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A suicide attack in southern Iraq has killed at least 53 people.

Authorities say the attack christian louboutin The attack took place as many Shi’ites journeyed to the shrine to observe the end of an annual period of mourning. Security is high due to a series of attacks on Shi’ites in recent weeks.

Tensions between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq are high, especially since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country last year.

Under the regime of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, the government was dominated by Sunni Muslims.

Iraq’s present government, headed by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is dominated by Shi’ites. But it includes Sunnis and Kurds in a fragile power-sharing government that is rife with sectarian tensions.

More than 100 people have been killed in a spate of attacks on Shi’ites since the government issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi last month. He is charged with operating a death squad.

Human rights groups were more cautious. Amnesty International warned that restoration of ties could weaken the pressure to end human rights abuses in Myanmar.

Another advocacy group, the U.S. Campaign for Christian Louboutin Slingback Burma, also was wary. “We still want to wait and see what else would happen to those who are still in jail,” said a spokeswoman, Myra Dahgaypaw.

It could take several days to get an exact count of the political prisoners released, especially since the lists held by activist groups differ. Most said the number appears to be over 300.

Murray Hiebert, an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, called the cease-fire with the Karen rebels “surprising and significant,” but he added that cease-fires can easily break down.

Both sides acknowledged the agreement but provided few details. The Myanmar government says it is also negotiating with several other ethnic groups. The Karen were the only major ethnic group never to have reached a peace agreement, even temporary, with the government.

“I’d say this is one of the historic, great moments,” said Alana Golmei, a coordinator with India’s Burma Center Delhi activist group. “Guns are no solution, although there’s always a risk they could pick up guns again.”

“To say they’ve solved all the problems Christian Louboutin Toe Platform Slingbacks would be a mistake,” said Bridget Welsh, a political scientist at Singapore Management University. “But from where they’ve come in a year, it’s quite a ways.”

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung said Thai authorities received a tip-off before New Year’s of a planned attack, which was said christian louboutin to target Israelis.

“At first we were told the Palestinians were behind it but it turned out to be the Hezbollah,” he told The Associated Press.

He said police detained on Thursday a Lebanese suspect with alleged links to Hezbollah, an avowedly anti-Israel militant group.

Thai authorities had been “following two Lebanese men and called in one of them … for questioning,” Chalerm said. “Technically the two men have not committed any crimes under the Thai law, so we could only use the immigration law to keep this one suspect in custody,” he said.

Chalerm spoke hours after the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok sent an “emergency message” to American citizens earlier Friday warning of a possible terrorist attack.

The message said that “foreign terrorists may be currently looking to conduct attacks against tourist areas in Bangkok in the near future.” It urged Christian Louboutin Flats Americans to “keep a low profile” in public and to exercise caution in areas where Western tourists gather.

The statement gave no other details.

Ambassador Kristie Kenney told the AP the threat was “real and very credible.” She didn’t give any other information.

It was the first U.S. warning of a foreign terror attack in Bangkok in recent memory.

Chalerm said the danger has passed.

“I want to confirm and I am confident that we have the situation under control. And I can guarantee … no terrorist attacks will be allowed to take place. If they have disagreement, (they should) go fight somewhere else.”

Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militant group, is the most potent military force in Lebanon, far stronger than even the national army. It is backed mainly by Iran and Syria.

Friday’s terror warning comes during a period of heightened tension over U.S. and Israeli responses to the prospect that Iran is going forward with developing nuclear weapons.

Iran sees possible U.S. Christian Louboutin Muffs Furry Boots Grey complicity in a series of assassinations of its nuclear experts — the latest Wednesday, when scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed by a bomb attached to his car by a passing bicyclist.

But – as any good statistician will tell you – a sample size of one is hardly scientific.

To get a better idea astronomers christian louboutin sneaker have used a variety of methods including the Dopler effect (subtle wobbles in a star’s position caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet), and transits (periodic dips in luminosity as a planet crosses in front of its parent star) to infer the existence of extra solar planets.

Planet spotting took a huge leap forward with the launch of the Kepler Space Observatory in 2009. Using the transit method it has taken the total number of candidate planets to over 700 as it repeatedly photographs the stars in a narrow patch of space between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

Kepler’s planet count remains a work in progress, but research published in the journal Nature indicates that even its final results may represent a massive underestimate.

The team, lead by Arnaud Cassan at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, used a novel technique – gravitational microlensing – to estimate how common planets may be in the Milky Way.

After a six-year search that surveyed millions of stars they conclude that planets may be commonplace.

