Saturday, December 31, 2011

Burlington's third option? Wanda Hines explains why the mayor's race sounds good

Burlington's third option? Wanda Hines explains why the mayor's race sounds good

Wanda Hines, a longtime Burlington community organizer, will let us know her mayoral plans, if any, on Jan. 6. But her possible run as an independent is anything but spur-of-the-moment, she said

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Source: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111229/NEWS0301/111229017/-1/RSS

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Friday, December 30, 2011

kiii3sports: RT @goicerays: 2nd period ends and your IceRays trail the Texas Tornado 3-0.

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2nd period ends and your IceRays trail the Texas Tornado 3-0. goicerays

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"SNL" writer Joe Bodolai dead of apparent suicide (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Joe Bodolai -- who wrote for "Saturday Night Live" for the 1981-1982 season and co-wrote the first draft of the "Wayne's World" movie with Mike Myers -- has died in an apparent suicide, according to various reports. He was 63.

The body of Bodolai was found Monday in a hotel room in Hollywood. Near his corpse was a mixture of anti-freeze and Gatorade that he is believed to have consumed.

While a suicide note was not found near his body, an apparent suicide note was published Friday on Bodolai's blog, "Say It Ain't So, Joe."

The extensive post, titled "If This Were Your Last Day Alive What Would You Do?," details what Bodolai hoped to have seen in his life, his predictions for 2012, what he was proud of and what he regretted.

Under "Things I Regret," Bodolai listed "my inability to conquer my alcoholism the things I did because of it," and "That I am no longer able to withstand any more of life's pain."

Under a photograph of Robert F. Kennedy, Bodolai wrote: "When I was Young. When I had Hope."

The end of the post reads: "I don't need replies or comments or anything. I need to feel the good that I did and whatever good I have ever done for you is enough for me. May you all have the happy lives you deserve. Thank you all for being in my life. Love, Joe."

The day before the post was published on his blog, Bodolai wrote on Facebook that he was "alone this year." He said he intended to volunteer on Christmas Day by serving dinner to the homeless.

Following news of Bodolai's death, his friends and admirers shared their thoughts on Twitter. "He was a lovely man," wrote comedian Dave S. Foley, one of the cast members of "The Kids in the Hall," which was produced by Bodolai.

Bodolai is survived by two sons.

TMZ first reported on the death of Bodolai.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111227/people_nm/us_saturdaynightlive_obit

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

lfung: Alvin & the Chipmunks have their prints at Grauman's Chinese Theater?? And, really, who *doesn't* anymore? http://t.co/DYsCp3FZ #film

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Alvin & the Chipmunks have their prints at Grauman's Chinese Theater?? And, really, who *doesn't* anymore? lat.ms/soghZu #film lfung

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Sears to close 100 to 120 Kmart, Sears stores

Sears Holdings Corp. plans to close between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores after poor sales during the holidays, the most crucial time of year for retailers.

The closings are the latest and most visible in a long series of moves to try to fix a retailer that has struggled with falling sales and shabby stores.

In an internal memo Tuesday to employees, CEO and President Lou D'Ambrosio said that the retailer had not "generated the results we were seeking during the holiday."

Sears Holdings Corp. said it has yet to determine which stores will close but said it will post on http://www.searsmedia.com when a final list is compiled. Sears would not discuss how many, if any, jobs would be cut.

The company has more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Its stock fell $7.88, or 17 percent, to $37.97 in premarket trading.

The company's revenue at stores open at least a year fell 5.2 percent to date for the quarter at both Sears and Kmart, the company said Tuesday. That includes the critical holiday shopping period.

Sears Holdings said the declining sales, ongoing pressure on profit margins and rising expenses pulled its adjusted earnings lower. The company predicts fourth-quarter adjusted earnings will be less than half the $933 million it reporter for the same quarter last year.

Sears Holdings also anticipates a non-cash charge of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion in the quarter to write off the value of carried-over tax deductions it now doesn't expect to be profitable enough to use.

Sears said it will no longer prop up "marginally performing" stores in hopes of improving their performance and will now concentrate on cash-generating stores.

"These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers," D'Ambrosio said.

The weaker-than-expected performance reflect what analysts say is a deteriorating outlook for the retailer.

The results point to "deepening problems at this struggling chain and renewed worries about Sears survivability," said Gary Balter, an analyst at Credit Suisse. "The extent of the weakness may be larger than expected but the reasons behind it are not. It begins and some would argue ends with Sears' reluctance to invest in stores and service."

The company has seen rival department stores like Macy's Inc. and discounters like Target Corp. continue to steal customers. It's also contending with a stronger Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, which has hammered hard its low-price message and brought back services like layaway, which allows financially stressed shoppers to finance their holiday purchases by paying a little at a time.

The tough economy hasn't helped, either. Middle-income shoppers, the company's core customers, have seen their wages fail to keep up with higher costs for household basics like food.

But the big problem, analysts say, is Sears hasn't invested in remodeling, leaving its stores uninviting.

"There's no reason to go to Sears," said New York-based independent retail analyst Brian Sozzi, "It offers a depressing shopping experience and uncompetitive prices."

Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., said that the store closings will generate $140 to $170 million in cash from inventory sales. The retailer expects the sale or sublease of real estate holdings to add more cash.

Sears Holdings appeared to stumble early in the holiday season, as it opened its Sears, Roebuck and Co. stores at 4 a.m. on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Rivals including Best Buy Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys R Us opened as early as Thanksgiving night. Sears stores had opened on Thanksgiving Day in 2010. Kmart has been opening on Thanksgiving for years.

A hint that trouble might be brewing came in mid-December when Sears Holdings unexpectedly announced that 260 of its Sears, Roebuck and Co. locations would stay open until midnight through Dec. 23.

