CHARLOTTE, N.C. ? Cam Newton had no shortage of doubters coming into the NFL.
They're much harder to find now.
The No. 1 pick in the NFL draft added to his remarkable season by breaking Peyton Manning's rookie record for yards passing and setting a franchise mark with a 91-yard touchdown toss to Brandon LaFell as the Carolina Panthers handed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers their ninth straight defeat, 48-16 on Saturday.
Newton threw for 171 yards and three touchdowns and scored on an amazing 49-yard run up the middle in which he showed his speed by outracing smaller defensive backs to the end zone.
He has accounted for 34 touchdowns on the season and has the Panthers playing well down the stretch, something coach Ron Rivera wanted to see so his team can carry momentum into next season.
Carolina (6-9) has won four of its last five games.
"There's always going to be something," Newton said when asked if he's answered his critics this season. "I continuously try to do what I can control. ... I don't worry about what people say because you know one day you'll be on top of the world and everybody is praising you and the next day the world will be on top of you and everybody else will be criticizing you."
Nobody was criticizing him Saturday.
Behind Newton's masterful performance, the Panthers scored on eight of their first nine possessions and piled up 397 yards in three quarters against the league's 30th-ranked defense.
Rivera pulled Newton and the other key starters early in the fourth.
As Newton walked over to the bench, teammates DeAngelo Williams and Jordan Gross sat with towels over their head ? some good-natured ribbing directed at Newton, who has been criticized by some fans for covering his head when things weren't going well.
That drew a big smile from Newton.
So did the support he got from his teammates on the field.
Williams scored on runs of 8 and 22 yards, his sixth and seventh TDs of the season, and Jonathan Stewart ran for 88 yards and caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from Newton.
Newton entered the game needing 18 yards passing to break Manning's rookie record of 3,739 and did so with a 7-yard pass to LaFell on the first possession.
"It's very nice to do something with a record that's so prestigious in this league," Newton said before crediting his teammates and coaching staff for allowing him to break the mark.
Newton, however, was just getting started at that point.
On Carolina's third possession, he backpedaled into his own end zone and unleashed a strike to LaFell, who got a key downfield block from Steve Smith to spring him for a 91-yard score. That topped the franchise record of 89 yards set in the Panthers' expansion season of 1995 by Kerry Collins and Willie Green.
LaFell finished with a career-high 103 yards receiving.
Carolina's offensive line completely mauled a Bucs defense that was without starting defensive tackles Albert Haynesworth and Brian Price due to injuries. The Panthers piled up a season-high 270 yards on the ground and scored three rushing touchdowns, giving them 25 for the season ? most in the NFL.
"It's unfortunate that we're playing like this at the end when we let a lot of games slip away," Panthers left tackle Jordan Gross said. "It's exciting for the future. I love the look of this team right now."
The Panthers have led in all but one of their 15 games this season, but have shown a penchant for blowing fourth-quarter leads.
They left no doubt on Saturday, breaking open a 20-10 halftime lead with three touchdowns in 15:04 to start the second half. The 48 points were the second-most in team history.
"I believe there is certainly that kind of talent in the locker where we can certainly take the next step and become a very competitive football team (next year)," Rivera said. "We have that ability."
Newton scored eight touchdowns in two games against Tampa Bay this season ? four rushing and four passing ? as the Panthers racked up 79 points.
The play of the game came when Newton faked a handoff to Stewart and took off through a huge hole on the right side of the line. Newton juked a defender before shifting into another gear and blowing through the Tampa Bay secondary for the longest touchdown run ever by a Panthers quarterback.
"With the guys that we have on our team, with my father, my family members here, it was just saying, `Don't get caught. Don't get caught because if I get caught I'm never, ever going to hear the last of this,'" Newton said.
"I just wanted to finish it out with a touchdown and put a smile on my face first so I can have something to talk about."
He added a touchdown toss to Jeremy Shockey to close out the scoring.
Tampa Bay coach Raheem Morris came into the game on the hot seat and Saturday's loss may not bode well for his future. After a 4-2 start, the Bucs have dropped nine straight, scoring more than 20 points only once during that span.
The Bucs turned the ball over four times.
"The mistakes led to points, and that's been the difference between this year and last," Morris said. "When you can't maintain possession, this is the result. It causes lopsided results. It causes mental mistakes. It causes poor performances on defense, and out-of-character offense. Things begin to spiral out of control."
Starting running back LaGarrette Blount fumbled on Tampa Bay's first play from scrimmage, leading to Olindo Mare's field goal.
Blount was benched until the second half.
"It's a basic thing, and to fumble like that, that's unacceptable," Morris said. "If some players aren't ready to play, we'll put others in."
NOTES: Jordan Pugh was slated to start at strong safety for the injured Charles Godfrey, but developed concussion-like symptoms prior to the game and didn't play. That forced the Panthers to start Jonathan Nelson, who was added to the roster from the practice squad. Nelson had the game's only interception. ... Josh Freeman had a hand in both Tampa Bay touchdowns ? one rushing and one passing. ... In two games against the Panthers, Blount was held to 30 yards rushing combined.
BEIJING (Reuters) ? China launched a super-rapid test train over the weekend which is capable of travelling 500 kilometers per hour, state media said on Monday, as the country moves ahead with its railway ambitions despite serious problems on its high-speed network.
