Egypt plans to send delegation to U.S. as NGO furor mounts (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A Egyptian military team plans to visit the United States next week as Cairo's crackdown on pro-democracy organizations has called into question the future of U.S. aid to Egypt, American officials said on Friday.

The Egyptian delegation hopes to meet with officials at the State Department and the Pentagon. It will also hold talks on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will soon consider a new request for aid to Egypt's military, which now runs about $1.3 billion per year, one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Egyptian visit comes after Egypt's military-led authorities pounced on non-governmental organizations, including several funded by the U.S. government, and slapped travel bans on six American staffers including a son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former congressman.

Political analysts say the crackdown, along with questions over Egypt's emergency law and security forces' treatment of women protesters, has clouded the outlook for Egypt's fledgling democracy following last year's overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said American officials were pressing Egyptian authorities the crackdown, which she described as "bizarre." The Americans have demanded that Egypt lift travel restrictions placed on a number of foreign NGO staffers.

"We do not have progress since yesterday, I am sorry to report," Nuland said.

The six U.S. citizens work with the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute. Both receive U.S. public funding and are loosely affiliated with the two major political parties in Washington.

"The assertions of the Egyptian government in these cases are that they are subject to a judicial process which is not complete," Nuland said. "Our message back is, 'Complete these formalities and let our people travel as soon as possible.'"

HIGH TENSION

Officials said a detailed Washington schedule for the Egyptian visit was still being worked out, adding that it was a regular staff delegation that was coming at a moment of high tension in the U.S.-Egypt relationship.

Other political sources said the Egyptians were expected to discuss the NGO issue on Capitol Hill, where a number of senators have warned the Egyptians that U.S. aid was at stake if action against the NGOs continues.

"Continued restriction of their activities and harassment of international and Egyptian staff will be looked at with great concern, particularly in light of Egypt's considerable U.S. assistance," 11 senators said in a letter to Egyptian Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi dated January 18.

President Barack Obama spoke with Tantawi on January 20 and stressed the importance of the NGOs, as well as Egypt's deteriorating economic situation and its request for $3.2 billion in support from the International Monetary Fund.

The Obama administration is finalizing its budget for the 2013 fiscal year, which will be presented on February 13 and is expected to include continued assistance for Egypt's military.

Lawmakers imposed conditions on the U.S. assistance given in 2012, requiring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to certify that the Egyptian government is supporting the transition to a civilian government. That includes holding free and fair elections and implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.

Clinton can waive this if it is in U.S. national security interests, but must notify Congress that she has done so.

"Those are decisions that are going to have to be made later on in the winter and spring," Nuland said. "These are points that we're obviously making clear to the Egyptians."

(Editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_egypt_usa

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A Bad Night for Newt (ABC News)

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Thrun leaving Stanford for online startup

When a Stanford University professor first offered a free online version of his "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" class, he attracted 160,000 students from around the world. Now he has given up his tenured academic position to create a startup that could deliver university-level education for low cost to anyone with an Internet connection.

The move by Sebastian Thrun, a computer scientist who has worked on Google's self-driving cars, came as a surprise announcement first reported by Reuters at the Digital Life Design conference held in Munich, Germany, Jan. 22-24. But his startup idea, called Udacity, joins a growing number of tech-driven efforts to revolutionize the traditional classroom model that has prevailed for hundreds of years.

"Having done this, I can't teach at Stanford again," Thrun said. "You can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture to your 20 students, but I've taken the red pill and I've seen Wonderland."

Thrun cited the inspiration of Salman Khan, a hedge fund analyst in Boston, who first created online videos about math to tutor his younger cousins. Khan has since created more than 2,700 videos for the nonprofit Khan Academy with backing from Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Another initiative, by The Jack Parker Corp. and Big Think, called " The Floating University," aims to offer online Ivy League courses a la carte for a relatively cheap cost.

The new Udacity startup offers two courses so far ? "Building a Search Engine" and "Programming a Robotic Car." The first course is taught by David Evans, a computer scientist formerly at the University of Virginia, and Thrun teaches the second course.

The first online course Thrun offered at Stanford gave him plenty of personal lessons. He was shocked by the dizzying popularity of the online course, but even more surprised as the students attending the actual Stanford lecture dwindled from 200 in-person attendees to just 20 or 30 students.

"These are students who pay $30,000 a year to Stanford to see the best and brightest of our professors, and they prefer to see us on video?" Thrun recalled in his Digital Life Design presentation. "This was a big shock to us."