Kmart's 4.4 percent decline in revenue at stores open at least a year was blamed on diminished layaways and a drop in clothing and consumer electronics sales. Part of Kmart's layaway softness likely stemmed from competitive pressure. Wal-Mart had said that its holiday layaway business had been popular. Toys R Us expanded its layaway services to include more items. Kmart's grocery sales climbed during the period.

Sears cited lackluster consumer electronics and home appliance sales for its 6 percent dropoff. Sears' clothing sales were flat. Sales of Lands' End products at Sears stores rose in the mid-single digits.

Sears Holdings said it also plans to lower its fixed costs by $100 million to $200 million and trim its 2012 peak domestic inventory by $300 million from 2011's $10.2 billion at the third quarter's end.

D'Ambrosio acknowledged in his internal memo that criticism over Sears Holdings' performance was likely to come, but that the company was prepared for the days ahead.

"We will bounce back and become stronger than ever," he said.

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

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45795148/ns/business-retail/

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Arlen Specter, Comedian (Taegan Goddard's Political Wire)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/180200732?client_source=feed&format=rss

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China jails dissident 10 years for "subversive" essays (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? A court in China sentenced on Monday a veteran dissident, Chen Xi, to 10 years in jail for subversion, his wife said, one of the heaviest sentences given for political charges since Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was jailed two years ago.

The court in Guiyang, southwest China, tried Chen, swiftly declared him guilty of "inciting subversion of state power," and said he deserved a tough sentence of a decade in prison, his wife, Zhang Qunxuan, told Reuters by telephone.

"The judge said this was a major crime that had a malign impact and he was a repeated offender," Zhang said by telephone.

"If the government wants democracy and progression, you need people who speak out their negative opinions," she said.

"To subvert you - can he do that? Does he have any army? Does he have a police force? Does he have courts? With a piece of paper and a pen, can he subvert you? Are you so fragile?"

Chen Xi, 57, was convicted over 36 essays critical of the ruling Communist Party that he published on overseas Chinese websites, said Zhang. The trial took about two and half hours, she added.

Chen said he would not appeal, because it would be futile, said Zhang.

An official at the Guiyang People's Intermediate Court telephoned by Reuters declined to give any information or to give contact details for the division of the court that tried Chen, who is also known as Chen Youcai.

"Inciting subversion" is a charge often used to punish dissidents, and China's party-run courts rarely find in favour of defendants in trials, especially for political charges.

Communist Party chiefs are preparing for a leadership handover late next year, when the party's long-standing focus on fending off political challenges is likely to intensify.

"Severe punishment is the Chinese government's clear choice of response to spreading protests at home and in many parts of the world: it is determined to 'kill the chicken in order to frighten the monkeys'," Renee Xia, the international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, said in emailed comments.

"Killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys," is a Chinese saying meaning singling out victims for harsh treatment in order to deter others.

"PAY-BACK"

The long sentence comes days after another dissident -- Chen Wei from Sichuan province in southwest China -- was jailed for nine years on similar charges of "inciting subversion." Chen is a common family name in China, and the two men are not related.

Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, was convicted on December 25, 2009, and jailed for 11 years for inciting subversion. In March this year, the dissident Liu Xianbin was also jailed for 10 years on subversion charges.

This month, a Beijing court sent one of China's best known rights lawyers, Gao Zhisheng, back to jail, though he appears never to have escaped secretive confinement in the first place.

Beijing chose the quiet Christmas period for these trials as it was trying to avoid international attention and diplomatic censure, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher on China for New York-based Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization.

"It's not the sign of a confident government that feels it has a strong case against a particular individual," he said by telephone. "It's pay-back for decades of standing up to the government."

Police held hundreds of dissidents, rights activists and protest organizers in a crackdown on dissent this year, when the Communist Party sought to prevent the possibility of protests inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings in the Arab world.

Chen Xi, however, was arrested only last month after being released from a week-long detention triggered by his campaigning for independent candidates seeking to win places in the party-controlled People's Congress assemblies, said Zhang.

Chen is a former soldier and factory worker who was jailed for three years for his support for 1989 pro-democracy protests that ended after troops crushed demonstrations, said his wife.

He was again jailed in 1996, but since his release in 2005 had been an organizer of a citizens' human rights forum in Guiyang.

China uses a "firewall" of Internet filters and blocks to prevent citizens from reading web sites abroad deemed to be politically unacceptable. But many activist use technology to break through obstructions and publish on uncensored websites.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily briefing that he did not know about Chen Xi's conviction. China is a "country of rule of law," added Hong.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Reuters TV; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111226/wl_nm/us_china_dissident_trial

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Second Chinese club in bid for Drogba

Didier Drogba could join former Chelsea team-mate Nicolas Anelka in China, according to reports.

The Ivory Coast striker is wanted by Chinese Super League champions Guangzhou Evergrande, as well as Anelka's new side Shanghai Shenhua.

Evergrande are said to want Drogba after being placed in the Asian Champions League's 'group of death', with 2011 runners-up Jeonbuk Hyundai and Japanese? champions Kashiwa. They have snapped up for chinese internationals in recent days as they look to strengthen their squad.

Drogba is also being linked with potential moves to Real Madrid - in part-exchange for Gonzalo Higuain - and Tottenham.