The train, made by a subsidiary of CSR Corp Ltd, China's largest train maker, is designed to resemble an ancient Chinese sword, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
It "will provide useful reference for current high-speed railway operations," it quoted train expert Shen Zhiyun as saying.
But future Chinese trains will not necessarily run at such high speeds, CSR chairman Zhao Xiaogang told the Beijing Morning News.
"We aims to ensure the safety of trains operation," he said.
China's railway industry has had a tough year, highlighted by a collision between two high-speed trains in July which killed at least 40 people. Construction of new high-speed trains in China has since been a near halt.
In February, the railways minister, Liu Zhijun, a key figure behind the boom in the sector, was dismissed over corruption charges that have not yet been tried in court.
(Reporting by Sabrina Mao and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)
WASHINGTON ? The Federal Reserve and other bank regulators announced Friday they will give the public an extra month to comment on a proposed regulation aimed at limiting the kind of risky trading that made the 2008 financial crisis worse.
The proposed rule, named for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, has triggered opposition by financial service firms who say the draft measure is confusing and will be hard to implement.
The rule is part of a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations passed by Congress in 2010. It is aimed at prohibiting banks from trading in stocks, bonds or derivatives that they own. They will only be able to trade on behalf of clients. The Volcker Rule is expected to take effect by July. Banks would have until July 2014 to comply.
Many financial firms made big bets on bonds backed by mortgages and ended up losing billions of dollars when the financial crisis hit. The government had to step in and bail out some of the institutions.
In a joint statement, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said the public will now have until Feb. 13 to file comments.
The agencies had issued the proposed rule for comment in October and originally said the comment period would close on Jan. 13.
Financial service companies and a number of Republican lawmakers had sought a longer comment period for the proposal, which would implement one of the most controversial sections of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, the head of a House Financial Services oversight subcommittee, had released a letter this week signed by 121 lawmakers seeking a longer comment period. The lawmakers also asked the agencies to scrap the current proposed regulation and draft a new rule.
Scott Talbott, a senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, one of the industry's top lobbying groups, said his group welcomed the longer comment period.
"Given the complexities of the proposed rule and the impact on the markets, we appreciate the additional time," he said in a statement.
The App Store is chock-a-block with all manner of text editors, from full document suites which go a good way to emulating the bloated sack that is Microsoft Word, to code editors for programmers, to super-simple “distraction-free” writing environments (hint: if you cannot concentrate on a window on a computer screen for long enough to [...]
It?s the biggest game in the history of the Giants-Jets battle for New York as the loser of Saturday?s game is likely out of the playoffs and has to hear the other team brag about owning the city for the entire offseason. Plus Giants coach Tom Coughlin?s job is on the line and Jets coach Rex Ryan?s credibility is at stake.
The Jets hold the final AFC wild-card spot with Cincinnati, Tennessee, Oakland and San Diego lurking, while the Giants need to win the log-jammed NFC East to qualify for the playoffs. They?re one game back of first-place Dallas and one ahead of Philadelphia. Those teams face each other Saturday before the Giants host the Cowboys in Week 17.
Jets QB Mark Sanchez is on a career-best pace for yards and touchdown passes, but he?s completing only 56.9 percent of his passes. The Giants? defense ranks 28th in giving up 385.1 yards per game. New York has lost five of its past six games after a 6-2 start.
Though Giants QB Eli Manning is having one of his best seasons ? completing 61.6 percent of his passes for a career-high 4,362 yards ? he?s thrown 10 interceptions in his last seven games after having just five in his first seven. The Jets? defense ranks seventh against the pass, yielding 205.1 yards per game, but they?ve only come up with three interceptions the past six games after grabbing 13 in their first eight.
The Giants average 3.4 yards per attempt on the ground but have been better of late, averaging 5.2 yards per carry in the past two games. The Jets allow fewer than 4 yards per carry but have been inconsistent at times. The Giants need to pound the rock with Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw to set up their play-action passing game.
WAGERWEB.COM NFL FOOTBALL BETS? Jets -3 (45.5)
RECORD VS. SPREAD ? NY Giants 6-8; NY Jets 6-8
SERIES RECORD ? Giants lead 7-4
LAST MEETING ? Giants beat Jets 35-24, Oct. 7, 2007
LAST WEEK ? Giants lost to Redskins 23-10; Jets lost to Eagles 45-19
STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES ? After week of trash talk, most of it from Jets coach Rex Ryan, teams meet in showdown of New York-area rivals with plenty of playoff implications. If Giants beat Jets and then Dallas next weekend, they win NFC East and return to playoffs for first time since 2008. Two wins will likely clinch Jets a third straight wild-card appearance under Ryan. ? Three players in game have played for both Ryan and Giants coach Tom Coughlin: Jets WR Plaxico Burress and QB Mark Brunell, and Giants P Steve Weatherford. ? Giants have lost five of last six, but have won last four regular-season games against Jets. ? QB Eli Manning has thrown for franchise-record 4,362 yards, and with 25 TDs joined Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Dan Marino and Drew Brees as only QBs with at least 3,000 yards and 20 TDs in seven straight seasons. Manning, who won only other start vs. Jets, has 14 TDs in fourth quarter, tied for most in a season. Also has three 400-yard games, tied for NFL?s single-season mark. ? WR Victor Cruz has 1,194 yards receiving and needs 150 in last two games to top Amani Toomer?s team record set in 2002. ? Hakeem Nicks has 1,096 yards receiving, making him and Cruz the first pair of Giants WRs to have 1,000 yards in same season. ? DE Jason Pierre-Paul has 13? sacks, and at least a half-sack in 10 of 14 games this season. ? Jets looking to improve to 7-1 at home, which would match best mark in team history ? last set in 1998. ? Burress facing Giants for first time since they released him in 2009 after accidentally shooting himself in November 2008. Later served 20 months in prison on gun charge, and signed with Jets less than two months after release. ? QB Mark Sanchez needs 283 yards passing to top career best of 3,291 set last season. ? RB Shonn Greene needs 59 yards rushing to reach 1,000 for the first time in three-year career. Leads AFC with four TDs rushing in December. ? RB LaDainian Tomlinson has 13,599 yards rushing, 64 from passing Jerome Bettis for fifth place on c areer list. ? WR Santonio Holmes has TD catch in four straight games, and he and Burress are only duo from same team in AFC with at least eight TD receptions. ? KR-RB Joe McKnight leads NFL with 32.3 yard kickoff return average, but status was uncertain as he recovers from separated right shoulder and hyperextended right elbow.
