Kim Kardashian’s famous hourglass figure has grown by 28 lbs since she started dating Kanye West – and he loves every inch of it.
Kim Kardashian, 31, has slowed down her hardcore exercise regime and now weighs more than she ever has at around nine stone.
She has gone up to a size 12, having previously been a size 8, and she is happy to skip trips to the gym in favor of staying in bed with Kanye West.
A friend of Kim Kardashian’s told Heat magazine: “Instead of hitting the gym at 6:00 a.m., she’s finding herself staying in bed with Kanye and really letting her guard down.”
Her rapper boyfriend is said to be happy with her new shape and he has been encouraging her to diet less.
Kanye West has never made a secret of his love of curvy girls and he often references the feminine form in his songs.
He raps on Good Life: “Welcome to the good life, where we like the girls who ain’t on TV ’cause they got more ass than the models.”
Kim Kardashian’s famous hourglass figure has grown by 28 lbs since she started dating Kanye West
With Kanye West having a healthy appetite for food, his relaxed attitude has rubbed off on Kim Kardashian too.
A friend told Heat magazine: “She’s normally ruthless when it comes to diet and exercise, but since she met Kanye her discipline has gone out the window.”
The fact that Kim Kardashian makes a living by posing in her swimwear means that even with Kanye West’s support, she is still a little self-conscious about her weight gain.
Kim Kardaashian said earlier this month: “I’m hoping to slim down a little bit, and I’m not afraid to say it.
“I think everyone goes up and down in whatever that comfortable love-relationship phase is, where you like to eat out, but now it’s time to get it together again.”
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have been pictured together for the first time since news broke of her affair with married director Rupert Sanders back in July.
The on-again couple was seen together chatting with friends in Hollywood on Monday after several sightings of them together over the weekend.
The Twilight stars both wore backwards baseball caps and sunglasses as they hung around outside a restaurant.
Sporting cut off denim shorts and a white T-shirt, Kristen Stewart looked relaxed in Robert Pattinson’s company.
Robert Pattinson meanwhile, looked his usual low-key self in a well worn vintage T-shirt and a smattering of stubble.
Monday’s sighting comes after the pair were spotted enjoying the Los Angeles nightlife together over the weekend.
Entertainment Tonight has published a still of the Twilight pair together on its website, taken on Sunday night at the Ye Rustic Inn, a bar in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood.
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have been pictured together for the first time since news broke of her affair with married director Rupert Sanders back in July
It comes following reports Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were out together on Saturday night at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, according to Hollywoodlife.com.
Sources told ET that Kristen Stewart, 22, and Robert Pattinson, 26, spent more than four hours at the bar on Sunday and even “cosied up to each other”.
They were joined by around 10 friends, according to onlookers and appeared in good spirits as the laughed and joked over drinks.
Witnesses also spoke Us Weekly regarding R-Patz and K-Stew’s outing on Saturday night at the Chateau.
Two separate witnesses saw the couple at the nightspot, with one telling the publication they “snuck into the garden from a private side entrance”.
A second onlooker said Robert Pattinson was wearing a baseball cap and both were casually dressed in jeans and T-shirts and “whispering very close and intimately”.
A friend close to the couple explained: “They’re afraid of backlash, so they’re keeping things on the down-low.”
The sightings come ahead of their hotly-anticipated red carpet turn next month, when they are expected to promote The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 film together.
The movie is set for release in cinemas on November 16, with the London premiere set for November 14.
The three-year romance took a nose dive following Kristen Stewart’s summer indiscretion with her 41-year-old, married Snow White and The Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.
Last July, Kristen Stewart’s fling came to light after photos surfaced showing her and Rupert Sanders kissing and hugging in Los Angeles.
In the weeks since Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders both issued public apologies for their behavior, Rob and Kristen seem to have inched their way back together.
The couple reportedly is trying to work things out.
“We’re going to be fine. We’re totally fine,” Kristen Stewart recently told the Associated Press when asked about some “awkward public appearances” she and Rob will be facing promoting Breaking Dawn 2.
Snail slime has been elevated from the garden, and is now being claimed as the new miracle face-fixer in the U.S.
While creams containing snail slime have been popular in Korea and Africa for a few years, brands such as Missha, Dr. Jart+ and Labcconte have begun to bring them Stateside.
Primarily marketed as an acne solution, the shelled slug’s mucus is also believed to reduce pigmentation and scarring, as well as beat wrinkles.
Snail slime-based beauty products have been used sporadically since the Ancient Greeks recognized its potential, with Hippocrates reportedly recommending crushed snails to relieve inflamed skin.
However, the beauty potential of snail slime was rediscovered by chance recently, when Chilean snail farmers noticed their skin healed quickly, with no scars, when they handled snails for the French food market.
Those same farmers went on to launch Chilean snail slime product, Elicina, which last year enjoyed its 15th anniversary.
Primarily marketed as an acne solution, the shelled slug’s mucus is also believed to reduce pigmentation and scarring, as well as beat wrinkles
Korean brand Missha then launched Super Aqua Cell Renew Snail Cream in 2010, claiming that its 70% snail extract “soothes, regenerates and heals skin”.
Another Korean brand, It’s Skin, manufactures Prestige Cream d’escargot, which contains 21% snail slime.
According to Fashionista, snail creams are found in everything from face wash to shampoo in Côte d’Ivoire local supermarkets, and now it has been popping up in products in the U.S.
Snail slime – or, technically, Helix Aspersa Müller Glycoconjugates – is a complex mix of proteins, glycolic acids and elastin that nature developed as a way to protect snail skin from damage of rocks, twigs, and other rough surfaces; infection, and UV rays.
Dermatologist Macrene Alexiades-Armenakas, M.D. told Fashionista: “The extract is renowned for its regenerative properties, and facilitates the restoration of damaged tissue and replenishes moisture in skin. It is also effective in treating acne and scarring.”
However, some dermatologists are still unsure.
Dr. Elizabeth Tanzi, the co-director of the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery, said: “There is some speculation that the mucin in these slime creams can be anti-inflammatory and calming; however, there are no respected scientific studies to prove that it actually works. For now, I remain skeptical.”
If you want to roll back the years, forget expensive lotions and potions and instead reach for something more natural and cheap: a bag of watercress.
The old adage of beauty coming from within has been borne out by a new study in which 10 out of 11 female volunteers experienced visible improvements to their skin after just four weeks of adding one bag of watercress a day to their diet.
One woman even managed to reduce her facial wrinkles by an incredible 39%.
The women, who ranged in age from 23 to 58, began the trial by having their faces photographed using a VISIA complexion analysis system which gives a subsurface reading of an individual’s skin and focuses on wrinkles, texture (the balance between oily and dry areas) pores, UV spots, brown spots, red areas (any underlying redness, inflammation, sensitivity or thinner skin) and porphyrins (levels of bacteria on the skin).
After four weeks of eating 80 g of watercress a day the volunteers had their skin reassessed by the VISIA camera, and the results were extremely positive.
The majority of women also reported increased energy levels.
During the trial the volunteers made no other changes to their usual health and beauty regime.
They were allowed to eat their daily quota of watercress in any way they chose – in salads, sandwiches, whizzed into smoothies or wilted into pasta, however it was not allowed to be cooked.
Ten out of 11 female volunteers experienced visible improvements to their skin after just 4 weeks of adding one bag of watercress a day to their diet
One of the success stories of the study was Ruth McKechnie, 54, a theatre training teacher from Cambridge who saw a 39% improvement in her wrinkles, 13% improvement in her skin texture, 5% reduction in brown spots and 18% improvement in her levels of bacteria.
She said: “I’m absolutely thrilled with the results of the trial and astounded at how my skin has improved in almost every aspect.
“It feels smoother to touch, looks plumper and best of all my wrinkles have reduced! I had a particularly stressful few weeks at work and thought it would have a negative effect on my skin so to see such an improvement really is impressive.
“I have also felt more energized and generally healthier which has helped me deal with the stress. Watercress will certainly be top of my shopping list from now onwards.”
