Jobless veterans say military experience is not valued (Reuters)

NAPERVILLE, Ill (Reuters) ? When Matthew Burrell left the Army after eight years of service, he landed a job as a public relations contractor in Iraq. With a salary of $170,000, he figured military experience had finally paid off.

But five months after returning home to Chicago, 33-year old Burrell is unemployed and said his job search has been strange. Despite having six years experience as a public relations officer in the Army, companies treat him as if he just graduated from college.

"I can tell you for a fact that definitely in my field in public relations and marketing, private sector companies do not value (military experience)," Burrell said.

Burrell feels he is more than qualified for a job in the corporate PR world. But Burrell, along with many of what the Department of Labor says are 235,000 unemployed veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has run into a frustrating problem.

Many U.S. companies, and sometimes veterans themselves, do not know how to translate military experience into civilian job skills. There is a disconnect between companies demanding a college degree and veterans' giving confusing descriptions of their military experience to civilian employers.

MILITARY JARGON

That disconnect has contributed to veterans having an unemployment rate 2.6 percent higher than the general population, according to September's Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report. As U.S. involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars winds down, lawmakers and organizations of all stripes have launched efforts to help veterans find work.

President Barack Obama this week announced measures, including $120 million in total tax breaks to companies that hire veterans.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it hopes to get 15,000 veterans hired through 100 job fairs around the country for veterans this year. One of those job fairs was held recently in Naperville, a Chicago suburb, giving 86 companies the chance to meet more than 600 veterans.

One problem is that veterans need to articulate more clearly to companies their experience, said Kevin Schmiegel, vice president of veteran's employment programs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Hiring managers who have not served in the military are often bewildered by the jargon used by soldiers and weapons specialists, said Becky Brillon, who directs a program at the Community Career Center in Naperville.

A military job title might be listed like this: "25 Romeo visual and media equipment operator and maintainer."

"If somebody was artillery, or a sharpshooter or a sniper, you have to tone that down in the civilian world. It's more about being detail-oriented, precise and focused," Brillon said.

CREDIT FOR SKILLS

But on the other side of that coin, private employers should give more credit to the experience and skills veterans acquire in the military, Schmiegel said.

Veteran unemployment could fall dramatically if companies were willing to give jobs that normally require credentialing or a college diploma to veterans with military experience in the same role, Schmiegel said. He also said companies should offer training to veterans to help connect military experience to workplace skills.

Some military jobs, like a mechanic or technician, are more easily transferred to a private sector job than others.

David Berry served as a medic in the Army 25 years ago, but did not enter the private-sector medical field because of how much extra training he would need, he said.

Berry said he was performing a range of medical treatments in the military that would have required at least an associate college degree to get a similar job in the private sector.

"The private sector has its own set of rules and they don't all correspond with what the military says," Berry said. "I didn't get anything from the military saying, 'He's qualified, and we back this person up for this position because he's done this, this and that.'"

The credentials and certificates that the military does give out for certain forms of training still do not seem to carry much weight.

Rick Combs, a 27-year old who retired as a Sergeant in the Army, says he was given management training in the military as part of becoming a Sergeant. So far, that training has not translated into a comparable private-sector job.

"You can come in, and slap something down that says, 'Here, the military says I can lead people. Give me a department and I will make it dance for you,'" Combs said. "I haven't had the opportunity on the civilian side yet."

Combs said he's going back to school to become a network technician, an area he worked in for the Army.

Schmiegel, from the Chamber of Commerce, said something must be done for veterans to find jobs or the country's voluntary armed forces will not find as many willing recruits.

"We are telling (recruits) right now that when they leave the service four years from now that they're going to be better off. That they're going to have a better job. That they're going to be more marketable. And the fact is, right now they're not," Schmiegel said.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111029/us_nm/us_economy_jobs_veterans

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What life would really be like for Deschanel's "Bones" character (ContributorNetwork)

The television show "Bones," which features fictional forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan working in Washington, D.C., makes the work look exciting. Every case gets solved in dramatic fashion with compelling evidence to back the conclusion drawn. But like many works of fiction, "Bones" takes liberties with both the science and the occupational practice. If you're considering a career in forensic anthropology, don't expect to graduate and do what Emily Deschanel's character does.

Forensic anthropology careers

Real-world forensic anthropologists generally study bones and teach osteology in academic settings. Those who do crime work usually do so part-time while working at a university. Opportunities to do crime work full-time are scarce.

Forensic pathology is a distinct field whose experts are medical doctors. Those are the specialists who make determinations based on soft tissue and fluid analysis. They are often responsible for autopsies, particularly in complicated cases. Forensic pathologists often work side by side with forensic anthropologists to help establish the identity or cause of death of a deceased person.

Evidence derived from disease pathogens

Dr. Bones can always solve her case. She often finds evidence of - or suspects - the presence of diseases that help her prove her theory of a crime. That's what happened, for example, in "The Man in the S.U.V." A real-life forensic anthropologist wouldn't be so lucky. And a real-life anthropologist also wouldn't draw definitive conclusions from bone changes caused by disease processes.

Diane L. France, director of the Laboratory for Human Identification at Colorado State University, noted that different pathogens have one of two effects on bone - they either cause the addition of new bone or the destruction of old bone. Thus, a forensic anthropologist wouldn't focus on a specific disease process, but on describing the specific bony changes seen throughout the skeleton.

Conclusions about age and sex

When it comes to findings about age, a real forensic anthropologist deals in broad ranges, not specifics. Looking at cranial sutures, the anthropologist might conclude a person was older than 37 because he or she are all completely closed or younger than 37 and probably younger than 26 if all completely open. Other clues like osteoporosis or arthritis might tend to suggest old age, but even that's not conclusive, since disease processes can also be responsible for such conditions.

Sex can be difficult to establish in young victims - it's not always as clear-cut as it looks on television.

Glamour and precision replace tedium and estimation in 'Bones' forensics

The job of the forensic anthropologist isn't as glamorous as "Bones" suggests. When a dead body is found outdoors, a real anthropologist would be at the scene for hours doing tedious work. Some of those tasks might include sifting through soil to see if the layers are intermingled indicating the ground has been dug up, cataloguing bones and other items found, mapping the location of each item found on a grid, and documenting the chain of custody of each item. When multiple bodies are found at a particular site, such as in a mass casualty situation, it may be impossible to determine which bones came from which person.

Of course, the work of the television anthropologist is not only less tedious, it's also a lot easier and more precise. Dr. Bones is handed clues like a voodoo object sold only in a single store in "The Man in the Morgue" episode or environmental isotopes under the jawbone that identify the uncooperative living subject's childhood residence as Los Angeles in "The Signs in the Silence."

