Posts Tagged ‘world’


Nissan says U.S. Leaf sales may reach 12,000 in ’11

Nissan Motor Co., aiming to be the world’s largest seller of electric cars, expects to deliver as many as 12,000 battery-powered Leaf hatchbacks to U.S. customers this year as orders are …

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Art Basel Miami Beach Kicks Off With VIP Showings, Neon Concerts

Ayinde O. Chase – AHN News Editor

Miami Beach, FL, United States (AHN) – South Beach is once again ground zero for art lovers, collectors and those who enjoy the parties that surround them. The ninth annual Art Basel Miami Beach kicked off on Wednesday to VIPs and opened to the public on Thursday.

The annual art party which showcases works from over 250 galleries around the world is a way for deals and discoveries to be made. The art of wheeling and dealing amidst the lights, murmuring and at times surreal parties is not for the faint at heart and better handled by those who have traversed the world of Brooks Brothers Suits, boat shoes, hipster jeans, and avant-garde hair and makeup before.

Yes, Art Basel has begun.

Wednesday’s balmy South Florida weather seemed to have been lost on many of the visitors who made the trek across the Atlantic from Europe or who hopped on a two and a half hour flight from New York. However those use to taking redeyes from either end of the this nation’s Golden State or are use to wearing flip flips annually in Miami-Dade county seemed to fit the most on the sand and shores of this billion dollar explosion on the Miami social calendar and economic register.

The Miami Beach Convention Center which is the epicenter of the three daylong event looked like it was still hosting the car show which was in town a few weeks ago. The normally empty parking lot was overflowing with Bentleys, BMWs, Rolls Royce, Porsche, Aston Martins, Maseratis, Mercedes, Jaguar, Land Rover and all other makes and models of high end luxury asphalt riding people movers.

However, inside the Convention Center works of art featured at the trade show easily cost more than the cars outside the facility’s walls. The art hung or stood waiting to be gazed upon, fawned over, analyzed, scrutinized and ultimately bought.

However, if that many zeros is out of your price range or you revel in being the first of your friends to scoop up some young, new, hot thing…umm artist work, that is. Then the NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) fair further north on the beach held at the Deauville Beach Resort is probably more your speed. It is targeted for younger dealers showing plenty of work priced under $10,000.

Some items were bought however total day sales figures still remain hush-hush as it was just a select crowd able to tour the spaces. But what many people who woke up in Miami and those who are landing in the Magic City today know, Wednesday night was the kickoff party night.

Despite the private showings on Wednesday many workers and artists simply wrote the day off as time to set up their space, get settled and meet up with friends from across the globe at parties and fancy dinners all over the beach…while networking of course. After all the name of the game is to see and be seen while promoting the work.

Aside, from the celebs and artists who sparkled with their usual glitterati. Flashing lights and pulsing sounds could be seen, felt and commanded your attention.

Most of the major hotels on Collins Ave., had performances by bands. However, the one on most people’s lips was Metric’s performance at Collins Park on the northeastern end of South Beach.

Attendees to the FREE beach concert (on the actual sand not barrier island of Miami Beach) were first greeted by elaborate aerial structures of assembled neon lighted cords soaring into the sky. The displays at the 2010 Oceanfront Nights program organized by Creative Time were designed by Phu Hoang Office and Rachely Rotem Studio. The cords which decorate the pavilion are reflective and phosphorescent rope which gives the visitor an interactive open-air environment art space that they can be literally inside of.

Metric, the Toronto-based electro new wave group’s concert was highly fitting for the visual spectacle that attendees passed through before meeting the stage and was an excellent way for those who didn’t know about the exhibit to tell others.

Upon further investigation I learned that the Oceanfront Nights program features four cities that many in the art world credit with being at the forefront of artistic experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The nightly extravaganza will feature four different cities: Detroit, Mexico City, Berlin, and Glasgow.

Each night will spotlight one city with film, music, video and performance all while being enveloped on Miami Beach’s sand and feet away from its surf.

Miami’s uniqueness and proximity to Latin America makes it an ideal choice to have this yearly Mecca for art lovers. Its own distinct American pulse and proximity to the Latin culture give it the credence to have works of Picasso, Twombly, Murakami next to emerging artists from around the globe.

