Looming spending cuts hit more than defense

(AP) ? It's not just the Pentagon and defense contractors that face a funding crisis from broad government spending cuts in January. Domestic programs are on the chopping block too, in ways that could affect average Americans more.

Fewer air traffic controllers, border guards, FBI agents and park rangers would be on the job as furloughs sweep across the government. Less meat might get inspected, and fewer people would get winter heating subsidies.

Military personnel would be exempt from the cuts, but neither Congress nor the White House would be spared.

At issue are sweeping across-the-board spending cuts due to strike Jan. 2 as punishment for the failure of last year's deficit supercommittee to reach a budget deal for achieving less red ink in the future.

The idea behind the automatic cuts, called a sequester in Washington parlance, was to force the warring sides to agree on a deal to slash out-of-control deficits that currently require the government to borrow 33 cents of every dollar it spends. The sequester was intentionally designed to be harsh if the negotiators couldn't agree.

While Republican defense hawks are up in arms over $55 billion in cuts that would slam the military next year and wreak havoc in the jobs-rich defense industry, there's been relatively little attention paid to a matching $55 billion cut from domestic programs.

"The situation on the domestic side is just as bad as the situation on the defense side, but you don't have as many contractors who are willing to lobby and scream publicly," said budget expert Richard Kogan of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The impact of the cuts is shrouded in both debate and mystery. Alarmists warn that smaller airports would have to close for lack of air traffic controllers and say meat plants could be temporarily shuttered for a lack of inspectors. Others say agency managers will be able to mitigate much of the impact, especially if the automatic cuts are turned off after a short while.

Some of the biggest and most important programs are exempt from the cuts entirely: Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, veterans' health care and federal employee pensions. Medicare cuts would be limited to 2 percent.

But farm subsidies would be cut, as would federal courts, the National Weather Service and food aid for pregnant women.

Day-to-day domestic programs funded by appropriations bills each year face cuts of about 8 percent. But since the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and the cuts don't take effect until Jan. 2, they all have to be absorbed in nine months and might therefore feel more like 12 percent.

Agency budget officials could begin husbanding resources in October, but only if they're willing to flout White House and congressional directives to maintain normal spending through the election and up to January.

Last year's budget law requires cutting every "program, project and activity" by an equal percentage, so managers have no choice but to cut payroll costs. They're more likely, however, to furlough workers temporarily rather than lay them off, especially since few believe that Congress would let a sequester drag on for months. Laying off federal workers also takes time; generally they enjoy more legal rights than private-sector employees.

Once the election is over, intense negotiations are expected on sidestepping the sequester and the expiration of former President George W. Bush's tax cuts. The two events have been dubbed a "fiscal cliff" because many economists fear the combination will plunge the country back into recession.

While there's no guarantee that the negotiations will bear fruit, few people in Washington believe a sequester would remain in place more than a few weeks.

"I don't think anybody can be confident that anything's going to happen in the lame duck" session of Congress, said Scott Lilly, a former longtime aide on the House Appropriations Committee who's now with the Center for American Progress think tank. "People find it so absurd that they don't think it's at all possible that it's going to happen. And when they find out it has happened, the reaction is going to be extreme. Sometime in January you're going to see the Congress finally come to its senses."

The real-world impact of a short sequester of several weeks would vary program by program. For example, Education Department grants to school districts are sent out in early fall and wouldn't be affected unless the sequester dragged on for months. The same for a program like Head Start, in which funding is delivered to states in the summer.

But labor-intensive programs like air traffic control, meat inspection and Transportation Security Administration screening at airports would be affected immediately. Fewer employees at national parks could mean closed campgrounds and less access for visitors, and there would be fewer workplace safety inspectors at job sites.

Cuts in other federal programs might go unnoticed for a while. For example, many people eligible for subsidized housing vouchers are already on waiting lists. Their wait would just be longer.

The impact would be more pronounced if gridlock persisted and the sequester lasted a year.

