sooner or later the chickens are coming home to roost. Let's let them roost next week."

It's not just tea party activists who want Republicans in Washington to stand firm.

In conservative states such as South Carolina and Louisiana, party leaders are encouraging members of their congressional delegations to oppose any deal that includes tax increases. Elected officials from those states have little political incentive to cooperate with the Democratic president, given that most of their constituents voted for Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

"If it takes us going off a cliff to convince people we're in a mess, then so be it," South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly said. "We have a president who is a whiner. He has done nothing but blame President Bush. It's time to make President Obama own this economy."

In Louisiana, state GOP Chairman Roger Villere said that "people are frustrated with Speaker Boehner. They hear people run as conservatives, run against tax hikes. They want them to keep their word."

Jack Kimball, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman, said he was "elated" that conservatives thwarted Boehner. He called the looming deadline a political creation. "The Republicans really need to stand on their principles. They have to hold firm."

Conservative opposition to compromise with Obama does not reflect the view of most Americans, according to recent public opinion polls.

A CBS News survey conducted this month found that 81 percent of adults wanted Republicans in Congress to compromise in the current budget negotiations to get a deal done rather than "stick to their positions even if it means not coming to an agreement." The vast majority of Republicans and independent voters agreed.

Overall, 47 percent in the poll said they blamed Republicans in Congress more than Obama and Democrats for recent "difficulties in reaching agreements and passing legislation in Congress." About one-quarter placed more blame on the Democrats and 21 percent said both were responsible.

Although negotiations broke down last week, Obama still hopes to broker a larger debt-reduction deal that includes tax increases on high earners and Republican-favored cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. If a compromise continues to prove elusive, lawmakers could pass a temporary extension that delays the cliff's most onerous provisions and gives Congress more time to work out a longer-term solution.

That's becoming the favored path by some Republicans leery of going over the cliff.

Mississippi Republican Chairman Joe Nosef shares his Southern colleagues' disdain for tax increases. But he stopped short of taking an absolute position.

"I really, really feel like the only way that Republicans can mess up badly is if they come away with nothing on spending or something that's the same old thing where they hope a Congress in 10 years will have the intestinal fortitude to do it," he said.

Matt Kibbe, president of the national organization and tea party ally, FreedomWorks, says that going over the cliff would be "a fiscal disaster." He says "the only rational thing to do" is approve a temporary extension that prevents widespread tax increases.

But his message doesn't seem to resonate with conservative activists in the states.

"If we have to endure the pain of the cliff then so be it," said Mark Anders, a Republican committeeman for Washington state's Lewis County. "While it may spell the end of the Republican Party ... at least we will force the government to cut and cut deep into actual spending."

Back where the Boston Tea Party protest took place in 1773, Morabito wonders whether Boehner will survive the internal political upheaval and says Republicans need to unite against Obama.

"It looked like from the very beginning they were just going to cave to what President Obama wanted," she said of the GOP. "I didn't want that to happen. Now I'm hopeful that they're standing up for taxpaying Americans."

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Tata goes back to drawing board at stalled Indian car unit

Pimpri, Jan 1 : Deep in Tata Motors' largest factory, engineers don 3D glasses to play with car designs and prototypes projected from a 10-metre wide computer screen. Their quest? The Indian automaker's next blockbuster car model.

The research and development team's task is a pressing one. As they work, sections of conveyor belt and welding stations lay silent at the Pimpri factory and lines of white and silver Indica hatchbacks gather dust along service roads outside.

Tata, a global name since it bought Jaguar Land Rover (TAMOJL.UL) in 2008, is losing traction at home as underwhelming product tweaks, heavy discounts and slumping capacity utilization mark a painful 18 months for its passenger division.

Not since the 2008 Nano, the world's cheapest car, has Tata unveiled a head-turning passenger vehicle, and not since the Indica's launch in 1998 has it set the Indian market alight. Now, the company is heading back to the drawing board.

More money and more attention is going to the passenger vehicle unit as the company ramps up R&D, ditches a failed product strategy and prepares to enter the mini SUV segment and reboot the so-far underwhelming Nano.

"We have done something very innovative that will allow us to respond more positively," said Tim Leverton, Tata Motors' head of research and development. "You'll see, over the next 12-18 months onwards, a fireworks of output."

Tata will pour more than 75 billion rupees ($1.36 billion) into the passenger vehicle business over the next five years. Less than 30 percent of that has been earmarked for facilities or upgrading hardware, leaving the rest for new products.

"The business is understanding that's a heavy investment to make," Leverton said. "But it needs to be made."

Tata desperately needs a new hit model to arrest its sliding sales and eroding market share. A slew of new variants to combat competition from global brands will see it bin its inflexible past strategy of one car per market segment.

The success of the new drive will hinge on how soon Tata can bring fresh designs and ideas to market. That could take time.

"We're definitely not factoring in a revival in their market share for the next two to three years. We don't see any major new products ... launched over the next two to three years," said Jinesh Gandhi, auto analyst at Motilal Oswal Securities in Mumbai. "It's going to be an uphill task for them."

Tata's car sales fell 8 percent in the April-November period from a year earlier, as main rivals Hyundai Motor and Maruti Suzuki (MARUTI.NS) posted increases.

The company relied on Jaguar Land Rover for 90 percent of its consolidated profit in the last financial year. The slowdown in its domestic business is seen as a drag on its value.

Tata Motors has a 12-month forward price to earnings ratio of 7.4 against 17.2 for Maruti Suzuki and 9.2 for BMW AG (BMWG.DE).