The real-life Body Farm

The Body Farm Dr. Bones sometimes refers to on the show is a real place with expertise in establishing the time of death. The original Body Farm was located at the University of Tennessee. It's a place where researchers leave bodies outdoors for extended periods of time to observe different effects on them. The Body Farm became a resource for police puzzling over how long a body had been dead.

In recent years, other universities with forensic programs have copied the original Body Farm established by Dr. Bill Bass in 1981.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111028/us_ac/10306959_what_life_would_really_be_like_for_deschanels_bones_character

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House votes to annul law aimed at contractors (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The House voted in near lockstep Thursday to repeal a law aimed at compelling government contractors to pay all their taxes, sparking squabbling over which party was doing the most to create jobs but leaving economists underwhelmed that much of anything had been achieved.

By 405-16, lawmakers voted to annul a 5-year-old law requiring federal, state and many local governments to withhold 3 percent of their payments to contractors until their taxes are paid. That measure was enacted by a Republican Congress and President George W. Bush in response to investigations showing that thousands of government contractors owed billions in back taxes. It is to go into effect in 2013.

Today's politicians are more concerned about the stubbornly high unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, the fury over economic inequity voiced by Occupy Wall Street protestors and the approach of next year's presidential and congressional elections.

That has left people in both parties, including President Barack Obama, saying the withholding should be scrapped because it would erode the cash that contractors have to hire more workers. Republicans were eager to categorize the bill as part of their year-long effort to attack government regulations as millstones on corporate America.

"It is clear that businesses across this country are feeling ill effects of regulatory and tax burdens placed upon them by continued policies coming out of Washington and this administration," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, who called the bill "another step toward solving our job crisis."

House Republicans consider 15 other bills their chamber has approved and sent to the Democratic-run Senate to be jobs legislation. Many of them block energy and environmental regulations or streamline administrative procedures that Democrats say are necessary.

Annulling the withholding law would cost $11 billion in lost revenue over the next decade, according to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation. More than half of the money the withholding law was expected to net was expected to come from accelerating tax collections that would have eventually been paid anyway, not from raising fresh money.

To pay for it, the House voted to make it harder for some Social Security recipients to qualify for Medicaid under last year's health care overhaul bill. That provision was approved 262-157 with solid GOP support and strong Democratic opposition.

Democrats acknowledged that the withholding law would do more harm than good, but they insisted that Republicans could hardly stake claim to being job saviors. They criticized the GOP for failing to act on most of Obama's $447 billion jobs bill or, for that matter, on any major jobs initiative.

"We've been here now nine months, and there is still no effort by the majority here in the House to bring up any meaningful jobs legislation," said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.

Last week, the Senate voted narrowly against debating a Senate GOP version of the bill after Obama threatened to veto it because it would have been paid for with cuts in domestic spending.

Yet many Senate Democrats support repealing the withholding law, and the Senate is likely to approve legislation along the lines of the House bill as early as next week, said a top Senate Democratic aide who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity.

Away from the political din, economists said they expected the legislation to have limited impact, largely because the withholding requirement wasn't scheduled to take effect until January 2013.

"We're just codifying what's being done anyway," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. "It's not as though we're changing something that would mean more money flowing."

Bill Cheney, chief economist for John Hancock Financial Services, noted that the federal government has long withheld money from workers' paychecks to cover their income, Social Security and Medicare taxes.

"Think about the economic impact of withholding on regular people," he said. "The only people whose behavior it really effects are those who are crooked or idiotic, who either don't plan to pay their taxes or forget about it and spend the money."

Thursday's one-sided House vote contrasted with a year that has seen sharp-elbowed political rhetoric and significant defections by members of one party or the other on high profile bills.

Republicans tried using Thursday's vote to pressure Senate Democrats to back the withholding repeal and to cast themselves as trying to work constructively.

""The overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the House on the 3 percent withholding provision shows that when Congress acts on areas of agreement ? rather than stimulus spending and tax hikes ? we can get things done," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a written statement.

Also wasting little time pushing for final congressional approval were doctors, builders and financial services firms, which were among the scores of industry groups and companies that lobbied to block the withholding law.

The American Medical Association, which would be affected by withholding of Medicare payments to health care providers, issued a statement saying doctors were already facing Medicare underpayments, adding, "This additional burden is simply untenable."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_contractors__taxes

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Chinese Search Engine Baidu?s Q3 Revenue Up 85 Percent To $655M; Profit Up 80 Percent To $295M

Chinese search engine Baidu posted strong earnings today, with total revenue in the third quarter of 2011 coming in at $654.7 million, an 85.1% increase from the same period in 2010. Baidu's net income was up 80% to $295 million. Diluted earnings for the third quarter of 2011 were $0.84; non-GAAP earnings were for the $0.86. Baidu beat Wall Street expectations; analysts expected a profit of $0.83. Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu said in a release, "Baidu recorded stellar results in the third quarter driven by rapid growth in customer spending and user traffic. In particular, spending by large customers significantly outperformed our expectations as we continued to build strong relationships with high quality companies. China's search industry is still in its early stages, and as the clear industry leader we see enormous room for continuing growth as users and online marketing customers become increasingly sophisticated."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ik0rPD7vOJI/

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Google Street View Is Going Inside Buildings (Sorta) [Google]

Google Street View is a magical realm of accidental crimes in progress, fires, and other assorted serendipitous fun. Now, you'll be able to scroll around the inside of businesses! Which is cool—but here's how it could be cooler. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/VQPoFoatAOc/google-streek-view-is-going-inside-buildings-sorta

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Looking for a job? North Dakota needs you

By Catherine Kim
and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center

Those hurt hard by the ailing economy are flocking to Williston, N.D., where an oil boom has?turned a sleepy prairie town into a place producing thousands of jobs.

"There's opportunity here and that's what we all need is opportunity," said Williston Mayor Ward Koeser.?"It's kind of been an oasis for the country.? You know, there's a lot of jobs here, good paying jobs in the oil industry."

Williston is situated on the Bakken formation, an oil field that some say will produce the biggest boom in North America since the 1960s. Koeser said that his town currently has 2,000 to 3000 jobs and they haven't been able to fill the openings fast enough.

"A lot of jobs get filled every day, but it's like for every job you fill, another job and a half opens up," Koeser said.

A job on an oil rig can pay as much as six figures.? The starting salary for truck drivers is around $80,000. While the nation's unemployment rate is 9.1 percent, Williston's unemployment rate is less than 1 percent.?