In testimony to Congress earlier this month, acting White House Budget Director Jeffrey Zients said the automatic spending cuts would mean that 700,000 fewer low-income women and children would receive food aid and 100,000 preschool kids would lose places in Head Start

Zients said such cuts "would jeopardize critical programs that improve children's health and education, adversely impacting future generations."

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee panel responsible for education and health-related spending, released a staff report last month which broke the cuts down further.

It estimated that the sequester could mean more than 12,000 HIV-positive people would lose access to their antiviral drugs, and that a $2.7 billion cut in federal funding for Title I grants to schools, special education funding and Head Start could mean more than 46,000 lost jobs.

"Some members of Congress warn that defense contracting firms will lay off employees if sequestration goes into effect," Harkin said at a recent hearing. "They say nothing of the tens of thousands of teachers, police officers and other public servants in communities all across America who would also lose their jobs. A laid-off teacher is just as unemployed as a laid-off defense contractor."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-08-14-Fiscal%20Cliff-Domestic%20Cuts/id-3176fc4f221c482bba8969af1f40c396

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Argentina tries ex-president on bribery charges

In this picture released by Argentina's Judicial Information Center, Argentina's former President Fernando De la Rua attends the start of his trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. De la Rua is accused of paying millions of dollars to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The trial is expected to stretch well into 2013 with more than 300 witnesses lined up including President Cristina Fernandez. (AP Photo/Centro de Informacion Judicial)

In this picture released by Argentina's Judicial Information Center, Argentina's former President Fernando De la Rua attends the start of his trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. De la Rua is accused of paying millions of dollars to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The trial is expected to stretch well into 2013 with more than 300 witnesses lined up including President Cristina Fernandez. (AP Photo/Centro de Informacion Judicial)

In this picture released by Argentina's Judicial Information Center, Argentina's former President Fernando De la Rua attends the start of his trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. De la Rua is accused of paying millions of dollars to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The trial is expected to stretch well into 2013 with hundreds of witnesses lined up including President Cristina Fernandez. (AP Photo/Centro de Informacion Judicial)

In this picture released by Argentina's Judicial Information Center, Argentina's former President Fernando De la Rua, center, sits between his lawyers Valeria Corbacho, left, and Jorge Kirszenbaum at the start of his trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. De la Rua is accused of paying millions of dollars to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The trial is expected to stretch well into 2013 with more than 300 witnesses lined up including President Cristina Fernandez. (AP Photo/Centro de Informacion Judicial)

(AP) ? Argentine prosecutors put a former president on trial for bribery on Tuesday, accusing Fernando de la Rua of bribing senators for votes.

A three-judge panel already has ruled that $5 million was paid to a group of senators in exchange for their votes to remove worker protections in the year 2000, when the International Monetary Fund was making workforce flexibility a requirement for extending loans to Argentina. The law, which enabled companies to fire workers without cause or severance pay, was overturned in 2004.

Now prosecutors must prove the payments were ordered by De la Rua, who served from 1999 to December 2001, when the IMF refused to extend more loans and the economy collapsed. Deadly riots followed, forcing de la Rua to flee by helicopter from the rooftop of the presidential palace.

De la Rua's co-defendants include his liaison to Congress, former parliament secretary Mario Pontaquarto, who confessed a decade ago to delivering the money on the orders of De la Rua himself.

Pontaquarto said he picked up the $5 million from Argentina's Intelligence Service, giving $4 million to one senator, Emilio Cantarero, and $1 million to another, Jose Genoud. Cantarero now suffers from Alzheimer's disease and Genoud committed suicide, but Pontaquarto said he helped prosecutors compile solid evidence.

"I'm looking for the truth to put an end to all of this," Pontaquarto said as he entered the courtroom Tuesday, adding that he's not afraid to go to prison.

"If there's no conviction for me, who turned myself in, no one will be convicted and impunity will result," he said. "Society has condemned this, and what I want is for the justice system to condemn it as well. I'm not interested in De la Rua's lies. This was the most serious act of institutional corruption since the return of democracy" in 1983, after seven years of dictatorship.