Place your NFL football bets at our online sportsbook!
Unswayed by the recent breakup of Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Matinez, Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum from The Bachelorette are still going strong and supposedly planning their dream wedding ... albeit a long way in advance.
This cover makes it seem imminent, though:
As recently as November 4, Ashley Hebert said she had no wedding date set, and that as happy as she was with J.P., they were taking things (relatively) slowly.
The couple isn't waiting too long, and will "start talking about [weddings] in the New Year," assured J.P., who bested current Bachelor Ben Flajnik last season.
For now, though, they're just enjoying what downtime they have and getting used to living together in New York - which is great, but don't believe the hype.
A couple of vague quotes don't mean nuptials are imminent - that's not even a new pic! - no matter how badly a celeb news weekly wants to sell magazines.
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RT @InTheBleachers: Check out @CrystalBallRun writer on-air. RT @CFBROCKER: LISTEN LIVE: Talking College Football folks bit.ly/tmjcKGIl y a environ 1 heurevia Twitter for Android
Moments before approving a payroll tax cut, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues about his deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: ?We started this conversation alone and we ended it alone.?
Indeed, legislating in the historically unpopular 112th Congress has often degenerated into secretive negotiations between Senate leaders and House Speaker John Boehner, leaving virtually every other member of Congress on the outside looking in. Lawmakers ranging from powerful committee chairmen down to the lowest-ranking freshmen tend to complain that their party leaders have cut them out of the process as the divided Congress has lurched from crisis to crisis in a messy year of legislating.
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?This cannot continue,? said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). ?The American people are frustrated because of the way this place is not working, and it?s not working because nothing passes through committee anymore. It?s airdropped from the top.?
Party leaders don?t love this approach either, but they say it?s been necessary to keep the lights on in the government and avert a debt default, given the wide gulf between chambers ruled by lawmakers with polar-opposite political philosophies. They also point to a handful of laws that have been enacted via the traditional committee process, such as last week?s approval of the $662 billion defense bill.
But on the profound issues shaping the national debates on the budget deficit and the economy, the deals have been attempted at the leadership level ? and even that process is at serious risk of unraveling heading into 2012.
After marathon negotiations last week over extending unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday, Reid and McConnell reached a deal Friday night and told their respective caucuses that the Senate would vote Saturday morning to extend the benefits for two months. They thought the House would go along, but Boehner announced Sunday that he would oppose the plan after speaking to GOP members furious over the deal.
A frustrated Reid ? who has developed a friendly relationship with the speaker this year ? suggested that Boehner reneged on the deal, which the speaker vehemently denied Monday. Now Boehner wants to hold a traditional conference committee to hash out the House?s differences with the Senate ? something that has been a rarity this Congress. And it?s not clear if there will be a straight up-or-down vote on the Senate bill, infuriating Democratic leaders who thought the Reid-McConnell compromise was headed to the president?s desk.
The breakdown over the payroll tax cut speaks to the broader dysfunction in Congress: The legislative process has been driven increasingly by party leaders, often circumventing the traditional committee process that gives greater buy-in to rank-and-file members and their powerful chairmen.
So-called regular order has broken down this year like few years before it, long-serving lawmakers say, leading to boiling frustration among members of the House and Senate as Congress struggles to respond to national emergencies. Now, party leaders are hearing it from some of their members, as Boehner did on a Saturday conference call where his rank-and-file members voiced serious objections to the Senate?s deal.
?You want broad-based support,? Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said after Saturday?s bipartisan vote in the Senate approving the payroll tax cut. ?And you want open process where the public, through the press, has a better idea of what the revisions are.?
BEIJING ? "Batman" star Christian Bale, in the midst of promoting a film he made in China that some critics have called propaganda, was physically stopped by government-backed guards from visiting a blind activist living under house arrest ? with a CNN crew in tow to record the scuffle.
CNN posted footage of the confrontation on its website Friday.
The run-in and publicity is likely to cause discomfort in China's government-backed film industry, which hopes Bale's movie "The Flowers of War" will be a creative success at home and abroad. The star's actions are sure to focus attention on the plight of Chen Guangcheng, guarded around the clock by burly, aggressive security men who have blocked dozens of reporters and fellow activists trying to see him in the past.
