Bomb shakes Damascus, opposition holds unity talks

AMMAN (Reuters) – A bomb exploded near army and security compounds in Damascus, Syrian television reported, and fractured opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad began unity talks abroad to win international respect and arms supplies.

The 50-kilogram (110-pound) bomb, near a large hotel in a heavily guarded district, was described by state media as an attack by “terrorists” – the government’s term for insurgents in the 19-month-old uprising against Assad.

Opposition activists said Sunday’s blast appeared to be the work of the Ahfad al-Rasoul (Grandsons of the Prophet) Brigade, an Islamist militant unit that attacked military and intelligence targets several times in the last two months.

The mainly Sunni rebels have carried out a series of bombings targeting government and military buildings in Damascus this year, extending the war into the seat of Assad’s power.

The Syrian conflict has aggravated divisions in the Islamic world, with Shi’ite Iran supporting Assad — whose Alawite faith derives from Shi’ite Islam — and U.S.-allied Sunni nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar backing his foes.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an activist monitoring group, said government forces had killed 179 people on Sunday. It said most of the dead were civilians killed in shelling of Damascus suburbs and included 14 women and 20 children. The rest were rebels killed in battles in the capital and the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

Opposition campaigners said the Syrian army shelled rebel positions inside a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 20 people. They said the Yarmouk camp had become the latest battleground in the war.

In northern Idlib, opposition sources said rebels were forced to halt an offensive to take a big air base because of a shortage of ammunition, a problem that has dogged their campaign to cement a hold on the north by eliminating Assad’s devastating edge in firepower.

Islamist insurgents had launched the attack on the Taftanaz military airport at dawn on Saturday, using rocket launchers and at least three tanks captured from the military.

The Syrian government restricts journalists’ access in Syria, making it difficult to verify reports from the ground.

The Jaafar bin Tayyar Division, a rebel unit in Deir al-Zor, said its fighters had taken control of the al-Ward oilfield near the Iraqi border on Sunday, after overrunning a loyalist outpost that had 40 militiamen defending it.

Rebel commanders, former Syrian officials and the Syrian head of an oil services company familiar with oil production in the area said the fields, mostly not operational, had been under de facto rebel control for months.

FEARS OF WIDER CONFLAGRATION

The conflict began with peaceful protest rallies that morphed into armed revolt when Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1971, tried to stamp them out with military might. About 32,000 people have been killed, wide swathes of the major Arab state have been wrecked and the civil war threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration.

The opposition talks that began in Qatar marked the first concerted attempt to meld feuding, disparate groups based abroad and coordinate strategy with rebels fighting in Syria.

Divisions between Islamists and secularists as well as between those inside Syria and opposition figures based abroad have foiled prior attempts to forge a united opposition and deterred Western powers from intervening militarily.

Analysts were skeptical the planned four days of opposition talks in the Qatari capital Doha would bring immediate results.

They aim to broaden the Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest of the overseas-based opposition groups, from some 300 members to 400, to pave the way for talks in Doha on Thursday including other anti-Assad factions to crystallise a coalition.

“The main aim is to expand the council to include more of the social and political components. There will be new forces in the SNC,” Abdulbaset Sieda, current leader of the Syrian National Council, told reporters in Doha ahead of the meeting.

The meetings would also elect a new executive committee and leader for the SNC, he said.

A Qatar-based security analyst, who asked not to be named, said the meetings would bring a small step forward, at most. “The Syrian National Council is just too divided,” he said.

In Cairo, the international mediator on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, called on Sunday for world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution based on a deal they reached in June to set up a transitional Syrian government.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the same news conference, dismissed the need for a resolution and said others were stoking violence by backing rebels. His comments highlighted the impasse over Syria’s civil war.

Russia and China, both permanent council members, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad’s government for the violence. The other three permanent members are the United States, Britain and France.

(Additional reporting by Rania el Gamal and Regan Doherty in Qatar, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Stephen Powell)

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The app’s the thing as Shakespeare goes digital

TORONTO (Reuters) – William Shakespeare‘s plays are getting a 21st century-style makeover in the form of new apps for tablets and smart phones nearly 500 years after the Bard took pen to parchment.

Plays such as “Romeo and Juliet” and “Macbeth” spring to life in iPad apps released by Cambridge University Press, which pairs the texts with audio performances, commentary and other interactive content, transforming the classic plays for the digital age.

The apps are part of a new series called Explore Shakespeare that was introduced by the British publishing house to expand the playwright’s reach to casual readers.