But Basel’s days of looking at art, talking about art, haggling over prices for art, going to art sponsored parties…aren’t just for the superficial or the moneyed. Art really is for everyone.

There is something unmistakable about Art Basel, whether you have money or you don’t, whether you’re in a show or not, people who talk about Art Basel always agree on one thing…they enjoy it.

Last night there was an almost auditory buzz of excitement in the air and people had the look of anticipation fully realized. December in Miami was here, Art Basel is here, let’s party and go look at some art.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

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World Aids day gallery

Aids is a sexually transmitted disease, many people infected with the disease carry on behaving as they always have, passing the disease from partner to partner to partner, if I had to beg money of yo…

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Senate Bill 510 Food Safety? The FDA has killed far more people than contaminated eggs or lettuce

(NaturalNews) Proponents of Senate Bill 510 — the Food Safety and Modernization Act — keep trying to claim that we need the FDA to protect us from tainted eggs, lettuce, onions and spinach. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable argument: No one should ever die from unsafe food in America, right? But to accomplish a net reduction in deaths, you’d need to grant power over the food supply to some organization that actually respects human life… and the FDA is not that organization. In fact, as we have documented here on NaturalNews over the last seven years, the FDA is responsible for far more deaths of Americans than all the terrorist events in the history of the world — combined! How is that so? How the FDA has killed millions of Americans Well, for starters, the FDA has a long and rather dubious history of keeping dangerous, deadly drugs on the market even after it knows those drugs are killing people. The FDA has even gone out of its way to ignore critical evidence about dangerous drugs in order to appease its Big Pharma clients and keep those high-profit drugs selling while people are dying. To see one example of this, look at the history of Vioxx — a drug the FDA kept on the market while it racked up well over 60,000 deaths according to the FDA’s own scientists! (http://www.naturalnews.com/011401_Dr_David_Graham_the_FDA.html) As Dr David Graham said in an interview, “The FDA is responsible for 140,000 heart attacks and 60,000 dead Americans. That’s as many people as were killed in the Vietnam War. Yet the FDA points the finger at me and says, Well, this guy’s a rat, you can’t trust him,’ but nobody is calling them to account. Congress isn’t calling them to account.” If you want more evidence of the FDA’s outrageous disregard for human life, look at the agency’s handling of the drug Ketek (http://www.naturalnews.com/019698.html). Or check out how the FDA kept the liver-damaging drug Rezulin on the market while diabetic Americans were dropping dead. The FDA’s own scientists have repeatedly accused the agency of engaging in routine intimidation of scientists who try to call attention to dangerous products (http://www.naturalnews.com/025298_the_FDA_scientists.html). The FDA censors natural remedies that could save lives On top of all that corruption and fraud leading to negligent deaths caused by the FDA, this agency also censors the scientific truth about natural remedies and nutritional supplements that could save millions of lives each year. The FDA won’t, for example, allow vitamin D supplement companies to tell the truth about how vitamin D prevents cancer or how vitamin D prevents the flu and makes seasonal flu vaccines obsolete (http://www.naturalnews.com/029760_vitamin_D_influenza.html). The FDA also won’t allow any supplement companies to tell the truth about their natural remedies for preventing or even reversing diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer and more. In doing this, the FDA is complicit in the deaths of at least 250,000 Americans each year . According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine , by Drs Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. The FDA has a hand in at least one-third of those deaths, mostly from its willful corruption and fraud in the world of deadly pharmaceuticals, which have proven to be far more deadly than terrorists (http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html). If you do the math on all this, you are forced to reach some startling mathematical conclusions: – The FDA is more dangerous than all the terrorists and terror events in the history of the United States. – The FDA has killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War. – Even more than that, over the last 20 years the FDA has killed more Americans than