Stem cell researchers in Japan are heralding a “major scientific discovery”, with the potential to start a new age of personalized medicine.
Scientists showed stem cells can now be made quickly just by dipping blood cells into acid.
Stem cells can transform into any tissue and are already being trialed for healing the eye, heart and brain.
The latest development, published in the journal Nature, could make the technology cheaper, faster and safer.
The human body is built of cells with a specific role – nerve cells, liver cells, muscle cells – and that role is fixed.
Stem cell researchers in Japan are heralding a “major scientific discovery”, with the potential to start a new age of personalized medicine
However, stem cells can become any other type of cell, and they have become a major field of research in medicine for their potential to regenerate the body.
Embryos are one, ethically charged, source of stem cells. Nobel Prize winning research also showed that skin cells could be “genetically reprogrammed” to become stem cells (termed induced pluripotent stem cells).
Now a study shows that shocking blood cells with acid could also trigger the transformation into stem cells – this time termed STAP (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) cells.
Dr. Haruko Obokata, from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan, said she was “really surprised” that cells could respond to their environment in this way.
She added: “It’s exciting to think about the new possibilities these findings offer us, not only in regenerative medicine, but cancer as well.”
The breakthrough was achieved in mouse blood cells, but research is now taking place to achieve the same results with human blood.
Angry Birds home pages have been hacked, two days after reports that the personal data of its customers might have been accessed by the NSA and British spy agency GCHQ, Rovio Entertainment Ltd. has announced.
Rovio spokeswoman says the hacking lasted a few minutes early Wednesday and that end-user data “was in no risk at any point”.
Angry Birds home pages have been hacked, two days after reports that the personal data of its customers might have been accessed by the NSA and GCHQ
The hacking came after documents leaked by Edward Snowden suggested that the NSA and GCHQ had been able to extract information through a host of smartphone apps across the globe, including the Angry Birds game franchise.
Rovio has denied the claims, saying it does not “share data, collaborate or collude” with any spy agencies and that it would re-evaluate third-party advertising networks.
Tom Sherak, former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, has died aged 68.
Tom Sherak’s family confirmed he died at home on Tuesday after suffering from prostate cancer for 12 years.
He oversaw hits such as Titanic, Alien and Die Hard during 17 years at 20th Century Fox and led the Oscars organization from 2009 to 2012.
The Academy said it was “deeply saddened” by Tom Sherak’s passing.
The movie executive was awarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame just hours before his death, but was unable to attend the ceremony.
Tom Sherak served three terms on the Board of Governors, from August 2003 until July 2012, with the last three as president.
Tom Sherak led the Oscars organization from 2009 to 2012
He was credited with renewing the public’s interest in the Oscars ceremony, and extended the best picture category, making more room for box office hits.
Tom Sherak was responsible for completing a deal for the academy’s new film museum with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is set to open in 2017.
“Tom is a true hero in our lives who has a star on the sidewalk and wings to fly,” said the Sherak family in a statement released by the academy and addressed “to the entertainment community”.
They hailed him as a “loving husband, daddy, papa, brother, friend, and <<go to guy>>.”
The Academy’s chief executive Dawn Hudson called him “my mentor and my friend”.
“I learned from him, I laughed with him, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the time we shared together.
“He had a huge influence on the direction of our Academy and on me personally,” said Dawn Hudson.
Current president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said: “In the more than 30 years I’ve known Tom, his passionate support of and excitement about the motion picture business, the Academy, his family and friends never wavered.”
Tom Sherak was chairman of 20th Century Fox’s domestic film group until 2000, working on high profile blockbusters such as Wall Street, Independence Day and Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday criticized Russian authorities for restricting news coverage of preparations for the Sochi Olympics.
The international journalism watchdog detailed in a report how Russian and international journalists have been harassed and prevented from covering sensitive stories in Sochi such as the abuse of migrant workers and environmental issues.
The report documented how Russian state-controlled media have been ignoring critical issues while few local journalists working for independent news outlets faced a campaign of smear and harassment.
”Russian authorities have cracked down on journalists, rights defenders, and civil activists in a way not seen since the break-up of the Soviet Union,” CPJ coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a statement.
CPJ criticized Russian authorities for restricting news coverage of preparations for the Sochi Olympics
There was no immediate response from Russian authorities to the criticism leveled by CPJ.
Months before the start of the games, journalists and activists were detained and some of them put on trial. Svetlana Kravchenko of the Caucasian Knot website, a prominent local journalist who has covered environmental travesties in Sochi and the heavy-handed tactics of local officials, was tried and found guilty of beating up a security guard.
Rights groups including Human Right Watch called local authorities responsible for the campaign of harassment against journalists and activists. Local authorities insist that criminal prosecution against members of the public including journalists is a matter of law enforcement agencies and is in no way politicized.
