WEDNESDAY, Dec. 28 (HealthDay News) -- A new examination of the origin of syphilis supports the theory that the sexually transmitted disease was carried to Europe aboard Christopher Columbus' ships as they sailed home from the New World.
The disease was not spread through sexual contact at the time, but adapted to survive once it got to Europe, Emory University researchers say.
"Syphilis has been around for 500 years," study co-leader Molly Zuckerman, a former Emory graduate student who is now an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, said in an Emory news release. "People started debating where it came from shortly afterwards, and they haven't stopped since. It was one of the first global diseases, and understanding where it came from and how it spread may help us combat diseases today."
After analyzing skeletal evidence in 54 published reports, the researchers found that syphilis did not exist in Europe until after Columbus' historic voyage to the New World in 1492. They said that most of the skeletal material lacked characteristics that would meet standard diagnostic criteria for chronic syphilis, such as small holes on the skull and long bones.
It appears that skeletons previously considered evidence of syphilis in Europe before Columbus' trip were dated incorrectly because of seafood consumption, which would have altered the collagen levels of the skeletons, the researchers said.
Their appraisal is published in the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology.
"This is the first time that all 54 of these cases have been evaluated systematically," said study co-author George Armelagos, an anthropologist at Emory, in the news release. "The evidence keeps accumulating that a progenitor of syphilis came from the New World with Columbus' crew and rapidly evolved into the venereal disease that remains with us today."
The researchers suggested someone sailing with Columbus brought Treponema -- the bacteria that causes syphilis -- to Europe. This type of bacteria also causes other diseases that are spread through skin-to-skin or oral contact in tropical climates. Their theory is that the bacteria mutated into the sexually transmitted form to survive in the cooler and more sanitary conditions of Europe.
"In reality, it appears that venereal syphilis was the byproduct of two different populations meeting and exchanging a pathogen," Zuckerman said. "It was an adaptive event, the natural selection of a disease, independent of morality or blame."
The researchers said more study is needed to confirm their findings. "The origin of syphilis is a fascinating, compelling question," Zuckerman said. "The current evidence is pretty definitive, but we shouldn't close the book and say we're done with the subject. The great thing about science is constantly being able to understand things in a new light."
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on syphilis.
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AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Austin Animal Center is dozens of dogs over capacity and expecting a spike in strays over the New Year's weekend.
" What happens typically is we get a huge influx of animals that break free and right now the shelter can 't absorb that capacity," said shelter director Abigail Smith. "We're really nervous about what will happen this weekend."
Smith said most of the dogs in the shelter are strays, and many of them clearly were pets.
" You look in each of these animals and each of these cages and these animals are not homeless, they came from someone's home. Some of them have collars. Some of them are freshly groomed," she said.
Sharla Bullock spent part of her afternoon in the shelter, picking up her dog Janice, who went missing a week earlier.
"I was so happy when they called the day after Christmas," she said, tearing up. "I was really happy."
Janice wore a collar with a tag, and had a microchip. Even so, it took Bullock some time to track her down.
"Make sure you notify everybody you can, give them pictures and keep calling," she advised. "My little dog is like a member of the family."
Smith said more people need to take Bullock's approach and check in with the shelter right away. She said the best way is to come to the shelter, but the Austin Animal Center also keeps pictures of all animals it takes in online.
The city holds the dogs three days, before opening them up for adoption.
" If you show up on day five and we adopted out your pet on day four we cant help you get your pet back," she said.
The shelter has moved dozens of dogs into foster care and non-profit shelters like Austin Pets Alive. They still had to move small dogs into cat cages.
" We'll be creative. I don't feel like animals should have to lose their lives because there are fireworks at night," said Smith. "We'll do everything we can to make room for animals who find their way to the shelter, but we're asking the community to do everything they can to prevent animals from coming here to begin with."
The shelter will give out free collars, tags and microchips at an event Friday and Saturday.
The event will run between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Austin Animal Center.
Source: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/animal-center-packed-with-stray-pets
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BEIJING (Reuters) ? China will start work on the world's highest airport next year, in Tibet's Nagqu county, state media said on Tuesday, which will be about 100 meters (328 ft) higher than the existing record holder in another part of the remote and restive region.
Nagqu airport will be at an altitude of 4,436 meters (14,553 ft) above sea level, slightly higher than the airport in Qamdo town at 4,334 meters (14,219 ft), Xinhua news agency reported.
The airport will cost 1.8 billion yuan ($280 million) and is expected to open in three years, Xinhua added.
Tibet already has five civilian airports, at least two of which are only open for a few months of the year because of extreme weather which makes flying impossible the rest of the time.
China has embarked upon a multi-billion-dollar program in recent years to revamp old airports and build new ones, especially in the country's remote west, as a way of boosting the economy.
The government has also poured billions of dollars into Tibet, hoping to win hearts and minds in a region the Communist Party has run with an iron grip for six decades.
The government says that the new airports, roads and a railway to Tibet will promote development and help raise living standards.
But Tibet activists say the new links will speed up the pace of Chinese migration there and dilute Tibetan Buddhist culture.
($1 = 6.3364 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ed Lane)
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However, if you want an honest opinion, it's usually best to go straight to the source. A former GM who used to work on Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft, Charlie Kindel, took to his personal blog today with some thoughts on why Microsoft's mobile efforts seem so stagnant.
It boils down to carriers, manufacturers, and the companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft who make the operating system are all locked in this big three-way pissing contest to see who gets the most say in marketing a device.