De la Rua's defenders handed out pamphlets at the courthouse Tuesday noting that Pontaquarto had been convicted of embezzling government travel money and saying he should not be believed.

"This is an absurd case, full of contradictions, built on rumors that lack any evidence," De la Rua declares in the pamphlet. "Pontaquarto has accused me without proof, with a discourse based on contradictions that were never proven. What credibility could this person have? None."

The trial is expected to stretch well into 2013 with nearly 340 witnesses lined up including President Cristina Fernandez, who was granted the right to submit written testimony. Fernandez was an opposition senator at the time of the crime and is not accused of taking a bribe.

Also charged with bribery are former intelligence chief Fernando de Santibanes and former Labor Minister Alberto Flamarique. Four former senators are charged with accepting the bribes: Alberto Tell, Augusto Alasino, Remo Costanzo and Ricardo Branda.

Junta leaders have been tried for human rights violations in recent years, but De la Rua is only the second democratically elected former Argentine president to face trial. The other was his predecessor Carlos Menem, who was acquitted in November of arms trafficking in the early 1990s.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-14-Argentina-Ex-President%20on%20Trial/id-77bec55074bb4ac2ad1b5759fc074d77

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Groupon results, forecast disappoint on European woes

(Reuters) - Groupon Inc became the latest young consumer Internet company to disappoint Wall Street on Monday, when the world's largest online daily deals provider missed quarterly revenue expectations and gave a cautious profit outlook.

Groupon shares slumped after the results, plummeting almost 70 percent from where they priced in a huge initial public offering last November.

Groupon executives said Europe's weak economy and currency fluctuations dented results. They also said the company is working to improve the company's performance in that region.

Groupon shares slid to a life-time low of $6.05 in after-hours trading. The stock was recently down 19 percent at $6.13 in evening action.

"It seems like they don't have enough control over various aspects of their business," said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Co. "Will they be able to fix the situation by the end of this year? If not, we could see a very significant slowdown in growth in 2013."

This year, Groupon's issues have come to epitomize a clutch of Internet and social media companies, such as Zynga and Facebook, which debuted with much fanfare but have since failed to live up to lofty initial expectations.

Groupon grew rapidly as a private company by offering big daily discounts on local services, such as restaurants, to millions of online subscribers.

That original daily deal business is showing signs of slowing, so the company has expanded into new areas, such as consumer product sales and merchant services. Some of these new initiatives are growing quickly, but may not be as profitable as Groupon's original daily deals.

"The core daily deals business is slowing more than anticipated," said Clayton Moran, an analyst at The Benchmark Company.

Groupon is offsetting that by expanding its Groupon Goods business, which sells discounted consumer products, Moran added.

"But that is a concern because the Goods business is lower margin," Moran said. "It also indicates that the daily deal business may not have the potential that people previously thought."

For the second quarter revenue was $568.3 million, compared with $392.6 million in the second quarter of 2011, the Chicago-based company said.

Wall Street expected Groupon to report revenue of $573 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Earlier this year, Groupon forecast second-quarter revenue of $550 million to $590 million.

Groupon said third-quarter income from operations would be $45 million to $65 million, excluding stock-based compensation costs.

Wall Street was looking for profit of about $70 million to $80 million on that basis, according to Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group.

EUROPEAN DRAG

Gross billings, which reflect the money Groupon collects from consumers who buy its daily deals, totaled $1.29 billion in the second quarter. That was down from $1.35 billion in the first quarter.

"Europe was really the driver there," Groupon's Chief Financial Officer Jason Child said. "That was macro headwinds and currency."

Groupon recently changed management in Europe and it is rolling out new technology in the region to make its daily deals more relevant and get them closer to potential customers, the CFO said.

Still, Child said the introduction of the new technology will take "the balance of this year."

Groupon's third-quarter profit outlook, which was lower than Wall Street expectations, reflects uncertainty in Europe and gives the company room to make investments to improve its performance in the region, Child told analysts during a conference call.