"For sure new products are the source of growth and interest in our market," Managing Director Karl Slym said. "And so product focus is and should always be a priority."

The appointment this summer of Slym, a former General Motors (GM.N) executive, itself marked a shift. His two predecessors were former heads of Tata's commercial vehicle business - the unit that made the biggest advances under their tenures.

At Tata's plant in Pimpri, 140 km (87 miles) from Mumbai, most space is taken by commercial vehicle manufacturing. Building buses and goods trucks for India's bone-jangling roads is the 67-year-old company's bread and butter.

Tata, the world's fourth-largest truckmaker, has spent much of the past few years devoted to its commercial portfolio. Its Ace range of trucks redefined a segment and have sold 500,000 vehicles since 2010. It hasn't launched a car that popular since the Indica: its first crack at the then-nascent car market.

"The company is in a transitionary phase," said Leverton, a former R&D head at BMW with more than 30 years experience in the industry. "The nature of what we have got to do over the next five years in really coming to global standards in passenger cars is a reflection of what has been happening in commercial vehicles."

There are signs of green shoots, however. Leverton's 5,500-strong team, with additional R&D centers in Warwick, U.K. and Turin, Italy, produced Tata's first in-house designed concept cars, the Pixel and MegaPixel compact city vehicles.

The mini SUV, of which Leverton declined to give details, will give Tata a foothold in one of India's fastest-growing segments, where it has been outgunned by local rival Mahindra & Mahindra's (NSI:M&M) small, sporty off-road cars.

"I have many fires with many pots on those fires," Pankaj Jhunja, studio head at Tata's Engineering and Research Centre, said in an interview at the site.

"When we had little competition, we wrote the rules of the game," said Pankaj, who worked for Renault for four years. "We don't have brands that we can pull from our Brazilian market or Korea and plonk here with some minor alterations."

In 2008, a delegation of officials from India's West Bengal state, where Tata was building a plant to make the Nano, visited the Pimpri factory. When they were shown the then top-secret prototype, one excited official shouted: "When can I buy one?"

But the Nano has been beset by production delays, poor marketing and cost over-runs. More pressing for Tata is that no launch since then has matched the barrage of publicity and public excitement it generated.

Tata hopes a new Nano, which runs on diesel - a popular fuel thanks to government subsidies - will rekindle excitement in a car many thought would revolutionize mass transport.

"It's in the pipeline," said Leverton, who declined to give a launch date. "In terms of the technical challenges involved, we've addressed them ... You can judge what's happened so far on Nano, but we haven't finished with it yet."

The last car Leverton worked on before he joined Tata Motors was the 2003 Rolls-Royce Phantom, a car that cost 250,000 pounds when it was launched, and boasted lamb's-wool rugs and chromium-plated air-vents. Bringing desirability to Tata Motors, seen more as a low-cost brand, is his new task.

"There's a certain demand from the customer ... I think we've understood that and we're responding," said Leverton, adding Indian drivers are among the world's most demanding.

They certainly have a lot of options to choose from.

Global marquees such as Ford (F.N) and Renault SA (RENA.PA) have spent billions of dollars in India over the past few years, and offer models boasting international design standards and features previously limited to Europe or the United States.

Tata's share of India's car market had fallen to 10.9 percent in the April-November period of this year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, from 12.8 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March.

The carmaker is offering a discount of up to 60,000 rupees on its Indica Vista hatchback, which starts at 410,000 rupees, and up to 15 percent off its Aria SUV.

"We need to get our act better ... in terms of product refreshers, product launches, look at more opportunistic segments," Chief Financial Officer C. Ramakrishnan said on a recent conference call. "We know we have a long way to go."

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Insight: Security fears dogged Canada debate on China energy bid

Ottawa, Jan 1 : In September, two months after China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd made an unexpected $15.1 billion bid for Canadian energy company Nexen Inc, Canada's spy agency told ministers that takeovers by Chinese companies may threaten national security.

The rare warning from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which was disclosed to as by intelligence sources, did not stop the takeover. That was approved by Canadian authorities earlier this month.

But the intervention and an influential U.S. lawmaker's warning in October that Canadian companies should be careful about doing business with Chinese telecom equipment companies Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp made the approval process for the deal more difficult than initially expected.

"CSIS did not like the Nexen bid and thought it was a bad idea for Chinese firms to be investing in the oil sands. It all played into their greater fears about firms like Huawei," said one person familiar with the agency's concerns. "They do not want to wake up one day and realize a crucial sector of the economy is under the control of foreign interests."

And after listening to the spy service, which usually keeps a low profile, Canada drew up surprisingly tough foreign investment rules that were unveiled when approving the Nexen deal, China's biggest-ever successful foreign takeover. In a clampdown on companies it deems influenced by foreign governments, Canada will block similar purchases in the future.

CSIS has been silent about what it said to Ottawa on the Nexen transaction, and it declined to comment for this story. It didn't specifically recommend the CNOOC deal be blocked, but rather warned more generally about such deals with Chinese entities, the person said.

In reality, the government was unlikely to want to block the CNOOC bid, given a high-profile push by Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier in the year to boost ties with China, and given that a lot of Nexen's assets are outside Canada, and it has underperformed other energy companies.

By pushing back aggressively, CSIS ensured that it got foreign investment policy tightened significantly to deter similar such takeovers by companies under the sway of foreign governments.

"I think people at CSIS and elsewhere are going 'Good. That was a very good response by the government'," said Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS assistant director of intelligence, who retired this year after almost three decades at the agency.