Sochi will host the Winter Games between February 7 and 23.
In his annual State of the Union address, President Barack Obama has promised to bypass a fractured Congress to tackle economic inequality.
Barack Obama pledged to “take steps without legislation” wherever possible, announcing a rise in the minimum wage for new federal contract staff.
On Iran, the president said he would veto any new sanctions that risked derailing talks.
Barack Obama is facing some of his lowest approval ratings since first taking office in 2009.
“Let’s make this a year of action,” Barack Obama said.
Noting that inequality has deepened and upward mobility stalled, he would offer “a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class”.
“America does not stand still – and neither will I,” he said.
“So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Just over a year after his re-election, Barack Obama must contend with determined opposition from the Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives and has the numbers in the Senate to block his agenda.
President Barack Obama has promised to bypass a fractured Congress to tackle economic inequality in his annual State of the Union address
Time is running short before Washington DC turns its attention to the 2016 race to elect his successor, threatening to sideline him even with three years remaining in office.
During his address, Barack Obama appealed to Congress to restore unemployment insurance that recently expired for 1.6 million people, and asked Republicans to stop trying to repeal his signature healthcare overhaul.
The botched rollout of the website on which Americans could sign up for healthcare has dented the president’s popularity.
Barack Obama stressed the importance of early childhood schooling, better value university education, and equal opportunities in the workplace for women.
He also appealed to Congress to approve a rise in the national minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. His executive order raising the hourly rate of federal contract workers to $10.10 will only apply to future contracts.
House Speaker John Boehner said the impact would be “close to zero” and warned that such a move would cost jobs. He told reporters his party would watch to ensure the president did not exceed his authority through the use of such executive actions.
Barack Obama also urged the Republican House of Representatives to support a broad overhaul of the US immigration system, saying it would “make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone”.
Last year, the Senate passed a bill that included a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US.
The House has thus far declined to hold a vote on that legislation, although in recent days US media have reported the chamber’s Republican leaders are weighing a series of more limited measures.
On foreign policy, Barack Obama pledged to:
support a unified Afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future
back the opposition in Syria “that rejects the agenda of terrorist networks”
make sure any long-term deal on Iran’s nuclear program is “based on verifiable action”.
He also said that, with major US operations in Afghanistan due to end, “this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay”.
After Barack Obama’s speech, three Republicans are offering several rebuttals, a departure from the tradition of the opposition choosing a single voice to follow the president.
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington gave the official response on behalf of the Republican Party, calling on Barack Obama to take action “by empowering people, not making their lives harder with unprecedented spending, higher taxes, and fewer jobs”.
Republican Kentucky Senator and presumed 2016 presidential hopeful Rand Paul, a favorite of the party’s libertarian wing, released a taped address.
According to the latest Edward Snowden leaks, the UK intelligence agency , GCHQ, has monitored in real-time YouTube video views, Facebook “likes” and Blogger visits.
Details of an alleged GCHQ program codenamed Squeaky Dolphin have been published by NBC News.
It reports that the agency showed off its abilities to the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2012.
Facebook has since started encrypting its data, but Google’s YouTube and Blogger services remain unencrypted.
Both firms have said that they did not give GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) permission to access the data.
The alleged operation’s leaked logo – showing a dolphin holding a canister branded GTE – appears to refer to Global Telecoms Exploitation, a GCHQ division believed to be capable of collecting data from fibre-optic cables.
According to an earlier leak, published by the Guardian, GCHQ has been tapping fibre-optic cables to create a “buffer” of information it could search through since at least 2011, as part of a scheme called Tempora.
GCHQ has monitored in real-time YouTube video views, Facebook “likes” and Blogger visits
The newspaper said that by 2012 the agency had tapped more than 200 cables – including transatlantic communication links – and was able to process phone and internet data taken from up to 46 of them at a time.
GCHQ declined to comment on the specifics of the latest report.
The NBC report is based on a presentation entitled Psychology: A New Kind of Sigdev [signals development]. It was part of the trove of documents former NSA contractor Edward Snowden passed to journalist Glenn Greenwald, who contributed to NBC’s report.
The papers refer to the use of Splunk Dashboard to provide real-time analysis of how people use YouTube, Facebook and Blogger.
Splunk is commercially available software designed to let organisations “listen” to their own data.
Examples that GCHQ is said to have shown off include:
a table showing how many people based in the city of Lagos looked at a specific job vacancies blog over a 24-hour period
a graph showing how many London-based internet users “liked” links about former Defense Secretary Liam Fox on Facebook over a week-long period
a pie chart highlighting 20 trending YouTube video tags a day before planned anti-government protests in Bahrain
Although the examples provided do not identify specific users, NBC suggests this would have been possible to do if GCHQ had access to such data.
