Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/152379119?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Argentine president heads for landslide victory
Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez votes during general elections in Rio Gallegos, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Francisco Munoz)
Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez votes during general elections in Rio Gallegos, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Francisco Munoz)
Two women search the electoral rolls for the location of their polling table during general elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Incumbent President Cristina Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)
Voters search the electoral rolls for the location of their polling table during general elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Incumbent President Cristina Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)
A voter casts his ballot in the general election in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Incumbent President Cristina Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, Hermes Binner, talks to reporters after voting in the general election in Rosario, Argentina, Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Incumbent President Cristina Fernandez appeared to be headed for a landslide victory over six rivals as Argentines voted on Sunday. If she does win, she'll be the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. (AP Photo/Juan Jose Garcia)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ? President Cristina Fernandez, aided by a booming economy, appeared to be headed for a landslide re-election victory on Sunday over six rivals.
It would make her the first woman re-elected as president in Latin America. But it also would be a bittersweet victory for the populist leader, her first in a lifetime of politics without her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, who died of a heart attack last Oct. 27.
Her voice almost broke as she spoke about this legacy, describing a mixture of pride and sorrow after casting her ballot in his hometown, the remote Patagonian city of Rio Gallegos. "In this world where they have criticized us so forcefully, all this makes me feel very proud, that we're on the right track," she said. Kirchner "would be very content."
Fernandez can win with as little as 40 percent of the vote if none of her rivals comes within 10 percentage points of her, but the latest polls suggested she could capture between 52 percent and 57 percent of votes.
Her Front for Victory coalition also hopes to regain enough seats in Congress to form new alliances and regain the control it lost in 2009. At play are 130 lower house seats and 24 Senate seats.
Fernandez's poll numbers had dipped during the early years of her presidency, but she has reversed the negative numbers as a widow, softening her usually combative tone and proving her ability to govern on her own by ensuring loyalty or respect from an unruly political elite.
Many Argentines in pre-election polls said they would vote for her because their financial situations have improved during one of its longest spells of economic growth in history.
If trends hold, Fernandez could receive a larger share of votes than any president since Argentina's democracy was restored in 1983, when Raul Alfonsin was elected with 52 percent, and more than anyone since her strongman hero, Juan Domingo Peron, who won with 60 and 63 percent in his last two elections.
Fernandez, 58, chose her youthful, guitar-playing, long-haired economy minister, Amado Boudou, as her running mate. Together, the pair championed Argentina's approach to the global financial crisis: Increase government spending rather than impose austerity measures, and force investors in foreign debt to suffer before ordinary citizens.
Argentina has been closed off from most international lending since declaring its world-record debt default in 2001, but has been able to sustain booming growth ever since.
The country faces tough challenges in 2012, however. Its commodities exports are vulnerable to a global recession, and economic growth is forecast to slow sharply in the coming year. Declining revenues will make it harder to raise incomes to keep up with inflation. Argentina's central bank is under pressure to spend reserves to maintain the peso's value against the dollar, while also guarding against currency shocks that could threaten Argentina's all-important trade with Brazil.
If his ticket wins, Boudou could win attention as a potential successor to Fernandez, but navigating these storms will require much skill and good fortune.
Opposition candidates have blamed Fernandez for rising inflation, for politically manipulated economic data, rising crime and attempts to use government power to control media criticism. They have also accused the government of failing to prepare Argentina for another global crisis.
"It's not clear where the world is headed. It's better to be prepared. This isn't achieved with conflict, but through dialogue," socialist Hermes Binner said as he voted. He was in second place in the last polls, with between 12 percent and 17 percent of the vote.
In addition to Binner, 68, a doctor and governor of Santa Fe province, candidates include Ricardo Alfonsin, 59, a lawyer and congressional deputy with the traditional Radical Civic Union party and son of the former president; Alberto Rodriguez Saa, 52, an attorney and governor of San Luis province whose brother Adolfo was president for a week; Eduardo Duhalde, who preceded Kirchner as president; leftist former lawmaker Jorge Altamira, 69, and Elisa Carrio 54, a congresswoman who came in second behind Fernandez four years ago but trailed the field this time.