Throughout history, eminent philosophers and doctors have revered the health boosting properties of watercress from the pharaohs in Egypt and the ancient Greeks, to the Romans and Anglo-Saxons.
Now, sophisticated science techniques have confirmed folklore beliefs.
Dr. Sarah Schenker, a leading nutritionist and dietician who oversaw the study, said: “Watercress is a rich source of beta carotene needed to quench free radicals, which can cause damage to skin cells.
“However, in order to work properly a high concentration of Vitamin C is also needed to complete this process and watercress again has this in abundance.
“In addition watercress contains Vitamin E which is also important for skin health. It is this powerhouse of nutrients and the chain reaction in which they work together which is so important for maintaining good skin.”
Dr. Sarah Schenker added: “This study confirms that diet is an important aspect of beauty. Eating plenty of plant foods including watercress cannot only help to slow down the ageing of our skin, but may actually reverse some of the effects of damage.”
Watercress Alliance member Dr. Steve Rothwell, who holds a PhD in watercress explained: “There have been a whole host of scientific studies that have shown that B Carotene can help reduce the ageing of skin, so we were encouraged to carry out our own small pilot study using fresh watercress.
“We were delighted with the results of the new pilot study which may now be used to secure funding for a larger scale university research programme, as the findings have proved so conclusive.”
Study results:
• 10 out of 11 volunteers saw a positive improvement in their skin
• 7 out of 11 saw an improvement in their wrinkles
• 8 out of 11 saw an improvement in the texture of their skin
• 9 out of 11 saw an improvement in their pores
• 5 out of 11 saw an improvement in their red areas
• 8 out of 11 saw an improvement in the levels of porphyrins
• 5 out of 11 saw an improvement in their brown spots
• 3 out of 11 saw an improvement in their UV spots
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF WATERCRESS
Gram for gram, watercress contains more vitamin C than oranges, four times more beta-carotene and vitamin A than apples, tomatoes and broccoli, more vitamin E than broccoli, more calcium than whole milk and more iron than spinach.
It also contains lutein and zeaxanthin (45 times that of tomatoes and more than triple the amount in broccoli).
It is also the richest dietary source of PEITC (phenylethyl isothiocyanate) which research suggests can fight cancer.
Mansa Musa I of Mali, an obscure king who ruled West Africa in the 14th century, has been named the richest person in history in a new inflation-adjusted list of the world’s 25 wealthiest people of all time.
Spanning 1,000 years and with a combined fortune of $4.317trillion, only three of the list’s 25 are alive today; none of them are women and 14 of them are American.
Using the annual 2199.6% rate of inflation, where $100 million in 1913 is equal to $2.299.63 billion in 2012, Celebrity Net Worth’s list includes familiar names like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett; but sitting at number one is Mansa Musa I of Mali.
The West Africa king, the richest person in history, and the ruler of the Malian Empire which covered modern day Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali in West Africa, had a personal net worth of $400billion at the time of his death in 1331.
The list also includes the man who gave America Wal-Mart, another who developed mail-order shopping around 1870, as well as a few nobles who helped with the Norman conquest of England in the Battle of Hastings nearly one thousand years ago.
The Rothschild family, second on the list, are the richest people on earth today with assets that total at least $350 billion – their wealth divided amongst mining, banks, private asset management, mixed farming, wine, and charities.
Meanwhile John D. Rockefeller, third on the list, is the richest American to have ever lived, worth $340 billion in today’s USD at the time of his death in 1937.
In comparison, the poorest man on the list is 82-year-old Warren Buffett, who at his peak net worth, before he started giving his fortune to charity, was $64 billion.
1. MANSA MUSA I – $400 BILLION (BORN 1280)
Mansa Musa I, the richest person in history, had a personal net worth of $400b illion at the time of his death in 1331.
Born in 1280, Mansa Musa I ruled West Africa’s Malian Empire which covered modern day Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali.
His country’s production of more than half the world’s supply of salt and gold contributed to Musa’s vast wealth, which he used to build large mosques that still stand today.
According to the writings of Arab-Egyptian scholar Al-Umari, Mansa Musa I inherited his throne through a practice of appointing a deputy after the king goes on his pilgrimage to Mecca; later naming the deputy as heir.
Musa was appointed deputy of the king before him, who had reportedly embarked on an expedition to explore the limits of the Atlantic ocean, and never returned.
Just two generations after his death, however, Musa’s world record net worth was diminished after his heirs were not able to fend off civil war and invading conquerors.
Mansa Musa I of Mali has been named the richest person in history
2. ROTHSCHILD FAMILY – $350 BILLION (BORN 1744)
3. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER – $340 BILLION (BORN 1839)
4. ANDREW CARNEGIE – $310 BILLION (BORN 1835)
5. TSAR NICHOLAS II OF RUSSIA – $300 BILLION (BORN 1868)
6. MIR OSMAN ALI KHAN – $236 BILLION (BORN 1886)
7. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR – $229.5 BILLION (BORN 1028)
8. MUAMMAR GADDAFI – $200 BILLION (BORN 1942)
9. HENRY FORD – $199 BILLION (BORN 1863)
10. CORNELIUS VANDERBILT – $185 BILLION (BORN 1794)
11. ALAN RUFUS – $178.65 BILLION (BORN 1040)
12. BILL GATES – $136 BILLION (BORN 1955)
13. WILLIAM DE WARENNE – $146.13 BILLION (BIRTH UNKNOWN)
14. JOHN JACOB ASTOR – $121 BILLION (BORN 1763)
15. RICHARD FITZALAN – $118.6 BILLION (BORN 1306)
16. JOHN OF GAUNT – $110 BILLION (BORN 1340)
17. STEPHEN GIRARD – $105 BILLION (BORN 1750)
18. ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART – $90 BILLION (BORN 1803)
19. HENRY DUKE OF LANCASTER – $85.1 BILLION (BORN 1301)
20. FRIEDRICH WEYERHAUSER – $80 BILLION (BORN 1834)
21. JAY GOULD – $71 BILLION (BORN 1836)
22. CARLOS SLIM – $68 BILLION (BORN 1940)
22. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER – $68 BILLION (BORN 1764)
Guests at a London bar were hoping it wasn’t their round after a £5,500 ($8,600) cocktail was mixed by leading drinks expert Salvatore Calabrese.
Salvatore Calabrese broke the record for the world’s most expensive cocktail with his “Salvatore’s Legacy” drink which was made up of ingredients more than 200 years old.
Salvatore Calabrese, whose nickname is “The Maestro”, made the costly concoction using 1778 Clos de Griffier Vieux Cognac, 1770 Kummel Liqueur, Dubb Orange Curacao circa 1860 and two dashes of Angostura Bitters circa 1900s.
The drink was valued at £5,500 ($8,600), smashing the previous record for the world’s most expensive cocktail that was held by The Skyview Bar of Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai, which cost £3,766.52 ($5,900) a glass.
Salvatore Calabrese said he was proud to make “liquid history” after breaking the record with the cocktail he mixed in his self-titled bar, Salvatore’s at Playboy Club, in London last Thursday.
He said: “It’s official, I am proud to say that history was made as well as consumed in my bar.
“In front of a crowd, I needed very steady hands to open the vintage bottles and pour these precious ingredients into my own mixing glass, which I have had for 40 years.”
Salvatore Calabrese broke the record for the world’s most expensive cocktail
Salvatore Calabrese has more than 30 years’ experience of creating drinks, developing his talent for combining flavors at an early age, whilst working in a bar in Maiori, a small village on Italy’s Amalfi Coast.
In his 20s, Salvatore Calabrese moved to London, taking a position at Dukes Hotel in St James’s where he developed a niche market for special cognacs and was famed for his martini’s. He worked at other prestigious bars in London’s Mayfair before opening his own in Old Park Lane.
He has become an expert on cognacs after spending many years tracking down, collecting and serving some of the world’s oldest and rarest vintages. His personal collection is worth more than £1m and is displayed in his bar at Playboy Club London. Enthusiasts travel from around the world to sample his collection that stretches back to 1770.
It was ingredients from this collection that he used to make the world’s most expensive cocktail.
HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE COCKTAIL
Take…
• 40 ml 1778 Clos de Griffier Vieux Cognac
• 20 ml 1770 Kummel Liqueur
• 20 ml 1860 Dubb Orange Curacao
• Two dashes of 1900s Angostura Bitters
… pour into a mixing glass, add the purest of ice and stir gently
South African rapper Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye has been convicted of murder and attempted murder after driving into a group of schoolchildren in 2010.
Magistrate Brian Nemavhidi also convicted Molemo Maarohanye of racing on a public road and driving under the influence of drugs.
Jub Jub smashed his car into a group of pupils in Soweto in 2010, killing four of them and wounding two others.
Family members and schoolchildren cried as the judgement was handed down.
Molemo Maarohanye was one of South Africa’s best-known musicians, but he fell from grace after the crash, the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says.
Jub Jub’s co-accused, Themba Tshabalala, was also convicted of the charges.
Jub Jub smashed his car into a group of pupils in Soweto in 2010, killing four of them and wounding two others
They were allegedly drag-racing when their vehicles crashed into the children.
They had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Both had been out on bail since March 2010 – a decision which sparked protests among pupils who demanded their imprisonment.
Magistrate Brian Nemavhidi revoked their bail and remanded them in custody until sentencing on 30 November.
The court room in Soweto, the main black township in Johannesburg, was packed and there were emotional scenes when the verdict was given.
One of the parents fainted and had to be carried out of the court room.
The court ruled that Molemo Maarohanye and Themba Tshabalala were on cocaine and morphine when the accident happened.
The justice department welcomed the ruling, Sapa news agency reports.
“[The conviction] is clear confirmation of justice not only done but manifestly seen to be done,” its spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga is quoted as saying.
“We commend the National Prosecuting Authority’s aggressive stance of charging irresponsible drivers with murder instead of the usual culpable homicide, which usually attracts non-custodial sentences.”
According to a Gallup/USA Today poll of 12 swing states, Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by 12 points among men, ahead of tonight’s second presidential debate.
But it is his surge among women voters to within one point of Barack Obama that has given him a four-point overall lead that sets him on course to win the White House on November 6th.
The poll, released on the eve of the second presidential debate in Hampstead, New York, marks an apparent end to months of double-digit Barack Obama leads over Mitt Romney among women and has plunged Democrats into panic mode.
Unlike the first debate, the second meeting will be in a “town hall” format in which undecided ordinary voters – probably about a dozen – will pose questions. At least half of them are likely to be women. In addition, the debate will be moderated by a woman – CNN’s Candy Crowley.
Democrats traditionally enjoy a marked advantage among women. Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election was said to have been based on winning over middle class, aspirational so-called “soccer moms”. But Barack Obama’s popularity among females has plummeted after Mitt Romney’s commanding debate performance in Denver nearly two weeks ago.
Vice-President Joe Biden’s bullying display over Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan also left many women voters feeling alienated.
Within an hour of the Gallup survey being released, the Obama campaign – which recently mocked Republicans for questioning poll methodology, went on the offensive against the 75-year-old polling firm. Reporters were sent a memo from Barack Obama pollster Joel Benenson.
In it, Joel Benenson said: “The latest Gallup/USA Today Battleground survey showing President Obama and Governor Romney tied with women in battleground states (48-48) is an extreme outlier, defying the trends seen in every other battleground and national poll.”
Overall, Mitt Romney has 50% of support among likely voters in the 12 battleground states, while Barack Obama is trailing with 46% support, according to the survey.
Without winning women, Barack Obama’s path to victory in November is complicated, if not impossible.
The memo includes a chart of selected surveys from a handful of battleground states that give Barack Obama a 10-point lead over Mitt Romney among women nationally.
“This implausible result among women appears to not even provide an accurate reflection on the electorate today, making its value questionable,” Joel Benenson insisted.
Mitt Romney is now neck and neck with Barack Obama among women voters, according to a new Gallup survey
Women tend to start paying close attention to election campaigns later and are more open to persuasion than men. This makes female voters, particularly the blue-collar “waitress moms” whose families have been hard-hit by the recession and unemployment, the most-prized group of swing voters in 2012.
Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, told USA Today: “In every poll, we’ve seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney” since the Denver debate.
“Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney, and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them.”
She added that while Barack Obama currently maintains an edge among women voters, the changed views of Mitt Romney could be “a precursor to movement” in greater numbers towards the Republican nominee.
“It opens them up to take a second look, and that’s the danger for Obama.”
Democrats were scrambling Monday to maintain their historical edge among female voters. Party officials held a conference call in an effort to raise alarm over how a Republican administration would impact women’s lives negatively and the progressive group MoveOn.org released an ad starring three Hollywood actresses who claimed Republicans would try to end abortion rights for women.
The Romney campaign, on the other hand, touted the survey’s findings as proof that women are increasingly concerned about the economy instead of issues like birth control. Republicans said the survey shows women feel Mitt Romney is better equipped than Barack Obama to spur economic growth.
Mitt Romney’s path to winning a greater share of the female voting bloc has been long and arduous.
He trailed the president by 18 percentage points among female voters in a Gallup survey from April, around the time that Democrats were attacking Republicans for “waging a war on women” by supporting legislation that would limit insurance coverage for contraceptives.
That’s when Mitt Romney’s advisers decided to step up the visibility of his wife, Ann, on the campaign trail to try and make Romney more relatable as a husband and a father.
The campaign also organized “Women for Romney” grassroots groups in battleground states across the country and began cutting dozens of television ads that featured clips of Ann talking about Mitt Romney’s “softer” side.
The strategy has helped Mitt Romney slowly chip away at Barack Obama’s lead among female voters and after the president’s decidedly lackluster debate performance earlier this month, Romney appears to be finally closing the gender gap.
As Mitt Romney looks to maintain the progress he’s made among female voters, he’s likely to tread lightly on topics such as abortion and birth control during tonight’s debate – and to pivot back to the economy whenever possible.
President Barack Obama, on the other hand, will be looking for every opportunity to remind female voters of the measures he has enacted while in office that target women, such as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Barack Obama will also be looking for every chance to remind women that that he was raised by a single mom and that he is the father of two daughters.
NEW DEBATE FORMAT
Unlike the first presidential debate, tonight’s debate will be in a “town hall” format, meaning candidates will answer questions from members of an audience, rather than a moderator.
There are 80 audience members total, which were selected by Gallup from a sample of undecided voters who live near the debate’s location in Hempstead on Long Island.
The participants had to submit their questions ahead of time. The debate moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, will decide who to call on during the debate based on her reviews of their submitted questions.
The candidates will have two minutes to respond to each question, after which the moderator can ask a follow-up question of her choosing.
The candidates will have one minute to respond to the moderator’s question.
The “town hall” format is designed to be more relaxed and conversational, with the candidates free to walk around the forum instead of remaining confined behind a podium or a desk.
But the format also lends itself to more opportunities for unplanned or candid events, such as the 1992 debate where President George Bush was caught on camera checking his watch.
According to a Gallup/USA Today poll of 12 swing states, Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by 12 points among men, ahead of tonight’s second presidential debate.
But it is his surge among women voters to within one point of Barack Obama that has given him a four-point overall lead that sets him on course to win the White House on November 6th.
The poll, released on the eve of the second presidential debate in Hampstead, New York, marks an apparent end to months of double-digit Barack Obama leads over Mitt Romney among women and has plunged Democrats into panic mode.
Unlike the first debate, the second meeting will be in a “town hall” format in which undecided ordinary voters – probably about a dozen – will pose questions. At least half of them are likely to be women. In addition, the debate will be moderated by a woman – CNN’s Candy Crowley.
Democrats traditionally enjoy a marked advantage among women. Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election was said to have been based on winning over middle class, aspirational so-called “soccer moms”. But Barack Obama’s popularity among females has plummeted after Mitt Romney’s commanding debate performance in Denver nearly two weeks ago.
Vice-President Joe Biden’s bullying display over Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan also left many women voters feeling alienated.