According to Kindel, Android is crushing iOS and Windows Phone 7 when it comes to marketshare simply because its open platform allows manufacturers and carriers to get away with whatever they want, while cranking out dozens of devices a year.
And yes, that means bloatware, nasty skins, and fragmentation on your Android phone. But it also means carriers get to promote the hell out of those phones thanks to their massive marketing budgets.
Here's Kindel:
Google has been wildly successful with Android (at least in terms of units) because Android was built to reduce friction between all sides of the market. It ?bows down? to the device manufactures AND the carriers. It enabled device manufactures to do what they do best (build lots of devices). It enabled carriers to do what they do best (market lots of devices). It enabled users tons of choice. My hypothesis is that it also enables too much fragmentation that will eventually drive end users nuts.
On the other hand, although Windows Phone 7 can be licensed to any device, Microsoft has a set of specs each manufacturer must follow in order to ensure the best user experience. It's not as perfect as Apple's approach of designing both the hardware and software, but it's a whole lot better than letting manufacturers and carriers run wild and causing a massive fragmentation problem where even phones that are barely a year old miss out on the latest updates.
Microsoft's approach seems nice and balanced. It evens the power struggle between the carrier, manufacturer, and OS developer. Unfortunately, as MG Siegler points out, it may be too late:
But Apple could also afford to do this because they were first to market. When the iPhone launched in 2007, the other smartphones on the market were shit. There was no actual competition for the iPhone. The first Android phones that launched over a year later were a joke.?
Contrast that with Windows Phone which launched far too late into the market. Kindel never mentions it, but you simply can?t downplay that fact. Had Windows Phone launched in 2007 or even 2008, the story would have been different. Instead, it launched in?late 2010.
I think next year is going to be the make or break moment for Windows Phone. The long awaited Nokia Lumia 800, which is an excellent device, will finally arrive in the U.S. With it comes all of Nokia's marketing might that Kindel thinks Windows Phone is missing. If Nokia delivers a dud, it could easily take Windows Phone down with it.
UPDATE:?Robert Scoble jumped into the conversation, so I figured it would be prudent to include his thoughts on why Windows Phone 7 continues to stink. Scoble thinks it's because Windows Phone still doesn't have the vibrant app ecosystem that you find on iOS and Android:
Now, let?s look at the ads on TV right now. There?s all sorts of people saying to get their app, including the local TV news departments. Do they talk about Android? Yes, of course. iOS? Of course! Windows Phone 7? Hell no. RIM/Blackberry? I haven?t heard that in an app advertisement in, well, forever.
So, when a consumer goes into a carrier store to buy a new phone, what is going on in the back of her/his head?
Android=safe.
iOS/iPhone=safe.
Everything else=not safe.
I agree, although I think Scoble downplays the Lumia's importance. Yes, it's going to be tough for Nokia to convince developers to start cranking out apps, but Google went through the same thing with Android. And they seem to be doing a lot better now.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-phone-marketshare-2011-12
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? North Korea likely is closer to mounting nuclear warheads on its ballistic missiles than generally reported, possibly only one or two years away, the Congress's former top expert on the issue has concluded.
Larry Niksch, who tracked North Korea for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service for 43 years, concludes in a new paper that the North probably would need as little as one to two years to miniaturize and mount a nuclear warhead atop its medium-range Nodong missile once it has produced enough highly enriched uranium as the warhead's core fuel.
A North Korea armed with nuclear-tipped missiles would rattle East Asia and present new policy and military challenges to the United States and its allies.
Trying to determine when Pyongyang will reach that threshold has long been a challenge for the U.S. intelligence community. Niksch's timeline, if correct, puts out a new marker for strategists.
Last January, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the North was within five years of building an intercontinental ballistic missile that, paired with its nuclear program, would be "a direct threat" to the United States.
North Korea has staged relatively few missile tests in recent years, suggesting it is still working on perfecting the needed technologies even as it has cooperated with Iran to do so.
Its nuclear and missile capabilities are once again in the spotlight as power passes to North Korea's designated young leader, Kim Jong-un, after the December 17 death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
Pyongyang already may have produced enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a warhead or be close to doing so, Niksch and experts such as Siegfried Hecker, the former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in interviews with Reuters.
Hecker said the North would have to conduct another nuclear test, its third, to have confidence that it had successfully miniaturized a warhead for one of its missiles.
"If the test is successful they may be able to have the capability within a couple of years," he said in an email exchange, referring to a nuclear-tipped missile.
"We simply don't know what else they have and how much HEU they can make or have made," added Hecker, who toured North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex in November 2010, his fourth visit there.
Jonathan Pollack, author of the 2011 book No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security, emphasized the many unknowns pending further North Korean nuclear and missile tests.
"I think they'd have a reasonable chance of being able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile in three to five years if they speed up research, development, testing and evaluation," said Pollack, of the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"If North Korea achieves some testing successes earlier than I anticipate, it might able to achieve this goal somewhat sooner."
The North is reckoned by U.S. intelligence to have between 30 and 50 kilograms of separated plutonium, enough for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons. Plutonium is the other type of fissile material used in nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang apparently has decided against making more plutonium bombs since it shut down a plutonium production facility at its Yongbyon nuclear complex in July 2007. It did so during six-party nuclear disarmament talks that it has since abandoned.
The North may have several plutonium-based nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on missiles as well as dropped from aircraft, Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee March 10.