Groupon Chief Executive Andrew Mason said higher priced deals in Europe saw less demand.

"While deals such as laser hair removal and luxury hotel stays in Monaco give Groupon an element of discovery that is key to our brand, we've also found that these more discretionary offers are more susceptible to negative demand elasticity over the past few quarters as macroeconomic conditions have deteriorated," Mason explained during the conference call.

Mason and Child said Groupon is planning to strike a better balance between discounts and other benefits it provides to consumers in Europe and the service it provides to merchants in the region.

"We've learned in North America that the best way to maximize gross revenue dollars for Groupon is to find the right balance between consumer and merchant value," Mason said. "By doing so in Europe, we have a clear opportunity to unlock growth and achieve the same kind of market penetration of Internet users that we have in North America."

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/groupon-reports-quarterly-revenue-568-million-200850022--sector.html

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Mars rover aces social networking, but will it inspire study of science?

The rover Curiosity, with nearly 900,000 Twitter followers, had a strong Internet presence even before its launch to Mars. Scientists hope this will lead to more student interest in science ? and more funding.

By Kevin Loria,?Contributor / August 12, 2012

NASA engineers look at image sets from NASA's Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at the Surface Mission Support Area, SMSA NASA's JPL in Pasadena, Calif.

Damian Dovarganes/AP

Enlarge

As the 1-ton, six-wheeled Curiosity rover scours the Martian surface over the next 23 months (one Mars year), its main mission is to search for traces of possible life on the red planet. But beyond that, many hope it will inspire a new generation to look to the stars ? and to learn the science and engineering needed to get there.

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Scholars who evaluate the state of science education worry that the United States is falling behind and not preparing students for a future that will depend more on scientific and technological skills. But some experts hope that the popularity of this Mars mission, one of the first major NASA expeditions with a wide social media presence, could boost interest in science and technology. ?

The Curiosity rover and its dramatic landing procedure captured the public eye, at least for now. Nearly 1,000 people gathered in New York's Times Square on Sunday night to watch the footage from NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), chanting ?NASA,? ?Space,? and even ?USA, USA, USA!?

They are still figuring out the exact numbers, but it seems that almost 4.5 million people watched the landing on TV and that more than 3.2 million streamed it over the Internet, according to David Seidel, deputy education director for the JPL.?Curiosity has more than 240,000 Facebook "likes" and close to 900,000 Twitter followers. Its closest NASA-built rival, Phoenix Mars Lander, currently has about 212,000 followers.?

This is the most popular and most active social media account NASA has ever created for the public to engage with a mission ? and schools and universities plan to try to tap into that excitement.

Kip Hodges, a professor and the director of Arizona State University?s School of Earth and Space Exploration?in Tempe, says he has high hopes that students will be inspired by the rover. A new research facility at the school is equipped with a 3-D high-definition theater and space to project images streamed from Mars. Mr. Hodges says some scientific disciplines are already growing rapidly, with young people concerned about the environment, and that the cool factor and interactive tools NASA created for Curiosity could attract a lot of interest.

?It?s like the greatest video game in the world, you?re dealing with an avatar on another planet, and one that?s really there,? says Hodges about the mobile Mars laboratory?s appeal.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/NMOWt75tPio/Mars-rover-aces-social-networking-but-will-it-inspire-study-of-science

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'Single Motherhood' and the Bigger, Broader Meanings of Family ...

On the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Katie Roiphe has contributed a rousing moving, and brilliant defense of single motherhood. She urges us to think more broadly about the meaning of family. I accept her challenge and will point to some possibilities that are even farther-reaching than the ones she described.

I am going to focus here primarily on the many important people in the lives of single parents and their children. Roiphe?s essay, though, says much more and is worth reading in its entirety.

Early in the piece, Roiphe says this:

?Conservatives obsess over moral decline, and liberals worry extravagantly ? and one could argue condescendingly ? about children, but all exhibit a fundamental lack of imagination about what family can be ? and perhaps more pressingly ? what family is??

So what comes next in that sentence?