"It did reflect some of those deep strategic concerns that practitioners have had about this kind of investment."

Specific worries include theft of Canadian intellectual property, espionage, computer hacking and foreign companies gaining too much influence over crucial sectors of the economy, said the person familiar with the agency's views.

The government could, in theory, nationalize assets if it thought foreign control was problematic. But the pro-business Conservatives would likely find it politically unpalatable to take such a step.

"To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead," Harper said as he announced the new investment rules.

In October, the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee urged U.S. firms to stop doing business with Huawei and another Chinese telecom equipment company ZTE on the grounds that Beijing could use products made by the two companies to spy.

The House Intelligence Committee's chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, urged Canada to take a similar stance, and two days later, the Canadian government indicated it would not let Huawei help build a secure government communications network because of possible security risks.

"The Huawei business caused a lot of political complications for the CNOOC bid," another person familiar with the CNOOC deal said of the U.S. committee's report.

Both Huawei and ZTE have repeatedly denied the allegations in the report, and China's foreign ministry dismissed as "baseless" the idea that security concerns could impede commercial ties.

"We hope that the relevant party can objectively and justly treat Chinese companies' overseas investment and cooperation plans, and stop actions which harm Chinese companies' image and do more to benefit the promotion of bilateral trade and business cooperation," said ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

In its annual report, released in September, CSIS noted risks that included espionage and illegal technology transfers, and said some foreign state-owned enterprises had "pursued opaque agendas or received clandestine intelligence support for their pursuits" in Canada.

The agency did not give details, but added: "When foreign companies with ties to foreign intelligence agencies or hostile governments seek to acquire control over strategic sectors of the Canadian economy, it can represent a threat to Canadian security interests."

CSIS, hit by controversy in 2010 after its head suggested China had too much influence over some Canadian provincial politicians, did not mention any country or firm in its report.

It is unclear how much, if any, influence the United States had on the Canadian authorities' foreign investment policy.

Fen Hampson, head of the global security program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario, said he had learned that a U.S. official visited Ottawa in the last few months to discuss mutual concerns about foreign state-owned enterprises.

U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson said he was not aware of such a meeting, but he noted that officials from the two countries met constantly. "I would be surprised if almost any issue you could think of has not come up in one or more of those conversations," he said. "The United States has not sought to influence Canada's decision with respect to that (CNOOC's bid)... We respect that decision."

The Canadian government did not respond to a request for a comment.

Chinese companies have bought up smaller Canadian energy firms before, but the July 23 bid for Nexen was their first attempt to buy one of the larger players.

Nexen has assets in Canada, the North Sea, Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico. Technology that Nexen and its partners use for deep sea drilling could interest CNOOC.

Asked about the CSIS concerns, a spokeswoman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis replied: "The government has the authority to take any measures it considers necessary to protect national security."

Yet two people close to the deal noted that the Canadian government did not exercise its option to do a separate review of the potential security risks of the CNOOC-Nexen bid, again signaling its concerns were tied to overall Chinese investment rather than to this particular deal.

Under the new rules, which Paradis is responsible for enforcing, foreign state-owned enterprises can no longer buy controlling stakes in assets in the oil sands, the biggest reserve of crude oil outside Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Such enterprises can buy minority stakes in the oil sands, or majority stakes in companies outside the oil sands. Companies deemed to have strong government links will be treated with particular caution wherever they propose to invest.

"When it comes to our security and intelligence services, they would rather pull up the drawbridge than let it down," said Hampson, co-author of a report on trade ties between Canada and emerging nations that he discussed with Harper in June.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Analysis: Amazon, Google on collision course in 2013

San Francisco, Jan 1 : When Amazon.com Inc CEO Jeff Bezos got word of a project at Google Inc to scan and digitize product catalogs a decade ago, the seeds of a burgeoning rivalry were planted.

The news was a "wake-up" call to Bezos, an early investor in Google. He saw it as a warning that the Web search engine could encroach upon his online retail empire, according to a former Amazon executive.

"He realized that scanning catalogs was interesting for Google, but the real win for Google would be to get all the books scanned and digitized" and then sell electronic editions, the former executive said.

Thus began a rivalry that will escalate in 2013 as the two companies' areas of rivalry grow, spanning online advertising and retail to mobile gadgets and cloud computing.

It could upend the last remaining areas of cooperation between the two companies. For instance, Amazon's decision to use a stripped down version of Google's Android system in its new Kindle Fire tablet, coupled with Google's ambitious plans for its Motorola mobile devices unit, will only add to tensions.

The confrontation marks the latest front in a tech industry war in which many combatants are crowding onto each others' turf. Lurking in the shadows for both Google and Amazon is Facebook with its own search and advertising ambitions.

"Amazon wants to be the one place where you buy everything. Google wants to be the one place where you find everything, of which buying things is a subset," said Chi-Hua Chien, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "So when you marry those facts I think you're going to see a natural collision."

Both companies have a lot at stake. Google's market capitalization of $235 billion is about double Amazon's, largely because Google makes massive net earnings, expected by analysts to be $13.2 billion this year, based on a huge 32 percent net profit margin. By contrast, Amazon is seen reporting a small loss this year.

Amazon shareholders have been patient as the company has invested for growth but it will have to start producing strong earnings at some stage - more likely if it grows in higher margin areas such as advertising. Google's share price, on the other hand, is vulnerable to signs of slowing margin growth.

Not long after Bezos learned of Google's catalog plans, Amazon began scanning books and providing searchable digital excerpts. Its Kindle e-reader, launched a few years later, owes much of its inspiration to the catalog news, the executive said.