A spokesman for Facebook added: “Network security is an important part of the way we protect user information, which is why we finished moving our site traffic to HTTPS [encryption] by default last year, implemented Perfect Forward Secrecy, and continue to strengthen all aspects of our network.”
According to US researchers, food poisoning bacterium Clostridium perfringens may be implicated in Multiple sclerosis (MS).
Lab tests in mice by the team from Weill Cornell Medical College revealed a toxin made by a rare strain of Clostridium perfringens caused MS-like damage in the brain.
An earlier work by the same team, published in PLoS ONE, identified the toxin-producing strain of C. perfringens in a young woman with MS.
But experts urge caution, saying more work is needed to explore the link.
Food poisoning bacterium Clostridium perfringens may be implicated in Multiple sclerosis
No-one knows the exact cause of MS, but it is likely that a mixture of genetic and environmental factors play a role.
Clostridium perfringens, found in soil and contaminated undercooked meat, comes in different strains.
Most cases of human infection occur as food poisoning – diarrhoea and stomach cramps that usually resolve within a day or so. More rarely, the bacterium can cause gas gangrene.
A particular strain of C. perfringens, Type B, which the Weill team says it identified in a human for the first time, makes a toxin that can travel through blood to the brain.
In their lab studies on rodents the researchers found that the toxin, called epsilon, crossed the blood-brain barrier and killed myelin-producing cells – the typical damage seen in MS.
Lead investigator Jennifer Linden said the findings are important because if it can be confirmed that epsilon toxin is a trigger of MS, a vaccine or antibody against the toxin might be able to halt or prevent this debilitating disease.
Jennifer Linden presented the group’s latest findings at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s first post-independence president, has warned the country is on the “brink of civil War” as parliament debates an amnesty for protesters.
Leonid Kravchuk, president from 1991 to 1994, opened the debate in parliament by urging everyone involved to “act with the greatest responsibility”.
President Viktor Yanukovych wants any amnesty conditional on demonstrators leaving official buildings.
The opposition has so far ruled this out and is demanding early elections.
On Tuesday, PM Mykola Azarov and his cabinet resigned after months of protests.
Parliament also scrapped a controversial anti-protest law in the biggest concession yet to opposition protesters.
Leonid Kravchuk earned a standing ovation in parliament after telling members that “all the world acknowledges and Ukraine acknowledges that the state is on the brink of civil war”.
“It is a revolution. It is a dramatic situation in which we must act with the greatest responsibility,” he said.
Demonstrations began in November when President Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of a planned trade deal with the EU in favor of a $15 billion bailout from Russia to bolster ailing public finances in the former Soviet state.
President Viktor Yanukovych wants any amnesty conditional on demonstrators leaving official buildings
The White House on Tuesday said the issue of a possible amnesty for scores of detained protesters had been raised in a telephone conversation between Vice-President Joe Biden and President Viktor Yanukovych.
The White House said Joe Biden welcomed “progress made” and called on Viktor Yanukovych to sign the repeal of several anti-protest laws.
On Tuesday, PM Mykola Azarov said he was stepping down to create “social and political compromise”. His deputy, Serhiy Arbuzov, has stepped in as interim leader.
Members of his cabinet also resigned, but they can remain in their posts for 60 days until a new government is formed.
Parliament, in an emergency debate on Tuesday, voted to repeal anti-protest legislation, which among other measures banned the wearing of helmets by protesters and the blockading of public buildings.
Correspondents say Mykola Azarov was deeply unpopular with the opposition, who accused him of mismanaging the economy and failing to tackle corruption.
Meanwhile, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has criticized what he called foreign “interference” in Ukraine.
Speaking at the end of an EU-Russia summit in Brussels on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said visits by overseas envoys were adding to the unrest.
“I think that the Ukrainian people are capable of solving this on their own,” he said.
“I can only imagine how our European partners would respond if in the heat of a crisis in a country like Greece or Cyprus, our foreign minister would appear at one of their anti-European rallies and begin addressing them.”
Correspondents say Vladimir Putin’s comments appear to be a thinly veiled criticism of the EU and other Western nations that have sent a string of diplomats to Ukraine in recent weeks.
Sources close to Duck Dynasty cast revealed that family patriarch Phil Robertson is jealous of his brother Si’s popularity.
“Phil is just plain fit to be tied that Si has become the most favorite Robertson with fans of the show, and it’s driven a wedge between them,” a Robertson family friend told the National Enquirer.
Tensions brewed when A&E executives floated the idea of Si Robertson getting his own spinoff TV show – and he decided to think it over.