Within an hour of the Gallup survey being released, the Obama campaign – which recently mocked Republicans for questioning poll methodology, went on the offensive against the 75-year-old polling firm. Reporters were sent a memo from Barack Obama pollster Joel Benenson.
In it, Joel Benenson said: “The latest Gallup/USA Today Battleground survey showing President Obama and Governor Romney tied with women in battleground states (48-48) is an extreme outlier, defying the trends seen in every other battleground and national poll.”
Overall, Mitt Romney has 50% of support among likely voters in the 12 battleground states, while Barack Obama is trailing with 46% support, according to the survey.
Without winning women, Barack Obama’s path to victory in November is complicated, if not impossible.
The memo includes a chart of selected surveys from a handful of battleground states that give Barack Obama a 10-point lead over Mitt Romney among women nationally.
“This implausible result among women appears to not even provide an accurate reflection on the electorate today, making its value questionable,” Joel Benenson insisted.
Women tend to start paying close attention to election campaigns later and are more open to persuasion than men. This makes female voters, particularly the blue-collar “waitress moms” whose families have been hard-hit by the recession and unemployment, the most-prized group of swing voters in 2012.
Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, told USA Today: “In every poll, we’ve seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney” since the Denver debate.
“Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney, and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them.”
She added that while Barack Obama currently maintains an edge among women voters, the changed views of Mitt Romney could be “a precursor to movement” in greater numbers towards the Republican nominee.
“It opens them up to take a second look, and that’s the danger for Obama.”
Democrats were scrambling Monday to maintain their historical edge among female voters. Party officials held a conference call in an effort to raise alarm over how a Republican administration would impact women’s lives negatively and the progressive group MoveOn.org released an ad starring three Hollywood actresses who claimed Republicans would try to end abortion rights for women.
The Romney campaign, on the other hand, touted the survey’s findings as proof that women are increasingly concerned about the economy instead of issues like birth control. Republicans said the survey shows women feel Mitt Romney is better equipped than Barack Obama to spur economic growth.
Mitt Romney’s path to winning a greater share of the female voting bloc has been long and arduous.
He trailed the president by 18 percentage points among female voters in a Gallup survey from April, around the time that Democrats were attacking Republicans for “waging a war on women” by supporting legislation that would limit insurance coverage for contraceptives.
That’s when Mitt Romney’s advisers decided to step up the visibility of his wife, Ann, on the campaign trail to try and make Romney more relatable as a husband and a father.
The campaign also organized “Women for Romney” grassroots groups in battleground states across the country and began cutting dozens of television ads that featured clips of Ann talking about Mitt Romney’s “softer” side.
The strategy has helped Mitt Romney slowly chip away at Barack Obama’s lead among female voters and after the president’s decidedly lackluster debate performance earlier this month, Romney appears to be finally closing the gender gap.
As Mitt Romney looks to maintain the progress he’s made among female voters, he’s likely to tread lightly on topics such as abortion and birth control during tonight’s debate – and to pivot back to the economy whenever possible.
President Barack Obama, on the other hand, will be looking for every opportunity to remind female voters of the measures he has enacted while in office that target women, such as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Barack Obama will also be looking for every chance to remind women that that he was raised by a single mom and that he is the father of two daughters.
NEW DEBATE FORMAT
Unlike the first presidential debate, tonight’s debate will be in a “town hall” format, meaning candidates will answer questions from members of an audience, rather than a moderator.
There are 80 audience members total, which were selected by Gallup from a sample of undecided voters who live near the debate’s location in Hempstead on Long Island.
The participants had to submit their questions ahead of time. The debate moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, will decide who to call on during the debate based on her reviews of their submitted questions.
The candidates will have two minutes to respond to each question, after which the moderator can ask a follow-up question of her choosing.
The candidates will have one minute to respond to the moderator’s question.
The “town hall” format is designed to be more relaxed and conversational, with the candidates free to walk around the forum instead of remaining confined behind a podium or a desk.
But the format also lends itself to more opportunities for unplanned or candid events, such as the 1992 debate where President George Bush was caught on camera checking his watch.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she takes responsibility for the security failure at the Benghazi consulate that led to the killing of four Americans in Libya last month.
Hillary Clinton said ensuring the safety of US diplomatic staff overseas was her job, not that of the White House.
Republicans have strongly criticized President Barack Obama over the attack.
And Republican challenger Mitt Romney is likely to raise it again in the second campaign debate with Barack Obama.
It seems Hillary Clinton is trying to draw criticism away from Barack Obama, who needs a strong debate performance if he is to recover his lead in the polls.
In her interviews, Hillary Clinton appeared to acknowledge that she was trying to shield the president.
“What we had to do in the state department was keep focused not on why something happened – that was for the intelligence community to determine – but what was happening and what could happen,” Hillary Clinton said.
“And that’s what I was very much working on, day and night, to try to make sure that we intervened with governments. We did everything we could to keep our people safe, which is my primary responsibility.”
Hillary Clinton said she was focused on tracking down the killers of the US ambassador to Libya and bringing them to justice.
“I don’t think we want to get into any blame game. I think what we want to do is get to the bottom of what happened, figure out what we’re going to do to protect people and prevent it from happening again and then track down whoever did and bring them to justice.”
Last week, a US congressional committee heard US security in Libya was reduced before the attack on the US consulate, even as violence worsened.
Mitt Romney has been making the Benghazi attack the centrepiece of his case against President Obama’s foreign policy, and has accused Vice-President Joe Biden of making misleading statements about the attack.
Mitt Romney said Joe Biden’s statement in the recent vice-presidential debate that the administration was not told about requests for extra security in Libya contradicted the sworn testimony of state department officials.
A congressional panel has already heard there had been repeated requests to the state department for beefed-up security at the diplomatic compound.
In the days after the attack, Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, described it as a “spontaneous” assault that arose out of a protest against a US-made amateur video which mocks Islam.
But US officials have since said the government had never concluded the attack was motivated by the film.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are preparing to face off in their second debate later on Tuesday, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
Mitt Romney was widely acknowledged as having the upper hand in the first debate, which was reflected in the opinion polls, with many showing for the first time in the campaign Mitt Romney in the lead.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens died of smoke inhalation when he was trapped alone in the burning consulate building on 11 September. Three other officials were killed, and three wounded.
Earlier this week, the father of Ambassador Christopher Stevens said it would be “abhorrent” to turn his son’s death into a campaign issue.
“Our position is it would be a real shame if this were politicized,” Jan Stevens said.
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has begun his defence at his war crimes trial at The Hague court by denying the charges and saying he should instead be rewarded for reducing suffering.
Radovan Karadzic told court in The Hague he was a “tolerant man” who had sought peace.
He was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 after almost 13 years on the run.
Radovan Karadzic faces 10 charges of genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in the 1990s, including the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
More than 7,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.
He is also being prosecuted over the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 12,000 civilians died.
Radovan Karadzic, 67, went on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in October 2009.
He began his lengthy personal statement by saying he had done “everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce the human suffering”.
Speaking calmly, Radovan Karadzic said he was a “mild man, a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others”.
He had stopped the Bosnian Serb army many times when it had been close to victory, he said, had sought peace agreements, applied humanitarian measures and honored international law.
Radovan Karadzic insisted that there had been no history of conflict between ethnic groups until Serbs came to feel increasingly threatened by growing power amongst Muslims in Serbia.
“Neither I, nor anyone else that I know, thought that there would be a genocide against those who were not Serbs,” he said.
He criticized media coverage of the war as biased and disputed the official number of victims of the war, saying the true figure was three to four times less.
“As time passes this truth will be stronger and stronger, and the accusations and the propaganda, the lies and hatred, will get weaker and weaker,” Radovan Karadzic said.
Many survivors and relatives of the war’s victims have travelled from Bosnia to see the man they hold most responsible for their suffering deliver his statement.
Each of Radovan Kradzic’s statements was met with cries of dismay, disgust and disbelief from the public gallery.
Radovan Karadzic is also expected to be questioned about the shelling of a market in Sarajevo in August 1995, an event he says was staged.