Source: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Transfer-news-Didier-Drogba-wanted-by-Guangzhou-Evergrande-in-China-article846674.html

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Genetics Faculty Candidate Seminar, Giovanni Bosco, Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona

Start: 3pm End: 4pm Location: LSC?Room?201 Details: *** NOTE LOCATION *** FACULTY CANDIDATE SEMINAR DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS "Developmental regulation of 3D genome organization, gene expression and human disease" Giovanni Bosco, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Molecular and Cellular Biology Chair, Genetics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program University of Arizona Thursday 5 January 2012 LSC 201 3:00 PM Host: Patricia Ernst Refreshments will be served before the seminar Contact: Cheryl Bush, 650-1907 Updated?by: Cheryl A. Bush on: Thursday, December 22 at 4:44pm ? Email this event to yourself Invite a friend to this event ? Edit this Event

Source: http://www.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/calendar/cal?format=long&EVENT_ID=27016@www.dartmouth.edu

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

[WATCH]: World of Goo for iPad Review

Rating: 4

Thumbs Up, Comment and Subscribe if you love this game as much as I do. I take a look at the newly released World of Goo for iPad. This game has been one of my favorites since I first played it on the Mac. Now, with its touch controls it doesn?t get much better than this. Check out the video for all the details. Free Zollotech App: tinyurl.com Website: www.zollotech.com Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com World of Goo for iPad Review World of Goo for iPad Review World of Goo for iPad Review World of Goo for iPad Review

Source: http://jonaslund.me/wordpress/blog/2011/12/watch-world-of-goo-for-ipad-review-2/

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iamwandasykes: Merry Christmas to my tweeple in South Africa! @the_sivutshefu Peace and Love

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Merry Christmas to my tweeple in South Africa! @the_sivutshefu Peace and Love iamwandasykes

Official Wanda Sykes

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Monday, December 26, 2011

techwhack: Google Plus Search can now search for public hangouts http://t.co/tX0k0IUj

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Google Plus Search can now search for public hangouts goo.gl/fb/0mCiC techwhack

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Pions don't want to decay into faster-than-light neutrinos, study finds

Friday, December 23, 2011

When an international collaboration of physicists came up with a result that punched a hole in Einstein's theory of special relativity and couldn't find any mistakes in their work, they asked the world to take a second look at their experiment.

Responding to the call was Ramanath Cowsik, PhD, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Online and in the December 24 issue of Physical Review Letters, Cowsik and his collaborators put their finger on what appears to be an insurmountable problem with the experiment.

The OPERA experiment, a collaboration between the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Gran Sasso, Italy, timed particles called neutrinos traveling through Earth from the physics laboratory CERN to a detector in an underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, a distance of some 730 kilometers, or about 450 miles.

OPERA reported online and in Physics Letters B in September that the neutrinos arrived at Gran Sasso some 60 nanoseconds sooner than they would have arrived if they were traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.

Neutrinos are thought to have a tiny, but nonzero, mass. According to the theory of special relativity, any particle that has mass may come close to but cannot quite reach the speed of light. So superluminal (faster than light) neutrinos should not exist.

The neutrinos in the experiment were created by slamming speeding protons into a stationary target, producing a pulse of pions ? unstable particles that were magnetically focused into a long tunnel where they decayed in flight into muons and neutrinos.

The muons were stopped at the end of the tunnel, but the neutrinos, which slip through matter like ghosts through walls, passed through the barrier and disappeared in the direction of Gran Sasso.

In their journal article, Cowsik and an international team of collaborators took a close look at the first step of this process. "We have investigated whether pion decays would produce superluminal neutrinos, assuming energy and momentum are conserved," he says.

The OPERA neutrinos had energies of about 17 gigaelectron volts. "They had a lot of energy but very little mass," Cowsik says, "so they should go very fast." The question is whether they went faster than the speed of light.

"We've shown in this paper that if the neutrino that comes out of a pion decay were going faster than the speed of light, the pion lifetime would get longer, and the neutrino would carry a smaller fraction of the energy shared by the neutrino and the muon," Cowsik says.

"What's more," he says, "these difficulties would only increase as the pion energy increases.

"So we are saying that in the present framework of physics, superluminal neutrinos would be difficult to produce," Cowsik explains.

In addition, he says, there's an experimental check on this theoretical conclusion. The creation of neutrinos at CERN is duplicated naturally when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere.

A neutrino observatory called IceCube detects these neutrinos when they collide with other particles generating muons that leave trails of light flashes as they plow into the thick, clear ice of Antarctica.

"IceCube has seen neutrinos with energies 10,000 times higher than those the OPERA experiment is creating," Cowsik says.."Thus, the energies of their parent pions should be correspondingly high. Simple calculations, based on the conservation of energy and momentum, dictate that the lifetimes of those pions should be too long for them ever to decay into superluminal neutrinos.

"But the observation of high-energy neutrinos by IceCube indicates that these high-energy pions do decay according to the standard ideas of physics, generating neutrinos whose speed approaches that of light but never exceeds it.

Cowsik's objection to the OPERA results isn't the only one that has been raised.

Physicists Andrew G. Cohen and Sheldon L. Glashow published a paper in Physical Review Letters in October showing that superluminal neutrinos would rapidly radiate energy in the form of electron-positron pairs.

"We are saying that, given physics as we know it today, it should be hard to produce any neutrinos with superluminal velocities, and Cohen and Glashow are saying that even if you did, they'd quickly radiate away their energy and slow down," Cowsik says.

"I have very high regard for the OPERA experimenters," Cowsik adds. "They got faster-than-light speeds when they analyzed their data in March, but they struggled for months to eliminate possible errors in their experiment before publishing it.

"Not finding any mistakes," Cowsik says, "they had an ethical obligation to publish so that the community could help resolve the difficulty. That's the demanding code physicists live by," he says.

###

Washington University in St. Louis: http://www.wustl.edu

Thanks to Washington University in St. Louis for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116312/Pions_don_t_want_to_decay_into_faster_than_light_neutrinos__study_finds_

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Overseas troops get Christmas visit from GG

Canadians stationed overseas received a special visit over Christmas.