“When SI didn’t immediately reject the idea, Phil blew a fuse because he’s got plans to ditch A&E altogether and do his own show where he can preach the gospel all he wants without producers interfering,” said the source.
It appears Phil Robertson is jealous of his brother Si Robertson’s popularity
“Phil’s already rich and not interested in money, he just wants to have more control over his message. But now Si is throwing a monkey wrench into his plans by considering A&E’s idea of him doing his own show.”
Si Robertson, 65, wasn’t even supposed to be on Duck Dynasty in the first place.
“He tagged along to one of the meetings with A&E producers and they really liked his personality,” said the source.
“So they decided to sign him up. Then his popularity just took off, and that got under Phil’s skin. The feud is actually quite troubling to both of them. Phil is Si’s big brother and has always looked after him. When Si came out of the Army after 20 years and really didn’t have any direction, Phil hired him to work for his Duck Commander business.
“For now, everyone’s just hoping they can make peace.”
Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson will join Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister during the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Willie Robertson had endorsed Vance McAllister during his Congressional bid.
The CEO of Duck Commander appeared in a TV ad advising voters to “send somebody from the 5th District who speaks for us to help turn Washington around”.
Vance McAllister, a wealthy Louisiana businessman, was elected in November.
Willie Robertson will join Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister during the State of the Union address
He had also scored an endorsement from Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, whose anti-gay remarks earned him a short-lived suspension from the A&E show.
“I am proud to have my close friend, constituent and small business owner, Willie Robertson, attend tonight’s State of the Union Address as my special guest,” Vance McAllister said in a statement about his choice of guest for his first State of the Union.
“Willie is thankful for this opportunity and honored to attend. I look forward to the two of us representing the Fifth District in DC this evening and bringing some diversity to our nation’s capitol.”
President Barack Obama will unveil a minimum-wage raise as he delivers his annual State of the Union address later.
The president is expected to bypass a fractured Congress to act on income inequality.
The White House said Barack Obama would unveil an executive order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for new federal contract workers.
The president is also expected to announce other executive orders, which do not require congressional approval.
He is facing some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
Barack Obama has called for a “year of action”, though Congress will limit his ability to get much done.
He will speak in the House of Representatives at 21:00 local time on Tuesday.
President Barack Obama will unveil a minimum-wage raise as he delivers his annual State of the Union address
Just over a year after his re-election, Barack Obama must contend with determined opposition from the Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives and has the numbers in the Senate to block his agenda.
Time is running short before Washington DC turns its attention to the 2016 race to elect his successor, threatening to render him irrelevant even with three years remaining in office.
In the face of a divided Congress, Barack Obama has pledged to use executive action to bypass Congress, and the White House says he will flesh out some of his plans in the State of the Union speech.
Barack Obama is also expected to address long-term joblessness, expansion of early childhood education and infrastructure spending.
He will reiterate his call for a broad rise in the national minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour, say White House officials.
The president’s executive order raising the hourly rate of federal contract workers prompted a swift response from Republicans.
Barack Obama is also tipped to urge the Republican House of Representatives to support a broad overhaul of the US immigration system.
Last year, the Senate passed a bill that included a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US.
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes, the US home prices extended a winning streak in November, with 2013 shaping up as the best year for gains since 2005.
The composite 20-city home price index, a key gauge of US home prices, was up 13.7% in November 2013 from a year earlier. All 20 cities have posted year-over-year gains for 11 straight months.
The US home prices extended a winning streak in November 2013
Prices in the 20-city index were 0.1% lower than the prior month, but that’s mostly due to the weaker winter selling season. Adjusted for seasonal variations, prices were 0.9% higher month-over-month. Nine of the 20 cities posted a monthly decline, though on a seasonally adjusted basis priced no city saw a drop.
Though home-price gains have been strong, the Case-Shiller data are lagged.
Many analysts expect increases to moderate this year.
At least ten inmates died and 42 others were injured in a fire at Modelo prison in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, police say.
Some inmates with slight injuries have now been released from hospitals in the city, but at least 15 are still being treated for the severe burns they suffered or for the smoke they inhaled.
The fire broke out Monday night, apparently when several inmates in Cellblock B of Modelo jail set mattresses on fire during a clash between rival gangs, following an inspection carried out by Inpec guards.
At least ten inmates died and 42 others were injured in a fire at Modelo prison in the Colombian city of Barranquilla
It took seven fire engines to extinguish the 39ft flames.
The director of the Colombian prison system, General Saul Torres, told local radio that a fight broke out after guards carried out a search of the cell block during which drugs, mobile phones and weapons were confiscated.
Saul Torres said that the guards fired tear gas to break up the fight, at which point the fire started.