He is thought to have as his first witness Col. Andrey Demurenko, a Russian, who was chief of staff of the UN peacekeeping force in Sarajevo in 1995.
In June, Radovan Karadzic had one charge of genocide – related to the forcible expulsion of hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs from towns and villages in Bosnia – dismissed. But he failed in his attempt to have the other charges against him dropped.
Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic is also on trial at The Hague.
Charges against Radovan Karadzic:
Ordered or planned genocide of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats to permanently remove them from territories of Bosnia and Hercegovina
Persecuted Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats – responsible for “acts of extermination and murder”
Masterminded the massacre of mmore than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995
Responsible for siege of Sarajevo 1992-95, in which 12,000 civilians died
Took UN peacekeepers and military observers hostage
Cuba has announced it is removing the need for its citizens to obtain exit permits before travelling abroad.
State media said the move, to come into effect on 14 January next year, would “update” migration laws to reflect current and future circumstances.
Cubans currently have to go through a lengthy and expensive process to obtain a permit and dissidents are often denied one, correspondents say.
The move is the latest in a series of reforms under President Raul Castro.
Cubans who have permanent residency on the island will also be allowed to stay abroad for up to 24 months, instead of the current 11, without having to return to renew paperwork.
The exit permit process is hated by most Cubans so this reform, which was much anticipated, will be widely welcomed.
Cuba previously saw people attempting to leave the country as traitors or enemies of the revolution, says our correspondent, but official recognition is growing that many Cubans want to leave for economic reasons and that the country can benefit from the cash and knowledge they bring back with them.
Now all that Cubans will need to leave is a valid passport and a visa.
However, the new law still argues for the need to protect Cuba’s “human capital”, so highly-qualified professionals like doctors, will continue to face extra hurdles to travel.
Government critics are also likely to experience further difficulties, as passport updates can be denied for “reasons of public interest defined by the authorities”.
The restrictions have failed to prevent hundreds of thousands of Cubans emigrating illegally in the past few decades, many of them to the US where they have formed a strongly anti-Havana diaspora.
The US grants automatic residency to anyone who reaches it from Cuba.
For nearly half a century, Cuba was run as a command economy, with almost all activity controlled by the state.
But under President Raul Castro, who took over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, it has gradually eased restrictions in many areas of politics, business and society.
The latest reform comes on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war as the US and the Soviet Union nearly went to war over Soviet missiles placed on the island.
But the crisis was resolved diplomatically when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba.
However the relationship between Cuba and the US remains hostile – they have no diplomatic relations and an American economic blockade of the era is still in effect.
Cuba has struggled economically since the collapse of the Soviet Union and now relies heavily on the support of the left-wing government of Venezuela.
Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor have got married in the Indian city of Mumbai after a five-year courtship.
The couple’s marriage was registered at Saif Ali Khan’s residence in the city’s Bandra area on Tuesday afternoon.
Close friends and family attended the wedding. The couple then came out and waved at their fans.
The hugely popular stars, dubbed Saifeena by the paparazzi, are known as Bollywood’s “first couple”.
Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor have got married in Mumbai after a five-year courtship
Saif Ali Khan is the son of former Indian cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore, a former actress.
Kareena Kapoor is the granddaughter of actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor and niece of actor Rishi Kapoor. Both her parents and older sister have also been in the film industry.
“It was a registered marriage with three witnesses – Kareena’s father Randhir Kapoor, her mother Babita and Saif’s mother Sharmila,” the Press Trust of India quoted marriage registrar Surekha Ramesh as saying.
The couple had requested for the registry to be held at their residence and for the formalities they were charged 1,000 rupees ($19).
The couple held a series of pre-wedding bashes on Sunday and Monday, reports said. At least two more receptions are planned for the newly-weds.
Saif Ali Khan, who is 42, was previously married to actress Amrita Singh and they have two children who are now teenaged.
For the 32-year-old Kareena Kapoor, it is her first marriage.
Saif Ali Khan has acted in more than 40 movies and won acclaim for Omkara, a Bollywood version of William Shakespeare’s Othello.
Kareena Kapoor has starred in nearly 50 films. She has won critical acclaim for many of her performances and won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for her 2007 hit Jab we met (When we met).
Try this simple, delicious and nutritious homemade vegetable soup for the chilliest autumn days.
INGREDIENTS
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into large pieces
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp dried chili flakes
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
25 g (1 oz) butter
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1-2 tsp medium curry powder
600 ml (20 fl oz) boiling hot vegetable stock
For the Pecorino crisps
100 g (3½ oz) grated Pecorino cheese
Spiced pumpkin soup with Pecorino Crisps
METHOD
Preheat oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas 6. Put the pumpkin on a roasting tray, drizzle with oil, season and sprinkle with chili. Roast for 40-45 minutes. Toast the cumin and coriander in a dry saucepan, then grind. Add the butter to the saucepan and cook the onion, garlic and ginger for 5 minutes on a medium heat. Add the ground spices and curry powder and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the pumpkin and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and purée. For the crisps, spoon heaped tablespoons of cheese onto a parchment-lined baking sheet 3 cm (1¼ in) apart and pat down. Bake for 5 minutes, remove and allow to cool. Serve the soup in warmed bowls with the crisps.
Rihanna has defended her decision to spend time with Chris Brown in a new interview for the November issue of Vogue, in which she also poses in a stunning photo shoot, captured by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.
In her accompanying interview with the fashion bible, Rihanna explains that outsiders have not yet seen how her relationship with Chris Brown has changed since that fateful day three years ago.
“The world hasn’t let go. They haven’t seen any progress in our friendship, because they don’t see anything,” she said.
“But they’re not on the inside. They can’t see what I see, unless they’re sitting in my point of view. I guess I’ll learn to accept that.”
This is Rihanna’s second Vogue shoot and cover.
For the April 2011 cover of the magazine, Rihanna looked stunning in a mermaid inspired and figure hugging gown.
This time, Rihanna, 24, is red-hot in a strapless scarlet lace red dress, and is sporting her haircut de jour, a short pixie crop.
Rihanna’s second Vogue shoot and cover
In inside shots, Rihanna poses in a field of wheat wearing a similar scarlet dress, provocatively stretching out as she relaxes in the great outdoors.
In another snap, the desert dust blows up the skirt of her stunning black Haute Couture leather and lace gown, which she pairs with sheer mesh fingerless gloves.
Rihanna was clearly excited by her second Vogue cover, tweeting on Saturday: “Mama I made it! Here’s #2.”
Rihanna’s quotes to Vogue come as it was recently revealed that she will go public with Chris Brown following the release of her next album, Unapologetic.
A source told gossip site HollywoodLife: “She is hitting the studio real hard these days, but talks to Chris every step of the way.
“As soon as she finishes up with this album, they will be out. She’s gotta focus and get that album together and stay paid.
“She’s tied up and busy with the album, but she makes time for Chris late nights. She did one night before – I think, like, Tuesday. I’m not sure but I know she saw him this week.”
Speculation has been rife that the pair are back together, especially after they were spotted cuddling up to one another at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn at the beginning of October.
Chris Brown has since split up with his girlfriend Karreuche Tran, seemingly to make way for his relationship with Rihanna.
In the same breath, Rihanna told Vogue that she wanted to date a “ballsy” man.
In her interview, presumably conducted before her recent reconciliation with Chris Brown, Rihanna also bemoaned about her lack of a love life and said that she wished a guy would pluck up the courage to approach her because she just wants to have fun on a date.
She said: “I would love to go on a date. You don’t think that? I’m a woman. A young woman, vibrant, and I love to have fun.
“No one asks. Trust me on that. I’m waiting for the man who’s ballsy enough to deal with me. And I have too many vaginas around me at this point!”
Rihanna revealed that confidence and a sense of humor are the main qualities she looks for in a man.
“Seriously, all I want is a guy to take me out and make me laugh for a good hour and take my ass back home,” she said.
“He doesn’t even have to come up. All I want is a conversation for an hour.”
Rihanna doesn’t mind waiting for her dream man to come along and says she won’t settle for second best.