?we now live in a country in which 53 percent of the babies born to women under 30 are born to unmarried mothers.?

True, but that still hews to the conventional meaning of family. The U. S. Census Bureau, for example, defines family as ?a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together.? (The householder is the person ?in whose name the housing unit is owned or rented.?) ?What family is,? the opening promise of Roiphe?s declaration, builds to too small an ending. What family is today is so much more.

Roiphe nods at that bigger picture when she argues that our cultural conversations about single parenting, and even the academic studies on the topic, insufficiently recognize the fluidity in many people?s lives:

?In fact women move in and out of singleness, married parents break apart, men and women live together without marrying, spouses or partners die, romantic attachments form and dissolve.?

She is right. There is a shifting complexity in many people?s lives. The people who are important to us, though, go beyond spouses, partners and romantic attachments. Life-span scholars such as Toni Antonucci have shown that people have ?social convoys,? networks of people who march alongside them over the course of a lifetime. The convoys are not completely stable over time: particular people can become more or less important over time, or even fall out of the inner circles of a person?s life, and some people do not join the convoy until many years, or even decades, have passed.

Still, there may be enough constancy to the convoy to provide an enduring sense of continuity and identity and support ? more than most romantic partners, or succession of partners, ever offer.

Near the end of her essay, Roiphe notes:

?Our narrow, constricting, airless sense of the isolated nuclear family has not always, if we are honest, served us well, and it may now be replaced by something more vivid and dynamic, and closer to the way we are actually living.?

The way we are actually living now is the topic of my most recent project. (A survey is here if you want to participate.) I have been studying single parents and single people who are not parents ? and, it turns out, even some couples and two-parent families who could go traditional but choose not to.

My research is just beginning, but already, in the category of single parents, I have talked to a number of people whose lives do not fit the stereotype of the lone mother and her children isolated in a single-family detached home or a small, smelly apartment.

An example of an alternative living arrangement I have visited is called co-housing. In those communities, the parent and his or her children live in their own home among a cluster of homes that includes a common house where residences share dinner several times a week. Co-housing is designed to foster community. Homes typically face an open, green space inaccessible to cars that is a safe place for kids to play and an inviting place for neighbors to chat. Co-housing is not just for single-parent families, or especially for them. The communities welcome singles and the wide variety of household inhabitants you might find anywhere else.

I also talked to a single mother I have known for a long time. When she adopted her daughter, she named twelve of the most important people in her life to be godparents. She created a social convoy to be there from the outset. As her daughter grew up, she added her own convoy members.

Multi-generational homes can also be comfortable places for single parents and their children. In our cultural imagination, these are mostly ethnic families. In fact, though, multi-generational living is not nearly so limited.

Thanks to a tip from April, I also plan to learn more about co-abode. As the website notes, ?Co-abode offers a unique ?matchmaking? service to provide single moms with one or more children the opportunity to share housing, while pooling resources and finances with another single mom of their choosing.?

In case you are wondering, I am not a single parent (I?m not any kind of parent) and I was not raised by a single parent ? my parents enjoyed their one-and-only marriage for 42 years, until the day my father died. I?m offended by the derision and sanctimony about single parenting not as a single parent but as a scientist who finds fault with the research, and as a citizen always rooting for the long arc of history to bend toward justice.

Note: Katie Roiphe advises that she is ?not a huge believer in studies.? I differ from her there. I love research ? I just want it to be high quality and interpreted accurately, which it too often isn?t. I have written research-based accounts of single parenting in a chapter in Singled Out as well as in blog posts on this site and elsewhere:

You can also find discussions of the stereotyping and stigmatizing of single parents and their children in Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It.

Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard; Visiting Professor, UC Santa Barbara), an expert on single life, is the author of several books, including "Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After" and "Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It." Dr. DePaulo has discussed singles and single life on radio and television, including NPR and CNN, and her work has been described in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and magazines such as Time, Atlantic, the Week, More, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, and Newsweek. Visit her website at www.BellaDePaulo.com.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by Bella DePaulo, Ph.D (or subscribe to their feed).