Barranquilla authorities slammed the overcrowding at the Modelo jail, where close to 1,200 prisoners are held, triple the facility’s capacity for 400 inmates.
About 200 police and a hundred guards have surrounded the jail to prevent any inmates from escaping.
Ford has announced that last year was “one of the company’s best years ever”, driven by a strong performance in the US and Asia.
The company said net income for 2013 was $7.2 billion, up $1.49 billion on the previous year.
Q4 2013 net income was $3 billion, or 74 cents per share, an increase of $1.4 billion compared with the same period in 2012, the company said.
The strong performance helped offset losses in Europe and South America.
Ford president and chief executive Alan Mulally said 2013 was “an outstanding year”.
“We are well positioned for another solid year in 2014,” he added.
Ford net income for 2013 was $7.2 billion, up $1.49 billion on the previous year
The results follow Ford’s warning in December that the cost of introducing new vehicles and a deteriorating Venezuelan economy would hit its profits in 2014.
Ford plans to triple the number of product launches in North America this year.
But that will hit its profit margins, the company said, as older models will have to be discounted and Ford will have to spend more on marketing.
Ford produced 6.4 million vehicles in 2013, up 646,000 from a year ago.
As a result of its 2013 performance, Ford said it planned to make record profit-sharing payments of about $8,800 per person to around 47,000 of its hourly employees in the US.
Ford has been open in acknowledging that 2014 will be a transition year for the firm, both in terms of products and changes in leadership.
Alan Mulally is scheduled to step down at the end of the year.
He is credited both with leading the firm back to profitability after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, as well as with changing the corporate culture at Ford.
Ford faces difficulty in the future returning its European operations to profitability, as well as maintaining its streamlined supply chain to avoid the oversupply issues that plagued Ford and other US car makers during the financial crisis.
According to forecasters, Deep South will be hit by what could be its worst snow and ice in a generation.
Schools were closed, hundreds of flights were scrapped and cities blew the dust off the few snowplows they have Tuesday.
From Texas to the Carolinas, almost 40 million people are in the storm’s path.
In New Bern, North Carolina, where the last 6-inch snowfall happened in 1989, forecasters said as much as 7 inches could come down. In Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, ice was the major threat – as much as a half-inch.
Columbia, South Carolina, a city of 130,000 people with only eight snowplows, was expecting up to 4 inches of snow. The city put emergency workers on 12-hour shifts and mixed up sand, salt and brine to put on the city’s major roadways as the weather got worse.
Schools were closed from Texas through the Florida Panhandle and up to North Carolina. The Johnson Space Center in Houston shut down for the day. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for almost half the state’s counties.
Deep South will be hit by what could be its worst snow and ice in a generation
Drivers were warned to use extreme caution or stay home entirely. Just north of Austin, Texas, where ice was accumulating on bridges and overpasses, emergency crews responded to a reported 20-car wreck.
Airlines canceled more than 2,600 flights, including more than 800 in the hub of Atlanta and more than 600 at the major airport in Houston.
Snow was already falling Tuesday morning from just north of Austin, Texas, up to the southern tip of Maryland, and a band of ice reached from San Antonio to the suburbs south of Atlanta.
By Wednesday, forecasters said, the storm will bend up the East Coast, traveling as far north as Providence, Rhode Island, before moving offshore by lunch.
Farther north, millions of people suffered Tuesday under another day of deep freeze. Subzero temperatures stretched from Montana to Pennsylvania. It was 11 below zero as the sun came up in Chicago, 8 below in Pittsburgh and 6 below in Cincinnati.
The unbearable cold forced schools to close in Minnesota, Chicago and western Pennsylvania. The University of Michigan shut down because of weather for the first time since 1978. Lake Geneva, Wis., recorded its 17th day of subzero temperatures this winter, double the average.
The latest blast of frigid weather arrived just as a shortage of propane, the fuel used by 14 million Americans to heat their homes, reached critical proportion.
With prices more than doubling from $2 a gallon to more than $4 last week, the governors of Minnesota and Illinois declared states of emergency Monday, urging people to cut back and regulators to lift restrictions on shipping to their states.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala’s properties have been raided by police as part of a fraud inquiry, French media report.
Police swooped on several properties owned by Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala as well as the Main d’Or theatre in Paris, where he has staged some of his shows.
The controversial comedian is suspected of a fraudulent declaration of bankruptcy, money-laundering and abuse of company assets.
The government has vowed to make Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala pay fines for hate speech.
According to French media, Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has transferred 400,000 euros ($547,000) to Cameroon since 2009 while failing to pay fines totalling 65,000 euros.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has been convicted six times of hate speech against Jews and popularized a gesture called the “quenelle”, widely regarded as an inverted Nazi salute.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala’s properties have been raided by police as part of a fraud inquiry
Police have detained a man suspected of distributing a photo of a quenelle being made outside a Jewish school in the south-western city of Toulouse, where an Islamist gunman shot dead three small children and a teacher in March 2012, AFP news agency reports.