the total number who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and even the Civil War — combined! – The FDA is the single most deadly agency that has ever existed in the history of the United States. It is responsible for more body bags, more funerals, more pain and suffering than even the Department of Defense! – The FDA does not value human life. It has no compassion for real people. It is driven by politics and money , and it answers to the demands of powerful corporations who control its agenda (http://www.naturalnews.com/019497.html). So now, let me get this straight. With Senate Bill 510 we are going to hand over control over the food supply to the most nefarious, corrupt and deadly agency that has ever existed in the history of the United States of America? FDA could outlaw all raw vegetables The FDA has killed more people than the CIA, FBI, ATF and DEA combined. This agency is technically responsible for the negligent homicide of countless American men, women, children and senior citizens. It has stood by and allowed modern psychiatry to drug our children into violent behavior. It has censored the truth about nutrition and natural remedies, and it has enforced a campaign of nutritional ignorance among the American people, making sure that virtually all competition to Big Pharma’s patented drugs is completely wiped out (or criminalized). The FDA has criminalized your raw milk , turning farmers into felons. The FDA once ordered the burning of recipe books containing stevia recipes as part of its effort to outlaw this natural sweetener (in order to protect aspartame profits). (http://www.naturalnews.com/001552.html) And now the U.S. Congress wants this agency in charge of your food? What madness is this? We’re going to take the largest killer in the history of America and give it the power to control the growing of foods, the saving of seeds and even the operations of small family farms? Can you imagine what the FDA is going to do with that kind of power? Trust me: It won’t be pretty. It may even be fatal. I can just see this agency outlawing all vegetables unless they’re irradiated . They might outlaw raw food and require all food be pasteurized. They could ban not just raw milk but even raw broccoli . Sound crazy? Sure it does! But so does the idea of raw milk being criminalized in America, too. America was raised on raw milk . What do you think Thomas Jefferson drank at his farm? What do you think kept the pioneers alive in the harsh Midwest winters? If the FDA can outlaw raw milk, they can outlaw anything. And Senate Bill 510 would give them all the power they need to do this. Never give a psychopath explosives It’s a dangerous deal with the devil, of course. Handing the FDA power over the food supply is like giving a violent psycho access to military-grade explosives. The net result can only be catastrophic and deadly. I’m all for the idea of “safe food,” but not if it involves taking the most dangerous government agency in the history of America and putting it in charge of the way we grow food, store seeds, harvest crops and package food products. Do we need to “modernize” our food creation systems in America? Sure we do, but not at the cost of making us all victims of a dangerous, corrupt and downright disastrously managed U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And besides, virtually all the contamination of food we’re seeing today is due to factory animal farming runoff. That’s where e.coli comes from, by the way. E.coli is an intestinal pathogen and plants don’t have intestines. It can only be harbored in animals . (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20002.cfm) So the problem with our food supply is not that the FDA doesn’t yet have enough power; it’s that we have abusive, cruel and ridiculously unclean factory animal farms operating in America that are contaminating the vegetables. If you really want to clean up the food supply, just crack down on the factory animal farms and let the veggie growers get back to work doing what they do best: Growing healthful, nutrient-rich vegetables that help keep America healthy. Take action now to stop S.510 Your voice needs to be heard on this issue. The vote on this bill has been delayed until after the Thanksgiving recess, so you have more time to oppose this dangerous legislation. Call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121. You can find other contact information for your US Senator at http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Other petitions on the ‘net where you can voice your opposition to this bill include: Citizens for Health http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=2312 Natural Solutions Foundation http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4613 Take action NOW to protect our food, seeds and crops from the deadly control of the FDA.