“A lot of people have a copy of Shakespeare on their bookshelf that they never got around to reading because they have this idea that Shakespeare is hard or has to be studied to be appreciated,” said John Pettigrew, executive producer of the Explore Shakespeare series.

Pettigrew believes the plays are meant to be enjoyed and are accessible provided readers are given context to overcome outdated or poetic language.

While the core focus of the app is on the actual text, readers can consult glossaries, notes, photos and synopses at any point in the script.

“Everything there is designed to keep you in the play and to put you in the mind of the actor, director or writer,” he explained.

To understand less common language, readers can tap on words and phrases to delve into their meaning.

“A classic one is in ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ which is `wherefore art thou Romeo?’ It’s not ‘where are you Romeo?’, It’s `why are you Romeo?` So that kind of phrase gets a glossary to explain what is meant,” said Pettigrew.

The apps also include full audio performances from stars such as Kate Beckinsale and Martin Sheen. Other features help readers to visualize relations between actors in a scene, understand how Shakespeare interweaves themes throughout the play, and to analyze the text more thoroughly.

“You can delve into the language or themes or interpretation, but our first task is to show that it’s just a good story,” Pettigrew said.

Although the app was designed with consumers in mind, Pettigrew believes it could also play a role in education, with students embracing the app over its print counterpart.

“For a 13-year old, Shakespearean language can be a barrier and to have something right there on the page is really helpful,” he said.

According to Pettigrew, the publishing house chose to develop it for the iPad because it is the dominant tablet platform in schools, but he said they are considering Android and Windows 8 apps in the future.

Four more apps including “Twelfth Night,” “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” “Hamlet” and “Othello” are due to be released in coming months. They are available worldwide for $ 13.99 each.

Pettigrew said the app is vetted for accuracy by experts and includes ancillary material, which is designed to augment the original text.

“To borrow a Shakespeare phrase, ‘the play’s the thing.’”

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and David Gregorio)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sharon Osbourne has double mastectomy

LONDON (AP) — Sharon Osbourne says she had a double mastectomy after learning she carries a gene that increases the risk of developing breast cancer.

Osbourne told Hello! magazine that “I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me.”

The 60-year-old “America’s Got Talent” judge, who had colon cancer a decade ago, said that without the surgery, “the odds are not in my favor.”

She added: “It’s not ‘pity me,’ it’s a decision I made that’s got rid of this weight that I was carrying around.”

The magazine went on sale Monday.

Osbourne, husband Ozzy and children Jack and Kelly became rock’s most famous clan thanks to reality show “The Osbournes” a decade ago.

Jack Osbourne, 26, was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

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BioMarin genetic disorder drug meets main goal, shares jump

(Reuters) – BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc said a late-stage trial of its experimental genetic disorder drug met the main goal of improving patients’ walking ability when administered weekly, sending the company‘s shares up 25 percent in premarket trading.

The drug, called GALNS, however, did not show any improvement over a placebo when administered every other week.

The trial, named MOR-004, showed that weekly doses of the drug at 2 mg/kg improved the six-minute walk distance of patients by 22.5 meters over the placebo.

However, patients getting the same dose every other week did not show any meaningful or statistically significant change compared to the placebo.

The disorder – Mucopolysaccharidosis Type IVA (MPS IVA), or Morquio A Syndrome – is a rare, inherited disorder caused by the deficiency of a particular enzyme, leading to skeletal dysplasia, short stature and joint abnormalities.

The drug was also tested in another extension trial that showed its benefits continued to improve with further dosage, BioMarin said in a statement.

GALNS was generally well-tolerated and adverse events were similar to those seen in the trials of other enzyme replacement therapies. There were no deaths and no patients withdrew from the study due to adverse events.

BioMarin now plans to submit marketing applications for the drug, starting from the first quarter of 2013.

The company currently has four drugs in the market, two of which are for treating other metabolic disorders caused by the absence of certain enzymes.

Shares of the company closed at $ 37.41 on the Nasdaq on Friday, and were trading at $ 47 before markets opened on Monday. (Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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UK service sector growth ‘slows’

5 November 2012 Last updated at 05:56 ET

Activity in the UK service sector grew at its slowest pace in almost two years in October, a survey has suggested.

The PMI services index from Markit/CIPS fell to 50.6 from 52.2 in September. Any score above 50 indicates growth.

Growth in new business eased, while employment in the sector fell for the second consecutive month, Markit said.

The figure was a reminder of the tough underlying economic conditions despite last month’s better-than-expected growth figures, it added.

Official figures showed that the UK economy grew by 1% between July and September, ending a nine-month long recession.