Voting is obligatory in Argentina, and nearly 29 million citizens among the 40 million population are registered. Fernandez said Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo, who is responsible for managing the election process, told her that turnout was strong and everything going smoothly.
"I've been a political activist my whole life, but I haven't always been able to vote," Fernandez said, referring to the 1966-1973 and 1976-1983 dictatorships, which tried and failed to eliminate Peronism as an electoral force. "To be able to vote freely in the Argentine republic is an achievement."
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Michael Warren can be reached at www.twitter.com/mwarrenap
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Video: Read between the lines!
3 cups of coffee a day keeps skin cancer away?
??Drinking copious amounts of coffee may reduce the risk of the most common type of skin cancer, a new study finds. Women in the study who drank more than three cups of coffee a day were 20 percent less likely to develop basal cell carcinoma.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45022843#45022843
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Falling German satellite enters atmosphere
Undated artist rendering provided by EADS Astrium shows the scientific satellite Rosat. The German Aerospace Center said the retired satellite is hurtling toward the atmosphere and pieces could crash into the earth as early as Friday. Spokesman Andreas Schuetz told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011 that most of the satellite named ROSAT, which is about the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry. (AP Photo/EADS Astrium)
Undated artist rendering provided by EADS Astrium shows the scientific satellite Rosat. The German Aerospace Center said the retired satellite is hurtling toward the atmosphere and pieces could crash into the earth as early as Friday. Spokesman Andreas Schuetz told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011 that most of the satellite named ROSAT, which is about the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry. (AP Photo/EADS Astrium)
BERLIN (AP) ? A defunct satellite entered the atmosphere early Sunday and pieces of it were expected to crash into the earth, the German Aerospace Center said.
There was no immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere, agency spokesman Andreas Schuetz said.
Most parts of the minivan-sized satellite were expected to burn up during re-entry, but up to 30 fragments weighing 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could crash into Earth at speeds up to 280 mph (450 kph).
Scientists were no longer able to communicate with the dead satellite and it must have traveled about 12,500 miles (20,000 kilometers) in the last 30 minutes before entering the atmosphere, Schuetz said.
Experts were waiting for "observations from around the world," he added.
Scientists said hours before the re-entry into the atmosphere that the satellite was not expected to hit over Europe, Africa or Australia. According to a precalculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry, but Schuetz said he could not confirm whether the satellite actually entered above that area.
The 2.69-ton (2.4 metric ton) scientific ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990 and retired in 1999 after being used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.
The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit into the earth is the telescope's heat-resistant mirror.
During its mission, the satellite orbited about 370 miles (600 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, but since its decommissioning it has lost altitude, circling at a distance of only 205 miles (330 kilometers) above ground in June for example, the agency said.
Even in the last days, the satellite still circled the planet every 90 minutes, making it hard to predict where on Earth it would eventually come down.
A dead NASA satellite fell into the southern Pacific Ocean last month, causing no damage, despite fears it would hit a populated area and cause damage or kill people.
Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile (800 kilometer) span of uninhabited portion of the world.
The NASA climate research satellite entered Earth's atmosphere generally above American Samoa. But falling debris as it broke apart did not start hitting the water for another 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the northeast, southwest of Christmas Island.
Earlier, scientists had said it was possible some pieces could have reached northwestern Canada.
The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at 1-in-2,000 ? a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are 1-in-14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
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Online:
The German space agency on ROSAT: http://bit.ly/papMAA
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Monday, 24 October 2011
Iraq's Government, Not Obama, Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence (Time.com)
President Barack Obama's announcement on Friday that all 40,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq will leave the country by New Year's Eve will, inevitably, draw howls of derision from GOP presidential hopefuls ? this is, after all, early election season. But the decision to leave Iraq by that date was not actually taken by President Obama ? it was taken by President George W. Bush, and by the Iraqi government.