Even with limited HEU production of which the North may already be capable, it could generate enough new bombmaking ingredients for one to two weapons per year, nuclear scientists say.
The North has been pursuing nuclear and missile capabilities for strategic deterrence and international prestige as well as for economic and political concessions, Burgess told Congress.
"While North Korea may be willing to abandon portions of its nuclear program in exchange for improved relations with the United States, Pyongyang is unlikely to eliminate its nuclear weapons," he said.
The Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment for this article on its estimate for a nuclear-tipped missile, as did the CIA. Non-government experts emphasized the difficulty of pinning down nuclear developments in North Korea, a country distinguished by its opaqueness.
NUCLEAR, MISSILE TESTS
The North has conducted two tests of a nuclear device, in October 2006 and in June 2009. It has carried out three tests of missiles beyond medium range since 1998. The sole test of its intermediate-range Taepodong-1 overflew Japan and landed in the Pacific in August 1998, falling short of a declared goal of putting a satellite into orbit. But it spurred perhaps billions of dollars of Japanese investment in U.S.-built antimissile hardware and defense services.
The maiden flight test of North Korea's longest-range missile, the Taepodong-2, ended in failure about 40 seconds after launch on July 5, 2006. It was tested again in April 2009, when its first stage traveled about 270 km before falling into the Sea of Japan without orbiting a small communications satellite.
Niksch predicted North Korea first would mount nuclear warheads on its Nodong and shorter-range Scud missiles, possibly followed by mating them to long-range missiles. He said this would fuel domestic pressure in Japan to develop long-range strike capabilities despite its war-renouncing constitution, and rattle the region.
Japan on Monday urged China -- host of the talks that also involved the two Koreas, Russia, Japan and the United States -- to shoulder a big role in making sure that North Korea avoids volatile moves after its announcement of Kim Jong-il's death of a heart attack, apparently at age 69.
Constraining North Korea is especially important for Japan, which is well within range of the North's long-range missiles.
A.Q. KHAN ROLE
Niksch's one- to two-year timeframe for mounting a nuclear warhead is based largely on his assessment of reports about warhead technology shared with Pyongyang by A.Q. Khan, regarded as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
Niksch said in the interview "there can be no doubt" that North Korea received from Khan a blueprint of the nuclear warhead mounted on Pakistan's medium-range Ghauri missile.
But Pollack said he did not put much faith in accounts based on information supposedly supplied by A.Q. Khan, a nuclear scientist considered by experts, including Hecker, as an unreliable source.
Pakistan's Ghauri itself is a twin of Nodong missiles supplied by North Korea before May 1998, when Pakistan tested its first nuclear devices. Pakistan mounted nuclear warheads on its Ghauri missiles within three years, Niksch said in a paper to be published Friday by the Institute of National Security Strategy in Seoul.
North Korean nuclear experts were present at six nuclear tests that Pakistan carried out in May 1998 and the North "appears to have received all of the test data," said Niksch, now an advisor to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
Hecker, who from 1986 to 1997 headed the Los Alamos National Laboratory that handles U.S. military nuclear research, was shown what he has called "astonishingly modern" uranium enrichment facilities during his November 2010 tour of the Yongbyon complex.
The facilities are likely configured to make low enriched uranium for the experimental light-water reactor that he was shown but they could be "readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel," he said in his trip report.
The North must have additional centrifuge facilities to have made as much progress in such a short time, including some that may be dedicated to producing HEU bomb fuel, Hecker added in the email exchange.
HEU contamination was found by U.S. scientists on aluminum samples and copies of reactor operation documents provided by North Korean officials to U.S. authorities while the six-party talks were progressing, said Hecker.
Bruce Lemkin, who from 1997 to 2000 negotiated in and with North Korea on behalf of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, predicted a dramatic show of military power soon, to "validate" the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who has been picking up new titles in an apparent attempt to signal a power consolidation.
"Perhaps it will be another nuclear test detonation or a ballistic missile firing or both, perhaps even with the assertion that North Korea has, indeed, weaponized similar missiles with nuclear devices," said Lemkin, who retired in 2010 as U.S. Air Force deputy undersecretary for international affairs.
U.S. officials have a habit of underestimating the North Koreans, Niksch said.
"They tend to make more rapid advances in expanding their nuclear weapons program than U.S. experts believe they are capable of," he said.
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)
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It?s common practice, as the year draws to a close, to reflect on the past twelve months ? to think back on what you did, how you spent your time, and who you spent it with. My years, more than anything, are shaped by books so when I look back I?m thinking about what I read. The same goes for thinking about the year to come: When I make my New Year?s resolutions, it?s pretty much just a long list of books that I want to get my hands on. And so, in looking forward to 2012, here are some things that I?ve already gotten my hands on; it would be wise of you to do the same. If what I?m reading (and loving) is any indication, 2012 is going to be a strange and wonderful year.