Bank meeting

“The latest UK services PMI data provide a warning to those who saw the strong growth in the GDP in the third quarter as symbolising the start of a strong and speedy economic recovery,” said Markit economist Andrew Harker.

“The expectation among firms is for activity to improve over the coming year, but the road to full economic recovery still looks to be a long one.”

Last week, the PMI survey for manufacturing indicated that the sector shrank in October for the sixth month in a row, while the survey of the construction sector found that while output was slightly higher, new work and employment shrank.

Analysts said the weaker-than-expected services PMI reading increased the possibility that the Bank of England might increase its programme of quantitative easing (QE), which has now reached a level of £375bn, when its monetary policy committee (MPC) meets later this week.

Under QE, the Bank buys government bonds, hoping to create beneficial knock-on effects for the economy.

“It does raise the risk of further QE from the Bank. On balance, though, we think it probably won’t, given the risk of inflation,” said George Buckley at Deutsche Bank.

“What it does tell us is that while there have been some mixed messages, more positive than negative, we’re not seeing a very fast recovery at all.”

Vicky Redwood, at Capital Economics, said: “The MPC pays a lot of attention to this survey and this Thursday’s meeting now looks an even closer call than before.

“Given the stronger near-term outlook for inflation, we think that the chances of more QE this week are just below 50-50.”

Separately, a report suggested that the UK would be the fastest-growing major economy in Europe in the next two years. The eurozone debt crisis would drag the bloc into a second year of recession, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said.

While the eurozone economy would contract by 0.4% in 2013, the UK economy would grow by 0.8%, the think tank predicted. In 2014, the CEBR said the eurozone would register growth of 0.4%, compared with the UK’s 1.4%.

BBC News – Business

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Brazil’s ‘pop-star priest’ gets mammoth new stage

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil‘s “pop-star priest” is already packing in the crowds at the newly opened mammoth sanctuary that he built for his campaign to stem the exodus of faithful from the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America’s biggest nation.

Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 65 percent of its 192 million people identifying themselves that way in the 2010 census. But that is down from 74 percent in 2000 and is the lowest since records began tracking religion 140 years ago.

That’s where Father Marcelo Rossi‘s Mother of God sanctuary comes in. The not-yet-finished structure will seat 6,000 people and have standing room for 14,000 more, church leaders say. In addition, the grounds outside can hold 80,000 people who could watch Mass on outdoor video screens.

After the inaugural Mass on Friday attracted upward of 50,000 people, a beaming Rossi told reporters: “They couldn’t all fit in. There was a crowd that had to stand outside! That’s a sign we’re on the right path, and it’s this sanctuary.”

Similar numbers jammed into the huge church Saturday.

It’s a fitting stage for Rossi, a Latin Grammy-nominated singer who is known for tossing buckets of holy water on worshippers and performing rollicking Christian songs backed by a blasting live band during Mass.

The church sits on 323,000 square feet (30,000 square meters) of land. Church officials declined to confirm how big the actual building is, though local reports put it at 91,500 square feet (8,500 square meters). That would make it one of the world’s 10 biggest churches. A cross soaring 138 feet (42 meters) into the air is the focal point.

The Mother of God sanctuary is anything but traditional. Designed by noted Brazilian architect Ruy Ohtake, it has a wide-open layout giving it the feel of a warehouse. Concrete walls hold up a sloping blue roof that from the outside looks more like a basketball arena than a house of worship. With the church several years away from completion, white plastic chairs were in the place of pews for a lucky few thousand to grab a seat. The rest had to stand.

Rossi dismisses the idea his huge church is a response to the explosion of the evangelical Christian faith in Brazil. Rather, the priest seems to be battling what recent studies indicate is Catholicism’s biggest enemy: indifference.

While millions of Brazilian Catholics joined Pentecostal congregations in the 1990s, a study conducted last year by Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation based on census data found that the Catholics leaving the church these days are mostly becoming nonreligious. Experts have said the trend of Brazilians deciding organized religion isn’t for them poses a more potent threat to Catholic leaders than losses to the Pentecostals.

Rossi chose to open his new church on the Brazilian holiday of Finados, the nation’s version of the Day of the Dead. “A day, a day that was dead, was transformed!” the priest told worshippers during the service, using his gold-plated microphone.

The “pop-star priest” is seen by Brazilian Catholicism as its biggest weapon against the lack of interest, and his new sanctuary adds to his tools of best-selling books and music recordings to keep worshippers interested in what many complain has become a staid institution.

There was nothing stale about his Mass on Friday.