Now, Amazon is pushing its online ad efforts, threatening to siphon revenue and users from Google's main search website.

Amazon's fledgling ad business is still a fraction of Google's, with Robert W. Baird & Co. estimating Amazon is on track to generate about $500 million in annual advertising revenue - tiny, given it recorded $48 billion of overall revenue in 2011. By contrast, 96 percent of Google's $38 billion in 2011 sales came from advertising.

But Amazon's newly developed "DSP" technology, which taps into the company's vast store of consumer purchase history to help marketers target ads at specific groups of people on Amazon.com and on other websites, could change all that.

"From a client's perspective, the data that Amazon owns is actually better than what Google has," said Mark Grether, the chief operating officer of Xaxis, an audience buying company that works with major advertisers. "They know what you just bought, and they also know what you are right now trying to buy."

Amazon is discussing a partnership with Xaxis in which the company would help Amazon sell ads for the service, Grether noted.

Amazon can bring in higher-margin revenue by selling advertising than it can from its retail operations. By showing ads for products that it may not actually sell on its own website, Amazon establishes itself as a starting point for consumers looking to buy something on the Web.

Research firm Forrester reported that 30 percent of U.S. online shoppers in the third quarter began researching their purchase on Amazon.com, compared with 13 percent who started on a search engine such as Google - a reversal from two years earlier when search engines were more popular starting points.

Amazon now sells ads that show up to the side of product search results on its website. There were 6.7 billion display ad impressions on Amazon.com in the third quarter, more than triple the number in the same period of 2011, according to comScore.

That early success is a "huge concern" for Google, whose business relies heavily on product searches and product search ads, said Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter.

Partly in response, Google recently revamped its product search service, Google Shopping, by charging retailers and other online sellers a fee to be listed in results.

Founded four years apart in the late 1990s, Bezos has long worried about Amazon's reliance on Google for traffic, according to people close to the company, while also being dubious about Google's high market valuation.

"He'd say: ‘This is the first time in the history of the world where the map maker is worth more than the territory that it's mapping,'" recalled the former Amazon executive of Bezos' comments about Google's popular online mapping service.

Google's Android system is thriving but still has not cracked the nut of how to make money from mobile search ads and sales of digital goods like games, apps, music and video.

"If they can figure out mobile ads, that would truly be Google's second act," said Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

But Amazon launched a broadside against Google in 2011 with the creation of its own version of Android for its Kindle Fire tablets that replaces key Google money-making services, such as a digital music and application storefront, with its own.

Not unlike Apple, "Amazon wants to control the experience on their devices," said Oren Etzioni, a University of Washington computer science professor. "That doesn't make Google happy."

The two are also clashing in cloud computing software.

Amazon started its cloud business more than six years ago, providing data storage, computing power and other technology services from remote locations. Google only launched its cloud computing business this year, but the market is growing so quickly there is still room to grab share, Etzioni said.

"I would not write Google off," he added. "Amazon has the early lead but it's very early."

Still, mobile gadgets and cloud computing are currently tiny businesses compared with the multibillion-dollar opportunity presented by advertising and online commerce.

Google recently acquired BufferBox, a company with a network of lockers that shoppers can use to receive packages. It is also testing same-day delivery in San Francisco, hinting at growing interest in a larger role in online retail.

It is not talking about its full plans for retail, but some analysts think features such as same-day delivery or "pick-up" lockers, are valuable features it can use to enhance its existing online ad business. An ad for shoes, for example, might also make the shoes available for pick-up in a locker nearby, said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice.

If Google can own the search and the delivery, it will be able to provide the same experience as Amazon, with no inventory - "a higher margin, more efficient model," Chien said.

Earlier this year, Google launched a new certification service highlighting merchants that ship quickly and reliably and backing it with up to $1,000 in "purchase protection."

Google could create a database of products and send shoppers to a page that has a way to buy quickly through the company's payments service Google Wallet, Forrester's Mulpuru said.

Google could then send that transaction to the retailer who would ship the product to the consumer. That ability is critical, according to Schachter, who said if consumers lack the ability to purchase items through Google it will lag Amazon and eBay Inc.

Ends
SA/E

Continue Reading | comments

Audits of businesses for illegal immigrants rising

Seattle, Jan 1 : US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached its highest number yet of companies audited for illegal immigrants on their payrolls this past fiscal year.

Audits of employer I-9 forms increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000 in 2012. From fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines grew to nearly $13 million from $1 million. The number of company managers arrested has increased to 238, according to data provided by ICE.

The investigations of companies have been one of the pillars of President Barack Obama's immigration policy.

When Obama recently spoke about addressing immigration reform in his second term, he said any measure should contain penalties for companies that purposely hire illegal immigrants. It's not a new stand, but one he will likely highlight as his administration launches efforts to revamp the nation's immigration system.

"Our goal is compliance and deterrence," said Brad Bench, special agent in charge at ICE's Seattle office. "The majority of the companies we do audits on end up with no fines at all, but again it's part of the deterrence method. If companies know we're out there, looking across the board, they're more likely to bring themselves into compliance."

While the administration has used those numbers to bolster their record on immigration enforcement, advocates say the audits have pushed workers further underground by causing mass layoffs and disrupted business practices.

When the ICE audit letter arrived at Belco Forest Products, management wasn't entirely surprised. Two nearby businesses in Shelton, a small timber town on a bay off Washington state's Puget Sound, had already been investigated.