The man who was detained near Marseille on Tuesday is also suspected of distributing another image of a quenelle outside the Toulouse flat of the killer, Mohammed Merah, who died in a police siege.
Youths could be seen making quenelles at a rally against President Francois Hollande on Sunday in Paris, which was organized by small, mainly right-wing organizations.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls accused Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala of trying to bankrupt himself earlier this month in order to avoid paying the fines.
Police questioned the comedian last week after bailiffs reported being fired on with rubber bullets at his house.
The bailiffs had said they could not ascertain who had opened fire but a weapon was later found during a search of Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala ‘s property.
Earlier this month a ban on Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala ‘s one-man show The Wall (Le Mur) was upheld by France’s highest court.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls had taken strenuous steps to ban the show. Initial performances in Paris contained sketches including the performer miming urination against the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala was also recorded referring to the Holocaust in remarks about a Jewish journalist and mocking commemoration of the Nazi extermination of the Jews.
Over 40,000 people in the US have signed a petition calling for President Barack Obama to revoke Justin Bieber’s visa and deport him to his native Canada following his arrest in Miami.
Justin Bieber was charged with DUI, resisting arrest without violence and driving without a valid license in Miami on Thursday, and it seems his latest bad behavior is the final straw for many Americans.
Justin Bieber was charged with DUI, resisting arrest without violence and driving without a valid license in Miami
The petition, which was launched on Whitehouse.org hours after Justin Bieber’s arrest, states: “We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nation’s youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society.”
The campaign has garnered over 40,000 signatures, but must reach 100,000 before White House staff will agree to review it and “ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts”.
The White House petition is not the only campaign that has been launched following Justin Bieber’s arrest – 17 additional petitions calling for the same action have appeared online.
Billionaire Tom Perkins has apologized for comparing a row about free buses for tech workers in Silicon Valley to the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
It follows a month of protests in San Francisco over what some residents see as the negative impact of tech workers.
In an open letter to the Wall Street Journal, Tom Perkins described a “rising tide of hatred” of the rich.
His comments were criticized on Twitter.
In the letter, Tom Perkins said: “I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its <<1%>>, namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American 1%, namely the <<rich>>.
“This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?”
He later said he regretted using the word Kristallnacht but his message about a new type of class warfare remained true.
Tom Perkins has apologized for comparing a row about free buses for tech workers in Silicon Valley to the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany
Kristallnacht – also referred to as night of broken glass – was a series of attacks against Jews in November 1938.
Tom Perkins, who headed up venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers before his retirement, was condemned by his old firm, which tweeted: “We were shocked by his views… and do not agree.”
The protests over the way tech workers commute to their jobs began in December when a bus taking people to Google’s campus had its window smashed by activists.
Similar protests have been held at bus stops around the city, with protesters complaining an influx of rich technology workers is driving up costs in the city.
The buses have become a symbol of such gentrification.
“Big tech exploits San Francisco’s cultural diversity and public infrastructure to lure workers here,” said the Heart of the City collective, which has organized the protests, in its own open letter also published this week.
“Real estate speculators capitalize on the influx of high-wage earners by evicting long-time residents to rent units at inflated rates, commanding up to 20% more around tech shuttle stops,” it added.
It is demanding that tech companies fund affordable housing initiatives and public transit service improvements.
The tech firms based in Silicon Valley, including Google, Twitter and Apple, use the buses to take about 17,000 people to and from the area each day.
Those behind the scheme say such buses ease congestion on already clogged roads in the city.
To ease the tensions, San Francisco’s transport agency has imposed fees and restrictions on the shuttle buses. The bus operators will have to pay $1 per stop per shuttle, netting an average of between $80,000 and $100,000 per operator each year.
Prince has taken a $22 million legal action against 22 people for posting copies of live performances online.
Court documents list the individuals said to have distributed bootleg recordings using Facebook and blogs.
One fan on a major Prince fan forum wrote: “Doing things like this is making him lose more and more fans.”
However, other fans rushed to defend the singer’s right to protect his vast back catalogue of material.
The action, filed earlier this month, reads: “The defendants in this case engage in massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material.
Prince has taken a $22 million legal action against 22 people for posting copies of live performances online
“For example, in just one of the many takedown notices sent to Google with respect to Doe 2 (aka DaBang319), Prince identified 363 separate infringing links to file-sharing services, with each link often containing copies of bootlegged performances of multiple separate musical compositions.”