An enchanting (couldn?t resist) retelling of a classic Russian fairy tale, except this time it?s set in Alaska, circa 1920. Mabel and Jack are newcomers to Alaska and are being pulled apart by desolation and loneliness. Unable to conceive, the couple remains childless and the strain of maintaining their farm has pushed them to the edge of their capacity. In a rare moment of playfulness, the couple builds a child out of snow. Shortly thereafter, a child called Faina appears ? ethereal, bewitching, and mysterious. Ivey creates a world out of emptiness and populates it in completely unexpected ways.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ozZyd0v4ueU/6-books-you-should-resolve-to-read-in-2012
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TEXT-S&P FAQ answers queries on Dubai GREs' debt maturities in 2012
Reuters
Dec 26 ? Although the Dubai economy is beginning to bounce back, rated Dubai government-related entities are up against significant risks, said Standard & Poor's Ratings Services in a report, ?Dubai Government-Related Entities Face Debt Maturities And ?
and more
By Dubai Informer - Mon Dec 26, 2011 - 1:27 pm
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MARK READ
The Silver LotJoin us for insight and exclusive information from BGN and Scout.com
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DOUBLE ISSUESource: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/5377/energy+muffins
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Source: abclocal.go.com --- Saturday, December 24, 2011
A dog is credited with saving a family after a fire ripped through their house overnight ...
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8478840&rss=rss-ktrk-article-8478840
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It looks like the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY isn?t going to be the dedicated Android gaming device on the block, a company named JingXing has decided to step into that niche with a device of its own: the JingXing S7100. However, the S7100 isn?t a phone and takes the form factor of tablet instead, and features gamepad controls on the sides of the display.
While the specs of the device weren?t revealed, it will be running on Android (as evident by the dedicated Android buttons on the bottom of the device and the Android logo on the back), and will feature a rear camera and a front facing camera. The tablet?s gamepad gives users a 4-way D-pad, 4 regular buttons (circle, triangle, square, x), as well as start and select. No sign of shoulder buttons, so I guess you?ll need to use onscreen controls for those.
Don?t expect to have a dedicated app store like the Xperia PLAY/PlayStation Vita ? but you can be pretty sure that ROM emulators are going to be this tablet?s best friends.?No word on pricing or availability, but we?ll keep you posted if it turns up on this side of the world. It?s always interesting to see tablet manufacturers putting their own spin on Android devices ? with the plethora of tablets available on the market today, they need to find a way to stand out somehow.
Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/12/jingxing-s7100/
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@ChrisK91 Our pleasure. Glad you like it. We don't support co-authoring on Windows Phone right now. Good feedback though. 
SkyDrive SkyDrive Team
Source: http://twitter.com/SkyDrive/statuses/149950728138526720
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An update has apparently just gone live on the Android Market that, according to the official OnLive Twitter account, comes with ?added support for the slide-out game controls for the Xperia PLAY!?
Naturally I leapt to the Xperia Play (actually it was sat beside me, but roll with me here) to update and try out the streaming games service with full PlayStation button support - only to find it was just the same as before: d-pad working in menus, but no detection of the controller in-game.
This could be a case of a rooted (yes, I rooted my Play) phone being incompatible with the app, in which case you can all point and laugh at me for being too hasty to get the app working with the hardware buttons before it was officially supported.
Otherwise it could be another case of OnLive announcing a feature too early, as was the case with the (still in stasis) iPad version of the service.
One thing is for sure though - even if I can?t get it working right this very moment, it does appear that OnLive will support Xperia Play controls very soon.
Just not yet.
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OMGitslewis | 03:01 - 23 December 2011
Mine seems to be picking up the gamepad quite nicely. Been playing LEGO Batman and its picking up the controls in game :)
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With Egypt slowly descending into chaos and Syria in a state of a civil war, many analysts fear that the Arab Spring may be turning into a bitter Arab winter. It will likely take years to comprehend the full extent of the changes that are happening, and the basic status quo in the region stands to be transformed significantly. The two conflicts that currently loom over every other issue in the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Iran standoff, also stand to be transformed, whether by exploding into violence, by falling out of fashion, or in some other way.
In the middle of all this sits Israel, one of the main regional powers in the Middle East, as well as, right now, one of the most stable economies in the world (a dubious honor, given its size and dependence on trade links and foreign aid). Many eyes are set on it: the decisions that its leaders must make in the next year, for example whether to attack Iran or what, if any, concessions to
At the same time, and in contrast with this formidable reputation which they enjoy, the Israeli leaders are just as anxious about the future (we can infer this much from their statements and from leaks in the Israeli media). Although they recognize that the lack of representative democracy among their neighbors is a major impediment to a stable and comprehensive peace agreement, they are suspicious of anything coming from the Arabs.
So is the majority of the Israeli public - in this way, at least, the Benjamin Netanyahu government is entirely representative of its constituency. Growing numbers of Israelis have stopped believing that an end to the conflict is possible in their lifetimes.
"It is not a question of if there will be a war," a 24-year-old friend of mine in Tel Aviv likes to say. "It is a question of when." Sometimes, she adds with just a touch of bitterness in her voice a sentence along the lines of: "My children will be fighting the same war, and their children, too."
That belief is largely motivated by history. War has been a constant companion of modern Israeli history since the fateful day, May 14, 1948, when David Ben Gurion declared Israeli independence. The very next day the Arab armies invaded. The war was bloody and lasted almost a year; Israel surprised most international observers by winning, though in retrospect careful military analysis has shown that after a certain point fairly early in the conflict, the Israeli victory was all but guaranteed.