Bale was to leave China on Friday and his representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
Bale, who won a best supporting actor Oscar for last year's "The Fighter," traveled Thursday with a crew from CNN to the village in eastern China where Chen, the blind lawyer, lives with his family in complete isolation.
They were stopped at the entrance to Dongshigu village in Shandong province by unidentified men.
The video footage shows Bale asking to see Chen, with a CNN producer providing interpretation, but being ordered by one of the guards to leave. He then asked why he was unable to pass through. The guards responded by trying to grab or punch a small video camera Bale was carrying.
"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is," Bale was quoted as saying by CNN.
Chen's case has been raised publicly by U.S. lawmakers and diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, all to no response from China.
CNN said Bale first learned of Chen from news reports when he was in China filming "The Flowers of War," China's official submission this year for best foreign language film Oscar.
"Chen Guangcheng is a newsworthy figure ... and as such it is in the interest of CNN's global viewers to hear from him," CNN said in a statement. "Mr. Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to visit Chen."
Chen, a self-taught lawyer who was blinded by a fever in infancy, angered authorities after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses by overzealous authorities trying to meet population control goals in his rural community. He was imprisoned for allegedly instigating an attack on government offices and organizing a group of people to disrupt traffic, charges his supporters say were fabricated.
Although now officially free under the law, he has been confined to his home in the village eight hours' drive from Beijing and subjected to periodic beatings and other abuse, activists say.
While Bale's visit focuses new attention on Chen's case, CNN's role raises questions about activism and advocacy among reporters, said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project website at the University of Hong Kong.
"It made me instantly uncomfortable, wondering how it all came together. It raises questions about where the lines are drawn," Bandurski said.
The incident also drew strong interest ? most of it highly positive ? on social networking sites such as Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo.
Having their star's name pinging across the Internet in connection with such a politically sensitive subject puts promoters of "The Flowers of War" in a bind. The film opens in China on Friday and next week in the United States.
Directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, it is also the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, at $94 million, some of which came from the state-owned Bank of China.
The movie centers on the 1937 sacking of the eastern city of Nanjing, a central event in China's pre-revolutionary "century of humiliation" and has been described by some critics as hewing to official propaganda portraying Chinese as heroic victims and Japanese as one-dimensional cartoon villains.
While China has the world's third-largest film industry ? both in box office and output ? it has made relatively little global impact. Story lines are often heavily influenced by the ruling Communist Party, whose culture commissars must approve scripts and have final say over whether a film gets released.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected Friday to approve a tough new rule to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic substances from the country's power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard.
Though mercury is a known neurotoxin that can be profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air pollution rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution-control equipment.
The new regulation is not expected to differ markedly in its rigorous emissions targets and timetable from a draft rule proposed by the EPA in March, said people who were briefed in broad terms about it. Scheduled to be formally announced Monday, the rule follows on the heels of several Obama administration decisions to shelve environmental standards to mollify a sharply critical business community, including a high-profile decision this summer to halt new standards to cut smog.
Some analysts cautioned that the rule still could be delayed if it got caught up in the political horse-trading in Washington to pass spending legislation. Still, if it lands as expected, the long-awaited rule governing toxic substances is sure to rile powerful utilities and their congressional allies who have doggedly lobbied the administration over the last few weeks to weaken or delay the standards.
"Clean air will be the biggest environmental accomplishment of the Obama administration, and the forthcoming mercury rule will be the crowning achievement of an already strong clean-air resume," said John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Air Program.
Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an industry lobbying group, said the sweeping implications of the new rule mean that utilities would not accept them easily.
"In the history of the Clean Air Act, there has never been a greater intervention into the power sector than with this regulation," Segal said. "So it stands to reason that we will likely see a substantial amount of litigation around this."
The EPA and the administration declined to comment on the pending rule.
The fight to dilute the new regulation has centered on the amount of mercury that can be emitted and the timetable to install pollution control equipment. In its draft rule, the EPA determined that the industry standard should be 1.2 pounds of mercury per million BTUs of energy produced. Industry wants 1.4 pounds. But the EPA arrived at its figure based on a formula set out under the Clean Air Act, and analysts said the agency therefore cannot deviate from it.
The act would give companies three years to clean up their emissions of mercury and about 70 other toxic substances, and utilities could appeal for at least one more year as they install the necessary equipment. Much of industry has argued that the timetable is too tight and could lead to rolling blackouts. One group, the American Public Power Assn., told the White House that its members needed more than seven years to comply with the mercury rule.
Over the last few weeks, however, the timetable argument has been undermined by dissension within industry. Most notably, Ralph Izzo, chairman of the Newark, N.J.-based utility Public Service Enterprise Group, wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which he said that companies have known for decades that the mercury rule would take effect and some, like his, have already installed the needed equipment at their coal-fired plants.
"EPA's proposed clean-air rules will have a modest impact on plant retirements," Izzo wrote in his rebuttal to a story in the newspaper. "Regulations are not the death knell you would have everyone believe, but provide a clear path for responsible coal generation. Action is long overdue."
About a dozen states have already approved rules to cut mercury and other toxic substances. Industry has argued that the health benefits of reducing mercury through a federal standard are overstated.
But Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the estimated public health effects had played a considerable role so far in getting the administration to stick to the standards it proposed in March. People get exposed to mercury mainly by eating contaminated fish. Mercury exposure damages the developing brains of fetuses and children.
The EPA estimates that by 2016, the proposed rules could avert between 6,800 to 17,000 premature deaths annually, a greater benefit than most other federal health and environmental rules are estimated to achieve.