The Governor General spent the holidays visiting Canadian soldiers and civilians in Italy and Afghanistan.

"The sacrifice of troops and civilians who are away from their families and friends at this time of the year is tremendous, and I wish them the best of luck in the completion of their missions," David Johnston said in a statement.

Gov. Gen. David Johnston, left, addresses Canadian troops on Christmas Day at Camp Blackhorse in Kabul. Gov. Gen. David Johnston, left, addresses Canadian troops on Christmas Day at Camp Blackhorse in Kabul. (Chris Ward/Department of National Defence)

He was joined on the trip by Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Gen. Walt Natynczyk, chief of Canada's defence staff.

Johnston was already headed overseas for the state funeral of former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who died earlier this month.

Prior to the funeral, he, MacKay and Natynczyk visited with Canadian military personnel in Italy.

The approximately 250 sailors and air crew of the HMCS Vancouver joined a NATO counter-terrorism effort in the Mediterranean in November, after being deployed as part of the international mission in Libya.

Afterwards, the three men travelled to Afghanistan to celebrate Christmas with Canadians now stationed in Kabul.

The Governor General met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials to discuss Canada's contribution to Afghanistan, while MacKay met with U.S. Gen. John R. Allen, who is commanding the international military presence there.

"Canadian Forces members have worked tirelessly, at home and abroad, to save lives, provide security, and promote peace," MacKay said in a statement.

Dignitaries don Santa hats

Liberal Leader Bob Rae also took part in the trip to Kabul, donning Santa hats with MacKay and Johnston for a photo with soldiers.

Canadians are carrying out their duties with the utmost professionalism and distinction, Rae said in a statement.

"Especially during the holiday season, we recognize and appreciate their continued hard work and sacrifice as they celebrate away from their loved ones," he said.

The trip to Afghanistan had become an annual Christmas ritual for MacKay and Canada's top soldiers, who in past years spent the time at the base in Kandahar that used to be home to over 2,500 Canadian troops.

This year, around 950 Canadian troops are stationed in and around Kabul, providing classroom instruction to Afghan soldiers and police and trainers and also mentoring Afghan medical staff.

A soldier has been killed as part of the mission, which the government initially described as "low risk" but later acknowledged "involves significant risks."

Master Cpl. Byron Greff of the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was killed when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by a powerful suicide car bomber on Oct. 29.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/25/governor-general-visits-canadian-personnel.html?cmp=rss

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Biden, Romney spar like it's fall 2012

Republican presidential candidate former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney pays Allan Lowe for diesel after pumping fuel into his campaign bus during a stop in Randolph, N.H., Thursday Dec. 22, 2011. Lowe is also the Randolph police chief. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Republican presidential candidate former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney pays Allan Lowe for diesel after pumping fuel into his campaign bus during a stop in Randolph, N.H., Thursday Dec. 22, 2011. Lowe is also the Randolph police chief. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a campaign stop, Friday, Dec. 23, 2011, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

Republican presidential candidate, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney pauses during a visit to St. Paul's Lutheran Church while campaigning in a Berlin, N.H. neighborhood, Thursday Dec. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Republican presidential candidate, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann pick out candy at The Granite State Candy Shoppe in Concord, N.H. Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

Republican presidential candidate, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann walk through a square while campaigning in Concord, N.H. Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

(AP) ? It's an opening salvo of the presidential campaign, minus actual presidential nominees.

Vice President Joe Biden unleashed a biting critique of Mitt Romney's policies Friday and the Republican came swiftly back at him ? a full-contact preview of what the general election might look like should Romney win the GOP nomination to challenge President Barack Obama.

All this, before a vote is cast in the Republican race, The Iowa caucuses, looming Jan. 3, are the first step in the voting to pick a Republican nominee.

In an opinion piece published in The Des Moines Register, Biden portrayed the Republican frontrunner as the purveyor of failed, retreaded economic ideas. Romney shot back that Biden and Obama live an economic "fantasyland" out of touch with the real world.

Biden's jabs mark a major escalation in Obama's re-election campaign and refocus his political team on Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whom Obama advisers have long considered his most likely opponent. And it switches Obama away from his just-concluded tax cut victory over House Republicans to the GOP presidential field just 12 days before the Iowa caucuses.

"Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind," Biden wrote.

The Obama team may be betting on Romney, but his Republican rivals were conceding no such ground.

Campaigning in South Carolina, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich derided Romney as a "Massachusetts moderate trying to come down and pretend to be a conservative. But I'm not going to say anything stronger than that. I'm going to focus on positive things."

Asked later how that wasn't being negative, Gingrich said: "I didn't criticize him. I described him accurately."

And he swiped at rival Ron Paul for wanting to shut overseas military bases, a stark departure from the Republican mainstream and one not bound to sit well in pro-military South Carolina. "The only person I know who is for a weaker military than Barack Obama is Ron Paul," Gingrich told 300 people outside a Columbia restaurant. "If we become isolationist, the world would become a more dangerous place overnight."

Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign said Friday she would start radio and TV commercials in Iowa, her first since her straw poll victory in the state in August. In them, she stresses her Christian values and that she's "an Iowa girl from Waterloo."

Biden's words, meanwhile, summed up a running story line about Romney that Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party have been refining for months. The piece also was a direct rebuttal to Romney's recent claim he wants "an opportunity society" versus what he called Obama's "entitlement society."

Biden reiterated a major theme of Obama's re-election effort, one the president spelled out in a recent speech in Kansas where he declared that the middle class was at a make-or-break moment. In taking on Romney, Biden defined "opportunity" in his own terms.

"We believe deeply in opportunity ? that if you work hard and play by the rules, no opportunity should be out of reach," he wrote. "This is a fundamentally different vision than what the other side has proposed."