Locals say job seekers from all 50 states are heading to the North Dakota town, becoming modern-day pioneers. The town's population has nearly doubled from 12,600 people to 23,000 people.

Patrick Parker hitchhiked from Yuba City, Calif., to Williston. When NBC News spoke to him, he had just $12 in his pocket. Parker, a paving stone layer by trade, has been out of work for two years.?

---

?"One of my goals is to make my daughters proud of me," said an emotional Parker.? "I want to make them proud because I worked a good job for 10 years and then for it to go away it's just, it just gets to me a little bit."

Parker is one of hundreds of people living in their cars in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart. Williston's housing construction hasn't caught up with its rapid growth.

Parker said the town feels "like the old gold rush town."

Oil was discovered in the this part of North Dakota 60 years ago, but it was only recently that oil producers have found a way to get at it more effectively.? After drilling about two miles down, they drill horizontally for another two miles through the bed of rock where the oil is trapped.? Using a technique called fracking - water, sand and chemicals are shot into the rock formation from that horizontal pipe to create cracks and fractures. From those openings, comes the oil.? Those in the oil industry say the tight rock that traps the oil, also prevents it from escaping into the water table during the fracking process.

North Dakota is currently the fourth largest producer of oil in the United States, but that is projected to change soon.? A spokesperson for North Dakota?s Mineral Resources Department said that oil production in the state is expected to surpass Alaska and California by 2015 which means North Dakota?will be the second largest oil producer in the country soon.

Along with the bounty from the oil boom, come some stresses and strains. A sewage system that's running at full tilt, truck traffic congestion, an influx in 911 calls-those are just a few of the headaches that keep Mayor Koeser up at night.

There is such a large influx of people that thousands are staying in 'man camps'- shipping containers converted into housing units for the workers new to town.? When more teachers were hired to deal with the rising number of students, an apartment building had to be built to house the new teachers, Koeser said.

"When we have as many people come here everyday looking for work, where are they going to live," Koeser asked.? "How are we going to get water to them and sewer to them and a road to them and power to them and all those sorts of issues.?? Yeah, it's putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the infrastructure."

Of all the stresses, the biggest strain on the community is truck traffic, the mayor said.

"That's really stressing us, the traffic, a lot of accidents," said Koeser.? "In a small community, you're used to getting from one side of town to the other in just a few minutes, that's no longer the case."

The number of accidents in September were double the amount the same time a year ago, the Williston Herald reported.

The surplus of people living in the town coupled with the traffic accidents has led to a drastic rise in calls to 911. Koeser said that the police receive at least 10,000 more calls a year than in pre oil boom times.

"Now keep in mind, you've got, you know, probably 9,000 men living in man camps around the city, not in the city limits, but living around the city and what do they do at night when they're done with work?? They come to town and find a bar and want to have a good time, and sometimes get in trouble," Koeser said.

But that means more jobs: the town is adding six new policeman and three dispatchers this year, the mayor said.

Even with the headaches, Koeser said he and Williston's other residents are lucky that the town has become an oasis for job seekers.

"I've lived here most all of my life and I love it. And although we're really being challenged right now, with those challenges come some great opportunities," he said.

Source: http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/27/8495501-now-hiring-north-dakota-oil-boom-creates-thousands-of-jobs

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Caterpillar quarterly earnings jump 44 percent (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Caterpillar Inc far exceeded analyst expectations on Monday, reporting a 44 percent quarterly earnings increase due to record revenue, and the company signaled optimism in its 2012 outlook.

The Peoria, Illinois, company said it expects full-year 2011 profit and revenue to be at the top end of its previous outlook range due to strong demand. In 2012, the company sees revenue increasing 10 percent to 20 percent above the $58 billion in sales it expects this year, although it continues to make contingency plans for a potential downturn.

Caterpillar said it ended the third quarter in one of the healthiest positions in its recent history. Backlog orders standing at record levels and higher commodity prices leading to a favorable environment for its growing mining business. The company expects to post record results in 2011 and improve on those results next year.

Construction activity is increasing in developing markets, while buyers in more mature markets -- such as the United States -- are buying new machinery in order to replace aging fleets rather than investing for growth. Equipment-rental operators are also purchasing new equipment in order to freshen their fleets, the company said.

Caterpillar's shares traded significantly higher in Monday's session, leading an overall rally in the market. The stock gained about 6.3 percent, or $5.45, to $92.84 on the New York Stock Exchange.

SLOW-GROWTH ECONOMY SEEN

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Caterpillar reported third-quarter earnings that far exceeded expectations http://link.reuters.com/byj64s

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The world's largest heavy machinery manufacturer is one of a slate of industrial companies outpacing analyst expectations during the current earnings reporting season. Like some of its peers, the company is encouraged by the strong results even as it remains cautious about the wider economy due to mixed economic data and tightening in key growth markets, such as China.

"Although there is a good deal of economic and political uncertainty in the world, we are not seeing it much in our business at this point," Caterpillar Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman said in a press release. "We believe continued economic recovery, albeit a slow recovery, is the most likely scenario as we move forward."

Caterpillar's outlook indicates the company is successfully "coming to grips with a slower global economy," Longbow Research equity analyst Eli Lustgarten said. Caterpillar is able to succeed in the cloudy environment due to "very big growth outside of the United States and what's been a very strong (machinery) replenishment rate in the U.S.," he said.

The company was able to outpace analyst expectations during the third quarter due to considerably higher revenue, much of which came from the rebuilding of inventory as dealers looked to build stock. Analysts continue to express concern over the health of the so-called end users of Caterpillar products.

Caterpillar said heavy machinery supplies would likely remain "tight" in 2012, and the company plans to continue increasing production levels for many of its products. "We are making strategic investments in our business to position Caterpillar for continued success well beyond 2012," Oberhelman said.

In 2012, Caterpillar expects to achieve sales increases in mature markets, up from what it currently views as "low levels" of sales activity. Growth in emerging markets next year is expected to keep pace with the rate seen in 2011.

The company did caution that it is seeing a bit of a slowdown in China's demand levels due to measures the government is taking to tighten the economy. Caterpillar executives, speaking on a conference call, said the slowdown is needed and indicated the company continues to build market share in that market.

Caterpillar reported third-quarter net income attributable to common shareholders of $1.14 billion, or $1.71 per share, compared with $792 million, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Analysts on average had expected Caterpillar to earn $1.54 per share in the third quarter.

Sales rose 41 percent to $15.7 billion, which is a record, according to the company.