Rihanna explained: “I’m going to wait, though. You always find the wrong s**t when you go looking.”
Astronomers have found a planet whose skies are illuminated by four different suns – the first known of its type.
The distant world orbits one pair of stars and has a second stellar pair revolving around it.
It remains a mystery how the Neptune-like world avoids being pulled apart by the gravitational forces generated by its four stars.
The find was made by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website along with a team from UK and US institutes.
A scientific paper outlining the quadruple star system has been posted on the Arxiv pre-print server.
The planet, located just under 5,000 light-years away, has been named PH1 after the Planet Hunters site.
The planet, located just under 5,000 light-years away, has been named PH1 after the Planet Hunters site
It is thought to be a “gas giant” slightly larger than Neptune but over six times the size of the Earth.
“You don’t have to go back too far before you would have got really good odds against one of these systems existing,” said Dr. Chris Lintott, from the University of Oxford.
“All four stars pulling on it create a very complicated environment. Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit.
“That’s really confusing, which is one of the things which make this discovery so fun. It’s absolutely not what we would have expected.”
Binary stars – systems with pairs of stars – are not uncommon. But only a handful of known exoplanets (planets that circle other stars) have been found to orbit such binaries. And none of these are known to have another pair of stars circling them.
On how the planet survives without being pulled apart, Dr. Chris Lintott said: “There are six other well-established planets around double stars, and they’re all pretty close to those stars. So I think what this is telling us is planets can form in the inner parts of protoplanetary discs [the torus of dense gas that gives rise to planetary systems].
“The planets are forming close in and are able to cling to a stable orbit there. That probably has implications for how planets form elsewhere.”
PH1 was discovered by two US volunteers using the Planethunters.org website: Kian Jek of San Francisco and Robert Gagliano from Cottonwood, Arizona.
PH1 was discovered by two volunteers using the Planethunters.org website, Kian Jek and Robert Gagliano
They spotted faint dips in light caused by the planet passing in front of its parent stars. The team of professional astronomers then confirmed the discovery using the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Founded in 2010, Planethunters.org aims to harness human pattern recognition to identify transits in publicly available data gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.
Kepler was launched in March 2009 to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.
Visitors to the Planet Hunters website have access to randomly selected data from one of Kepler’s target stars.
Volunteers are asked to draw boxes to mark the locations of visible transits – when a planet passes in front of its parent star.
Dr. Chris Lintott points out: “Computerized attempts to find things [in the data] missed this system entirely. That tells you there are probably more of these that are slipping through our fingers. We’ve just stuck a load of new data up on Planethunters.org to help people find the next one.”
Searching for such systems, he said, was “a complicated test to hand a computer”, adding: “We’re using human pattern recognition, which can disentangle that reasonably well to see the important stuff.”
Since December 2010, more than 170,000 members of the public have participated in the project.
Liam Neeson new movie Taken 2 has narrowly beaten Ben Affleck’s thriller Argo to stay top of the North American box office.
Taken 2 took $22.5 million according to early estimates, with Argo making $20.1 million.
Ethan Hawke’s Sinister, a supernatural horror about a crime writer, debuted at number three with $18.3 million.
Taken 2 has not been a big hit with the critics, while Argo is already creating Oscar buzz.
Some critics described Taken 2 as just a replay of the original.
Liam Neeson plays an ex-CIA agent who travels across Europe to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped on a trip to Paris.
“It kind of proves that reviews do not matter,” said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box office tracker Hollywood.com.
“Audiences just continue to eat this up. They just love Liam Neeson in this role.”
Ben Affleck directs and stars in Argo, based on a real-life story about a CIA operative who hatches a plan to rescue six Americans hiding in Tehran after the 1979 US embassy takeover.
Revenues from the film increased by 47% between Friday – its opening day – and Saturday.
“This is a really good indication of how quickly word of mouth can spread,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros.
“The critical acclaim in this case is going to translate into commercial success.”
Family comedy Hotel Transylvania and Kevin James comedy Here Comes the Boom rounded out the top five.
The Rolling Stones have announced four concerts in London and Newark at the end of the year.
The band will play London’s O2 Arena on 25 and 29 November and at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on 13 and 15 December.
Reports of a possible tour to mark The Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary had been circulating for a number of years.
Tickets for the UK gigs go on sale on Friday, with the New Jersey tickets on sale next Friday.
Pre-sale tickets for the UK dates are already available with prices ranging from £106 – £406 ($165-$635) including ticket fees.
Making the announcement in a video on YouTube, the band said: “You must have guessed this was coming.
“Surely you didn’t think we weren’t going to do this? Soon we will be back on stage playing for you in two cities that know how to rock and roll.”
Mick Jagger suggested there could be some special guests at the shows, saying there would be “maybe a few friends joining us”.
Fans can also expect a stage based on the band’s ubiquitous tongue and lips logo.
The news comes as the band release a new single, Doom and Gloom.
Mick Jagger said: “It was written very quickly and the band seemed to like it.
“It was a quick recording session. We recorded two songs – the other one is called One More Shot.”
The singer also appeared to hint that the four new dates could be the start of a longer run of gigs at a later point.
Prior to the announcement, when asked how many shows the band would be performing, Mick Jagger replied: “It’s not going to be a long tour, the first bit.”
The Rolling Stones’ last world tour, A Bigger Bang, played to 4.5 million people in 32 countries over two years before it finished in London in 2007.
With ticket sales of $558 million, it was the most profitable tour of all time, until it was eclipsed by U2’s 360 tour last year.
Despite high ticket prices, Scott Rowley, the editor-in-chief of Classic Rock magazine, said fans would still pay out to see the band.
“They’ll do it because they haven’t seen them in so long, and there’s a suggestion it could be the last time they tour,” he said.
“People have got used to paying outlandish fees for things like Olympics and football tickets – and demand far outweighs the number of seats available.”
Scott Rowley said if a full tour schedule is later announced, it could eclipse its previous record.
He said he had seen reports the band are to receive “$25 million just for these four gigs”.
“That works out to an hourly rate of $781,250 if split equally for a two-hour show,” he said.
“Rock bands still have the reputations that draw generations. You hear their songs on TV and the radio and it’s everywhere.”
“These songs may have been written when they were 20 years old, but it’s still exciting rock music.”
EU member states have announced a new package of sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
Foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg “significantly broadened EU restrictive measures”, focusing on Iranian banks, trade and gas exports, officials said.
The ministers reiterated their “serious and deepening concerns” over Iran’s nuclear activities and their commitment to “work for a diplomatic solution”.
They suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, something it denies.
Analysts say the unilateral sanctions announced by the US and EU, as well as those imposed by the UN Security Council, have done significant damage to the Islamic Republic’s economy.
Earlier this month, riots broke out when Iran’s currency, the rial, plunged to new lows against the dollar, according to local currency exchange websites, having lost 80% of its value since the start of the year.
The Council of the European Union said the new sanctions agreed targeted Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, and government revenues allocated to them.
“They are meant to persuade Iran to engage constructively by negotiating seriously and addressing the concerns of the international community,” a statement said.
“The sanctions are not aimed at the Iranian people.”
The Council prohibited all transactions between European and Iranian banks, unless they are explicitly authorized by national authorities under strict conditions.
There will be a ban on short-term export credits, guarantees and insurance. Medium- and long-term commitments are already banned.
The ministers also prohibited the export to Iran of further materials relevant to the Iranian nuclear and ballistic programmes or to industries controlled by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), including graphite, raw or semi-finished metals such as aluminium and steel, as well as software for integrating industrial processes.
The import, purchase and transport of natural gas from Iran was also banned, mirroring the more significant embargo on oil imports which came into effect in July.
European companies were also forbidden from providing shipbuilding technology and oil storage capabilities, as well as flagging and classification services to Iranian tankers and cargo vessels.
Finally, the Council targeted 34 additional Iranian entities allegedly providing substantial financial support to the Iranian government and one person involved in the Iranian nuclear programme with an asset freeze and a travel ban. Those affected will be named on Tuesday.