Romney, speaking at the Tilt'n Diner, quickly countered that it was Obama who is hurting the country and expressed astonishment that Biden would have the "chutzpah ... the delusion" to write such a piece.

"This president and his policies have made it harder on the American people and on the middle class," he said. "And I don't think they get it. I don't think they understand from fantasyland what's happening in real America. They need to get out to diners like this."

The timing, placement and direct response to Romney represented a remarkable early volley from the Obama camp, using the most potent voice next to the president himself to set a new signpost on the re-election season. And it signaled an aggressive strategy to challenge his GOP opposition and engage even though the Republican nomination could remain unsettled for months.

In the opinion piece, Biden said Romney's proposals for the economy "would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class."

"Romney also misleadingly suggests that the president and I are creating an 'Entitlement Society,' whereby government provides everything for its people without regard to merit, as opposed to what he calls an Opportunity Society,' where everything is merit-based and every man is left to fend for himself," Biden wrote.

In essentially placing its bets on Romney, the Obama camp elevated his stature in the race, particularly in Iowa where he is running neck-and-neck with Gingrich and Texas congressman Ron Paul.

Romney was clearly ready ? and eager ? to engage with the White House. While he generally has to be asked, or even pressed, to criticize Gingrich, he hit back at Biden at the first opportunity.

"I think they realize what's coming," he said. "I hope they're right. I hope I'm the nominee."

Romney aides said campaign days like this help him against his GOP rivals, positioning him as the candidate best able to take on Obama in the fall and addressing a top Republican goal: selecting a nominee who is electable against the president.

The Obama campaign also chose Iowa to deliver the Biden message because it is an epicenter of national politics and where it was sure to get intense attention.

Moreover, Iowa is a general election swing state that Democrat Al Gore won in 2000 but President George W. Bush won in 2004. Obama beat Republican John McCain in the state in 2008 by 8 percentage points. Biden's message clearly aimed for the state's general election voters as well.

Earlier this week, Romney accused Obama of deepening the economic crisis and backing policies that would redistribute wealth instead of creating equal opportunity for people to do well.

Romney said his policies would turn the U.S. into an "opportunity society" while Obama's vision for an "entitlement society" would make more people dependent on government welfare.

"The only entitlement we believe in is an America where if you work hard, you can get ahead," Biden wrote in the op-ed.

Biden's piece hinted at another line of attack on Romney ? that the former governor is a man of wealth and privilege. Biden, in his piece, stressed his own family's working class roots and how his father's pride was "put to the test when he found himself struggling to make ends meet."

Romney, by contrast, is the son of former American Motors Corp. chairman and Michigan Gov. George Romney. Romney also made his own fortune as a venture capitalist, a point Obama's Democratic surrogates have used to portray Romney as out of touch and elitist.

_____

Hunt reported from New Hampshire; Kuhnhenn reported from Washington. AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller and Associated Press writers Will Lester, Brian Bakst, Seanna Adcox and Shannon McCaffrey contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-23-Biden-Romney/id-c7d720cf4fb1427eb60b0b1f4884e7d9

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Students and teachers arrive from Japan tour

MANILA, Philippines ? Some 56 Filipino high school students and five teachers recently arrived from a 13-day cultural tour of Japan as part of the Japan East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths ? American Field Service (JENESYS ? AFS) Programme 2011. The program, implemented in collaboration with the American Field Service (AFS) Intercultural Programs, took participants to Japanese high schools and tourist destinations in various prefectures.

Kiyoshi Takeuchi, director of the Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC), encouraged delegates to serve as friendship ambassadors, and to recognize their JENESYS experience as a lifetime commitment in maintaining and promoting amiable relations between the Philippines and Japan.

The JENESYS program is one of several youth exchange programs which aims to promote understanding between Japan and other countries. In April 2012, about 400 Filipino youth will participate in the Disaster Management and Recovery Program and Environment Issues in Japan. They will learn about Japan?s experience in dealing with natural disasters, and witness its ongoing recovery efforts from the earthquake and tsunami.

For details about the program, visit the National Youth Commission website at www.nyc.gov.ph.

CEU holds teacher induction

Centro Escolar University (CEU), in cooperation with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Education-National Capital Region (DepEd-NCR), and the Teacher Education Council (TEC) recently held a teacher induction program at its Manila campus.

The five-day teacher induction-cum-training workshop aimed to enhance the competencies of new secondary public school teachers in English, Math and Science, and share new strategies to improve classroom instruction. CEU faculty members and alumni were among the speakers and facilitators.

Southville maintains 100% passing rate in exam

Tourism students of Southville International School and Colleges (SISC) posted a 100 percent passing rate in the Amadeus World Certification Examination. The successful examinees are Bianca Elyz Clemente, Marie Jo Palado, Sarah Jane Amakawa, Candy Laine Velando, Marc O?ate, Reynaldo Sison, and Beanchie Marie Satou.

For the last three years, SISC students maintained an impressive track record of 100 percent pass rate in the Amadeus certification exam. SISC has an integrated Amadeus training course in its BS Tourism curriculum. Amadeus is a Computer Reservation System used globally to book a range of travel services such as flights, hotels and car hires.

Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/345811/students-and-teachers-arrive-japan-tour

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The 4 biggest scientific breakthroughs of 2011 (The Week)

New York ? From neutrinos to new planets, a look at some of the year's most important discoveries

1. Upending the laws of physics
Researchers at the CERN laboratory in Geneva announced in September that they'd clocked subatomic particles called neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. That finding directly contradicts Albert Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity, which holds that nothing can outrun light. If neutrinos can, they could arrive at a destination before they even left, opening the prospect of time travel. Or could it be that neutrinos move through an undiscovered fifth dimension, separate from the three dimensions of space and one of time that we know about? Those ideas are so shocking that even the CERN team "wanted to find a mistake" in their data, says team leader Antonio Ereditato. But they didn't. And so far, further testing has failed to dismiss the finding, says theoretical physicist Matthew Strassler, as "a doorway into something fundamental and deep we don't know about nature."