But the 2010 inquiry became a months-long process that cost the timber company experienced workers and money. It was fined $17,700 for technicalities on their record keeping.

"What I don't like is the roll of the dice," said Belco's chief financial officer Tom Behrens. "Why do some companies get audited and some don't? Either everyone gets audited or nobody does. Level the playing field."

Belco was one of 339 companies fined in fiscal year 2011 and one of thousands audited that year.

Employers are required to have their workers fill out an I-9 form that declares them authorized to work in the country. Currently, an employer needs only to verify that identifying documents look real.

The audits, part of a $138 million worksite enforcement effort, rely on ICE officers scouring over payroll records to find names that don't match Social Security numbers and other identification databases.

The audits "don't make any sense before a legalization program," said Daniel Costa, an immigration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "You're leaving the whole thing up to an employer's eyesight and subjective judgment, that's the failure of the law. There's no verification at all. Then you have is the government making a subjective judgment about subjective judgment."

An AP review of audits that resulted in fines in fiscal year 2011 shows that the federal government is fining industries across the country reliant on manual labor and that historically have hired immigrants. The data provides a glimpse into the results of a process affecting thousands of companies and thousands of workers nationwide.

Over the years, ICE has switched back-and-forth between making names of the companies fined public or not. Lately, ICE has emphasized its criminal investigations of managers, such as a Dunkin' Donuts manager in Maine sentenced to home arrest for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or a manager of an Illinois hiring firm who got 18 months in prison.

Many employers also wonder how ICE picks the companies it probes.

"Geography is not a factor. The size of the company is not a factor. And the industry it's in is not a factor. We can audit any company anywhere of any size," Bench said. He added ICE auditors follow leads from the public, other employers, employees and do perform some random audits.

But ICE auditors hit ethnic stores, restaurants, bakeries, manufacturing companies, construction, food packaging, janitorial services, catering, dairies and farms. The aviation branch of corporate giant GE, franchises of sandwich shop Subway and a subsidiary of food product company Heinz were among some of the companies with national name recognition. GE was fined $2,000.

In fiscal year 2011, the most recent year reviewed by AP, the median fine was $11,000. The state with the most workplaces fined was Texas with 63, followed by New Jersey with 37.

The lowest fine was $90 to a Massachusetts fishing company. The highest fine was $394,944 to an employment agency in Minneapolis, according to the data released to AP through a public records request.

A Subway spokesman said the company advises franchise owners to follow the law. A Heinz spokesman declined comment.

Bench didn't have specifics on what percentage of fines come from companies having illegal immigrants on their payroll, as opposed to technical paperwork fines in recent years.

Julie Wood, a former deputy director at ICE who now runs a consulting firm, said she'd like to see the burden of proving the legality of a company's workforce go from the employer to the government. She'd like to see a type of program, such as E-Verify, be implemented with the I-9 employment form. E-Verify is a voluntary and free program for private employers that checks a workers eligibility.

"At the end of the day, the fine is the least of it," she said. "Usually the company will spend more on legal fees. But it is a huge headache for the company to lose workers."

Wood said she'd like to see the agency go after more criminal charges and focus on companies that treat workers inhumanely.

Ends
SA/E

Continue Reading | comments

Telepresence robots let employees 'beam' into work

Palo Alto, Jan 1: Engineer Dallas Goecker attends meetings, jokes with colleagues and roams the office building just like other employees at his company in Silicon Valley.

But Goecker isn't in California. He's more than 2,300 miles away, working at home in Seymour, Indiana.

It's all made possible by the Beam — a mobile video-conferencing machine that he can drive around the Palo Alto offices and workshops of Suitable Technologies. The 5-foot-tall device, topped with a large video screen, gives him a physical presence that makes him and his colleagues feel like he's actually there.

"This gives you that casual interaction that you're used to at work," Goecker said, speaking on a Beam. "I'm sitting in my desk area with everybody else. I'm part of their conversations and their socializing."

Suitable Technologies, which makes the Beam, is now one of more than a dozen companies that sell so-called telepresence robots. These remote-controlled machines are equipped with video cameras, speakers, microphones and wheels that allow users to see, hear, talk and "walk" in faraway locations.

More and more employees are working remotely, thanks to computers, smartphones, email, instant messaging and video-conferencing. But those technologies are no substitute for actually being in the office, where casual face-to-face conversations allow for easy collaboration and camaraderie.

Telepresence-robot makers are trying to bridge that gap with wheeled machines — controlled over wireless Internet connections — that give remote workers a physical presence in the workplace.

These robotic stand-ins are still a long way from going mainstream, with only a small number of organizations starting to use them. The machines can be expensive, difficult to navigate or even get stuck if they venture into areas with poor Internet connectivity. Stairs can be lethal, and non-techies might find them too strange to use regularly.

"There are still a lot of questions, but I think the potential is really great," said Pamela Hinds, co-director of Stanford University's Center on Work, Technology, & Organization. "I don't think face-to-face is going away, but the question is, how much face-to-face can be replaced by this technology?"

Technology watchers say these machines — sometimes called remote presence devices — could be used for many purposes. They could let managers inspect overseas factories, salespeople greet store customers, family members check on elderly relatives or art lovers tour foreign museums.

Some physicians are already seeing patients in remote hospitals with the RP-VITA robot co-developed by Santa-Barbara, Calif.,-based InTouch Health and iRobot, the Bedford, Mass.,-based maker of the Roomba vacuum.

The global market for telepresence robots is projected to reach $13 billion by 2017, said Philip Solis, research director for emerging technologies at ABI Research.