“The objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, while respecting Iran’s legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” the EU statement said.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, told reporters before Monday’s meeting that there was still “room for negotiations” between Iran and the P5+1 – the UK, US, France, China, Russia and Germany.
The P5+1 have asked Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20%.
The Iranian government says it requires 20% enriched uranium for its medical research reactor in Tehran, but Western experts say it could be converted to weapons-grade material within six months.
Meanwhile, Sweden has summoned Israel’s ambassador in Stockholm. The move came after an Israeli foreign ministry official was quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying the Swedish government would oppose further sanctions to protect a deal between the telecommunications group, Ericsson, and the mobile operator, Irancell.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt condemned the “mudslinging”, telling the TT news agency: “This is not how I think mature nations should interact with each other and I will react quite sharply against Israel.”
In a separate development on Monday, the leading European satellite provider Eutelsat took 19 Iranian state-run television and radio channels off air on Monday, citing “reinforced EU Council sanctions”.
People in the Middle East will still have access to most of the channels operated by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (Irib) – including English-language news service, Press TV, and Arabic-language al-Alam – but they will no longer be available in Europe except via the internet.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West nearly bumped into her ex-boyfriend Reggie Bush on Sunday night.
But it appears that the footballer’s close presence while the couple was dining at upscale steak house Prime 112 in Miami, left Kanye West’s blood boiling.
The 35-year-old flew into a fit of rage when a camerawoman outside of the eatery asked the singer if he congratulated Reggie Bush, who is about to become a father for the first time.
Clenching his teeth, Kanye West walked right up to woman and grabbed her camera.
Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian was seen at his side with a forced smiled plastered across her face.
Kim Kardashian appeared to be trying to calm Kanye West, holding onto his arm.
Backing down, the couple finally left the restaurant and sped off into the night in Kanye West’s flash car.
Kanye West flew into a fit of rage when a camerawoman outside of Prime 112 eatery asked the singer if he congratulated Reggie Bush
It’s hardly surprising that Kanye West was rattled following the chance encounter with Kim’s ex.
Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush dated on and off for two years and came close to marriage.
Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush are both currently in Miami, and just narrowly avoided meeting as they chose neighboring restaurants to eat dinner on Sunday night.
A source said: “Kim and Kanye arrived to Prime 112 for dinner at about the same time Reggie Bush and Lilit arrived for dinner across the street at Prime Italian.”
While Reggie Bush plays for the Miami Dolphins, Kim Kardashian is in town to film her new reality show.
Reggie Bush and his pregnant girlfriend Lilit Avagyan
Kim Kardashian is said to have been upset by this week’s news that her onetime love is expecting his first child with current girlfriend Lilit Avagyan, 25.
And as with her new beau Kanye West on her arm it would have been a particularly awkward encounter.
Luckily the two couples timed their exits differently, managing to avoid any stilted small talk.
At least Kim Kardashian could have consoled herself that she was looking her best.
While her revealing outfit of a bikini style cut out top and transparent skirt may not be to everyone’s taste, it certainly showed Reggie Bush what he was missing.
This week saw the Miami Dolphins star announcing his happy news.
“I have a little one on the way,” Reggie Bush told Florida’s Paul and Young Ron Morning Show.
“We’re pretty excited… It’s an opportunity to bring in new life and raise a child.”
Reggie Bush, 27, has been dating professional dancer Lilit Avagyan for a year. She shares his ex-girlfriend Kim Kardashian’s Armenian heritage and has been described as a “lookalike”.
Kim Kardashian is reportedly upset by the news that her ex is to become a father.
A source told RadarOnline: “Kim is very upset. Kim had pressured Reggie for a very long time to get married while they were together because she wanted to have a family with him. Reggie just thought that Kim placed too much of a priority on her fame and reality television though and he wanted none of it.
“Reggie was a part of the Kardashian family for over five years and deep down Kim has always held out hope that they would end up together, even though she married Kris Humphries.”
The insider said it felt like “a slap in the face” to Kim Kardashian that Reggie Bush would consider having a baby with another woman when he wouldn’t with her.
A competitor in the Arnold Classic Europe bodybuilding competition did a great job when he applied his fake tan – from the neck down.
His head literally paled in comparison to his super-bronzed body as he flexed his muscles for the judges.
The three-day fitness festival is named after bodybuilding legend and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also hosted the event.
The competition is the European version of the Arnold Classic, the brainchild of Arnold Schwarzenegger and co-promoter and fitness legend Jim Lorimer, which has been running in the U.S. since 1988.
The pair was joined by Dr. Rafael Santonja, the president of the International Federation of Body Building (IFBB), to create the European version in 2011.
Bodybuilder’s head literally paled in comparison to his super-bronzed body as he flexed his muscles for the judges
“We have had many requests over the years to take the Arnold Classic to many cities throughout the world, and we are excited to begin the globalization of our event with the first Arnold Classic Europe,” Jim Lorimer said last year.
“Rafael Santonja has been one of our biggest supporters and we look forward to working together for many years.”
The original Arnold Classic, now known as the Arnold Sports Festival, has been held in Columbus, Ohio for 24 years.
The Arnold Classic Europe, held at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos del Campo de las Naciones in Madrid, included both professional and amateur bodybuilding and fitness competitions as well as bikini fitness, Paralympics and gymnastics.
Winner of the IFBB Pro Bodybuilding was Shawn Rhoden. In the female categories Oksana Grishina beat favourite Adela Garcia in the Pro Fitness competition whilst Erin Stern took the crown in Pro Figure.
Felix Baumgartner, who has become the first skydiver to go through the sound barrier, says the main goal of his exploit was to collect scientific data.
The aim, his team insists, is to assist in the development of high-altitude parachute systems that will save lives when spacecraft are evacuated in the stratosphere.
There is a long history of people undertaking daring feats and helping science into the bargain. Here are five examples.
1. Captain Robert Falcon Scott
Robert Falcon Scott is famed as the explorer who lost the race to the South Pole and who led his team to their deaths on the return journey. But his expedition also laid the foundations of modern polar science, says historian David Wilson, great-nephew of Scott’s naturalist, Edward Wilson. One of the fossils found alongside Scott’s frozen body was of a beech-like tree, Glossoptera indica, which proved that Antarctica and Australia had once been part of an ancient super-continent – and “helped us change our geological understanding of the planet” according to Wilson. Scott also collected the first Emperor penguin eggs. These disproved the theory, then current, that an embryo passed through all the stages of its species’ evolution as it developed. Scientists had expected the eggs to show the link between dinosaurs and birds – but they didn’t.
2. George Hedley Stainforth
On 29 September 1931, RAF pilot George Hedley Stainforth became the first man in the world to exceed 400 mph (643 km). This broke the record set by his team earlier that year during a competition for the Schneider Trophy, in five races around the waters of the Solent, in the UK, watched by hundreds of thousands of people. The seaplane used, the Supermarine S.6, was designed by RJ Mitchell, who used it as the basis for the Hurricane, and also the Spitfire – one of the fastest fighters of its time, which became the backbone of RAF Fighter Command in World War II. The Schneider trophy was crucial to the defeat of Germany, says pilot John Russell.
“If they hadn’t done that exponential development of aeronautics and engine development over the 18 years it took place, then we wouldn’t really have the aircraft like the Hurricane and Spitfire to be available by the time of the Battle of Britain.”
The competition, set up by a French industrialist to encourage technical advances in aviation, ran from 1913 to 1931, with a gap during World War I. George Hedley Stainforth went on to break the world record for flying upside-down – for 12 minutes.
3. John Paul Stapp
In 1954, US Air Force medical researcher John Paul Stapp earned the title “the Fastest Man Alive” when he rode a rocket-powered sled to a then-world record land speed of 632 mph (1.017 km/h), going from a standstill to a speed faster than a 45-caliber bullet in five seconds. He then screeched to a dead stop in 1.4 seconds, sustaining a force equivalent to 46.2 times gravity. It was an experiment that tested the limits of human endurance, with the aim of making transportation safer. He suffered broken bones and detached retinas, but out of these wild rides – by December 1954, Stapp had volunteered for 29 rocket sled deceleration and windblast experiments – came improved helmets, arm and leg restraints, better aircraft seats, stronger safety harnesses and techniques for positioning the body to help absorb powerful forces.