2. Reasons to listen to your gut
Bacteria in our intestines may play a major role in the health of our minds and bodies. German researchers have discovered that just as each human being has a specific blood type, each of us also has one of three separate families of bacteria residing in our guts. A person's "enterotype" likely establishes itself in infancy and appears to affect everything from how well food is digested to how drugs are absorbed. The discovery of the three distinct gut ecosystems "was a surprise, and it's good news," says researcher Peer Bork. The finding could help physicians diagnose and treat serious digestive disorders, and also help explain why the effects of medicines and nutrients vary widely from person to person. Further studies have shown that ingesting a bacteria species found in certain yogurts and cheeses calms stressed-out mice ? pointing to the prospect of treating psychiatric disorders with microbes instead of drugs.

3. Closing in on alien life
A galaxy-wide search for Earth-like planets has returned a startling number of candidates. Using NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers this year announced they'd spotted 2,326 new worlds and counting. Ten of those planets are close in size to our own and orbit their suns in the "habitable zone," where temperatures could be balmy enough to support liquid water ? and potentially life. The best contender yet, Kepler-22b, looks to be a hospitable 72 degrees and circles a star very similar to our sun. The data pouring in from the spacecraft, launched in March 2009, are "game-changing," says Kepler principal investigator William Borucki. "It's just a tremendous amount of new knowledge." Already, other researchers are scanning the most promising Kepler finds for signs of alien life.

4. A new weapon against aging
The fountain of youth might one day flow within our own cells. Scientists working with mice have discovered that if they remove a special kind of cell that promotes aging, a host of age-related conditions disappear: The genetically modified rodents didn't develop cataracts, their skin didn't wrinkle, and they maintained high levels of energy throughout their lives. The so-called senescent cells have lost the ability to divide, and as they build up in aging tissue, they release toxins that destroy robust neighboring cells. Scientists devised a way of killing off those senescent cells, and the procedure "suggests therapies that might work in real patients," says Norman E. Sharpless, an expert on aging. If purging the cells works in people as it does in mice, the treatment could ward off a host of age-related diseases, from cancer to dementia, and keep us vigorous longer.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20111223/cm_theweek/222719

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Obama blames GOP for upcoming tax increase (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Continuing a tax cut of up to $40 a week for workers and unemployment benefits for millions of jobless hit a wall Tuesday as the House rejected a two-month extension of both, and President Barack Obama blamed Republicans for the stalemate.

"The clock is ticking, time is running out," Obama said shortly after House voted 229-193 to request negotiations with the Senate on renewing the payroll tax cuts for a year.

House Speaker John Boehner, told that Obama had sought his help, replied, "I need the president to help out." His voice rose as he said it, and his words were cheered by dozens of Republicans lawmakers who have pushed him and the rest of the leadership to pursue a more confrontational strategy with Democrats and the White House in an already contentious year of divided government.

This time, it wasn't a partial government shutdown or even an unprecedented Treasury default that was at stake, but the prospect that payroll taxes would rise on Jan. 1 for 160 million workers and long-term unemployment benefits end for millions of jobless victims of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Yet another deadline has been entangled in the dispute, this one affecting seniors, but the administration announced it had finessed a way around it. Officials said paperwork for doctors who treat Medicare patients in the early days of the new year will not be processed until Jan. 18, giving lawmakers more time to avert a 27 percent cut in fees threatened for Jan. 1.

Whatever the stakes, there was little indication that Republicans would get their wish for negotiations with the Senate any time soon. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he would be happy to resume talks on a yearlong measure ? "but not before" the House ratifies the two-month bill and sends it to Obama for his signature.

Given Obama's remarks and Reid's refusal to negotiate, it was unclear what leverage Republicans had in the year-end standoff. It appeared likely the partisan disagreement could easily persist past Christmas and into the last week of the year.

The standoff was sowing confusion in business, running out of days to adapt to any new payroll tax regimen. Even the Senate's proposed two-month extension was creating headaches because it contained a two-tiered system geared to ensuring that higher-income earners paid a higher rate on some of their wages, according to a trade group.

"There's not time enough to do that in an orderly fashion," said Pete A. Isberg, president of the National Payroll Reporting Consortium trade group. "We're two weeks away from 2012." He wrote a letter to congressional leaders this week warning that the Senate bill "could create substantial problems, confusion and costs."

Democrats pounced on Republicans for rejecting the Senate bill, emboldened by polls finding Obama's approval rising and that of the congressional Republicans fading. They noted that several lawmakers whom Boehner appointed to negotiate a compromise had recently criticized an extension of payroll tax cuts.

Democrats also introduced legislation in the House to ratify the two-month bill that passed the Senate.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the second-ranking House Democrat, asked Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., if he was "prepared to bring that bill to the floor" if no compromise was in sight by year's end.

Canter dodged the question, responding that if Democrats wanted to do their part, they could appoint negotiators.

They didn't.

For his part, Boehner sent a letter to the president, noting he had requested a yearlong extension of the tax cut and the House had approved one. "There are still 11 days before the end of the year, and with so many Americans struggling, there is no reason they should be wasted," he wrote, asking Obama to call the Senate back from its year-end vacation.

In his appearance before White House reporters, Obama said Republicans would be to blame for the consequences of a standoff. "Right now, the recovery is fragile, but it is moving in the right direction," he said. "Our failure to do this could have effects not just on families but on the economy as a whole." Obama requested the extension of the payroll tax and unemployment benefits in the fall as part of his jobs program.