We live in a wonderful world indeed. And in places like Greenland, the skies are wonderful too, full of spectres, ringed glories, sundogs, coronas, lunar halos and cloudbows. These weird atmospheric optical phenomenons are common there. More »
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens at right as Donald Trump talks to media after a meeting in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens at right as Donald Trump talks to media after a meeting in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. (AP) ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he will not participate in a debate being hosted this month by real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump.
Romney told Fox News on Tuesday that he called Trump and told him he would not attend.
Several prominent Republicans have urged candidates to skip the Trump debate. They predict it will be a media circus and a distraction from important issues.
Trump has suggested that President Barack Obama is foreign-born. He also has not ruled out a presidential bid as a third-party candidate.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has said he will attend Trump's Dec. 27 forum.
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What's up, dock? UK retailer accepting pre-orders on docks for Samsung GALAXY Nexus - phonearena.com/news/Whats-up-?Il y a environ 2 heuresvia PhoneArenaRetweeted by 2 people
CAIRO (Reuters) ? The Muslim Brotherhood's party will seek to extend a lead over hardline Islamists in run-offs in Egypt's parliamentary vote Monday, with liberal parties struggling to hold their ground in a political landscape redrawn by the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is set to take most seats in Egypt's first democratic parliament in six decades, strengthening their hand in a struggle for influence over the Arab world's most populous country.
Banned from formal politics until a popular uprising ended Mubarak's three-decade rule in February, the movement emerged as the main winner from last week's first-round vote and called on its rivals to "accept the will of the people."
The phased election runs over six weeks, ending in January.
Opponents accuse the Brotherhood's slick campaign machine of flouting a ban on canvassing near polling stations and say it handed out food and medicine to secure votes, but monitors said polling seemed fair overall.
"You cannot have democracy and then amend or reject the results," Amr Moussa, a front-runner for Egypt's presidency, told Reuters, adding that the shape of parliament would not be clear until the voting was over.
The Brotherhood, Egypt's best-organized political group and popular with the poor for its charity work, wants to shape a new constitution to be drawn up next year.
That could be the focus of a power struggle with the ruling military council, which wants to keep a presidential system, rather than the parliamentary one favored by the Brotherhood.
Egyptians return to the polls Monday for 52 run-off votes for individual candidates, who will occupy a third of the 498 elected seats in the lower house once two more rounds of the complicated voting process end in January.
ISRAELI CONCERN
The run-offs will pit 24 members of the ultra-conservative Islamist al-Nour party against Brotherhood candidates.
Two-thirds of the seats in the assembly are allocated proportionately to party lists.
Figures released by the election commission and published by state media show a list led by the Brotherhood's FJP securing 36.6 percent of valid party-list votes, followed by the Salafi al-Nour Party with 24.4 percent, and the liberal Egyptian Bloc with 13.4 percent.
The result has unnerved Israel, concerned about the fate of its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Egypt's future rulers to preserve the deal.
"We hope any future government in Egypt will recognize the importance of keeping the peace treaty with Israel in its own right and as a basis for regional security and economic stability," Netanyahu said Sunday.
The fate of the peace deal between Egypt and Israel is a concern for its sponsor, the United States, which has backed it with billions of dollars in military aid for both countries.
The rise of the Salafis has also sparked fear among many ordinary Egyptians because of the group's uncompromising views.
Analysts say the Brotherhood, which topped the first-stage vote, has a pragmatic streak that makes it an unlikely ally for Salafis who only recently ventured from preaching into politics and whose strict ideology suggests little scope for compromise.
The leader of Salafi party al-Nour Emad Abdel Ghaffour made it clear he would not play second fiddle to the Brotherhood.
"We hate being followers," Ghaffour told Reuters in an interview. "They always say we take positions according to the Brotherhood but we have our own vision... There might be a consensus but ... we will remain independent."
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair; writing by Tom Pfeiffer; editing Philippa Fletcher)
In a previous video addressed to the American people, broadcast on al-Jezeera on 18 October 2003 (transcript here), bin Laden mocked earlier pleading by Bush to other states to provide troops:
?To Bush I say, you are begging the world to come to your aid, begging mercenaries from every corner of the world, even from small states. This begging has destroyed your pride and revealed how trivial and weak you are after claiming to defend the whole world.?
Of Bush invading Iraq, he said:
?He is still following the mentality of his ancestors who killed the Native Americans to take their land and wealth. He thought that this time it would be an easy task and a lie that would not be exposed.
?But God sent him to Baghdad, the seat of the Caliphate, the homeland of people who prefer death to honey. So they (the Iraqis) turned his profits into losses, his joy into sadness and now he is merely looking for a way back home.?
To American soldiers in Iraq, he said:
?? now that all the lies have been exposed and the greatest liar has been revealed, your stay on Iraq?s land is compounding the oppression and is a great folly. It shows you are selling your lives for the lives of others. And you are spilling your blood to swell the bank accounts of the White House gang and their fellow arms dealers and the proprietors of great companies. And the greatest folly in life is to sell your life for the lives of others.?
He ended with the threat that the war would continue until the US abandons its aggression:
?In conclusion, I say to the American people we will continue to fight you and continue to conduct martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you depart from your oppressive course and abandon your follies and rein in your fools.?