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APA Reference
DePaulo, B. (2012). ?Single Motherhood? and the Bigger, Broader Meanings of Family and Love. Psych Central. Retrieved on August 13, 2012, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/single-at-heart/2012/08/%e2%80%98single-motherhood%e2%80%99-and-the-bigger-broader-meanings-of-family-and-love/

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Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/single-at-heart/2012/08/%E2%80%98single-motherhood%E2%80%99-and-the-bigger-broader-meanings-of-family-and-love/

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Afghan officials met with jailed Taliban leader

Afghans look at the wreckage of a vehicle after a roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2011. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghans look at the wreckage of a vehicle after a roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2011. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghans look at the wreckage of a vehicle after a roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghan traffic police look at the wreckage of a vehicle after a roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghans look at the wreckage of a vehicle after the roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

An Afghan man pushes parts of a destroyed vehicle off a hill after a roadside explosion on the outskirts of Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012. A provincial spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan and three of his bodyguards. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

(AP) ? Afghan government representatives have met with a top-ranking Taliban member in his prison cell in Pakistan, an official said Sunday, suggesting a small step toward reopening stalled peace talks with the insurgent group.

The confirmation came at the end of a bloody weekend that showed how unstable the country is, though NATO is aiming to hand over security responsibility to local forces at the end of 2014 after more than a decade of warfare against insurgents.

Afghanistan's international allies hope that bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table will ease the pressure on the Afghan government as international forces draw down.

An official with the Afghan High Peace Council, which is tasked with starting talks, said the Pakistani government allowed Afghan government envoys access to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a top-ranking Taliban official who was captured in Pakistan in 2010.

His arrest reportedly angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai because Baradar had been in secret talks with the Afghan government.

"Some members from our embassy in Pakistan, they met Mullah Baradar," said Ismail Qasemyar, the council's international relations adviser. He declined to give details of the discussions or say when they took place. Officials in Pakistan did not respond to calls seeking comment. Qasemyar said that members of the peace council had not met with Baradar.

A spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry said they continue to push for Pakistan to release Baradar and other Taliban prisoners to speed the effort for peace talks.

"The Afghan government has requested several times from Pakistan not only the release of Mullah Baradar, but of all those Taliban leaders who are in Pakistani prisons. Unfortunately so far we haven't seen any positive actions from the Pakistan side, but we are hopeful that they will take practical measures regarding this issue, as they say they will in their official statements," Janan Mosazai told reporters at a news conference earlier in the day.

Pakistani officials have said such demands are unrealistic.

The political machinations come as the Taliban continue to launch regular attacks on Afghan forces, their international allies and Afghan civilians.

In the latest incident Sunday, a roadside bomb killed a district government chief and three of his bodyguards in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. The Afghan government's top official in Laghman province's Alishang district was driving to a meeting with the bodyguards when his car was blown up on the road, provincial spokesman Sarhadi Zewak said.

Zewak said the provincial government believes district chief Faridullah Niazi was targeted by insurgents.

Such assassinations of people allied with the government or international forces have surged this year. The U.N. reported last week that civilian deaths from such killings jumped 34 percent in the first six months of 2012 to 255 people killed, compared with 190 in the first half of 2011. The victims ranged from police to village elders who worked on programs with international forces.

"Targeted killings, abduction and intimidations have created a climate of fear among officials and deter them from taking up positions and working in these areas," the U.N. report said.

No group claimed responsibility for the Sunday bombing, but it fit the pattern of Taliban assassinations of government workers. The Taliban have said that they do not consider people working with the government or supporting its programs to be civilians, saying that they are collaborators who have chosen to side with the enemy.

In the south, officials said a Taliban attack on a police checkpoint on Saturday night sparked a gunbattle that left two police officers and two Afghan civilians dead. Afghan forces were pursuing the attackers in Kandahar province's Panjwai district on Sunday, said Ahmad Jawed Faisel, a spokesman for the province.