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Astronauts Open Up World To Earthlings

Earthlings are seeing their planet in a whole new light, thanks to NASA and its astronauts aboard the Internet-wired space station.

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Poland Beats Brazil with World’s Largest Jesus Statue

The Polish town of Swiebodzin has completed the construction of what it is believed to be the largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world. The building of the statue was finished Saturday with the addition of the head; the project cost USD 1.45 M, and the money was raised from donations. …

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World Series TV Ratings Enjoy Monday Night Recovery

AHN Sports Staff

San Francisco, CA, United States (AHN) – The World Series recovered from Sunday night’s TV ratings dip, registering a 10.6 overnight rating to topple ESPN’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and the Houston Texans.

FOX Spokesman Dan Bell reported Tuesday the World Series finale between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers received a rating 23 percent higher than the Colts’ 30-17 demolition over the Texans Monday night.

The Giants-Rangers World Series matchup failed to draw significant TV followers over the weekend, bowing to Sunday night’s football showdown between the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers by 13 percent in 56 markets.

Nevertheless, the Giants’ 3-1 World Series-clinching victory over the Rangers was a TV hit Monday night, as it posted a 10.6 overnight rating against the 8.6 household rating received by the NFL.

The World Series, and generally, the MLB postseason had disappointing TV ratings due to lack of star power and absence of big baseball markets such as the St. Louis and Boston.

In fact, Game 5 of the World Series had 17 percent lower rating than last year’s Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies game 5 in 2009 and 5 percent below the Game 5 of Phillies-Tampa Bay Rays series in 2008.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

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Dead Sea Scrolls to Go Online with Google

The Media Line Staff

Jerusalem, Israel (TML) – The Israel Antiquities Authority is combining the enigmatic Dead Sea Scrolls, NASA technology and Google to make what may be the greatest manuscript discovery of all times available to the world on the internet.

“We are talking of the discovery of the 20th century,” said Pnina Shor, Curator of the scrolls at the Israel Antiquities Authority. “We are very excited that Google had decided to collaborate with us and Google is going to enable us to share these treasures.”

For the first 40 years after the scrolls were discovered only a select group of scholars were allowed to view them. Preservation techniques, while well-intentioned, included binding them with Cellotape, rice paper and Perspex glue.

“The consequences were pretty catastrophic,” said Shor, who is responsible for managing the $3.5 million digitization project for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on Judaism at the time of the Second Temple 2,000 years ago and on the formation of early Christianity. The scrolls have excited scholars around the world since they were discovered on the shores of the Dead Sea in the late 1940s.

Some scrolls are on display and a few have been allowed on world tour, but most of the 900 manuscripts, consisting of some 30,000 separate fragments, have been kept under lock and key in the vaults of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The scrolls include the oldest copies of the Hebrew bible and religious writings from the time of Jesus.

In the past decade all the scrolls were published, but in the old-fashioned way – through huge books made available to university libraries.

Hauling one of the 40 heavy volumes off a shelf, Shor struggled to put it on the table.

“This is how it is all arranged,” Shor told The Media Line. “It is from the Oxford University Press and you have to be really rich to buy such an amount. Every library has them. This is scholarly so we want this online.”

“But what we really like to do is for every image to be able to [be] put online [with] the transcriptions, the translations, the commentaries and bibliography and attach them to the image. And so with a click of the button you will be able to see not only the scroll itself but also what it means,” she said.

During a rare visit to the laboratories Shor asked one of the four highly-trained preservationists to display some of the authentic fragile scrolls. Written over 2,000 years ago, the Hebrew one is particularly well-preserved and the scroll is immediately legible. But others have deteriorated and turned color, making them almost black.

Using technology developed for NASA, scientists have been photographing fragments of the 900 manuscripts using infrared light and multi-spectrum imaging. The images show text in sections of the scroll that would be invisible to the naked eye.

For Shor and other scholars, the most exciting aspect of putting the Dead Sea Scrolls online is the hope that the exposure will lead to new interpretations, cross-references and discoveries.

“As far as the scholarly world is concerned, it is also going to open, you know, an incredible new possibilities for new interpretations, new readings, puzzling and whatever,” Shor said.

Google said it was involved in the project as part of its philosophy to use the web to share knowledge across the globe and help preserve world heritage.

“When taking this information or content online it is no longer only… giving the experience of looking at the material itself, but now with technology you get even better,” said Yossi Matias, Director of R&D at Google Israel. “You can examine this material in its digital form [more] than you would be able to do if you had physical access to the material.”

“We shall continue with this historical effort to make all existing knowledge in archives and storages available to all,” Matias said.

Shor believed that the interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls would grow exponentially.

“After they were discovered, hundreds of books were written about the scrolls. Once they were formally published, thousands of books have been written about the scrolls. Now with them online, we will see what happens. It will be available not only to the scholarly communities but to you and me alike.”