To Bush?s allies, he said:
?We reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time and place against all countries involved, especially the UK, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy, not to exclude those Muslim states that took part, especially the Gulf states, and in particular Kuwait, which has become a launch pad for the crusading forces.?
After this statement was made, 19 Italian Carabinieri were killed in Nasiriyah, British interests were attacked in Istanbul, in November 2003, and nearly 200 people were killed in the Madrid train bombings, in March 2004. Later, in a tape broadcast on al-Jezeera on 15 April 2004 (see here), bin Laden said that the latter had been carried out in ?retaliation for Spain's role in Iraq [and] Afghanistan? and he offered a truce to US allies beginning ?with the withdrawal of the last soldier from our land?.
Usually a finicky phenomenon limited to tiny, ultracold objects, entanglement has now been achieved for macroscopic diamonds at room temperature
By John Matson
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December 1, 2011?|
NOT SO SMALL: One of the diamond wafers used in the entanglement experiment, with a coin for scale.Image: CQT
Diamonds have long been available in pairs?say, mounted in a nice set of earrings. But physicists have now taken that pairing to a new level, linking two diamonds on the quantum level.
A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon by which two or more objects share an unseen link bridging the space between them?a hypothetical pair of entangled dice, for instance, would always land on matching numbers, even if they were rolled in different places simultaneously.
But that link is fragile, and it can be disrupted by any number of outside influences. For that reason entanglement experiments on physical systems usually take place in highly controlled laboratory setups?entangling, say, a pair of isolated atoms cooled to nearly absolute zero.
In the new study, researchers from the University of Oxford, the National Research Council of Canada and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed that entanglement can also be achieved in macroscopic objects at room temperature. "What we have done is demonstrate that it's possible with more standard, everyday objects?if diamond can be considered an everyday object," says study co-author Ian Walmsley, an experimental physicist at Oxford. "It's possible to put them into these quantum states that you often associate with these engineered objects, if you like?these closely managed objects."
To entangle relatively large objects, Walmsley and his colleagues harnessed a collective property of diamonds: the vibrational state of their crystal lattices. By targeting a diamond with an optical pulse, the researchers can induce a vibration in the diamond, creating an excitation called a phonon?a quantum of vibrational energy. Researchers can tell when a diamond contains a phonon by checking the light of the pulse as it exits. Because the pulse has deposited a tiny bit of its energy in the crystal, one of the outbound photons is of lower energy, and hence longer wavelength, than the photons of the incoming pulse.
Walmsley and his colleagues set up an experiment that would attempt to entangle two different diamonds using phonons. They used two squares of synthetically produced diamond, each three millimeters across. A laser pulse, bisected by a beam splitter, passes through the diamonds; any photons that scatter off of the diamond to generate a phonon are funneled into a photon detector. One such photon reaching the detector signals the presence of a phonon in the diamonds.
But because of the experimental design, there is no way of knowing which diamond is vibrating. "We know that somewhere in that apparatus, there is one phonon," Walmsley says. "But we cannot tell, even in principle, whether that came from the left-hand diamond or the right-hand diamond." In quantum-mechanical terms, in fact, the phonon is not confined to either diamond. Instead the two diamonds enter an entangled state in which they share one phonon between them.
To verify the presence of entanglement, the researchers carried out a test to check that the diamonds were not acting independently. In the absence of entanglement, after all, half the laser pulses could set the left-hand diamond vibrating and the other half could act on the right-hand diamond, with no quantum correlation between the two objects. If that were the case, then the phonon would be fully confined to one diamond.
If, on the other hand, the phonon were indeed shared by the two entangled diamonds, then any detectable effect of the phonon could bear the imprint of both objects. So the researchers fired a second optical pulse into the diamonds, with the intent of de-exciting the vibration and producing a signal photon that indicates that the phonon has been removed from the system. The phonon's vibrational energy gives the optical pulse a boost, producing a photon with higher energy, or shorter wavelength, than the incoming photons and eliminating the phonon in the process.
Were you one of the eager beavers who pre-ordered ASUS' new superslate, the Transformer Prime, from Amazon? It turns out, demand for the tablet was so great that it's outstripped the retailer's supply, so Bezos' business is apparently canceling orders placed on or after November 22nd and issuing refunds. Sad news for those who had their hearts set on getting the Prime this holiday season, but maybe it's a blessing in disguise -- the delay gives you the opportunity to size up the competition before taking the quad-core plunge.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? The U.S. economy has moved away from recession but further policy easing could be required if that were to reverse or in the event of a shock to the financial system, said President of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Charles Plosser in an interview on CNBC on Friday.
"There is still a very weak employment picture, however there have been some positive signs over the course of the fall," said Plosser. "There are some positive indicators that the (jobs) market is certainly not falling off a cliff."
International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)
China-Africa collaboration focuses on bamboo to provide cleaner, safer 'green' energy source for sub-Saharan Africa
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (2 December 2011)Bamboo, a plant not often associated with Africa, may be the key to combating soil degradation and massive deforestation on the continent as an alternative source of energy.
A partnership among African nations and communities, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) and China are working to substitute bamboo charcoal and firewood for forest wood on which 80 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa depends for its fuel needs.
Initial successes with bamboo charcoal in Ethiopia and Ghana, which have put bamboo biomass at the center of renewable energy policies, are spurring interest in countries across the continent and prompting calls for greater investment in bamboo-based charcoal production as a 'green biofuel' that can fight deforestation and mitigate climate change.