Apparently even the Stanford students preferred watching the classroom lectures as online videos on their own time. Thrun and Peter Norvig, director of Google Research and a Stanford colleague at the time, spent hours creating such videos with nothing more than a camera, pen and napkin, and quizzed students through online software.

Online education can also leverage the "flipped classroom" technique used by a few innovative educators, Thrun said. Students watch lectures on their own so that teachers can spend their time and energy helping students solve problems.

Many of his online students have written to share their stories with Thrun. One student told of finishing online assignments in between mortar and rocket attacks in Afghanistan. Another described herself as a single mother of two young children who suffered from both job and family worries.

"I took the midterm this weekend, mostly while holding a teething infant," said the anonymous mother. "None of my other issues have gone away. But I feel more determined than ever to see this through ? for myself."

You can follow InnovationNewsDaily senior writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @ScienceHsu. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

? 2012 InnovationNewsDaily.com. All rights reserved. More from InnovationNewsDaily.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46138856/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

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Documentary makers spur calls to action at Sundance (Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) ? Each year documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival are among the best movies here, and in 2012 nonfiction works on subjects from the healthcare crisis to the war on drugs and rape in the military are wowing crowds and spurring calls to action.

Sundance is the premiere U.S. film festival for movies made outside of Hollywood's mainstream studios, and it is among the world's elite gatherings for documentary makers. Sundance backer and activist Robert Redford, is an avid supporter of the form.

Oscar-winner "An Inconvenient Truth" debuted here, and as it did in boosting environmental causes, many other documentaries also use Sundance to launch social cause campaigns. Succinctly put: when documentaries talking at Sundance, people listen.

"If there's a well-made film about an issue, it's not just a great film the festival is showing, but an issue (Sundance) is putting on the front burner," said writer and director Kirby Dick, whose documentary on rape within the US military, "The Invisible War," had its world premiere at the festival.

Many of the documentaries here at Sundance 2012, which runs through January 29, tell of struggles facing ordinary and poor Americans. Some, like "Invisible War" shed light on a problem that was little-known before, while others take on broad topics.

Director Eugene Jarecki's "The House I Live In" tackles America's long, failed war on drugs. Jarecki, director of other nonfiction films such as "Why We Fight," critiques drug policies, courts, prisons and their impact on minorities.

Macky Alston highlights the struggles of homosexuality in organized religion in "Love Free or Die" in which he follows the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, and his contentious battle for acceptance in the faith.

And "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare" points out that despite rising healthcare costs, the outcomes faced by patients often are worse than they have been in years.

"There's so much misunderstanding about what's wrong with healthcare, how we can fix it and how we can move forward," the film's co-director and producer Matthew Heineman told Reuters. "The goal of our film has been to clarify these issues -- why it's broken, why it doesn't fundamentally want to change and people out there who are trying to change it."

The film's co-director and producer Susan Froemke hoped the festival might be "a launching point for starting a movement and to understand how to change health in our country."

"TELL YOUR FRIENDS"

The filmmakers behind "Finding North," have similar hopes for their documentary, which focuses on the hunger problem in America. Directors Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson implored their audience to take action at the film's premiere.

"The very first step is you came to see this movie," Silverbush told the crowd. "Now go and tell your friends because the zeitgeist will fix this. When we get the political will as a nation to end hunger, we will. We did it before."

With soup kitchens on the rise and one in six Americans not getting enough food, according to the film, "there's not a lot of action in (Washington) D.C. on the issue and we do hope that this film will change that," added Jacobson.

In Dick's "Invisible War," the filmmaker follows the shattered lives of servicewomen (and a few servicemen) who were assaulted by their fellow soldiers while enlisted. He felt compelled to tell their story for numerous reasons.

"The primary objective is to raise awareness. That's why we made this film," Dick told Reuters. "Over 500,000 women have been assaulted in the military and it is shocking to me that so few people know about it. I've never made a film where the subject matter was so secretive, so covered up."

Kirby said he wanted to let "let our county know that the people who are protecting us are not being protected" and to let survivors know that they are not alone. He hopes that the U.S. military, Congress and the White House will "step up and do the things that need to be done to change this."

With all the pressing issues affecting the U.S., Kirby believes that the voice of the documentarian is an important one and Sundance is crucial for allowing them that platform.

"There's a sense in this country that things need to change," he said. "Documentary filmmakers, along with others, are trying to reflect that, to sound the alarm, to put the word out."