The robots have attracted the attention of Russian venture capitalist Dimitry Grishin, who runs a $25 million fund that invests in early-stage robotics companies.

"It's difficult to predict how big it will be, but I definitely see a lot of opportunity," Grishin said. "Eventually it can be in each home and each office."

His Grishin Robotics fund recently invested $250,000 in a startup called Double Robotics. The Sunnyvale, Calif.,-company started selling a Segway-like device called the Double that holds an Apple iPad, which has a built-in video-conferencing system called FaceTime. The Double can be controlled remotely from an iPad or iPhone.

So far, Double Robotics has sold more than 800 units that cost $1,999 each, said co-founder Mark DeVidts.

The Beam got its start as a side project at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park where Goecker worked as an engineer.

A few years ago, he moved back to his native Indiana to raise his family, but he found it difficult to collaborate with engineering colleagues using existing video-conferencing systems.

"I was struggling with really being part of the team," Goecker said. "They were doing all sorts of wonderful things with robotics. It was hard for me to participate."

So Goecker and his colleagues created their own telepresence robot. The result: the Beam and a new company to develop and market it.

At $16,000 each, the Beam isn't cheap. But Suitable Technologies says it was designed with features that make "pilots" and "locals" feel the remote worker is physically in the room: powerful speakers, highly sensitive microphones and robust wireless connectivity.

The company began shipping Beams last month, mostly to tech companies with widely dispersed engineering teams, officials said.

"Being there in person is really complicated — commuting there, flying there, all the different ways people have to get there. Beam allows you to be there without all that hassle," said CEO Scott Hassan, beaming in from his office at Willow Garage in nearby Menlo Park.

Not surprisingly, Suitable Technologies has fully embraced the Beam as a workplace tool. On any given day, up to half of its 25 employees "beam" into work, with employees on Beams sitting next to their flesh-and-blood colleagues and even joining them for lunch in the cafeteria.

Software engineer Josh Faust beams in daily from Hawaii, where he moved to surf, and plans to spend the winter hitting the slopes in Lake Tahoe. He can't play pingpong or eat the free, catered lunches in Palo Alto, but he otherwise feels like he's part of the team.

"I'm trying to figure out where exactly I want to live. This allows me to do that without any of the instability of trying to find a different job," Faust said, speaking on a Beam from Kaanapali, Hawaii. "It's pretty amazing."

Ends
SA/E

Continue Reading | comments

SMHS hospital sans adequate ticket counters

Srinagar, Jan 1: Failure of authorities to provide basic healthcare facilities at SMHS hospital here is taking heavy toll on patients.

Long and unending queues of patients are daily witnessed at SMHS Hospital where they wait for hours to get ticket for consultation. Ironically there is just a single counter for disseminating OPD tickets to hundreds of patients who visit the hospital from various areas of Kashmir.

 Similarly those who have to undergo CT Scan and MRI have also to remain in long queues for hours together for paying fees.
 Scene outside the OPD ticket counter always remains chaotic.

“It is ironically that patients have to wait for hours together to get a ticket for consultation with doctors. Such procedure is not adopted in any part of the world,” said a medico working at SMHS.
 The patients from rural areas are the worst sufferers due to lack of basic infrastructure.  “I had to wait for two hours to get OPD ticket while my daughter who had suffered severe burn injuries on face, was crying,” a woman said with moist eyes.

 Her miseries however didn’t end here.  She had to wait for another hour in the queue to get her daughter examined by doctor.
 Similar scene was witnessed at the counter where CT Scan and MRI reports are delivered.

 “I am waiting for two hours here and I don’t know how long it will take me to get my report,” said Zahoor Ahmad.

 “Here people are treated like animals… nobody cares for humans. Why doesn’t SMHS management increase number of counters and staff to tackle rush of patients in a smooth manner?”Zahoor questioned.

 Experts said SMHS should take a cue from SKIMS Sours which has multiple counters. “Queues at SKIMS are comparatively smaller due to multiple counters,” said a senior medico requesting not to be named.

 Medical Superintendent SMHS, Nazir Ahmad Chowdhary played down the issue. “Normally we have four counters to disseminate tickets to patients but due to cold weather our staff goes inside the building. We have four computers and adequate staff for this purpose,” he said.

 “If we add further counters, the rush of patients inside the hospital would increase and then who would treat them”, Chowdhary added.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Pesky power cuts haunt Hajin

Hajin, Jan 1: Residents of this held Kashmir town are facing pesky power cuts in harsh winter season.

Locals said during 24 hours, the electricity supply remains affected for 12 to 13 hours. “We even contacted PDD officials but they didn’t pay heed towards us. The power failure in the town has revealed that government is continuously neglecting us,” locals said.

 They said despite Hajin being a part of Speaker Muhammad Akbar Lone’s constituency, they are being deprived of basic necessity—power supply.

 “The examinations of our children are underway and the pesky power cuts are affecting their studies,” they said.
 “After every ten minutes electricity is cut off,” they said. “Officials don’t listen to us.

 The power cuts are also affecting the water supply to the households. “Women in the town have to fetch water from Jhelum even in harsh winter season due to electricity cuts. The water pumps here also turn defunct due to the electricity cuts,” said a local Abdul Ahad.

 A group of traders said power failure was severely affecting their business.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Gateway of IHK proves damp squib

Qazigund, Jan 1 : The much hyped project of the tourism department, The ‘Gateway of Kashmir’ complex at Lewdoora, Qazigund, has proved to be a damp squib.

With no revenue being generated from the complex, the people who have rented space in it for commercial purposes remain to be at the receiving end.