As recently as Friday, it appeared a compromise was in sight on the legislation.

After efforts to agree on a yearlong extension sputtered, Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed on the two-month renewal, with the bill's estimated $35 billion cost to be covered by an increased fee on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That assured deficits wouldn't rise, a key Republican objective.

Republicans also prevailed on their demand to require Obama to decide within 60 days the fate of a proposed Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that promises thousands of construction jobs. The president's political supporters are divided on the Keystone XL project, with environmentalists generally opposing it and blue collar unions in favor, and Obama had hoped to avoid making a decision until after the 2012 elections.

The measure quickly cleared the Senate on a vote of 89-10, with 39 of 46 Republicans in favor. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, said he was optimistic the House would go along.

Not so.

On a telephone conference call on Saturday, numerous GOP lawmakers told Boehner and the leadership they opposed the Senate-passed measure.

While House Republicans quickly developed their plan ? reject the Senate bill and seek negotiations on a compromise ? there were undercurrents of dissent.

One Republican, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, told fellow lawmakers at a closed-door meeting Monday night that he had been inaccurately quoted in an email from an unidentified GOP aide that described the contents of a private conference call, making it appear that the leadership itself was divided. Two lawmakers said details from the email found their way into print quickly after the conference call.

"It implied the speaker (Boehner) was in one place and the rest of leadership in another," Cole said in an interview Tuesday. "That wasn't the conversation."

Other Republicans said Boehner bristled in Monday night's meeting when asked whether he had given his blessing to the 60-day Senate compromise, replying that he had not and challenging one questioner to get his facts correct. They spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the events had occurred behind closed doors.

At the end of their first year in office, there was no doubt about the ability of dozens of first-term Republicans to flex their muscle.

As late as Monday night, several officials said, Cantor outlined a plan for the House to vote down the Senate bill, then vote separately to seek negotiations with the Senate.

Several Republicans objected, noting that would allow House Democrats an opportunity to go on record in favor of a payroll tax cut extension. The plan was changed, and in proceedings during the day, there was no opportunity for a straightforward yes-or-no vote on the Senate-passed bill that Democrats and the White House favor.

___

Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Alan Fram, Laurie Kellman, Larry Margasak, Andrew Taylor and Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111221/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_payroll_tax

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Analysis: Chechnya: How did Putin's party win 99 percent? (Reuters)

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) ? Dagmein Khaseinova beams with pride recalling the day her Chechen village, devastated a decade ago in a war launched by Vladimir Putin, gave the Russian ruler's party nearly 100 percent support in a parliamentary vote this month.

Her little village of Mekhketi, she said, is even on the way to winning the cash prize she says authorities have promised for the polling station registering the biggest turnout.

"(We've) already won the regional competition. In a few days we'll hear whether we won throughout all of Chechnya," Khaseinova, 53, said, wearing a traditional Chechen scarf over her head and squinting in the cold mountain air.

"The organizers of the polling station have been promised some kind of prize money if they win," she adds, hiding a smile.

Putin's United Russia recorded a higher percentage of votes in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, where federal troops fought two wars since the fall of the Soviet Union, than anywhere else in the country. Official results show support at 99.5 percent and voter turnout of 99.4 percent.

Nationwide, the party won just under half the votes, securing a slim majority in the State Duma. Even that outcome, critics said, was the result of ballot stuffing and fraud. Countless complaints have been filed; but not in Chechnya

Official monitors here have not lodged a single complaint of voting violations, but among many local residents, the outcome has stirred some incredulity, albeit cautiously expressed.

"United Russia is the party of Putin, and Chechnya would never vote for Putin," said one middle-aged resident of the regional capital of Grozny, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution. "In the mind of every Chechen he is associated with the bombing that destroyed Grozny and other cities all over the region,"

"Voting for Putin is about as absurd as any vote with a 99 percent outcome," he said.

Regarding the competition between polling stations, the head of Chechnya's Central Election Committee Ismail Baikhanov said that a competition had been organized, but only with the aim of "informing local populations, the technical equipping of polling stations and visual campaigning."

International monitors were out in force on election day in much of Russia, and say the vote was slanted in favour of United Russia and marred by numerous instances of ballot stuffing.

But they did not observe the poll in Chechnya or the rest of the North Caucasus because of security concerns over an insurgency, rooted in past wars, being waged in the region.

Militants want to throw off Russian rule and create an Islamist state.

Russia sent troops into Chechnya in late 1994 to try to crush a drive for independence. Much of Grozny was flattened in heavy fighting but the army struggled to quell separatist rebels fighting a guerrilla war in the mountains.

Thousands of troops and fighters were killed, and various estimates put the civilian death toll in the tens of thousands, before the demoralized Russian army withdrew. Many more people who had their homes destroyed were displaced.

"DON'T WAG YOUR TONGUE!"

When Putin launched a second war in 1999 that established federal control over Chechnya after a period of de facto independence, Makhketi in Chechnya's Vedeno region saw some of the fiercest fighting.

A little over a decade later, a left-over United Russia election poster flaps in the wind over the quiet village square with a huge picture of Chechnya's smiling leader Ramzan Kadyrov donning a construction worker's hat.

Locals say Kadyrov's second wife hails from a family in the village. Kadyrov says that although he accepts polygamy as a Muslim practice, he has only one wife.

His strict rule has sparked accusations of human rights violations, say rights groups, including extra-judicial detention and torture. Few people, though, dare to talk about their experiences for fear of retribution.

Villager Daudov Vasady, 79, said he had no choice but to vote for United Russia.