(Editing by Christine Kearney and Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/en_nm/us_sundance_documentaries

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Unprecedented, man-made trends in ocean's acidity

Monday, January 23, 2012

Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world's oceans. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water's acidity, which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.

Combining computer modeling with observations, an international team of scientists concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions over the last 100 to 200 years have already raised ocean acidity far beyond the range of natural variations. The study is published in the January 22 online issue of Nature Climate Change.

The team of climate modelers, marine conservationists, ocean chemists, biologists and ecologists, led by Tobias Friedrich and Axel Timmermann at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, came to their conclusions by using Earth system models that simulate climate and ocean conditions 21,000 years back in time, to the Last Glacial Maximum, and forward in time to the end of the 21st century. They studied in their models changes in the saturation level of aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate) typically used to measure of ocean acidification. As acidity of seawater rises, the saturation level of aragonite drops. Their models captured well the current observed seasonal and annual variations in this quantity in several key coral reef regions.

Today's levels of aragonite saturation in these locations have already dropped five times below the pre-industrial range of natural variability. For example, if the yearly cycle in aragonite saturation varied between 4.7 and 4.8, it varies now between 4.2 and 4.3, which ? based on another recent study ? may translate into a decrease in overall calcification rates of corals and other aragonite shell-forming organisms by 15%. Given the continued human use of fossil fuels, the saturation levels will drop further, potentially reducing calcification rates of some marine organisms by more than 40% of their pre-industrial values within the next 90 years.

"Any significant drop below the minimum level of aragonite to which the organisms have been exposed to for thousands of years and have successfully adapted will very likely stress them and their associated ecosystems," says lead author Postdoctoral Fellow Tobias Friedrich.

"In some regions, the man-made rate of change in ocean acidity since the Industrial Revolution is hundred times greater than the natural rate of change between the Last Glacial Maximum and pre-industrial times," emphasizes Friedrich. "When Earth started to warm 17,000 years ago, terminating the last glacial period, atmospheric CO2 levels rose from 190 parts per million (ppm) to 280 ppm over 6,000 years. Marine ecosystems had ample time to adjust. Now, for a similar rise in CO2 concentration to the present level of 392 ppm, the adjustment time is reduced to only 100 ? 200 years."

On a global scale, coral reefs are currently found in places where open-ocean aragonite saturation reaches levels of 3.5 or higher. Such conditions exist today in about 50% of the ocean ? mostly in the tropics. By end of the 21st century this fraction is projected to be less than 5%. The Hawaiian Islands, which sit just on the northern edge of the tropics, will be one of the first to feel the impact.

The study suggests that some regions, such as the eastern tropical Pacific, will be less stressed than others because greater underlying natural variability of seawater acidity helps to buffer anthropogenic changes. The aragonite saturation in the Caribbean and the western Equatorial Pacific, both biodiversity hotspots, shows very little natural variability, making these regions particularly vulnerable to human-induced ocean acidification.

"Our results suggest that severe reductions are likely to occur in coral reef diversity, structural complexity and resilience by the middle of this century," says co-author Professor Axel Timmermann."

###

University of Hawaii ? SOEST:

Thanks to University of Hawaii ? SOEST for this article.

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France passes genocide law, faces Turkish reprisals (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? France approved on Monday a bill making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide, sparking angry retaliation from Turkey which threatened a "total rupture" of diplomatic ties.

Lawmakers in the upper house (Senate) voted 127 to 86 in favor of the draft law outlawing genocide denial after almost six hours of debate. The lower house had backed it in December, prompting Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings with Paris and recall its ambassador for consultations.

The bill had been made more general so that it outlawed the denial of any genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing the Turks. But Ankara condemned the bill's approval and said it would take permanent steps against France, a NATO ally.

The bill now goes to President Nicolas Sarkozy to be ratified. Turkey says the bill is a bid by Sarkozy to win the votes of 500,000 ethnic Armenians in France in the two-round presidential vote on April 22 and May 6.

"Turkey is committed to taking all the necessary steps against this unjust disposition which reduces basic human values and public conscience to nothing," Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Turkish ambassador in Paris, Tahsin Burcuoglu, said the vote would lead to a "total rupture" of relations between the two countries. Ankara could seek to downgrade its diplomatic presence in Paris.

"When I say total rupture I include things like I can leave definitively," he told reporters.