The influential American think-tank Stratfor describes the geostrategic situation of Israel in the following way:
The exterior lines of Israel's neighbors prevented effective, concerted action. Israel's interior lines permitted efficient deployment and redeployment of force. It was not obvious at the time [1948], but in retrospect we can see that once Israel existed, was united and had even limited military force, its survival was guaranteed. That is, so long as no great power was opposed to its existence.This is an apt summary not only of Israel's ancient history, but of the last six decades as well. The new country did not become a regional hegemon immediately; several major regional wars followed the one in 1948-1949. The Six-Day War in 1967 was by far the most spectacular demonstration of Israeli ingenuity, courage, meticulous preparation, superb intelligence and full utilization of the element of surprise - qualities and tactics that have since become the hallmark of the Israeli military doctrine. At the end of that war, Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and much of the Golan Heights. In military terms, that meant securing a certain amount of strategic depth, though also spreading out forces and stretching supply lines across greater distances.... The conquests of Israel occur when powers not adjacent to it begin forming empires. Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, Rome, Turkey and Britain all controlled Israel politically, sometimes for worse and sometimes for better. Each dominated it militarily, but none was a neighbor of Israel. This is a consistent pattern. Israel can resist its neighbors; danger arises when more distant powers begin playing imperial games. Empires can bring force to bear that Israel cannot resist.
Israel therefore has this problem: It would be secure if it could confine itself to protecting its interests from neighbors, but it cannot confine itself because its geographic location invariably draws larger, more distant powers toward Israel. Therefore, while Israel's military can focus only on immediate interests, its diplomatic interests must look much further. Israel is constantly entangled with global interests (as the globe is defined at any point), seeking to deflect and align with broader global powers. When it fails in this diplomacy, the consequences can be catastrophic. [1]
The October War in 1973 - known in Israel as the Yom Kippur War - saw several dramatic reverses. The Egyptians launched it with a surprise attack across the Suez Canal, overwhelming the Israeli defenses. The Syrians followed suit. Recently declassified records reveal unmitigated panic at the highest levels of the Israeli government in the first days of the war. The following excerpt from a conversation between Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister at the time, and Moshe Dayan, a legendary hero of the 1967 war and Meir's defense minister, is particularly revealing:
Golda Meir: "They have no reason not to continue. They smelled blood."Moshe Dayan: "To conquer Israel, finish off the Jews." [2]
The Israeli army eventually pulled itself together and won the war - though not without the help of a massive weapons air lift from the United States, the new superpower ally the Jewish State had acquired in 1967. Rumor has it that the Israelis threatened to nuke the Arabs in order to secure American generosity, but neither party will comment - in any case, Israel sticks to an official policy of ambiguity on any topic related to its nuclear program.
The war in 1973 was the last big regional war, at least for several decades to come, and was arguably a major turning point for both sides. Up until that moment, the Arabs had never given up the hope of wiping the Jewish state off the map; they had rejected practically every Israeli effort to negotiate, as demonstrated by the famous three "nos" of the Khartoum summit of the Arab League following the 1967 war: no to peace, no to recognition, and no to negotiations.
However, just as the Arabs were finally shaken in their confidence in 1973 (and forced to realize that Israel was there to stay), so too were the Israelis. They had started to rely too heavily on their military prowess, which had in part enabled the Egyptians to surprise them. More importantly, they were shocked to see how quickly their enemies could recover from the 1967 rout with aid from the USSR, the rival superpower of the US in the Cold War which was raging at the time. The Soviets had generously supplied the Egyptians and the Syrians with equipment, military doctrines, and even instructors to help train their armies.
Gradually, the Israelis began to understand that, when heavily outnumbered and surrounded by what they perceived as a "sea" of close to 300 million Arabs, no victory was conclusive, and a single defeat could mean their end. This in turn fed into an earlier fear, the fear of the destruction of the Jewish people which had almost been realized three decades earlier during the Holocaust, and which the initial military exploits of the Jewish State had somewhat mitigated.
Arguably, these realizations also eroded the confidence that even a comprehensive peace treaty - something that traditionally would follow lopsided victories such as those that had been achieved - would guarantee Israeli security. The Israeli public became altogether disillusioned with the prospects for lasting peace.
Peace treaties remained highly desirable - not least due to the economic benefits and the generous American military aid they tend to entail - and Israel sealed a couple of deals, with Egypt and Jordan, in the decades following the Yom Kippur war. Still, just as the Arabs started to shift toward a position that welcomed negotiations, the Israelis started to pull back.
These shifts in Israeli attitude were not immediately noticeable after 1973; it took almost three decades, the apparent failure of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s and the Palestinian suicide terror of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, for Israelis to become more or less apathetic to the peace process. The prominent Canadian-Israeli journalist and academic Bernard Avishai, an important figure in the Israeli peace movement, describes this poignantly. In a public lecture taped in October 2008, he relates his experience returning to Israel in 2002 after not living there since the 1970s.
I began to notice ... that no one used the term "peace process" any more. No one would talk about diplomatic initiatives, no one would look at the details of the peace process any more. And I as a journalist whose last year living in Israel was the year of the First Camp David Agreement in 1979 was a little mystified because in 1979 we used to do nothing but think about "if Sadat does x, will Dayan do y. If Carter does y, will ... Assad do z" ... and so on. We spent a lot of time agonizing, torturing ourselves over the likelihood of this or that diplomatic move, and this continued through to the 1990s and the Oslo peace process ... No one was talking about this any more. People were talking about "hamatzav" - "the situation." Hamatzav. And they spoke about the situation a little like the way alcoholics speak about being alcoholic. It's a condition that you manage, but you never expect, ever, for the rest of your existence, to cure? [3]For Avishai and for other prominent Israeli peace activists, the cause of this apparent political apathy is internal rather than external: an unresolved conflict among Israelis.