The company noted that operating cash flow in its Machinery and Power Systems business nearly doubled over the first three quarters compared with the same period in 2010.

Caterpillar said full-year 2011 results would come in at the highest end of its previous outlook. It now expects annual revenue of $58 billion, including its acquisition of the Bucyrus mining business this year. Its previous forecast had been a range of $56 billion to $58 billion.

Profit is now expected to be $6.75 per share for the year, compared with a prior forecast of $6.25 to $6.75. Including the impact of Bucyrus, Caterpillar expects 2011 profit to reach $7.25 per share.

The company said 2011 will be a record year if it hits its earnings and revenue expectations.

Caterpillar said it added 4,800 jobs during the quarter, including 2,000 in the United States.

(Reporting by John D. Stoll in Detroit; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Maureen Bavdek and Gunna Dickson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111024/bs_nm/us_caterpillar

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Holness sworn in as new prime minister of Jamaica (AP)

KINGSTON, Jamaica ? Youthful lawmaker Andrew Holness was sworn in Sunday as Jamaica's new prime minister, ushering in a government he said would heal political divisions, root out corruption, reduce debt and bureaucracy and attract foreign investment to reduce poverty.

The 39-year-old Holness took the oath of allegiance to his country in front of about 4,000 people gathered on the lawns of King's House, the residence of Jamaica's governor-general. He became the youngest leader in Jamaica's history and completed a seamless power transition for the governing Jamaica Labor Party, which had been weakened by internal squabbles.

Holness took over from Bruce Golding, who stepped down Sunday after four years as prime minister in which his popularity sagged over his nine-month opposition to a U.S. extradition request for a notorious gang leader in 2009 and 2010. Holness, who had been education minister, will lead the party into general elections that must be held by December 2012.

Golding shocked many Jamaicans when he announced in late September that he would resign once a new party chief was elected, saying that "the last four years have taken their toll and it was appropriate now to make way for new leadership."

Labor Party lawmakers unanimously chose Holness as their party's leader, and he automatically became prime minister.

Holness vowed to "conscientiously and impartially" serve all Jamaicans during an hourlong speech and pledged to ease the island's poverty by increasing access to education, creating meaningful jobs and ending "garrison politics," a reference to populist alliances with gang leaders in vote-rich slums.

"Jamaica is yearning, crying out, for a new politics to emerge," Holness said to applause. "Criminals must never be seen by the community as protectors."

But Holness could face a challenge cutting politicians' ties to such extralegal figures and uniting people fed up with Jamaica's divisive two-party political system. Previous prime ministers, including Golding, have made similar vows.

Golding lost support due to his handling of a 2009 U.S. extradition request for Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke. Many Jamaicans were upset that Golding authorized a U.S. firm to lobby Washington to drop the request, and the leader reversed course and ordered a bloody offensive against Coke's supporters in his slum stronghold.

Holness also addressed one of the most dire issues facing the country, its crushing debt burden, which comprises 132 percent of Jamaica's annual gross domestic product. He vowed to fulfill the government's obligations with its international partners, including a $1.27 billion standby loan secured from the International Monetary Fund last year.

"We are very close to once and for all breaking this vicious debt cycle. If we complete the program and stick to our plan, we would be able to moderate our expenditure, increase our revenue, and as a result reduce our debt," he said.

Jamaica's economy has expanded in recent months, growing at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the second quarter of the year, above an initial estimate of 1.5 percent.

Born to working class parents in the southern city of Spanish Town, Holness earned a bachelor's degree in management and a master's degree in development from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica before becoming a lawmaker at age 25. He was a protege of former Prime Minister Edward Seaga, serving as his special assistant from 1996 to 2000.

During his tenure as education minister, the island saw rising literacy rates and a national education trust was founded to raise money for new schools and infrastructure and relieve the country's overcrowded high schools. He said he will keep the education portfolio as prime minister.

Holness has described himself as both "pro-business" and "pro-people" and has said he hopes to ease the island's severe poverty by creating jobs and improving access to education. He has called for a "new era of responsibility" that can fight chronic crime and poverty problems in this middle-income country.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_jamaica_new_prime_minister

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Paul wants to phase out federal student loans

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition presidential candidate forum, in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. A half-dozen GOP contenders flocked to Iowa on Saturday, barely 10 weeks before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition presidential candidate forum, in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. A half-dozen GOP contenders flocked to Iowa on Saturday, barely 10 weeks before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican presidential contender Ron Paul said Sunday he wants to end federal student loans, calling it a failed program that has put students $1 trillion in debt when there are no jobs and when the quality of education has deteriorated.

Paul unveiled a plan last week to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget that would eliminate five Cabinet departments, including education. He's also wants young workers to be able to opt out of Social Security.

The student loan program is not part of those cuts, but Paul said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'd kill the loan program eventually if he were president. That could put him at odds with some of his young followers, many of whom are college students.

Paul blamed government intervention in the economy for rising tuition.

"Just think of all this willingness to want to help every student get a college education," said Paul, who graduated from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania before earning a medical degree at the Duke University School of Medicine. "I went to school when we had none of those. I could work my way through college and medical school because it wasn't so expensive."

Annual tuition for Gettysburg College is $42,610 for the 2011-2012 academic year. Annual tuition at Duke's medical school runs $46,621, according to its web site.

Amid such rising costs, borrowing for college is at record levels. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says students and parents took out a record $100 billion last year, and owe more on student loans ? more than $1 trillion is outstanding ? than credit cards.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-10-23-Ron%20Paul-Education/id-d1c16a1389874ab9a835d2a966075f9f

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Heir to Saudi throne dies in New York

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia ?? Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Sultan has died, the royal court said on Saturday, and Interior Minister and reputed conservative Prince Nayef was expected to become the new heir to the throne in the world's biggest oil exporter.

NBC News reported that Sultan died at a hospital in New York City. He is expected to be buried Tuesday in Riyadh.

Sultan, whose age was officially given as 80 and who died in New York of colon cancer early on Saturday Saudi time, had been a central figure in Saudi decision-making since becoming defense minister in 1962 and was made crown prince in 2005.

Saudi analysts predicted an orderly transition at a time when much of the Middle East is in turmoil after mass uprisings against autocratic leaders by citizens demanding democracy.

Saudi King Abdullah reacted to the "Arab Spring" by ordering spending of $130 billion on social benefits, housing and jobs, but he and his new crown prince face challenges from al Qaeda militants, a restless Shi'ite minority and civil conflict in neighboring Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is also locked in a confrontation with Shi'ite Muslim power Iran, accused by the United States of plotting to kill the kingdom's ambassador to Washington.