The complex, supposed to serve the literal meaning of its name, was inaugurated by puppet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on December 5, 2012, with much fanfare.

Completed at a staggering cost of Rs seven crore the 'Gateway of Kashmir' Tourist Reception Center (TRC) complex comprises of lodging facilities, restaurants, shops, conference hall, library and an information center.

The TRC complex was supposed to be the entry point for all the tourists entering held Kashmir via road link, which in turn would have generated revenue for the department as well as the people associated with it.

However, while the tourist inflow is touching a new high in the Valley the complex wears a deserted look, with shops closed down, restaurants shut and only half a dozen employees of the department trying to keep themselves busy by entertaining a small number of local guests they receive in the lodging complex.

The shopkeepers within the complex while talking to Greater Kashmir said the apathy on the part of the department is costing them heavily. According to them, despite repeated assurances by the higher ups of the department nothing substantial has been done to ensure the effective business of the premises built using the state exchequers money.

“We have invested a lot in these shops and had expected brisk business here given the location of the complex and the tall promises of the tourism department. But we have been disappointed the way the department has been handling the concerns of the people associated,” said a shopkeeper in the complex.

He said that on the day of the inauguration the authorities pleaded with them to open their shops so that the CM can get the inauguration part done and then their concerns would surely be addressed. After the Chief Minister left officials went into deep slumber. “Officials on many occasions have told us that we should open our shops but the problem is that there is no proper planning to attract the tourists to the premises of the complex. We will not open our shops again,” said the shopkeepers.

They said that besides lodging facility one of the restaurants is running its business despite all odds.

“As of now the only source of revenue from the complex remains the lodging house where we receive some guests occasionally,” said an employee.

The shopkeepers are also aghast over the lack of other basic facilities. “There is no proper water supply available while the electric supply and sanitation facilities are not up to the mark,” they said.

Residents also opine that the serene beauty of the Lewdoora would have attracted tourists but the lackadaisical approach of the authorities is keeping then away.

“The place has a huge tourism potential and whosoever visits the place is mesmerized by its beauty but due to the lackadaisical approach of the authorities, the place has failed to serve its purpose,” said Altaf Ahmad, a resident.

He said that it should have been mandatory for the tourists traveling in vehicles from outside state to hire local transport from Levdoora so that they (locals) get benefited.

The Tourist Officer, Islamabad (Anantnag), Tariq Ahmad admits that a plan needs to be devised so that the tourists entering held Kashmir by road are made to stop at Levdoora ‘Gateway of Kashmir’.

“The project is only in its infancy and there are certainly some shortcomings which we can be overcome by proper advertising or even  making it mandatory for the tourists to stop there,” said Tariq.

“I have taken up the issue with the higher ups and I am really hopeful that some concrete steps would be taken and hopefully by the next tourism season things would be different and the people who have invested will not also suffer,” said Tariq.

He said the Tourism Department had already outsourced shops and lodging while other facilities would soon be upgraded. “The travel agents will be made to operate their services from there and the people associated with handicrafts will also be roped in,” said he.
He said that the library, photo library section and conference hall would also be upgraded. 

The Director Tourism Department, Talat Parvez, when contacted also admitted that the project has so far failed to serve its purpose.
“When the project was inaugurated I had not assumed the charge. There has not been proper outsourcing of the project as a result of which the tourist foot fall is dismal there,” said Talat.

He, however, said the department was now devising a mechanism wherein the all the necessary information would be provided to the tourists and Yatris traveling to the Valley.

“The tour operators would also provide packaging facility to the tourists while the Kashmiri handicrafts will also be put on display,” said Talat.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Childhood hypersensitivity linked to OCD

Islamabad, Jan 1 : In childhood, rituals like regular schedules for meal, bath, and bed times are a healthy part of behavioral development.

But combined with oral and tactile sensitivities, such as discomfort at the dentist or irritation caused by specific fabrics, these rituals could be an early warning sign of adult Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

According to Prof. Reuven Dar of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology, hypersensitivity and excessive adherence to childhood rituals may foreshadow the onset of OCD as the child ages.

He first suspected the link while working with OCD patients who reported sensitivity to touch and taste as children. Now, in the first comprehensive study of its kind, Prof. Dar and his fellow researchers have established a direct correlation between sensory processing -- the way the nervous system manages incoming sensory information -- and ritualistic and obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

The study, which appears in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, suggests that when children experience heightened levels of sensitivity, they develop ritualistic behaviors to better cope with their environment. In the long term, this is one potential pathway to OCD.

Two studies were devised to map the connection between sensory processing, rituals, and OCD. In the first, parents of kindergarten children were asked to complete three questionnaires on their child's behaviour -- their level of ritualism, such as the need to repeat certain acts or to order objects in a particular way; their level of anxiety, with questions relating to reaction to strangers, worrying about outcomes of events, and attachment to family members; and last, their reactions to everyday sensory events such as being touched or exposed to unusual tastes or smells.

In the second study, the researchers asked 314 adult participants to answer surveys online in relation to their OCD tendencies, their anxiety levels, and their past and current sensitivity to oral and tactile stimulation.

Results from both studies indicated a strong connection between compulsive tendencies and hypersensitivity. In children, hypersensitivity was an indicator of ritualism, whereas in adults it was related to OCD symptoms. As a whole, these findings provide preliminary support for the idea that such sensitivities are a precursor to OCD symptoms. When children are extremely sensitive to certain types of touch or smell, they can feel that they are being attacked, or that the environment is threatening them, Prof. Dar believes. Ritualism could develop as a defence mechanism, helping these children to regain a sense of control, which is also a symptom of adults with OCD.