Recent days have been particularly violent in Afghanistan. On Saturday, an Afghan police officer killed 11 of his fellow officers in a remote corner of western Afghanistan. Officials said the shooter, who was killed in an ensuing gunbattle, was believed to have ties to militants.

On Friday, two Afghans shot and killed six American service members in separate attacks in Helmand province in the south ? the latest in a rising number of so-called "green-on-blue" attacks in which supposed Afghan colleagues or allies have gone after international forces.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said one of the attackers was wearing a security forces uniform and the second was a "guest" at the police station where he opened fire.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-12-Afghanistan/id-95e3e57f42d94d62b3c80f0ac98d3c67

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Ugandan's stunning marathon win as curtain falls on Games

Marathon man Stephen Kiprotich delivered Uganda's second ever Olympics gold medal on Sunday, celebrating victory in the shadow of Buckingham Palace as the curtain slowly dropped on the 2012 Games.

Kiprotich timed 2hr 08min 01sec on the spectacular course around the streets of central London, with two-time defending world champion Abel Kirui claiming silver in 2:08.27.

Another Kenyan, long-time leader Wilson Kipsang, took bronze in 2:09.37.

"I am very happy to win a medal for my country. I love my people. Uganda are very happy because we haven't won a medal," said Kiprotich.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, meanwhile, declared the London Olympics had been a "dream for sports-lovers", praising organisers for delivering an "athletes' Games."

"I am a very happy and grateful man," Rogge said.

"London promised an athletes' Games and that's exactly what we got. History has been written by many, many athletes -- the double treble of Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Sir Chris Hoy, Ben Ainslie, Andy Murray winning his first major title... I could go on."

The final day of action before a star-studded closing ceremony at the Olympic Stadium will see the last 15 medals go up for grabs.

The United States, who are likely to finish on top of the medal table after losing out to China four years ago, should add to their haul with gold in the men's basketball final.

The Americans' Dream Team of NBA stars will be chasing a 14th gold medal and their fifth in sixth Olympiads when they face Spain.

The Americans have run through the tournament undefeated, just as they did in 2008 when they beat Spain 118-107 in the Beijing final.

Five members of that team and five from the US 2010 world championship team are in the London line-up.

The US team is 61-1 since settling for bronze in 2004 and revamping the programme to create the 2008 "Redeem Team" and the current US squad of NBA multi-millionaires, whose dynasty inspires top efforts from every rival.

Meanwhile the final medals in boxing will be decided along with golds in women's modern pentathlon, men's water polo, volleyball and freestyle wrestling.

Attention will then turn to Sunday's closing ceremony, which is being billed as a diverse "Symphony of British Music".

The Spice Girls, George Michael, Muse and Ed Sheeran are among the acts expected to play at the ceremony which will feature more than 4,000 performers, including 380 schoolchildren.

"We want it to be the best after-show party there has ever been," artistic director Kim Gavin said. "Any more than that and we would spoil the surprise."

The ceremony will see London hand over to the Rio 2016 Games, and the Olympic flame -- which has been alight at the east London stadium for two weeks -- will be extinguished.

The ceremony's pre-show entertainment begins at 1900 GMT, with the main ceremony, from 2000 GMT, scheduled to last up to three hours.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ugandas-kiprotich-wins-mens-olympic-marathon-001939479--oly.html

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Ergonomic Health Benefits with Your lifestyle - Health - Wellness

Ergonomics is definitely crucial issue for an organization's basic safety along with health and fitness system as well as the actual personnel and also staff who are prepared to have the responsibility to reduce their own injury prevention.

The benefits of sound ergonomics incorporate enhanced staff member productivity, fewer work-related injuries, diminished absenteeism, along with far better workplace morale.

A essential component to figuring out the most effective fit somewhere between people plus their work environment is to thoroughly examine the particular real demands in the job, which include many related cognitive, perceptual along with the environmental factors. Occupational Therapists are usually trained industry experts within this sort of work.