Earlier this month, the Saudi Interior Ministry accused an unnamed foreign power, widely assumed to mean Iran, of instigating protests by the Saudi Shi'ite minority in which 14 people, including 11 security officers, were injured.

'A strong leader'
Sultan, who was the oil-rich kingdom's deputy prime minister, had been defense minister and minister of aviation for about four decades.

"With grief, King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz mourns the death of Sultan bin Abdel Aziz Al Saud, crown prince and his brother," the palace said in a statement.

Saudi television broke its schedules early on Saturday to broadcast Koranic verses accompanied by footage of the Kaaba in Mecca, Islam's holiest site.

"The crown prince was a strong leader and a good friend to the United States over many years as well as a tireless champion for his country. He will be missed," said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a visit to Tajikistan. "Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is strong and enduring and we will look forward to working with the leadership for many years to come."

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Sultan was the kingdom's defense minister in 1990 when U.S. forces deployed in Saudi Arabia to defend it against Iraqi forces that had overrun Kuwait. His son, Prince Khaled, served as the top Arab commander in the 1991 operation Desert Storm, in which U.S.-led troops drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

Sultan is survived by 32 children from multiple wives. They include Bandar, the former ambassador to the United States who now heads the National Security Council, and Khaled, Sultan's assistant in the Defense Ministry.

Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, said Sultan served his country with "great dignity and dedication."

Saudi Arabia has been ruled since 1953 by the sons of its founder, King Abdul-Aziz, who had more than 40 sons by multiple wives. Sultan was part of the aging second generation of Abdul-Aziz's sons, including Nayef, the full brother of the late King Fahd, who died in 2005.

Sultan seeks medical treatment
Sultan underwent surgery in New York in February 2009 and spent nearly a year abroad recuperating in the United States and at a palace in Agadir, Morocco. According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from January 2010, Sultan had been receiving treatment for colon cancer since 2009.

Sultan oversaw a defense spending spree which made the kingdom one of the world's biggest arms buyers.

Sultan had an intestinal cyst removed in 2005 and had spent several months abroad for treatment and recreation.

While Saudi Arabia insisted he was fully cured, diplomats in Riyadh said he gradually retreated from participating in decision-making and often worked only for one or two hours a day.

Many of his duties had been informally shifted to other princes, most notably to his son Khaled who led Saudi and Arab forces during the 1991 war to remove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army from Kuwait. Prince Khaled, who is assistant defense minister, is also the owner of influential pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

While defense minister, Sultan spent hundreds of billions to modernize the forces of the country where Islam was born 1400 years ago, doubling the regular armed forces to more than 100,000 men and buying advanced weapons from all over the world.

Born in Riyadh, Sultan was educated by private tutors and spoke some English. He also went to a school for princes.

He was keen to maintain close ties with the West, especially the United States, though like the rest of the royal family he distanced himself from the U.S.-led attack on Iraq in 2003.

Story: Obama: All US troops out of Iraq by end of year

The most likely candidate for the throne after Sultan is Prince Nayef, the powerful interior minister in charge of internal security forces. After Sultan fell ill, the king gave Nayef an implicit nod in 2009 by naming him second deputy prime minister, traditionally the post of the third in line.

Abdullah is aged in his late 80s and underwent back surgery earlier this month but has been pictured since then in apparently good health.

Unlike in European monarchies, the line of succession does not move directly from father to eldest son, but has moved down a line of brothers born to the kingdom's founder Ibn Saud, who died in 1953.

NBC News, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44996642/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Cards, Rangers battle in Game 3

Bottom of 2:
Rangers second. Mi.Young grounded out, shortstop Furcal to first baseman Pujols. Beltre singled to right.
Runs:?0,?Hits:?1Top of 2:
Cardinals second. Freese struck out. Y.Molina grounded out, third baseman Beltre to first baseman Napoli. Jay struck out.
Runs:?0,?Hits:?0Bottom of 1:
Rangers first. Kinsler struck out. Andrus struck out. J.Hamilton grounded out to first baseman Pujols unassisted.
Runs:?0,?Hits:?0Top of 1:
Cardinals first. Furcal grounded out to first baseman Napoli unassisted. Craig homered to left on a 0-1 count. Pujols grounded out, third baseman Beltre to first baseman Napoli. Holliday singled to right. Berkman flied out to center fielder J.Hamilton.
Runs:?1,?Hits:?2

Source: http://scores.nbcsports.msnbc.com/mlb/gameview.asp?gamecode=311022113

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Caribbean islands struggling to dismantle gangs (AP)

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts ? When Dudley Williams was a police commander in the mid-1980s, law enforcement in St. Kitts and Nevis was a leisurely occupation. Violent crime was rare on the sleepy specks of land in the eastern Caribbean.

"If fellows got into a heated dispute at a rum bar, things were settled with fists, a piece of stick, a knife at the worst," said Williams, now 79. "You'd get a shooting once every five years."

Times have changed here and for many islands across the Caribbean, where an escalating arms race among criminal gangs has turned once-peaceful neighborhoods into battle zones.

St. Kitts and Nevis, a two-island federation of nearly 50,000 people, has tallied 31 homicides so far in 2011, already making it the bloodiest year on record. Police blame gangs with names like Killer Mafia Soldiers and Tek Life for the escalating violence.

Usually far from the view of sunbathing tourists, tit-for-tat shootings by trigger-happy gangsters have become common in the Caribbean, according to a new report on global homicides by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Alarmed citizens are putting pressure on politicians throughout the region to attack the problem. In Trinidad and Tobago, which is off Venezuela's coast along a prime drug shipment route, the government has declared a state of emergency, imposing nightly curfews and giving police and soldiers broad powers to conduct searches and seizures.

Little of the violence so far has affected tourists to the Caribbean, where about 6 million Americans visit each year. Many stick to all-inclusive resorts, and those who don't rarely stray into the gritty slums where the violence flares up.

Still, there are isolated cases: A vacationing U.S. Army sergeant was killed during a robbery in Trinidad last year. A Welsh couple was butchered in an Antigua vacation cottage on the last day of their two-week honeymoon in 2008. In St. Kitts, bandits held up a small bus of tourists last year, prompting two cruise lines to briefly suspend stops there. Two British women were raped on a remote beach in St. Lucia earlier this year.

Drug traffickers have helped drive up the crime rates by introducing firearms and narcotics with a street value exceeding the size of the Caribbean's legal economy.