As he had long felt that the safety measures he was developing for military aircraft should also be used for civilian automobiles, John Paul Stapp also campaigned for the installation of seat belts and other safety features in American cars. He was in the room on 9 September 1966 when US President Lyndon Johnson signed the Highway Safety Act of 1966, requiring seatbelts in all new cars sold in the US.
According to the official website of the US Air Force, John Paul Stapp is also credited with coining one of the most famous phrases in American history when he suffered injuries owing to a mistake by one of his assistants Captain Murphy. After he discovered what happened, Stapp observed that “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.” It’s been called “Murphy’s Law” ever since.
4. Yuri Gagarin
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became an international celebrity on 12 April 1961, when he became the first man in space – effectively, a human guinea pig. His single orbit of Earth during a 108-minute flight – reaching an altitude of 203 miles, and a speed of 17,025 mph (27,000 km/h) – proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness. It launched the era of manned spaceflight, and intensified the superpower space race that had begun with the launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957.
In fact, Yuri Gagarin almost lost consciousness for a different reason – a service module failed to separate from Gagarin’s capsule before he returned to earth, leading it to spin wildly and the temperature within to rise dangerously high.
5. Dan Martin
When intensive care consultant Dan Martin climbed Everest, he reported the lowest level of oxygen in the human body ever recorded – his own. While not a daredevil as such, he is part of a team of doctors studying how the human body behaves in low-oxygen environments, in particular at high altitude, and drawing lessons for treatment of critically ill patients.
“When people go into intensive care, they commonly suffer with low levels of oxygen in their blood. Some can tolerate it, some can’t. Our understanding of it is very poor,” he says.
The team has already established that giving patients lots of oxygen in intensive care does not necessarily lead to better outcomes. It has also noted that Sherpas have high levels of nitric oxide in their blood, and is experimenting with raising levels of nitric oxide in the blood of patients.
Amazon has contacted some of its US customers to offer partial refunds for e-books bought between April 2010 and May 2012.
The compensation – $0.30-$1.32 per title – is the result of a settlement between publishers and the US authorities.
Barnes & Noble is expected to email its customers with a similar offer soon.
Several e-book publishers – plus Apple – were accused of colluding to fix and raise prices.
Customers covered by the settlement will not receive refunds until a hearing approving its terms takes place in February next year.
The compensation will cover titles produced by three major publishers – Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. The firms have together raised a fund of $69 million to pay the fees.
Two other publishers, Penguin and Macmillan, declined to agree to the settlement and will instead be taken to court, along with Apple.
Compensation will increase depending on the number of titles bought by a customer. While the exact amounts are yet to be confirmed, they will differ depending on whether or not a title appeared in the New York Times best-seller list.
In an email to customers sent over the weekend, Amazon said: “We have good news.
“You are entitled to a credit for some of your past e-book purchases as a result of legal settlements between several major e-book publishers and the attorneys general of most US states and territories, including yours.”
The company added: “In addition to the account credit, the settlements impose limitations on the publishers’ ability to set e-book prices.
“We think these settlements are a big win for customers and look forward to lowering prices on more Kindle books in the future.”
The case, which was brought in April, was fuelled by several major publishers’ decision to change how they worked with e-book retailers.
Physical books are typically sold at a wholesale price, where retailers buy on bulk and are then free to set their own prices.
E-books were also sold in this way until five publishers decided to switch instead to an agency model. Under this system, publishers set the price of a book and the retailer selling it gets a 30% cut.
This method was seen as a way of curbing Amazon’s dominance of e-book sales on its Kindle platform – and was said to be favored by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.
According to a biography published after his death, Steve Jobs once said: “We were not the first people in the books business.
“Given the situation that existed, what was best for us was to do this aikido move and end up with the agency model. And we pulled it off.”
Skydiver Felix Baumgartner smashed a number of records with his “edge of space” stunt – including for live streaming.
More than eight million people flocked to their devices to watch the 43-year-old break the speed of sound live on Google’s YouTube site.
It is the largest number of concurrent live streams in the website’s history, Google confirmed.
Austrian Felix Baumgartner also broke the record for the highest freefall.
He jumped from a capsule taken to 128,100ft (24 miles; 39 km) above New Mexico in the US by a giant helium balloon.
It took nine minutes for him to reach the ground.
The adventurer plummeted at an estimated 833.9 mph (1,343 km/h), hitting Mach 1.24.
“On the step, I felt that the whole world is watching,” Felix Baumgartner said after the jump.
“I said I wish they would see what I see. It was amazing.”
More than eight million people flocked to their devices to watch Felix Baumgartner break the speed of sound live on YouTube
The capsule from which the skydiver fell was equipped with cameras to provide a live internet feed to millions of people around the world.
A Google spokesperson confirmed that the number of viewers simultaneously watching the Red Bull Stratos stunt live on YouTube was the site’s highest.
“We congratulate Felix Baumgartner and the entire Red Bull Stratos team for their successful mission, and for creating a live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube,” the company said on its blog.
In comparison, about 8.3 million people accessed the BBC’s sport website on the first day of this year’s Olympic Games.
Other technology used to record the event will have a more long-term application. Felix Baumgartner’s body was monitored during the jump using equipment from Equivital, a small UK company.
A system strapped to the skydiver’s chest wirelessly transmitted data about his heartbeat, respiration, skin temperature and other vital signs.
“It’s a major coup for Equivital, which, despite its small size – currently only 25 employees – provides the US Army with its human body monitoring system,” the company said.
The Red Bull Stratos scientists said the stunt had provided invaluable data for the development of high-performance, high-altitude parachute systems, and that the lessons learned would inform the development of new ideas for emergency evacuation from vehicles, such as spacecraft passing through the stratosphere.
“Part of this programme was to show high-altitude egress, passing through Mach and a successful re-entry back [to subsonic speed], because our belief scientifically is that’s going to benefit future private space programmes or high-altitude pilots, and Felix proved that today,” said Art Thompson, the team principal.
Americans Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley have won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the US academics for their work on the “theory of stable allocations and practice of market design”.
The work is concerned with the best possible way to allocate resources, such as in school admissions or organs to patients who need transplants.
Alvin Roth is a professor at Harvard and Lloyd Shapley teaches at the University of California in Los Angeles.
“Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley’s basic theory and Roth’s empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets,” the Academy said.
“It was certainly expected that Lloyd Shapley should win the prize, it would have been a grave oversight if he did not,” said Alvin Roth after being announced the joint-winner.
“I’m glad to share it with him.”
Americans Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley have won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics
Lloyd Shapley and his colleague David Gale in 1962 laid down a theory for how best to match demand and supply in markets with ethical and legal complications, such as admitting students to public schools in the US.
If these particular markets were just left according to price, then you would get what economists refer to as market failure.
This original work developed into the Gale-Shapley algorithm, which aims to ensure “stable matching” or the best possible outcome for both sides.
“An allocation where no individuals perceive any gains from further trade is called stable,” the Academy explained.
This is a key pillar in co-operative game theory, an area of mathematical economics that seeks to determine how rational individuals choose to co-operate.
In the early 1980s, Alvin Roth set out to study the market for newly-qualified doctors and study stable matching in the real world.
This was a problem as a scarcity of medical students – such as that which existed in the US in the 1940s – forced hospitals to offer internships earlier and earlier, sometimes several years before graduation, meaning that a match was made before they could produce evidence of their skills and qualifications.
A clearing system was set up to try to better match medical students and hospitals. In a paper from 1984, Alvin Roth studied the algorithm used by this clearing house and discovered that it was very close to the Gale-Shapley algorithm, showing that it applied in real-life situations.
The awards continue a strong US run of victories in the category of economic sciences.
Forty-three prizes in economics have been awarded every year since 1969.
The prize was not part of the awards set out in Alfred Nobel’s will and was set up in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank.
The prize money for the two academics is 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) to be split between them.