"Bamboo, the perfect biomass grass, grows naturally across Africa and presents a viable, cleaner and sustainable alternative to wood fuel," said Dr. J. Coosje Hoogendoorn, Director General of INBAR at a side event at UNFCCC COP17 in Durban today. "Without such an alternative, wood charcoal will remain the primary household energy source for decades to comewith disastrous consequences."
Burning wood also has a significant impact on the climate. Scientists predict that the burning of wood fuel by African households will release the equivalent of 6.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by 2050, resulting in further climate change through clearing of tropical forests.
In terms of health, the burning of fuel wood claims the lives of an estimated 2 million people every yearmostly women and childrenwho inhale the smoke. Continued widespread indoor use of forest wood charcoal as a household fuel could cause 10 million premature deaths by 2030.
INBAR's Bamboo as Sustainable Biomass Energy initiative is the first to transfer bamboo charcoal technologies from China to sub-Saharan Africa to produce sustainable 'green biofuels' using locally available bamboo resources. Driven by growing concerns about energy, health and food security, and climate change, the initiative is funded by the European Union (EU) and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC).
Saving Forests, Mitigating Climate Change
It takes seven to ten tons of raw wood to produce one ton of wood
charcoal, making wood fuel collection an important driver of
deforestation on a continent of nearly one billion people who have few
alternative fuel sources.
"Ensuring food security in a changing climate is one of the major
challenges of our era. It is well known that the destruction of forests
has negative repercussions on livelihoods and sustainable agriculture as
it feeds into a cycle of climate change, drought and poverty." said Dr.
Patrick Verkooijen, Head Agriculture and Climate Change of the World
Bank. "Feeding people in decades to come will require ingenuity and
innovation to produce more food on less land in more sustainable ways".
Indeed, scientists believe that deforestation across the Horn of Africa
has contributed to pervasive drought in the region. Years of
tree-clearing, particularly in hard-hit Somalia, have eliminated fragile
forests that stood as the last line of defense against the conversion of
sparsely forested dry lands and pastures into useless desert, according
to researchers from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR).
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that if business
continues as usual, by 2030 biomass energy in sub-Saharan Africa will
still account for about three-quarters of total residential energy,
underscoring the urgency of coming up with a sustainable alternative
biomass to replace wood.
"Sub-Saharan Africa has over 2.75 million hectares of bamboo forest,
equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the continent's total forest cover.
Rural communities need access to sustainable approaches that will keep
trees in the ground and the environment safe," said Professor Karanja M.
Njoroge, Executive Director, Green Belt Movement. "Bamboo grows
naturally across Africa's diverse landscapes, but unlike trees, it
regrows after harvest and lends itself very well for energy plantations
on degraded lands. We should put it to good use to provide clean energy
for the continent."
"With further investment and policy reform, community kiln technologies
could be up-scaled to reach thousands of communities in Ethiopia," said
Melaku Tadesse, National Coordinator for Climate Change Unit at
Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture. A number of African countries are
pressing for development of their own bamboo charcoal industries to
provide sustainable, affordable energy for growing populations.
Harnessing the Perfect Biomass Grass
Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet and produces large amounts of biomass, making it an ideal energy source. Tropical bamboos can be harvested after just three years, rather than the two to six decades needed to generate a timber forest.
The entire bamboo plant, including the stem, branch and its rhizome, can be used to produce charcoal, making it highly resource-efficient, with limited wastage. Its high heating value also makes it an efficient fuel.
Charcoal is made through the controlled burning of bamboo in kilns, whether traditional, metal, or brick. The technology is being adapted to produce larger quantities of charcoal to serve a larger number of rural and urban communities as well as to produce bamboo charcoal briquettes that are ideal for cooking because they burn longer and produce less smoke and air pollution than 'natural' charcoal.
China is a global leader in the production and use of bamboo charcoal. The sector is worth an estimated 1 USD billion a year and employs over 60,000 people in more than 1,000 businesses. Chinese partners, including the Nanjing Forestry University and WENZHAO Bamboo Charcoal Co., are helping to adapt equipment like brick kilns, grinders and briquette machines, and hand tools, for bamboo charcoal and briquette production using local materials. Building on this momentum, the INBAR initiative is now transferring Chinas advanced bamboo charcoal technologies to sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition to charcoal, bamboo offers many new opportunities for income generation. It can be processed into a vast range of wood products, from floorboards to furniture and from charcoal to edible shoots. The world bamboo export was estimated at 1.6 USD billion in 2009, a decline of about 659 USD million from 2.2 USD billion 2008.
###
About the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)
INBAR is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to reducing poverty, conserving the environment and creating fairer trade using bamboo and rattan. INBAR was established in 1997 and represents a growing number of member countries all over the world. Headquarters are in China with regional offices in Ghana, Ethiopia, India and Ecuador. INBAR connects a global network of governmental, non-governmental, corporate and community partners in over 50 countries. For more information, go to www.inbar.int
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New bamboo charcoal tech to jumpstart African bioenergy sector, slow deforestation and climate changePublic release date: 2-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeff Haskins
jhaskins@burnesscommunications.com
254-729-871-422
International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)
China-Africa collaboration focuses on bamboo to provide cleaner, safer 'green' energy source for sub-Saharan Africa
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (2 December 2011)Bamboo, a plant not often associated with Africa, may be the key to combating soil degradation and massive deforestation on the continent as an alternative source of energy.