Avishai speaks of a sizeable group of ideological Jewish hardliners, "for whom Jerusalem is the kind of anchor for a Jewish state like Iran is a Muslim state. They believe in theocracy, they want a theocracy. That kind of person is deeply threatened by the influx of Arabs. It's not a problem that they are coming to Old Israel, it's they are coming to Judea."
He calls them "Judeans", and contrasts them to the "Israelis". "The real question is: About 2/3 of Israel is Israeli. About 1/3 of Israel is Judean, and sort of concentrated around [Jerusalem and the settlements]. Are Israelis going to fight Judeans for the sake of Palestinians? ... These Israelis can make peace with the Palestinian state, but these Judeans cannot."
"Fight" is a strong word to use, perhaps, and the idea of a civil war between Israelis of different political persuasions seemed almost absurd right now. (This is despite the occasional act of vandalism by extreme right-wing settlers against the Israeli army or the occasional dirty diaper or rock thrown against the Israeli police by disgruntled ultra-Orthodox youth.) Yet even so, emigration is constantly perceived as an existential danger; besides, faced with so many enemies, Israel usually needs all the solidarity it could muster - anything less is understood as a jeopardy.
Consequently, Israelis are loath to take steps that could threaten their social consensus - particularly in exchange for uncertain returns. Most have adapted to the reality of war, and, like the inhabitants of other parts of the world plagued by intractable conflicts, have learned to seek a certain kind of normalcy or stability within that reality.
The Israeli government takes a similar approach, resisting fundamental changes in the status quo, trying to seal itself off from neighbors, and maneuvering to adapt to anything that happens in the region. There are many threats, including very recent ones: after the ouster of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak last February, for example, the Israeli defense establishment has felt compelled to dust off contingency plans for a possible collapse of the peace treaty in the future. The instability in Syria, which is threatening to bring down the hostile but predictable Syrian regime, adds suspense.
The crisis with Iran also looms. It is hard to believe that Israel would attack on its own, without at least tacit American consent and support. However, Israel's ability to surprise is well-known.
Many uncertainties remain. The Israeli economy is doing well, but a new recession in Europe and the US may reverse that in months, if not weeks. Given that thousands of missiles are pointed at Israel's small territory, a war could cause large-scale death and destruction.
Yet one need not see the future in dark colors only; a moment of crisis and uncertainty is also a moment of opportunity. It is also possible to imagine optimistic scenarios for the Middle East. On Tuesday, for example, a senior US official announced that the death of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il had occurred just as a deal for the halting of the country's nuclear program was being finalized. [4] The statement is suspicious for its timing, but it does point to a creative way to influence Iran's thinking on the nuclear issue.
After all, North Korea provides not only advanced weapons and technology to Iran, but also a policy paradigm for a regime which has enjoyed security due to the possession of nuclear weapons. If (late Libyan leader) Muammar Gaddafi had not given up his nuclear program, an argument goes, he would still be alive and in power today. If, on the other hand, the North Korean regime gives way under pressure, that might affect the strategic calculus of the ayatollahs - and of other regimes in the region. If it balks, could we imagine a North Korean Spring next year?
Such a scenario, of course, is highly speculative. Realistically, as the Rolling Stones once sung, you can't always get what you want. But then again, you usually get at least some of what you want truly, at least some of the time.
Notes
1.
The Geopolitics of Israel: Biblical and Modern, , Stratfor, May 14,
2011 (Subscription or registration required)
2. ?Dayan to
Golda: If we can't evacuate, we'll leave wounded behind,? , Ynet,
October 4, 2010
3. Program in Jewish Studies:
Visiting Professor Lecture - Bernard Avishai (October 22, 2008),
Accessed December 12, 2011
4.
U.S. official: North Korea leader died just as deal was struck to halt nuclear
program , Ha?aretz, December 20 2011
Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ML22Ak04.html
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Moments after a jury found him guilty on a sex charge, a former boxer retrieved a loaded gun from his car, marched back into a small courthouse in a remote northern Minnesota town and shot the prosecutor and a witness in his case, leaving both men bloodied and screaming for help.
Daniel Schlienz, 42, of Grand Marais, was held Friday in the shootings and could be charged Monday, said Cook County Sheriff Mark Falk. Both victims, including County Attorney Tim Scannell, survived but remained hospitalized.
The shooting happened about 4:15 p.m. Thursday, after a jury convicted Schlienz on one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a victim under 16 and acquitted him on another criminal sex count. Schlienz wasn't taken into custody, and Falk said there was no indication he might do something violent.
Schlienz went into a conference room with his mother and attorney to talk about what would happen next.
After a few minutes, Schlienz "just kind of got up and left," said defense attorney John Lillie III. Then Lillie heard a loud bang, followed by muffled yelling. After a second shot rang out, Lillie knew he was hearing gunfire.
"It was like a bad movie," he said. "I open the conference room door and see my client with a gun in his hand, running into the county attorney's office, and someone screaming he had been shot."
Schlienz had been headed to Scannell's office when a witness in the case, Greg Thompson, 53, of Grand Marais, came out. Schlienz shot Thompson, then went into the prosecutor's office and shot Scannell, Falk said. Schlienz then went back into the hall and shot Thompson again, he said.
Lillie rushed to Thompson, while a bailiff and Schlienz's mother went after Schlienz.