"My wife and I, we voted for United Russia. If our (leader Kadyrov) votes for United Russia then we have to as well," he said.

"If I hadn't voted, if others wouldn't have voted, then people would have noticed and it would have created problems," he said, refusing to explain further.

As another villager speaks, a blue car carrying three men drives past. One shouts from the car: "Don't wag your tongue about anything personal!"

GIVEN UP MONITORING

On the popular Caucasian Knot internet site, a blogger who was identified as lamro95 says all the teachers in the city were called into work on the day of the elections to make sure they voted.

"An acquaintance of mine voted three times in the same polling station. Since the stations were in Chechen schools, teachers voted several times."

Others say the key to the results was not in the force used to make people vote, but in ballot stuffing.

Human rights workers say they have given up monitoring elections. They say polling station workers told them they had stayed up late into the night to fill ballot boxes with United Russia votes long after polling stations had closed.

"We didn't monitor the elections because we knew there was no point to it," said an independent rights worker who refused to allow his name or the title of his organization to be published for fear of retribution.

"The turnout will always be 99 percent and the number of votes (for the ruling party) will always reach 99 percent. We should simply stop the elections and save everyone a lot of money."

The day after the election, Chechnya's voting commission was forced to raise the number of eligible voters in the republic, after the number of ballots cast exceeded the registered voter number by some 2,000 votes.

The head of Chechnya's voting committee Baikhanov said the original number of voters -- 608,797 -- was already six months old when it was announced as the number of voters on December 2, two days before the election.

"Since that time a number of people reached voting age, and they cast their ballots. There were also those who voted with absentee ballots, and there were military who have since come to our region" he said.

Many people say they are content to accept the outcome of the election and want to maintain the small gains they have seen since the second Chechen war, but anger at the perception of vote rigging is not far from the surface.

POLITICS VS REAL LIFE

Isa Khadjimuradov, who was until recently the leader of the left-leaning Just Russia party in Chechnya, said he had received an awkward phone call from his party's headquarters in Moscow the day after the election.

Why, he was asked, did the official results show that some 90 percent of the party's 12,000 members had cast their ballots for another party?

"You can't look at the situation in Chechnya in the same context as you look at the situation in the rest of Russia," said Khadjimuradov, who wore a traditional Chechen costume, including a hat made from baby lambskin.

"Politics is not thought of here as real life. They affect the authorities to some degree, but nonetheless, politics, the political process is not really reflected in the lives of normal people," he said.

Khadjimuradov carries an iPhone displaying a picture of himself with Kadyrov, although they are from different parties.

Many Chechens say Kadyrov, a rebel who became a Kremlin loyalist, is the engine for United Russia's performance.

He came to power three years after his father, the region's first Moscow-backed leader, was killed by separatists in 2004 and has enjoyed a steady flow of Russian funds that he has used to rebuild Grozny.

Across the city, United Russia flags flutter along the side of the road, next to pennants bearing the colors of the Chechen and Russian flags. Pictures of a young, austere-looking Vladimir Putin stare down at motorists across the small region.

Glitzy construction projects loom above the main thoroughfare named Putin Prospect. Above a giant New Year's tree in central Grozny, red lights spell out: "Thank You Ramzan For Grozny."

Some local residents say Kadyrov uses the money to further his own personal ambitions and establish a cult of personality in the region, while channeling money and jobs to his own Benoi clan, the largest and most powerful in Chechnya.

At a cafe in Grozny, Khadjimuradov's friends - other functionaries in government offices - debated whether Kadyrov is more like Peter the Great or Caliph Uthman, the Muslim leader who brought Islam to neighboring Dagestan in the 7th century.

"Kadyrov is a builder. He has a vision like Peter the Great did," said Khadjimuradov.

Political analysts say there is real popularity for United Russia among the people who have benefited from Moscow's funds and recognize the importance of loyalty to the Kremlin which results in heavy state funding.

"The support he enjoys from Russia is one of the fundamental bases for stability in the region and the reason why he can exercise so much authority ... So he has a reason to be personally thankful to Putin," said Yevgeny Minchenko, director of the International Institute of Political Analysis in Moscow.

In exchange for clamping down on Islamist insurgents, human rights groups say Moscow ignores accusations of rights abuses such as extra-judicial kidnappings and police torture.

The logic follows that as long as the region remains quiet Moscow turns a blind eye to violations of Russia's secular constitution as Kadyrov boosts his own authority by imposing his own version of radical Islam.

Kadyrov has denied allegations of wrong-doing as attempts to blacken his name and says he works only to rebuild the region and keep peace.

SHARIA COURT

The North Caucasus region as a whole saw support for United Russia much higher than in most other regions.

Neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia both showed United Russia support above 90 percent.

Idris Abadiev, a former deputy in the parliament in Ingushetia, and leaders of other local clans say the vote was falsified in Ingushetia.

They complained to Ingushetia's Islamic court, which locals say operates unofficially under the regional Mufti. There they decided to sue Ingushetia leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and the regional election committee head Musa Yevloyev.

"To protect the interests and the rights of our own people, we have to pick our own deputies to enter parliament, not those who have been assigned to us," said Abadiev, speaking in his house outside of the city of Nazran.

A combination of corruption, religious militancy and clan loyalties have inflamed the insurgency in the North Caucasus which President Dmitry Medvedev has called Russia's biggest domestic security threat.

Nearly 700 people have been killed in the first 11 months of this year in violence between security officials and militants, says the Caucasian Knot, which monitors violence.

"I didn't vote because it doesn't matter how you fill out your voting ballot. Putin will always be in power. Putin doesn't respect our laws, the laws of Shariah that we want here," said 26-year-old Malik Kastoyev.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/wl_nm/us_russia_chechnya_elections

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