A partnership among African nations and communities, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) and China are working to substitute bamboo charcoal and firewood for forest wood on which 80 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa depends for its fuel needs.
Initial successes with bamboo charcoal in Ethiopia and Ghana, which have put bamboo biomass at the center of renewable energy policies, are spurring interest in countries across the continent and prompting calls for greater investment in bamboo-based charcoal production as a 'green biofuel' that can fight deforestation and mitigate climate change.
"Bamboo, the perfect biomass grass, grows naturally across Africa and presents a viable, cleaner and sustainable alternative to wood fuel," said Dr. J. Coosje Hoogendoorn, Director General of INBAR at a side event at UNFCCC COP17 in Durban today. "Without such an alternative, wood charcoal will remain the primary household energy source for decades to comewith disastrous consequences."
Burning wood also has a significant impact on the climate. Scientists predict that the burning of wood fuel by African households will release the equivalent of 6.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by 2050, resulting in further climate change through clearing of tropical forests.
In terms of health, the burning of fuel wood claims the lives of an estimated 2 million people every yearmostly women and childrenwho inhale the smoke. Continued widespread indoor use of forest wood charcoal as a household fuel could cause 10 million premature deaths by 2030.
INBAR's Bamboo as Sustainable Biomass Energy initiative is the first to transfer bamboo charcoal technologies from China to sub-Saharan Africa to produce sustainable 'green biofuels' using locally available bamboo resources. Driven by growing concerns about energy, health and food security, and climate change, the initiative is funded by the European Union (EU) and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC).
Saving Forests, Mitigating Climate Change
It takes seven to ten tons of raw wood to produce one ton of wood
charcoal, making wood fuel collection an important driver of
deforestation on a continent of nearly one billion people who have few
alternative fuel sources.
"Ensuring food security in a changing climate is one of the major
challenges of our era. It is well known that the destruction of forests
has negative repercussions on livelihoods and sustainable agriculture as
it feeds into a cycle of climate change, drought and poverty." said Dr.
Patrick Verkooijen, Head Agriculture and Climate Change of the World
Bank. "Feeding people in decades to come will require ingenuity and
innovation to produce more food on less land in more sustainable ways".
Indeed, scientists believe that deforestation across the Horn of Africa
has contributed to pervasive drought in the region. Years of
tree-clearing, particularly in hard-hit Somalia, have eliminated fragile
forests that stood as the last line of defense against the conversion of
sparsely forested dry lands and pastures into useless desert, according
to researchers from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR).
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that if business
continues as usual, by 2030 biomass energy in sub-Saharan Africa will
still account for about three-quarters of total residential energy,
underscoring the urgency of coming up with a sustainable alternative
biomass to replace wood.
"Sub-Saharan Africa has over 2.75 million hectares of bamboo forest,
equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the continent's total forest cover.
Rural communities need access to sustainable approaches that will keep
trees in the ground and the environment safe," said Professor Karanja M.
Njoroge, Executive Director, Green Belt Movement. "Bamboo grows
naturally across Africa's diverse landscapes, but unlike trees, it
regrows after harvest and lends itself very well for energy plantations
on degraded lands. We should put it to good use to provide clean energy
for the continent."
"With further investment and policy reform, community kiln technologies
could be up-scaled to reach thousands of communities in Ethiopia," said
Melaku Tadesse, National Coordinator for Climate Change Unit at
Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture. A number of African countries are
pressing for development of their own bamboo charcoal industries to
provide sustainable, affordable energy for growing populations.
Harnessing the Perfect Biomass Grass
Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet and produces large amounts of biomass, making it an ideal energy source. Tropical bamboos can be harvested after just three years, rather than the two to six decades needed to generate a timber forest.
The entire bamboo plant, including the stem, branch and its rhizome, can be used to produce charcoal, making it highly resource-efficient, with limited wastage. Its high heating value also makes it an efficient fuel.
Charcoal is made through the controlled burning of bamboo in kilns, whether traditional, metal, or brick. The technology is being adapted to produce larger quantities of charcoal to serve a larger number of rural and urban communities as well as to produce bamboo charcoal briquettes that are ideal for cooking because they burn longer and produce less smoke and air pollution than 'natural' charcoal.
China is a global leader in the production and use of bamboo charcoal. The sector is worth an estimated 1 USD billion a year and employs over 60,000 people in more than 1,000 businesses. Chinese partners, including the Nanjing Forestry University and WENZHAO Bamboo Charcoal Co., are helping to adapt equipment like brick kilns, grinders and briquette machines, and hand tools, for bamboo charcoal and briquette production using local materials. Building on this momentum, the INBAR initiative is now transferring Chinas advanced bamboo charcoal technologies to sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition to charcoal, bamboo offers many new opportunities for income generation. It can be processed into a vast range of wood products, from floorboards to furniture and from charcoal to edible shoots. The world bamboo export was estimated at 1.6 USD billion in 2009, a decline of about 659 USD million from 2.2 USD billion 2008.
###
About the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)
INBAR is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to reducing poverty, conserving the environment and creating fairer trade using bamboo and rattan. INBAR was established in 1997 and represents a growing number of member countries all over the world. Headquarters are in China with regional offices in Ghana, Ethiopia, India and Ecuador. INBAR connects a global network of governmental, non-governmental, corporate and community partners in over 50 countries. For more information, go to www.inbar.int
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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