Ergonomics, or maybe human engineering, may be the science involving building the actual job, equipment, plus workplace to suit your worker. This optimum healthy lessens the actual stress within the workers shape by simply frequently varying the weight borne through various muscle mass categories as well as by simply maintaining the important joints in suitable alignment.

Creating an ideal seating position, such as in a computer system workstation Maintaining proper system posture, intended for model while lifting and also switching heavy items Using adaptive equipment, by way of example a good ergo quick sit/stand stool or even an anti-fatigue mat if anyone is in the opportunities in which require lengthened ranking Ergonomics Solutions benefits: Reducing your medical problems. Ergonomic ergonomic chairs and work solutions usually are giving ease and also job satisfaction. Employees are generally arriving at perform early. Preventing absenteeism. Decreasing the extra cost side effects regarding missed yields as well as increased well being costs. Steps for environment upward an ergonomic environment Give education in standard ergonomics that will all staff members and also reporting around the hazards. Recognizing these danger along with instruct easy methods to greatly reduce. Purchase many human-friendly ergonomic office workspace merch andise such as ergonomic desk Mouse, ergonomic office keyboards, ergonomic desk chairs, etc. A procedure for options going this ergonomics program. If you happen to be utilizing a strong seats with the first time, use it regarding 3 or 4 times normally. Make confident that the ergonomic chair appeared to be tweaked properly. High good quality chairs, like the Human weighing machine Freedom chair will be very easily fine-tuned and adapted to fit a lot of the Population. During your current java or lunchtime breaks, be sure you perservere as well as stretch your current feet somewhat to obtain your current flow going. Rotate your wrists in addition to flex your own fingers by any means in the a variety of joints. Raise both hands over your head to stretch out your neck and shoulders, and even consider moving your travel side in order to edge and your shoulders upwards and down. Extend your own biceps and triceps over your body and also disregard facet that will side to stretch the upper body. To release muscle tension, consider happening a quick stroll exterior your building. The outdoors will need to assist with invigorate and also boost ones body

Source: http://best-parson-chairs.blogspot.com/2012/08/ergonomic-health-benefits-with-your.html

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PT Marketing Expert Advises Use of Bundled Services for ...

11th August 2012 Cat: Obama News with


Denville, NJ (PRWEB) August 11, 2012

?President Obama?s plan to computerize health care records is a major step forward,? said Chhoda. ?Setting a system in place isn?t that difficult and includes many documentation benefits for physical therapists? he added. To know more about PT documentation functions, check this website, http://physicaltherapydocumentation.com/physical-therapy-documentation/physical-therapy-documentation-and-its-function/.

Chhoda utilizes an array of offices systems to streamline office procedures such as billing, documentation of physical therapy services and appointment scheduling. Several physical therapy EMR systems are on the market, which is why Chhoda advises therapists to conduct due diligence when selecting an EMR to ascertain which one is best for the individual practice.

Making the transition to an EMR opens up enormous possibilities and provides therapists with an array of tools for better patient care, to boost reimbursements and market physical therapy practices more efficiently. Click here to acquire more tips to have a successful clinic.

Chhoda?s office can be reached by phone at 201-535-4475. For more information, visit the website at http://www.emrnews.com.

ABOUT NITIN CHHODA

Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT is a licensed physical therapist, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and an entrepreneur. He is the author of ?Physical Therapy Marketing For The New Economy? and ?Marketing for Physical Therapy Clinics? and is a prolific speaker, writer and creator of products and systems to streamline medical billing and coding, electronic medical records, health care practice management and marketing to increase referrals. He has been featured in numerous industry magazines, major radio and broadcast media, and is the founder of Referral Ignition training systems and the annual Private Practice Summit. Chhoda speaks extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Asia. He is also the creator of the Therapy Newsletter and Clinical Contact, both web-based services to help private practices improve communication with patients, delivery better quality of care and boost patient retention.

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Source: http://megabrasil.info/pt-marketing-expert-advises-use-of-bundled-services-for-streamlined-physical-therapy-management/

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