Singing as loud as they could, waving white hankies and swaying with a rocking band, the 20,000 people who jammed into the Mother of God sanctuary hammed it up for TV cameras and shed tears down their cheeks as their superstar priest waved to them from the pulpit. An estimated 30,000 other people had gathered outside, where young boys climbed up into nearby trees trying to get a glimpse of the church grounds as they squinted over a sea of heads streaming out of the sanctuary.

“We have problems, everyone has problems,” worshipper Zuleima de Oliveira Sales said as she stood in the tightly packed sea of people under the soaring blue roof of the structure, her voice choking. “They don’t come to an end, but I have faith, I have faith in Our Lady.”

That’s the sort of belief the Catholic Church is counting on in Brazil and other developing nations. Leaders from the Vatican on down are looking to them as bulwarks against losses in Europe and the U.S., where sex abuse scandals have inspired many people to leave the church. About half of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America.

Pentecostalism was once seen as a major threat to Brazil’s Catholic Church. Pentecostal churches, many of them founded by U.S. evangelicals, saw their membership double to more than 12 percent of the country’s population over the 1990s, with about half of the congregants estimated to be former Catholics.

During the 1990s, Brazil’s economy suffered from hyperinflation and other woes, and Pentecostal churches aggressively recruited in the slums and poor outskirts of Brazil’s cities by offering nuts-and-bolts self-improvement advice as well as Christian ministry.

Since 2003, however, Pentecostal churches have seen growth slow. The percentage of Brazilians calling themselves Pentecostals edged up from 12.5 percent of the population to 13.3 percent.

Yet the Catholic Church has continued to lose parishioners, and church leaders have had little success so far in halting that trend.

Brazil was the first nation outside Europe that Pope Benedict XVI visited, during a five-day tour in 2007 largely aimed at stopping losses in Latin America. During the trip, the pope canonized Brazil’s first native-born saint.

Then Benedict announced last August during the church’s World Youth Day, which drew 1.5 million people to Spain, that the next version of the gathering would be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. The pope is expected to attend.

For now, Rossi hopes his big church will bring together tens of thousands of faithful for every Mass, giving new energy to the Catholic faith.

“People want big spaces. They want grand places for prayer,” he told the Globo TV network. “One candle illuminates, 10 candles illuminate — and 100,000 candles light up so much more.”

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Red Cross’ App Helps Sandy Victims

App Name: Hurricane by The American Red Cross

Price: Free

Available Platforms: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, (requires iOS 4.2 or later), and Android

What does this app do? Millions remained without power and the death toll in New York City topped 41 in the wake of Hurricane Sandy as of Friday morning, according to ABC News. Homes and businesses were wrecked as a result of the superstorm, with many people occupying shelters. Cleanup and recovery from Sandy will be slow and hard going for many. For those with power, or at least a charged mobile device, the Hurricane by American Red Cross app can help.

The app, although updated more than two months ago and, therefore, not exactly new, could not be more relevant than right now. Everything from its location-based alerts to its tips and checklists for planning for an emergency aims to prepare and assist those affected directly or indirectly by disaster.

The layout for this app is simple, with a string of informational buttons lining a row at the bottom. Tap on the “prepare” tab to peruse tips for planning ahead, such as what to put into an emergency kit or to learn about the evacuation plan for a particular community. The app will also alert you to warnings and storms based on locations you have selected and allow you to share those alerts with others through email. Select the “shelters” button to view and get directions to the open Red Cross shelters in your area.

On the upper-left-hand corner, the app displays a toolkit button. Select this icon to create a list of contacts as well as meeting points both within and outside of your neighborhood and share these with others in case of an emergency or evacuation.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, tap on the “more” button, and then select “donate.” You can make a contribution to the Red Cross’s efforts via e-mail, iTunes or text.

Is it easy to set up? Download this free app and go for it.

Should I try it? This is an information-rich app with a lot of useful features. The best parts of it include the ability create a plan and share this with the people you love as well as the ability to send the “I’m safe” message via Twitter, Facebook and email.

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AnnaLynne McCord to get “Scorned” With Billy Zane in new thriller

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – AnnaLynne McCord is about to become a woman “Scorned.”

“90210″ star McCord has signed on for the revenge thriller “Scorned,” alongside “Titanic” star Billy Zane and Viva Bianca from Starz’s “Spartacus.”

McCord and Zane will play Sadie and Kevin, a couple whose romantic weekend at a lake house takes a sideways turn when a text message from Sadie’s best friend (played by “Bianca”) to Kevin reveals a lurid love affair between the two, sending Sadie on a vengeance spree.