Thompson was at the bottom of the stairs in the two-story courthouse but had been shot in the leg and was having trouble walking, Lillie said. The attorney put his arm around Thompson and dragged him outside. Lillie approached a waiting car and banged on the window, then put Thompson in the back seat and told the driver to call 911. Then he went back inside and heard someone else screaming, "I've been shot. I need help!"
That's when he saw Scannell, slumped at the top of the stairway and bleeding badly. Lillie said it looked as if Scannell had been shot in the leg, so he took Scannell's belt and cinched it around his leg.
"I didn't know what to do," Lillie said. "There was just blood. ... He kept saying `It hurts. Call an ambulance. I can't breathe.'"
At one point, Lillie said, Scannell, 45, of Grand Marais, told him to tell his wife he loved her.
"I kept telling him, `You're fine. An ambulance is on the way,'" Lillie said. He said Scannell kept trying to lie down and was fighting to keep his eyes open. "I didn't even know how to help him. ... He's obviously in bad shape. There's blood on the floor, there's blood on him all over."
Lillie said he wasn't sure why he went back toward danger once he was safe, but "I just got this bad feeling in my stomach like if I don't go out there and help, I'm going to regret it."
Falk said Lillie "was very critical in probably saving the life of our county attorney."
But there were other heroes too, including Schlienz's mother, a bailiff and the assistant county attorney, who all struggled to subdue Schlienz. Bailiff Deputy Gary Radloff, 70, of Grand Marais, was injured in the struggle but not shot. Falk said Radloff fired his weapon once in the struggle.
Scannell was in fair condition Friday, recovering from two gunshot wounds in the abdomen and one in the groin, said Beth Johnson, spokeswoman for Essentia Health-St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth. Thompson was in good condition and also had three gunshot wounds, two in the leg and one in the groin, she said.
Online court records listed several cases involving Schlienz in the past two decades, but most were minor traffic violations. More serious charges included fleeing a peace officer and the sexual conduct case, stemming from a 2005 incident.
The case had gone on for years. Schlienz agreed to a plea deal calling for him to serve no more than four months in jail, but instead was sentenced to a year. Schlienz appealed but still served that year. Then the state Court of Appeals said Schlienz should have been allowed to withdraw his plea once the district court disregarded the agreement, so he got another trial.
Lillie, who was not Schlienz's original attorney, said Scannell was the original prosecutor and the one who worked out the deal ? but the judge gave Schlienz the stiffer sentence.
Schlienz's father, Gary, told the Duluth News Tribune his son was down and out and "hated the prosecuting attorney that did this."
But Falk said there is no one to blame but Schlienz.
"He made a poor decision and a very costly decision that could've cost somebody's life," he said.
Grand Marais, home to about 1,300 residents, is about 110 miles northeast of Duluth and sits along the shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota's far northeastern tip. The county courthouse has one courtroom and no metal detectors. Visitors usually aren't searched when they enter the building.
Jim Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs' Association, said that setup is typical in Minnesota ? where many courthouses are historic buildings and adding metal detectors would be expensive.
Falk said incidents like this are extremely rare, but the county would review its courthouse security policy to see if changes needed to be made.
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MEXICO CITY ? The party that ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century has officially named the candidate it hopes can wrest back the presidency in 2012.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party gave Enrique Pena Nieto a document declaring him the party's candidate Saturday. All other hopefuls had already dropped out. Legal candidate registration takes place in February and the campaign starts in March.
The former Mexico State governor has a strong lead in most polls. His party ran Mexico from 1929 to 2000, when it lost to the National Action Party that still governs.
National Action is still choosing its candidate but the third major force has picked its contender. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will run for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.
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Of all the regular costs that dog car owners, liability insurance is among the cruelest. You only get the best rates if you never file claims, so careful drivers end up subsidizing the costs incurred by reckless ones. The best drivers can hope for is to find the lowest rate by shopping around and taking advantage of every discount.
Thousandaire advocates checking with your insurer for discounts. He found a way to score a defensive driving class discount by taking an online class. To make the deal even sweeter, he found an online coupon that saved $5 on the class.
If you have a clean driving record, you can call your insurance agent and ask if you're eligible for cheaper rates. If you get stonewalled, it may be time to start looking for quotes from competitors.
Save $220 on Car Insurance for Defensive Driving [Thousandaire]
Source: http://consumerist.com/2011/12/drive-through-hoops-to-save-money-on-insurance.html
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America's Got Talent has got a new judge, and it's none other than radio shock jock, Howard Stern. The self-professed King of All Media announced the news during his SiriusXM radio show this morning. "I take judging very seriously," said Stern. "In order to up my credibility, I will wear a suit."
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JOHANNESBURG?? Johannesburg dates its beginnings to the discovery of gold in 1886. Its downtown, where skyscrapers tower over deep mines, was abandoned by business in recent decades, and squatters turned the office towers into high-rise slums. But now, as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalizing neighborhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.
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When Fiona Rankin-Smith was making plans to renovate an office building to house a major new museum, she thought she'd be building a lonely outpost for art in gritty central Johannesburg. But nine years and 38 million rand (about $4.7 million) later, as she prepared to move nearly 10,000 African paintings, sculpture and other pieces out of storage and into the sleek new Wits Art Museum, she finds South Africa's economic hub is returning to its roots.
"There's this whole groundswell," said Rankin-Smith, the Wits' curator, as she surveyed the lively street scene on downtown's west side from her building's glass walls.
When the museum opens early next year in the Braamfontein neighborhood, its neighbors will include private galleries drawn to the area in part by plans for the Wits, which is owned by Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.