Next Prof. Dar hopes to conduct a longitudinal study to better understand the connection between hypersensitivity in childhood and adult OCD, following a large sample of children who experience oral and tactile sensitivities through to adulthood.
Of course, Prof. Dar says, all children have particular habits and preferences, and they're not all precursors to OCD. So what should parents watch for to correctly characterize normal and potentially pathological behavior? "If you see that a child is very rigid with rituals, becoming anxious if unable to engage in this behavior, it is more alarming," he explains. Also, age is a factor.

A habit exhibited by a five- or six-year-old is not necessarily a predictor of OCD. If the same behavior continues to the ages of eight and above, it could be a warning sign, especially if accompanied by anxiety or distress.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Mutation in gene that's critical for human development linked to arrhythmia

Islamabad, Jan 1: The biologic and genetic mechanisms controlling the formation and function of the CCS are not well understood, but new research with mice shows that altered function of a gene called Tbx3 interferes with the development of the CCS and causes lethal arrhythmia.

Arrhythmia is a potentially life-threatening problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat, causing it to go too fast, too slow or to beat irregularly. Arrhythmia affects millions of people worldwide.

The cardiac conduction system (CCS) regulates the rate and rhythm of the heart. It is a group of specialized cells in the walls of the heart. These cells control the heart rate by sending electrical signals from the sinoatrial node in the heart's right atrium (upper chamber) to the ventricles (lower chambers), causing them to contract and pump blood.

The biologic and genetic mechanisms controlling the formation and function of the CCS are not well understood, but new research with mice shows that altered function of a gene called Tbx3 interferes with the development of the CCS and causes lethal arrhythmia.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition, researchers led by the University of Utah showed the CCS is extremely sensitive to levels of Tbx3. Mouse embryos with Tbx3 levels below a critical threshold suffered arrhythmia and couldn't survive. As the levels of Tbx3 were increased, mice survived to birth, but as adults they developed arrhythmias or had sudden death.

Tbx3 dysfunction merits further investigation as a cause of acquired and spontaneous arrhythmias, says Anne M. Moon, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor of pediatrics at the U of U School of Medicine and corresponding author on the study. "The cardiac conduction system is very sensitive to Tbx3," Moon says. "Tbx3 is required for the conduction system to develop, mature, and then continue to function properly."

The Tbx3 protein, which is a transcription factor encoded by the TBX3 gene, has been linked to heart development, but its role is not yet clearly defined. Moon and her colleagues, including first author Deborah U. Frank, M.D., Ph.D., U assistant professor of pediatrics, found that slight alterations in the structure of the Tbx3 gene alter the level of the protein in mice. When this happens, it can impair the electrical signal in the sinoatrial node and block the atrioventricular node, which conducts electrical signals from the atria to the ventricles. The result is lethal arrhythmias in embryonic and adult mice.

This discovery has implications for the potential to regenerate functional heart tissue, according to Moon. "There's a big effort to regenerate heart muscle," she says. "But if the muscle can't conduct electrical signals, it's not going to do any good; we also need to be able to regenerate conduction tissues to regulate that muscle."
Arrhythmia is not the first problem related to mutations in the TBX3 gene. In humans, TBX3 mutations have been shown to cause limb malformations in people with ulnar-mammary syndrome, an inherited birth disorder characterized by abnormalities of the bones in the hands and forearms and underdeveloped sweat and mammary glands.

In her future research, Moon wants to discover specifically how Tbx3 regulates the behavior of cells in the cardiac conduction system and whether cells that don't have enough Tbx3 die or turn into some other kind of cells.

"It turns out that Tbx3 is a lot more important in the heart than we realized," Moon says.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments

Oxidative DNA damage repair

Islamabad, Jan 1 : Oxidative stress damages DNA. Researchers in the Vetsuisse Faculty have now decoded the mechanism that repairs DNA damaged in this way.

This repair mechanism could lead to less invasive approaches in cancer therapy and contribute to the development of new tests for the early diagnosis of cancer.

Oxidative stress is the cause of many serious diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, arteriosclerosis and diabetes. It occurs when the body is exposed to excessive amounts of electrically charged, aggressive oxygen compounds. These are normally produced during breathing and other metabolic processes, but also in the case of ongoing stress, exposure to UV light or X-rays. If the oxidative stress is too high, it overwhelms the body's natural defences.

The aggressive oxygen compounds destroy genetic material, resulting in what are referred to as harmful 8-oxo-guanine base mutations in the DNA.

Together with the University of Oxford, Enni Markkanen, a veterinarian in the working group of Prof. Ulrich Hübscher from the Institute of Veterinary Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Zurich has decoded and characterized the repair mechanism for the mutated DNA bases.

This mechanism efficiently copies thousands of 8-oxo-guanines without their harmful mutations, thus normally preventing the negative consequences of 8-oxo-guanine damage. In their study, published in "PNAS," the researchers outline the detailed processes involved in the local and temporal coordination of this repair mechanism. Prof. Ulrich Hübscher hopes that this basic research can be used therapeutically.

"We expect that the DNA repair mechanism discovered here will lead to less invasive approaches in cancer therapy and that it will be possible to develop new clinical tests for the early detection of certain types of cancer." In cooperation with University Hospital Zurich, a study is already underway that involves examining samples of different types of cancer for the repair gene and its regulation.

Ends
SA/EN

Continue Reading | comments