"You can also expect that now diplomatic relations will be at the level of charges d'affaires not ambassadors anymore."

Charge d'affaires is the lowest rank of diplomatic representative recognized under the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.

The Ottoman empire was dissolved after the end of the war, but successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is a direct insult to their nation. Ankara argues there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the area.

"This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of the history of the protection of human rights," said Armenia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edward Nalbandian.

Earlier, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg that Ankara would take new and permanent measures unless the bill was rejected and compared it to the Inquisition in the Middle Ages which was created by the Catholic Church to stamp out heresy.

Arinc said Turkey could take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

It mandates a maximum 45,000-euro ($58,000) fine and a year in jail for offenders. France passed a law recognizing the killing of Armenians as genocide in 2001.

WAVING VOTING CARDS

About 200 Franco-Turks protested outside the Senate. They waved their French voting cards and banners with slogans including: "It's not up to politicians to invent history".

The Socialist Party, which has a majority in the upper house, and Sarkozy's UMP party, which put forward the bill, backed the legislation.

A non-binding Senate recommendation last week said the law would be unconstitutional and, after weeks of aggressive Turkish lobbying, there were suggestions the outcome would be closer.

Opponents in the Senate said the law would not encourage the Turks to recognize the Armenian genocide and would do nothing to help relations between the two nations.

"It is an unbearable law which calls into question historical research," said centre-left senator Jacques Mezard.

Sarkozy is expected to ratify the bill before parliament is suspended in February ahead of the presidential election.

It could still be rejected if some 60 lawmakers agree to appeal the decision at the country's highest court and that body considers the text unconstitutional. The Constitutional Council would have one month to make its decision.

Sarkozy wrote to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week saying the bill did not single out any country and that Paris was aware of the "suffering endured by the Turkish people" during the final years of the Ottoman empire.

European Union candidate Turkey could not impose economic sanctions on France, given its World Trade Organisation membership and customs union accord with Europe.

But the row could cost France state-to-state contracts and would create diplomatic tension as Turkey takes an increasingly influential role in the Middle East.

(Additional reporting by Lucien Libert in Paris, Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg and Daren Butler in Istanbul; editing by Robert Woodward)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/wl_nm/us_france_turkey_genocide

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Longest-serving Pennsylvania lawmaker goes on trial (Reuters)

HARRISBURG, Penn (Reuters) ? The corruption trial of Pennsylvania's longest-serving state lawmaker, H. William DeWeese, opened on Monday with prosecutors describing him as "a common thief with uncommon access to other people's money."

DeWeese, 61, a former speaker of the state House of Representatives and a Democrat from rural Greene County, faces multiple charges including criminal conspiracy, conflict of interest and theft. His trial could last two weeks.

Prosecutors accuse the lawmaker, who has held office for 36 years, of using public funds and public employees to win election. Doing any campaigning while on the public clock is against the law in Pennsylvania.

"This case isn't a 'who done it?' and this is case isn't even a 'why done it?' It is about the use of power to keep power and to be re-elected," state prosecutor Kenneth Burns told the seven-woman, five-man jury in Dauphin County Court.

Burns said DeWeese ordered "systemic, extensive, detailed" campaign work that, in some cases, took more than half of a state employee's time.

But DeWeese's defense attorney said that the prosecution's case is trumped up and "petty."

"This is not a case of conspiracy of gun-wielding robbers with lookouts," said William Costopoulos, DeWeese's defense attorney, who has been called "Wild Bill" because of his flamboyance and ability to win high-profile cases.

Costopoulos told the jury DeWeese came from an honest family, was a U.S. Marine and, as a lawmaker, did all he could to help coal miners and improve access to prescription drugs for the elderly.

If he had a fault, Costopoulos said DeWeese was too trusting of those who worked for and with him and never believed employees would do any campaigning while working their public jobs.

"Bill DeWeese trusted everyone, especially those who were closest to him. He was so trusting many of his friends deemed him na?ve," Costopoulos said.

The case against DeWeese stems from a larger investigation, dubbed "Bonusgate," that has so far ensnared 10 House Democratic caucus members and nine House Republican caucus members, including former Republican House Speaker John Perzel of Philadelphia. Perzel has pleaded guilty to charges and awaits sentencing.

DeWeese was to have been tried with his former district office staffer Sharon Rodavich. But Rodavich pleaded guilty last week during jury selection for this trial and will testify against DeWeese.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/us_nm/us_crime_corruption_pennsylvania

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