In one of his final acts in office, President Bush in December of 2008 had signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi government that set the clock ticking on ending the war he'd launched in March of 2003. The SOFA provided a legal basis for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq after the United Nations Security Council mandate for the occupation mission expired at the end of 2008. But it required that all U.S. forces be gone from Iraq by January 1, 2012, unless the Iraqi government was willing to negotiate a new agreement that would extend their mandate. And as Middle East historian Juan Cole has noted, "Bush had to sign what the [Iraqi] parliament gave him or face the prospect that U.S. troops would have to leave by 31 December, 2008, something that would have been interpreted as a defeat... Bush and his generals clearly expected, however, that over time Washington would be able to wriggle out of the treaty and would find a way to keep a division or so in Iraq past that deadline." (See TIME's photoessay, "Going Home from Iraq.")
But ending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq was an overwhelmingly popular demand among Iraqis, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appears to have been unwilling to take the political risk of extending it. While he was inclined to see a small number of American soldiers stay behind to continue mentoring Iraqi forces, the likes of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on whose support Maliki's ruling coalition depends, were having none of it. Even the Obama Administration's plan to keep some 3,000 trainers behind failed because the Iraqis were unwilling to grant them the legal immunity from local prosecution that is common to SOF agreements in most countries where U.S. forces are based.
So, while U.S. commanders would have liked to have kept a division or more behind in Iraq to face any contingencies ? and, increasingly, Administration figures had begun citing the challenge of Iran, next door ? it was Iraqi democracy that put the kibosh on that goal. The Bush Administration had agreed in 2004 to restore Iraqi sovereignty, and in 2005 put the country's elected government in charge of shaping its destiny. But President Bush hadn't anticipated that Iraqi democracy would see pro-U.S. parties sidelined and would, instead, consistently return governments closer to Tehran than they are to Washington. Contra expectations, a democratic Iraq has turned out to be at odds with much of U.S. regional strategy ? first and foremost its campaign to isolate Iran.
The Iraq that U.S. forces will leave behind is far from stable, and the mounting tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia could well see a renewed flare-up of Iraq's disastrous sectarian civil war. A jihadist Sunni insurgency has reasserted itself in recent months with a steady uptick in terror attacks, and it could become a vehicle for Saudi proxy warfare against Iran, which backs the Maliki government and various Shi'ite political and military formations, including Sadr's. Kurdish-Arab tensions are growing in the north, where the fate of such contested cities as Kirkuk remains unresolved and a source of mounting security danger. Iraq's political future, also, remains contested, with sectarian and ethnic rivalries reflected in the continued failure to pass a low regulating the sharing of oil revenues, and mounting anxiety over the increasingly authoritarian approach of Prime Minister Maliki. (See photos of President Obama in Iraq.)
Iraq could yet fail as a state. But it's not as if the presence of 40,000 U.S. troops has been all that's holding it together: Those forces no longer patrol Iraq's cities, and are mostly involved in mentoring Iraqi units, although they have played a major role in mediating Arab-Kurdish conflicts in the north.
Given the unresolved political conflicts that continue to plague the country even after its transition to democratic government ? and in light of the rising levels of regional tension ? chances are high that the U.S. withdrawal will be preceded and followed by a sharp uptick in violence. Shi'ite insurgent groups are likely to escalate attacks on U.S. forces, hoping to claim credit for driving out the Americans ? and, no doubt, to please their Iranian backers. Sunni insurgent groups are likely to raise their own game, in order to challenge the Shi'ite dominated government and demonstrate its inability to ensure security ? an exercise that will suit the agenda of their own backers.
The key to ensuring security after a U.S. withdrawal has always been achieving a regional consensus on Iraq that could set the terms for political compromise inside Iraq ? or, at least, limit the likelihood of renewed violence. Unfortunately, instead, that withdrawal coincides with a sharp escalation in the Saudi-Iranian cold war, and that will spell trouble for Iraq. (See photographer Robert Nickelsberg's Iraq diary.)