“Scorned” will be directed by Mark Jones, the creator and director of the beloved “Leprechaun” horror-movie series.

Jones likened the project to “sophisticated” thrillers such as “Fatal Attraction” and “Misery.”

“Having done horror with comedy, I wanted to delve into something more sophisticated along the lines of ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘Misery,’ and develop a multi-dimensional, twisted character in our lead villain (McCord), who I feel brings an original and incredibly unique take on her character,” Jones said.

Lightning Entertainment will handle international sales of the film, with Lightning’s Audrey Delaney and Marc Bienstock executive-producing.

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Israel’s Neuronix offers new Alzheimer’s treatment

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel-based Neuronix, which has developed a non-invasive medical device to help to treat Alzheimer’s disease, expects the system to be approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in late 2014.

The device, which combines electromagnetic stimulation with computer-based cognitive training, is already approved for use in Europe, Israel and several Asian countries. In Singapore it is approved for clinical trial use and the application for registration of the product is still under evaluation.

“You stimulate the brain on a biological level as well as on a cognitive level,” Neuronix CEO Eyal Baror told Reuters, saying this double approach created longer-lasting benefits.

The device, which consists of a chair containing an electronic system and software in the back and a coil placed at the head, has been tested on mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients who suffer from dementia but are not totally dependent.

The system is in trials at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre. Patients are treated for one hour a day, five days a week over six weeks.

“We see improvement lasting for 9-12 months and the good thing is that patients can return and undergo treatment again,” Baror said. “If out of 10 years the patients have left to live we can keep them at home in a relatively mild state of the disease for three, four, five years, it’s a lot.”

According to Alvaro Pascual-Leone, director of the hospital’s Berenson-Allen Centre for Non-invasive Brain Stimulation, brain stimulation – or transcranial magnetic stimulation – involves a very low current applied to a specific part of the brain and is approved by the FDA for treatment of a variety of ailments and diagnostic applications.

“The application in Alzheimer’s disease and in combination with cognitive training is novel,” Pascual-Leono said in a phone interview from Boston.

About 20 percent of patients experience a mild headache but there are no long-term negative effects, he said.

Pascual-Leone, who is principal investigator in the Harvard trial, said that of 12 patients in the study, six received the real treatment and all showed cognitive improvement. Their improvement was significantly more than the average seen in patients taking just medication, he said.

The study’s results will be submitted for publication in the coming weeks and a follow-up study on 30 patients is planned.

Neuronix received European approval several months ago and has installations in the UK and Germany. In Israel, a few dozen patients are being treated with the device.

The U.S. trials are expected to run till the end of 2013. Neuronix is also running a trial in Israel for pre-Alzheimer’s patients.

The company expects to sell half a dozen systems in the second half of 2012 and three dozen in 2013. In Israel, the treatment costs $ 6,000.

“Our target for becoming profitable is in parallel to entering the U.S. market around 2015,” Baror said.

Neuronix has raised $ 8 million from private individuals as well as in grants from the Israeli Chief Scientist’s Office and is exploring options to raise more money in the coming year, including the possibility of going public.

(This version of the October 24 story corrects paragraph two that company corrects to say that in Singapore, device is approved for clinical trial use and its application for registration of the product is under evaluation, not that device is approved for commercial use.)

(Reporting by Tova Cohen; editing by Stephen Nisbet)

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Comet gift vouchers are suspended

4 November 2012 Last updated at 04:33 ET

Comet customer: “It looks like a plague of locusts have been inside [the store] and cleaned the place out”

The administrators of the electrical retailer Comet have suspended the use of gift vouchers at the stores.

The shops have been open as usual over the weekend since administrators were called in on Friday.

The Comet website has returned in a slimmed down form, confirming store locations and answering questions about the administration.

There has been no sign of heavy discounting so far, but the website said a sale would be starting soon.

On the question of gift vouchers, it said: “The administrators are currently considering the position in relation to gift cards and gift vouchers and at this stage they cannot be used to pay for items.

“The administrators are reviewing this position urgently.”

Holders of gift vouchers would usually be considered as low priority creditors to a retailer going into administration, and would be unlikely to be able to use their vouchers.

The exception is when a chain is sold to new owners, who might decide to accept them as an act of goodwill to prevent the brand they have bought being tarnished.

The new website explained on its front page that administrators from Deloitte had been appointed.

Its question and answer section said that people who were waiting for items to be delivered that they had paid for would only be receiving those items if they were already in stock at a delivery centre.

“Where the item for an existing order is not currently in stock, this delivery cannot now be made,” it said.

BBC News – Business

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