Although the islands remain near-perfect conduits for drug shipments, with their numerous unpoliced islets and barely monitored coasts, the U.N. crime office says Caribbean drug seizures actually diminished 71 percent between 1997 and 2009 as more contraband shifted to Central American routes.

According to the agency, the increase in the Caribbean's lethal violence can partly be traced to frenzied competition between underworld groups fighting for turf in a diminished drug smuggling market.

Caribbean experts worry a culture of violence has become entrenched on the islands, where nearly 70 percent of homicides are committed by firearms.

"Until fairly recently, we had an innocence about ourselves in the Caribbean, but that's been lost. This thing is a Pandora's Box and I'm not sure you can ever close it again," said Marcus Day, director of the Caribbean Drug & Alcohol Research Institute in St. Lucia.

Comparisons with other parts of the world can be stark. Jamaica, an island of roughly 3 million people that has been hit hard by drug and extortion gangs for years, chalked up 1,428 killings in 2010. Chicago, a city of nearly 3 million, reported 435 homicides last year.

Statistics from the U.N. crime office show homicide rates nearly doubling in a number of Caribbean countries since 1995. In St. Kitts and Nevis, slayings have increased sixfold since 2002, when there were just five killings.

Ivelaw Griffith, an expert on Caribbean security at City University of New York, said outmaneuvered and outgunned law enforcement agencies on the islands have a limited ability to cope with the problem on their own.

He said the spread of cable television and popular music has raised expectations among youths by depicting the easy life even as the rough global economy is making pockets of poverty grow deeper and wider. It's "really creating a very unholy and unhealthy recipe for these small societies," Griffith said.

To counter the gang culture, the Bahamas is toughening crime and bail laws, building more courts, trying to round up unlicensed guns and funding programs to steer at-risk youth away from crime.

The archipelago off Florida's east coast has seen 104 people killed so far this year, easily topping the previous full-year record of 94 set just last year.

Norelle Scott, a 19-year-old college student who lives on the most populous island of New Providence, said she is now fearful of leaving home at any time of day and is pessimistic about the chances for change.

"Criminals are getting bold these days. I'm ashamed to know that my people are killing each other over small things, material things, and it's getting worse," she said.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is urging Bahamians to join neighborhood watch programs and help police identify criminals.

"Community engagement and service will be more effective in combating crime than iron bars and gated communities," Ingraham said during a recent televised address.

Trinidad and Tobago's emergency decree, imposed in August and expected to extend through December, angered some young people, but others applauded the move.

"We don't mind living under curfew conditions if it makes the country safer," said Zana Ramdial, a fortysomething mother of three in the capital of Port-of-Spain.

Many Caribbean islands have been known for feeble local enforcement. In St. Lucia, drug smugglers know immediately when the maritime police are on patrol, making evasion nearly effortless, said Day, the crime researcher in St. Lucia.

"We don't really have enough fuel to pay for the police boats so we can only run them at certain times. And the criminals know when they go out," Day said.

Some of the poor, developing islands have reached out to Scotland Yard and the FBI for help, or brought in foreign police and security consultants.

St. Kitts recruited a new police commissioner, Celvin G. Walwyn, who is a native islander with long experience as police officer in Texas and Florida. He has warned street gangs he plans to eradicate them and has special teams of police and soldiers to patrol crime hotspots together. A tough new law can put people away for 20 years if they are convicted of recruiting for the gangs.

"Rumors on the street are that the gangs have an arsenal. But if push comes to shove, we can wipe them out," Walwyn told The Associated Press.

He said employment and other services will be available for young people who wish to leave gangs.

Dale Watley, a 31-year-old who served three years in an overcrowded St. Lucia prison for a shooting, says youths can be lured away. He turned his back on the underworld life he had known since childhood and now runs his own barber shop.

"The young guys, they want a movie kind of life, like 'Scarface,'" he said. "But once they get a chance to survive in the real world with respect, they don't want to shoot anyone anymore. They want to live."

_____

Associated Press writer Megan Reynolds in Nassau, Bahamas, contributed to this story.

___

David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadden

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_caribbean_drug_war

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Poll: Cain = ???999,??? Romney = ???Mormon??? and Perry = ???Texas??? (Daily Caller)

What?s the first word that comes to mind when you hear the names of former Godfather?s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry? If you?re anything like the Americans the Pew Research Center surveyed, it?s ?9-9-9,? ?Mormon? and ?Texas,? respectively.

A survey conducted by Pew and the Washington Post asked 1,007 Americans what the first word that came to mind for the three leading candidates for the Republican nomination.

A plurality of respondents who indicated they had an opinion found Cain?s tax plan, Romney?s religion and Perry?s home state as their single greatest identifiers.

When limited to just Republicans, Romney and Perry?s identifier remain the same while ?businessman? edged out ?9-9-9? for Cain. In total, 12 percent of respondents provided a positive descriptor for Cain, 11 percent for Romney, and 6 percent for Perry. Fourteen percent of respondents ascribed a negative identifier to Cain, 15 percent to Romney and 25 percent to Perry.

Among just Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents, Cain received a positive descriptor from 22 percent and a negative descriptor from 5 percent. Romney received a positive descriptor from 18 percent and a negative descriptor from 15 percent. Perry received a positive descriptor from 9 percent and a negative descriptor from 19 percent.

Forty six percent of respondents provided no opinion of Cain, 37 percent provided no opinion of Romney and 46 percent provided no opinion of Perry.

Among the other top descriptors that came to mind for Cain among all respondents were ?business,? ?interesting,? ?good,? ?pizza? and ?inexperience.? (RELATED: Cain still giving paid speeches)

For Romney, the other top descriptors were ?health care,? ?flip-flop,? ?good,? ?no? and ?possibility.?

And for Perry, the other top descriptors were ?no,? ?idiot,? ?conservative,? ?governor? and ?dislike.?

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Read more stories from The Daily Caller

Poll: Cain = '999,' Romney = 'Mormon' and Perry = 'Texas'

2,500 chickens dumped on California interstate, slowing traffic

Praise where it is due

Congressional investigators try to deposition Solyndra loan memo author; DOE refuses

Post-Gadhafi, Obama issues warning to other regional strongmen

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20111020/pl_dailycaller/pollcain999romneymormonandperrytexas

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Moscow jury convicts man in soccer fan's death

updated 3:38 p.m. ET Oct. 20, 2011

MOSCOW - A Moscow jury has convicted a man in the killing of a Slavic soccer fan during a fight last year.

Anger over the killing of Yegor Sviridov on Dec. 6 inflamed ethnic tensions in Moscow and led to riots outside the Kremlin several days later.