Not that the U.S. will be out of the picture, by any stretch of the imagination. As things stand, the U.S. embassy in Iraq will have 17,000 employees ? including at least 5,000 "security contractors", i.e. non-uniformed military personnel. It's not hard to imagine that future training needs of the Iraqi military will be undertaken by privateers rather than under the auspices of the Pentagon. And that the CIA ? now under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, former U.S. commander in Iraq ? will play a more active role in pursuing U.S. objectives on the ground and in the neighborhood.
But as of December 31, no more American soldiers will be doing tours of duty in Iraq. The war that ousted Saddam Hussein, unleashing an insurgency that left 4,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, and which will cost the U.S. upwards of $1 trillion, is finally over. Historians will note that the U.S. invasion of Iraq precipitated dramatic changes across the Middle East political landscape in the ensuing decade. But many of those changes were hardly the ones the war's authors had in mind.
See a brief history of photographing the fallen.
View this article on Time.com
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Sunday, 23 October 2011
This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]
Oct 22, 2011 5:00 PM 8,843 
1
1 - OpenELEC Is a Fast-Booting, Self-Updating Version of XBMC for Home Theater PCs (Windows/Mac/Linux) OpenELEC aims to make home theater PCs as much like your DVD player as possible, using a lightweight, instant-on version of XBMC that updates itself for a maintenance-free media center.
- Espier Launcher Makes Your Android Phone Look Just Like iOS (Android) Android has some great advanced features, but if you prefer the simple, beautiful home screen look of iOS, Espier Launcher gives you the best of both worlds by recreating the iOS experience on your Android device-without Apple and their walled garden.
- BluePoison Disables Windows 8 Immersive Start Menu, Unlocks Hidden Features (Windows) BluePoison is a handy program for Windows 8 Developer Build that can unlock hidden features such as Moonrea (a multimedia storage and creation utility using a metro interface) and has the ability to disable Windows 8's Immersive Start Menu.
- Focusbar Intelligently Reminds You to Avoid Procrastination (Mac) If you find that procrastination often gets the best of you and you need help focusing on your work, Focusbar is a free utility that can help you out. It pays attention to what application you're using to do your work and bugs you when you sneak off to do other, less productive things.
- Lookout Enhances iPhone and iPad Security with Wi-Fi Check, Remote Management, and More (iOS) Popular mobile security app Lookout, previously available only for Android, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry users, is finally available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad folks. The free app adds protection against privacy and security threats.
- ChatON, Samsung's iMessage-Like App, Offers Free Messaging for Android (Android) Samsung's alternative texting, multimedia messaging, and chat app is now available in the Android Market. Similar to Apple's iMessage and BlackBerry's BBM service, ChatON could possibly help you save on messaging fees-once Samsung starts sending verification codes, that is.
- Text by Voice for Android Reads Incoming SMS Messages Aloud, Sends Them Using Your Voice (Android) There are a lot of apps out there that can send text messages using your voice, including Google's own in-built Voice Actions. However, not many read your incoming messages out loud when they arrive. That's where Sonalight's new app, Text By Voice, comes in.
- 500px for iPad Is a Gorgoeus Photo Browser and Slideshow Creator (iPad) 500px is a new iPad app that lets you browse some of the web's most interesting and attractive photos, and then use your iPad as a digital photo frame to display your favorites, the best from the 500px community, or your own photos, set to a soundtrack from your iTunes library.
- Volume Concierge Controls Your PC's Volume on a Schedule to Prevent Those Loud Surprises (Windows) If you've ever turned on your music in the morning only to be jolted awake by volume set to 11, Volume Concierge can save you by automatically setting your volume to different levels at a certain time of day.
- Our Pad for iPad Allows for Multiple Accounts on Facebook, Gmail, and More (iPad) One of the problems with sharing an iPad around the house is the lack of multiple user accounts, Our Pad manages to solve the problem in an official capacity by letting you switch and browse accounts inside the app.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/OZPG67SjAAA/this-weeks-top-downloads
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