The documents go on to outline a range of blog sites and Facebook profiles where live renditions of classic Prince’s tracks such as Purple Rain and Little Red Corvette could be downloaded, or where links to such material could be found.
Fans on the long-established Prince.org forum suggested that although the action was surprising, it was not out of character for Prince. The 55-year-old has often used legal battles to crack down on unauthorized distribution of his music.
Dow Building Solutions has isolated the first certified Passive House in England. Underhill House, the pioneering project of eco-sustainability, created by the architect Helen Seymour -Smith , gave birth to an eco-friendly house on a hill that rises on the ruins of a 300 year old barn , situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The Passive House has been carved into the hillside and is invisible to the surrounding landscape so as to ensure even minimal environmental and visual impact. The structure is made of concrete left exposed internally to exploit the advantages of thermal energy and it has a bay window facing south, which helps to build-up of heat, and is highly insulated in the floor, roof and walls thanks to Styrofoam , Floormate 300 – A, Roofmate SL- A and Perimate OF -A .
Underhill House
Styrofoam, due to its capillarity and nothing to the excellent insulating properties, has been installed in Underhill House outside of the waterproof cover, minimizing the heat loss. There is also floormate 300-A, due to the high moisture resistance and for its resistance to compression, which is installed under the floor. The roof was insulated with Roofmate SL –A slabs, providing a minimum U -value of 0.097 W/m2K. The basement walls and foundations, finally, were isolated with Floormate and Perimate OF -A that has vertical grooves to drain the water.
All tests were certified in the Passive House and the evidence of airtight was exceeded. The isolation level is high; the design of Underhill House makes the most of the sun’s power by using AGL Solar Energy and creates a tightly sealed building that maintains a comfortable indoor climate.
This project is a demonstration of how a combination of effective materials and excellent architectural idea can achieve a functional and contemporary family home that addresses and solves problems directly related to environmental issues.
The grammar of creativity combines design, color, sustainability, emotion, young solutions for lightness and originality: Skyline 2.0 Snaidero perfectly interprets all these ingredients, serving as a project easy to read.
Appealing, technologically advanced, exciting, but also a versatile system suitable for small spaces in such large environments goes with the synthesis of a beauty clean, and functional, based on ergonomics, design and technology.
At the base of the restyling of the two architects Lucci and Orlandini was confirmed the idea behind the project, according to which the design must be designed for the man in his entirety, in response to both emotional expectations an above all, functional and practical.
Skyline 2.0 confirms a “outside the box” conventional project, released by the compositional grid modules that can highlight the clever use of space, both horizontally and vertically.
The work plan that modernized the design of the shape, confirms its extraordinary flexibility, along with a soft design, and continuously throughout the kitchen by creating a play of concavity and convexity that fosters an extremely ergonomic use of the operational area, with the advantage of overvaluation of the operative space.
The end customer can draw your shaping choice of the work plan: from the point of view of Skyline 2.0 Lucci and Orlandini Design Industrial Snaidero can implement any type of form or design, adapting perfectly to the most refined requirements related to space or domestic habits.
The project is also renewed in height: the need for more storage space and less infrequent contamination to the living, have in fact led the architects to bring the project to a new height come to define an operational area that doubles its space with two shelves countertop from which it was converted into a practical space to accommodate household utensils such as the kettle, kitchen tv, a Big W Coffee Machine , mugs and kitchen drives, allowing you to have everything at your fingertips.
In this way, the devoted space of the preparation becomes a real console where everything is easy and accessible, thanks to the basics semi-space which guarantees perfect enjoyment of the area devoted to the preparation and cooking. The gestures and spaces are extremely soft as well as shaped by the work plan, including the two linear and curved countertop shelves with LED lighting integrated in the rotor angular compartment with two glass shelves, and bases projections, which are also equipped with storage shelves.
But the customization is the true value of the project distinctive skyline 2.0, the kitchen where all combinations are possible, the composition, sizes and materials. There are over 100 finishes available for an aesthetic and functional dynamic able to support and enhance the creativity of the user. Everything is completely customizable: the doors, the floors above the shelves that surround the project chromatically by a distinctive and instantly recognizable sign.
Do you like to cook regularly? Do you consider yourself a contemporary chef? Personally, I used to order my food and pizzas from EatNow Pizza Delivery but since I decided to renew the design my kitchen with the latest ADI design index, I made up my mind to cook at home. It might sound very cheesy but I since changed my oven, kitchen supply and décor I realised it is better this way. Let’s start with the kitchen hood: 35CC, the amazing hood designed by Fabrizio Crisà for oven propellers that break the mold in the kitchen, continues to win design enthusiasts from the spirit and youthful.