About 5,000 soccer fans and nationalists rallied for hours, chanting "Russia for Russians" and a slur against dark-complexioned Muslims from the Caucasus. When police eventually moved in, rioting broke out that injured more than 30 people.

The Moscow City Court said the jury voted 8-4 on Thursday to find Aslan Cherkesov of Caucasus guilty of premeditated murder. Five other men accused of taking part in the fight were convicted of hooliganism and inflicting light bodily injury.

The court set sentencing for Tuesday.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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United vs. City a clash of equals

??For the first time in a generation or more, the United vs. City match this Sunday?? the "Manchester derby"?? will be a true contest of equals.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP - Getty Images

Klinsmann ripped

Bayern Munich's president has dismissed Jurgen Klinsmann's time as coach of the German powerhouse as an expensive mistake.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44979518/ns/sports-soccer/

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Celebrity Birthdays Today: Ty Pennington, Trey Parker, Jon Favreau & More!

Happy Wednesday, readers! The weekend will soon be here, halfway there! Are you seeing some much cooler temps in your neck of the woods? We are still close to the 100′s here, but a cool down is expected for the beginning of next week. Finally!! In today’s edition of Celebrity Birthdays, a former SNL alum turns 41 (think ‘Roxbury’), a ‘Doobie Brother’ is 63, and ‘Dick Solomon’ is 66 years old today. Guess who? Happy Birthday, Ty Pennington! The “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” host is 47 years old today. I can’t believe that ‘Extreme Makeover’ just started its 9th season! Pennington has just been added to ABC’s new daytime show, ‘The Revolution’, which will premiere in January. Happy Birthday, Trey Parker! The “South Park” co-creator is 42 years old today. What a year it’s been for Parker! He and his ‘South Park’ co-creator, Matt Stone, created the Broadway musical, ‘The Book of Mormon’ with Robert Lopez. It debuted in March of 2011, would later be nominated for an amazing nine Tony Awards, and wound up winning three, including ‘Best Musical’, ‘Book Book’, and ‘Best Original Score’. Happy Birthday, Jon Favreau! The ‘Iron Man’ actor is 45 years old today. It’s [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/GdivA6tJv_g/

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Julie Bowen Will Only Have More Kids Through "Immaculate Conception" (omg!)

DirecTV says may pull the plug on Fox TV shows Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore - Reuters - 9 hours ago

(Reuters) - A dispute has broken out between News Corp owned Fox Networks and DirecTV Group, the largest U.S. satellite TV provider, over carriage fees that could potentially?? More??DirecTV says may pull the plug on Fox TV shows

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/http___omg_yahoo_com_news75116/43338931/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/julie-bowen-will-only-have-more-kids-through-immaculate-conception/75116

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Rogers has Canadian exclusive on the Motorola RAZR

For our friends up north: Rogers will have the exclusive on the Motorola RAZR. Said to be available in time for the holidays, no pricing was announced. But figure it'll go a bit cheaper than the $299 two-year U.S. offering, thanks to the Canadian standard three-year contract, right? Otherwise, same slim, fast phone as was just announced.

Source: Redboard

Droid RAZR hands-on | Droid RAZR Forums | Droid RAZR Specs | Droid RAZR Gallery

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/FLPp9CDT-Ms/rogers-has-canadian-exclusive-motorola-razr

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[OOC] The Skyfire Chronicles

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Cops: IDs, papers found after 4 locked in basement (AP)

PHILADELPHIA ? Dozens of pieces of identification and power of attorney documents have been discovered after a Philadelphia landlord found four mentally disabled adults locked in the squalid basement of his building, a discovery that points toward a wide-ranging fraud scheme, police said Monday.

Investigators are still processing the documents and reaching out to authorities in multiple jurisdictions while they try to find the family of one of the victims rescued Saturday from what police called deplorable conditions, Lt. Ray Evers told The Associated Press.

Evers said Linda Ann Weston is suspected of running a long-standing fraud operation.

"Without a doubt, this is just the beginning of this investigation," Evers said.

Police said four mentally disabled adults were rescued from the basement of the northeast Philadelphia apartment building on Saturday after the landlord shined a flashlight behind a steel door that had been chained shut. One victim had been shackled to the boiler, police said.

The space was too small for an adult to stand up straight and reeked of waste from the buckets the victims used to relieve themselves, according to police.

Detectives have been able to make contact with the families of three of the victims, but were still trying to reach the family of a fourth. Evers identified him as Herbert Knowles, 40. He may be from Virginia, Evers said.

"Out of the four, he has the most disabilities," Evers said. "He was so happy to be in the hospital and eat food. The detective says he's like a new person just hours after captivity."

Evers said Weston may have met one of the victims through an online dating service.

"Talk about preying on the weak and weary," Evers said. "You can't get any lower than this person."

Evers said two of the victims are from Philadelphia ? one, a woman, had been listed as a missing person since 2005. The other is a man from North Carolina.

Charges of criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, kidnapping, criminal trespass, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment and related offenses were filed Sunday against Weston, 51, and Gregory Thomas, 47, both of Philadelphia, as well as Eddie Wright, 50, officially listed as homeless but originally from Texas. Listed phone numbers for the defendants could not be found and it was unclear whether they had attorneys.

Thomas and Wright are being held on $500,000 bail following their arraignments Sunday. Online court records do not indicate if Weston has been arraigned.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111017/ap_on_re_us/us_locked_in_basement

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Climate change spawns the incredible shrinking ant (Reuters)

HONG KONG (Reuters) ? Plants and animals are shrinking because of warmer temperatures and lack of water, researchers said on Monday, warning it could have profound implications for food production in years ahead.

"The worst-case scenarios ... are that food crops and animals will shrink enough to have real implications for food security," Assistant Professor David Bickford, of the National University of Singapore's biological sciences department, said.

Bickford and colleague Jennifer Sheridan trawled through fossil records and dozens of studies which showed that many species of plants and creatures such as spiders, beetles, bees, ants and cicadas have shrunk over time in relation to climate change.

They cited an experiment showing how shoots and fruit are 3 to 17 percent smaller for every degree Celsius of warming in a variety of plants.

Each degree of warming also reduces by 0.5 to 4 percent the body size of marine invertebrates and 6 to 22 percent of fish.

"Survival of small individuals can increase with warmer temperatures, and drought conditions can lead to smaller offspring, leading to smaller average size," they wrote in their paper which was published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, on Monday.