Officials expect the data to go online in early 2011.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

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Uncle Sam Looks To Expand Wiretap Authority. Again. – As the NY Times imagines a world where we’re not already spied on constantly…

Despite the fact the phone companies now act as part time FBI surveillance analysts with a fleeting regard to law, and dump U.S. citizen data wholesale through NSA listening posts , Uncle Sam still apparently isn’t happy with its wiretap authority. The NY Times , oddly ignoring recent history of unprecedented telco involvement in surveillance, notes that Uncle Sam is pushing hard to expand laws requiring broadband companies are ready and willing to respond to wiretap needs: The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that caused technical problems for surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps. The push to revamp CALEA is part of a broader effort to extend the law so it includes VoIP companies like Skype , social networking websites like Facebook, and P2P software applications. But the FBI is also looking to expand its leverage over carriers that don’t respond in a timely fashion to CALEA requests — either through fines or by billing companies if government technicians are required to come in and deal with technical problems. The Times article is annoyingly free of pesky context, ignoring unprecedented expansion of surveillance authority begun by Bush and continued by the Obama administration. As such, it’s already difficult to tell where companies like AT&T end and the government begins, something evident by the security-sector response to AT&T’s new private sector smartphone encryption platform unveiled earlier this month. The Times says this new push is “the latest example of a dilemma over how to balance Internet freedom with security needs” and the FBI is “seeking only to prevent its surveillance power from eroding.” You have to wonder how the government’s surveillance authority is eroding after a decade of unprecedented expansion on this front — and what former AT&T employee turned whistleblower Mark Klein thinks about this supposed concern for “balance.”

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UN hails progress in tackling HIV

Eight developing countries now give universal access to antivirals, but progress could be reversed without more money

More lives are being saved from HIV/Aids than ever before and eight developing countries now give drug treatment to all those who need it, according to a United Nations report published tomorrow. However, those gains could be reversed without extra money from donors, it warns.

About 5.2 million people with HIV now receive antiretroviral drugs that keep them not only alive, but fit and well – an increase of more than 1.2 million people in a year, says the report from the World Health Organisation, Unicef and UNAids. More than a third of those who need the drugs (36%) are now taking them.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the worst-affected region in the world, saw the biggest increase, from 2.9 million in December 2008 to 3.9 million at the end of last year. Botswana, Cambodia, Croatia, Cuba, Guyana, Oman, Romania and Rwanda now provide universal access to antivirals – defined as giving the drugs to at least 80% of those who need them. The goal was worldwide universal access by the end of this year.

“Countries in all parts of the world are demonstrating that universal access is achievable,” said Dr Hiroki Nakatani, the WHO assistant director-general. “But, globally, it remains an unfulfilled commitment. And we must join forces to make it a worldwide reality in the coming years.”

Dr Gottfried Himschall, the WHO’s director for HIV/Aids, warned that there was a shortfall of $10bn (£6.3bn) towards the estimated $26bn needed to keep up progress this year. Much will depend on the replenishment conference of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria next month, where donors will be asked to pledge new funds.

“It is a tipping point – it is an important moment,” said Himschall. He said it was also a time to demonstrate clearly that the fight against HIV was part of the wider fight to which the world signed up last week – to save the lives of women in childbirth and their children.

At the summit in New York last week, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, won commitments from donors of $40bn by 2015 for his plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals – to tackle poor health and poverty – through a new focus on women and children. Some of that money will be channelled through the Global Fund. It is accepted that 9% of deaths in childbirth are HIV-related, and there is a need for more funding to prevent women passing HIV to their babies at birth.

But today’s report says the battle against HIV faces difficulties. There is better evidence than ever before of the positive impact of HIV programmes on reducing infections and cutting deaths, it says. “Yet this evidence becomes available at a time when the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 has put the sustainability of many HIV programmes at risk. It is clear that without continued and strengthened financial and programmatic commitments, there is considerable danger that these achievements could be undone.”

The report details some considerable achievements but very few countries are able to treat and protect all their citizens. Data collected from 144 low and middle-income countries shows that 15, including Botswana, Guyana and South Africa, were able to give 80% of women in childbirth the services they needed to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies. Fourteen countries, including Brazil, Namibia and Ukraine, provided HIV treatment to more than 80% of the children who needed it. HIV infection Aids and HIV United Nations World Health Organisation Health Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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