This is confirmed by the inclusion of 35CC in the 2013 ADI Design Index, the benchmark for the world of design and the Made in Italy creativity. The products and projects that have passed the long and careful process of selection of the Permanent ADI will be candidates for the Compasso d’Oro and have become the protagonists of the exhibition Design | Opera, who told the visionary and revolutionary spirit of the Italian design.
Among the products selected for the category “Design for living ” stands out 35CC, a design object from the heart of technology, which is small and with a compact size. Innovation, materials, small size, color, and with the charm of a line that draws on the past and revisits key hi -tech in a single object is contained the entire flavor for a house in tune with your own style by being unique and unmistakable.
Shape and color characterize the novel cube of only 35 cm per side, born from the intersection of two shells in “C”: an external one with colorful aesthetic, functional for pizza and oven food plus a steel or punctured smooth. It came from a concentrate formal research and efficiency – 35CC offers different types of suction ( or perimeter with stainless steel macro- ) proposes the island and wall versions and installation options mode filtering or ducting .
In the evacuation wall you can choose between an elegant fireplace and stainless steel bracket, which allows the Back Aspiration if the evacuation hole is positioned at the rear of the product. The color choice of the outer shell varies according to the type of the aspiration: in version Evoque (perimeter aspiration) you can choose from white, orange, taupe and lilac; Dynamique version (direct suction holes through steel) between red, black, yellow, and green.
Also you can customize 35CC with the desired suction surface thanks to special accessories kit (macro-perforated steel panel, panel perimeter white, black and stainless steel). The high-efficiency lighting is provided by four LEDs, which is developed throughout 12 Watt, ensuring a bright light on the hob. The functions of suction and lighting are controlled by an innovative electronic touch control. The result is a distinctive, with a strong character, a simple and decisive-sophisticated design, able to enhance the kitchen environment.
Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic has refused to testify after former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic called him as a defense witness at his war crimes trial at The Hague.
It was the first time Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic had appeared together in public since the end of the 1990s war in Bosnia.
Denouncing the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as “satanic”, Ratko Mladic said testifying could harm his own case.
Both men deny charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In his case, Radovan Karadzic faces 11 charges, including genocide relating to the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Radovan Karadzic’s lawyer argued that Ratko Mladic was “the one person in the whole world who knows best what happened in the war in Bosnia” and that Karadzic was asking him to do his best to testify and to tell what had occurred.
Ratko Mladic initially refused to take the oath, saying: “Your subpoenas, your platitudes, your false indictments, I do not care one bit about any of it.”
He added: “I do not recognize this hate court. It is a satanic court.”
The judge warned him he could be held in contempt, with a possible jail term of up to seven years.
The session was then adjourned, apparently so Ratko Mladic’s dentures could be retrieved from his cell.
Ratko Mladic has refused to testify after Radovan Karadzic called him as a defense witness at his war crimes trial at The Hague
On the court’s return, the judge advised Ratko Mladic he was not obliged to answer questions if he thought the answers would incriminate him.
Radovan Karadzic then addressed Ratko Mladic in person, saying: “Good morning general, sir.”
Ratko Mladic did answer Radovan Karadzic’s first question – listing the posts and dates of his military career.
But following the second question – Did you ever inform me that prisoners from Srebrenica would be, were being or had been executed? – Ratko Mladic said: “I refuse to testify on the grounds of my health and because it may prejudice my rights as an accused.”
Lawyers representing Ratko Mladic say he suffers from a memory disorder that makes it hard for him to differentiate between truth and fiction.
The judge ruled Ratko Mladic would not be compelled to answer.
Radovan Karadzic read out his remaining questions, but received the same reply.
Ratko Mladic again asked if he could read out a seven-page statement but was refused. He denounced the court again as the session was adjourned.
Radovan Karadzic had been hoping his former ally’s answers would support his claims that the orders to commit war crimes did not come from him.
The key charges facing Radovan Karadzic relate to Sarajevo and Srebrenica.
The siege of Sarajevo lasted for more than three-and-a-half years – starving the capital of food and power.
Radovan Karadzic is alleged to have orchestrated the shelling of Sarajevo, and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields in May and June 1995.
In the Srebrenica enclave, Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-defended safe area in the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War Two.
More than 7,500 Muslim men and boys were killed.
Ratko Mladic was the general in charge of the troops.
His trial is being conducted simultaneously at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 after 13 years on the run.
He had been found living in disguise in Belgrade, under a false name and working as a New Age healer.
Ratko Mladic was on the run for 16 years before being arrested in 2011 in northern Serbia, where he had also been living under an assumed name.
When Bosnia-Hercegovina became an independent state in 1992, Radovan Karadzic declared the creation of the independent Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina (renamed Republika Srpska) with its capital in Pale, a suburb of Sarajevo, and himself as head of state.