One side of the glass and concrete museum features brickwork that resembles basketweave. Brass knobs dot another facade covered in blue tiles from the 1970s-era building's original exterior, a pattern inspired by Zulu beadwork from the museum that incorporated British brass buttons.
Like much of downtown Johannesburg, Rankin-Smith says the museum is inspired by its past, and optimistic about the future. "There's these subtle references that refer back all the time," Rankin-Smith said.
Johannesburg's nickname is Egoli or "city of gold," and antiquarian book dealer Jonathan Klass says downtown draws its resilience from the energy that made it a mining capital and from "'its ability to change."
"People are accepting the change and trying to create the change and go with it," he said, "rather than trying to live in the past."
Collectors Treasury, the shop started by Klass, his brother Geoff and their late mother, has had homes in several buildings in and around central Johannesburg since 1974. The brothers have seen other attempts to revive downtown, and praise the latest because it is bringing back residents as well as business. An area that was a business district for whites under apartheid now is home to a vibrant multinational, multiracial community, including Africans from elsewhere on the continent.
Collectors Treasury's home since 1991 is a hoarder's paradise, eight stories of books and other antiques in the former headquarters of a company that imported printing presses. It's located at the gateway of an eastern downtown neighborhood developers call Maboneng Precinct. Maboneng means "place of light" in Sotho, one of South Africa's 11 official languages.
Renowned South African artist William Kentridge, whose grandfather once had law offices in downtown Johannesburg, has moved into a studio in a complex of Maboneng warehouses that now houses hip shops and apartments. The neighborhood has an art house cinema.
New York-born musician Joao Orecchia organized a series of concerts in Maboneng over the last year in not-quite renovated buildings. Audiences climbing six stories to a rooftop for one concert could see the rubble of what had been the elevator from the staircase wrapped around the shaft. Once on the roof, they were captivated by the view, Orecchia said. And while the site was forbidding then, the building will soon be renovated into homes and studios for musicians and artists, he said.
Artists "aren't afraid to come and find a space and do something," Orecchia said. "As an artist, you almost have an obligation to contribute to that picture of what Johannesburg is."
Trendy clubs and restaurants are popping up to serve gallery hoppers. At Randlords, safari chic decor of antelope skin rugs and beads is livened by flashes of humor, like framed lacy panties at the ladies' room door and framed briefs at the men's.
The club on the roof of a 22-story office tower was named to evoke the mining magnates who made their fortunes on the rand ? or ridge ? of rock underpinning Johannesburg. It opened as a bar when the World Cup soccer games came to South Africa in 2010. Now it hosts private parties, and the occasional cocktail evening open to the public.
Margeaux Swartz, a 27-year-old Johannesburg native who works for South Point, the property company that developed Randlords, said she's seen wary looks on the faces of guests who park in the building garage and are whisked 22 stories to the club in an express elevator.
"Your initial reaction when you're coming into the area is, like, 'Lock your doors. Be careful,'" Swartz said. "But the minute you come up here ... it's so inspiring. And you're at ease."
Randlord's walls are glass, so visitors feel they can almost step into the sweeping view. To the south, almost blending into the man-made mountains of mining waste, is the 90,000-seat stadium the shape and color of a traditional African clay pot built for the World Cup. Just beyond the stadium is Soweto, the township that was a dormitory for blacks under apartheid, with its iconic sites tracing the history of the struggle against racist rule, including a former home of Nelson Mandela.
The Nelson Mandela Bridge stretches from the foot of Randlords across a river of railway tracks to Newtown, a performing arts hub. Newer dance and concert venues have been established around Newtown's venerable Market Theatre, where political plays for interracial audiences once challenged apartheid thinking.
All these sites are easy to reach thanks to a rapid bus system known as Rea Vaya that got up and running in time for the World Cup. Soon a central station on the bus routes will be connected to a new light rail to the airport.
Laura Vercueil, spokeswoman for Johannesburg's tourism promotion agency, traces the city's renewal to 1994, when apartheid ended, and planners began dismantling strict regulations that had zoned the city center for whites and for business. Now, business, residential and entertainment mix along with the races.
Vercueil encourages foreigners and locals alike to discover the city, either by hopping on and off Rea Vaya buses, or on foot with one of the city's new walking tour businesses. Urban pioneers can shop for everything from African herbal remedies to high fashion from local designers. They can marvel at the array of art deco buildings, take in a show at the Market or Braamfontein's civic theater, and lunch at Guildhall, a pub that's almost as old as the city.
"A lot of the reluctance to venture downtown has to do with perceptions of crime, and some of those are quite real," Vercueil said. But she said local government is "working to clean up the city and make it a safe and more desirable place."
Rose Sizini, a 27-year-old bank marketing manager, was recently browsing a local designer's clothes at a market in a garage near the soon-to-be-completed Wits Art Museum. She said she was drawn by an "artistic flair" she hoped more people would experience.
"They need to come here and explore it," she said.
Johannesburg, like cities around the world, is struggling to get the balance right, making a city center that is comfortable for the affluent as well as the poor and struggling middle classes who have made downtown their home since apartheid ended. And there is still plenty of work to be done.
Curator Rankin-Smith nodded at broken windows in the floors above the space she has renovated for the Wits Art Museum.
"Hopefully," she said, "we've started something."
___
Associated Press Writer Anita Powell in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45671786/ns/travel-destination_travel/
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