"Impacts could range from food resources becoming more limited (less food produced on the same amount of land) to wholesale biodiversity loss and eventual catastrophic cascades of ecosystem services," Bickford wrote.

"We have not seen large-scale effects yet, but as temperatures change even more, these changes in body size might become much more pronounced - even having impacts for food security."

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111016/sc_nm/us_climate_shrinking

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Gilad Shalit deal: West Bank prepares to welcome Palestinians home (The Christian Science Monitor)

While Israelis demonstrated outside the country's Supreme Court, demanding that it block the release tomorrow of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some Palestinians excitedly prepared for the homecoming of family members they haven't seen in decades.

In the Palestinian village of Kobar, eight miles northwest of Ramallah in the West Bank, Hanan Barghouti tied green Hamas flags around the heads of her children, nieces, and nephews. ?The house has been empty without my brothers,? says Ms. Barghouti, who is a relative of Marwan Barghouti, possibly the most high-profile of all the Palestinian prisoners, and not included in this week's swap.

Both her brothers are serving sentences in Israeli prisons. Nael Barghouti, the longest serving Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, will be released tomorrow after 34 years. His release is part of the prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel that has planned to exchange 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for the high-profile Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in 2006. It is the largest number of Palestinian prisoners ever exchanged for one Israeli.

RELATED: Gilad Shalit deal: Which Palestinian prisoners will walk free?

The walls of Hanan Barghouti's home are covered with pictures of Nael and her other brother, Omar, who will not be released. Hanna lays sweets on the table and cleans the apartment they have built for her brother, which is filled with neighbors and extended family dropping by to offer congratulations and assistance.

Nael Barghouti was 19 when he was given a life sentence for his role in the killing of an Israeli solider in the West Bank in 1978. He will be released just weeks before his 54th birthday.

Free, but not headed homeA total of 477 Palestinian prisoners will be released this week, but not all of them will be seeing their friends and family soon. About 200 of them, such as Muna Amna, who lured a 16-year-old Israeli boy to a violent death via a chat room in 2001, will be freed but sent to the Gaza Strip, rather than her West Bank village.

Also in this category is the iconic Abed al Aziz Salaha, who showed crowds the literal blood on his hands after the killing of two Israelis in Ramallah in 2000. The photo of him holding his blood-covered palms out a window became a key image of the second Intifada and a symbol of terror for many Israelis. He too is being sent to Gaza, not his native West Bank.

Although Hamas negotiators agreed to these conditions, Sahar Frances, the director of Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoners? Support and Human Rights Association, says this deportation is illegal.

?A large number of these prisoners will be deported away from their homes,? says Ms. Frances. ?At the end, forced deportation [from a home country] is a violation of international law.?

While international rights organizations often criticized the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli jails and the complete incommunicado detention of Mr. Shalit in Gaza, few have commented the deal, which is regarded as a success by most in the international community.

About 200 male prisoners from Jerusalem, the rest of Israel, and the West Bank (plus one other female prisoner) will be deported. Most will be sent to Gaza, but 40 will be split between Egypt and Turkey. Some will be forbidden from ever returning to their homes and villages, but others will be allowed to return after three to five years.

Frances explains that it will be difficult for the families of those who are deported to see the freed prisoners because of the near impossibility for Palestinians with West Bank or Jerusalem identification to secure permits to visit Gaza and other Arab countries.

Israel says the deportation of these prisoners is necessary to ensure they are not able to commit further crimes.

?We did an evaluation to assess the risk of repeating terrorism for these prisoners,? says Neta Barak, a lawyer working in the pardons department of Israel?s Ministry of Justice. ?The highest risk prisoners will be sent to Egypt or Turkey and the middle risk to Gaza. The rest are going home.?

The rest in prisonMore than 4,000 others will remain in prison. Ala???a Saify???s brother, Ahmed, was arrested in 2009 after attacking a settler just west of his native Ramallah. Then 19, he was sentenced to 17 years in the nearby Ofer Prison for attempted murder.

?We heard about this deal, and my mother told me ?quickly call your friends find out if your brother is on the list?,? says Mr. Saify. He ran to his computer and poured over the list ? one, twice, three times ? but Ahmed's name was not there.

Saify says he was disappointed, but not shocked. ?This was Hamas? VIP list. There were only about 45 Fatah prisoners out of over 400,? says Saify, whose family supports Hamas?s rival Fatah movement. ?But really we don?t know why he?s not on the list. I can only guess.?

An additional 550 prisoners will be selected for release by Israel over the next two months. It will include all minors being held by Israel, and all but eight of the Palestinian women in detention, according to Frances, despite earlier reports that all women would be released.

The criteria for choosing these prisoners has not yet been defined, Barak says, but they will likely be those serving shorter sentences who ?do not have blood on their hands.?

Many of the thousands remaining in Israeli prisons are serving multiple life sentences and are unlikely to be released alive unless their number is pulled for future prisoner swaps.

?We are not hopeful,? says Saify, whose brother was not released this time. ?We can only wait and see.?

RELATED: Gilad Shalit deal: Which Palestinian prisoners will walk free?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111017/wl_csm/415978

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New CNOOC oil leak found in China's Bohai Bay (AP)

BEIJING ? Chinese offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. says it has suspended operation of an oil platform after finding a leak in one of its oil fields in the Bohai Bay.

It is the latest in a series of offshore spills in the Bohai Bay that have raised an outcry among fishermen and environmentalists.

CNOOC said in a statement on its website Saturday that an oil slick was discovered Friday near the Jinzhou 9-3 West oil field.

It says investigations show that a ship doing construction work damaged an oil pipeline at the bottom of the sea. CNOOC estimated that about 0.38 cubic meters (13.4 cubic feet) of oil was leaked.

It says the platform shutdown will reduce CNOOC's output by 1,600 barrels of oil a day.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111015/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_oil_spill

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Dominick Cruz shares his gross, surgically-repaired hand

UFC bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz broke his hand when beating Demetrious Johnson on Oct. 1. His performance had UFC president Dana White raving about Cruz's toughness. Though he's had hand injuries before, Cruz needed surgery this time to repair his hand.

He had that surgery this week, and he was kind enough to share that the picture of his hand just after the procedure.

Look at the size of that thing. Remember that Cruz is a bantamweight, but his hand is so swollen that it looks like he's borrowing Shane Carwin's 4X paw.

What's nice about this picture is that it could effectively be incorporated into your Halloween decorating plans. Print it out, throw some glitter on it, and you'll win the neighborhood decorating contest, all thanks to Dominick Cruz.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Dominick-Cruz-shares-his-gross-surgically-repai?urn=mma-wp8245

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