“Remarkably,” Professor Cassan says, “Christian Louboutin Ankle Boots the data shows that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy. We also found that lighter planets, such as super-Earths or cool Neptunes, must be more common than heavier ones.”

Using gravitational microlensing to detect exoplanets relies on the way that the gravitational field of a star acts like a lens, magnifying the light from a background star.

If the star has a planet, or planets, orbiting around it the effect will be amplified – with each planet making a detectable contribution to the brightening effect on the background star.

Microlensing is a very powerful tool, with the potential to detect exoplanets that could never be seen in any other way. But it’s also astonishingly rare – depending on the chance alignment of a background and lensing star at the precise moment that a planet transits in front of that.

The team turned up just three direct exoplanet detections in six years worth of microlensing data, but by combining that with seven sightings from previous data, and crunching the probabilities from the huge number of non-detections, they estimate that one in six of the stars hosts a planet the size of Jupiter, half have Neptune-like planets and two thirds have Christian Louboutin Simple Botta 100mm Leather Boots Coffee super-Earths.

The results, they claim, suggest that the average number of planets around a star is greater than one. Making planets the rule rather than the exception.

Supervalu Inc., the third-largest U.S. supermarket chain, on Wednesday reported quarterly sales that missed Wall Street projections, and the company lowered its full-year identical stores sales christian louboutin shoes sale forecast, sending shares down nearly 7 percent in premarket trading.

The company, which owns the Jewel-Osco, Albertsons and Save-A-Lot chains, expects a deeper sales decline for the year than it forecast in October.

Supervalu now expects identical-store sales, excluding fuel, to fall between 2.5 percent and 3 percent for fiscal 2012, which ends in March, rather than a fall of 2 to 2.5 percent.

A key performance measure, Supervalu’s identical-store sales show results from supermarkets operating for four full quarters, including store expansions and excluding fuel sales.

The Minneapolis-based company, which has been losing market share, said identical-store sales fell 2.9 percent in the latest quarter, while net sales fell 4 percent to $8.33 billion, below analysts’ average forecast of $8.42 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Supervalu has vowed to get its everyday pricing as low as bigger players Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc. amid fierce competition and rising food costs. Major supermarket chains are struggling with falling sales volumes as all but the top-earning shoppers remain very cautious about spending.

Kroger, the biggest U.S. supermarket chain, in December reported a 5 percent increase in third-quarter sales at established stores, excluding fuel.

Supervalu in October said it would Christian Louboutin Slingback build fewer Save-A-Lot discount stores than planned because licensees were having difficulty obtaining loans in a weak economy that also prompted the company to temper its full-year earnings and sales forecasts.

Supervalu stuck with that October forecast and expects to earn between $1.20 per share and $1.30 per share, excluding items, for the full fiscal year. That compares to Wall Street projections of $1.25 per share.

Supervalu reported a net loss of $750 million, or $3.54 cents per share, for the quarter that ended on Dec. 3. That compared with a year-earlier loss of $202 million, or $0.95 per share.

Excluding one-time items, such as the costs to close stores, Supervalu earned 24 cents per share, in line with analyst forecasts.

Shares in Supervalu were down 57 cents to $7.82 in premarket trading.

The departure prompted at least one brokerage to lower its rating. Citigroup downgraded the company’s stock to “sell” from “buy” and also removed it from its top picks live list.

The company, which operates the Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People and Terrain store chains, has seen its gross margins decline, as it tries to clear piled-up inventory by offering profit-draining discounts.

“Say what you will about Glen Senk’s tenure as CEO of Urban, his abrupt departure puts a major dent in our near-term confidence that a turn is indeed at hand,” Citi analyst Jeff Black wrote in a client note, cutting his price target on the stock to $20 from $34.

Urban Outfitters said Senk, who has been with the company since 1994, resigned to pursue other opportunities.

On new CEO Richard Hayne, the company’s chairman and co-founder, Black wrote, “He’s been a guiding presence at the company these last years but we don’t view him as having had a strong hand in day-to-day management.”

“Senk and CFO Eric Artz had Christian Louboutin Prive 120 Slingbacks begun to move (Urban) in the right direction on inventory, but … organizational issues could remain a serious distraction over the next year.”

Barclays Capital analyst Stacy Pak too lowered her price target on the company’s stock to $25 from $32, citing a slower-than-planned product turnaround.

Shares of Philadelphia-based Urban were down at $24.60 Wednesday in premarket trade. They had closed at $29.41 Tuesday on the Nasdaq.

Elop, a Canadian with a military general’s vocabulary and haircut, is the chief executive for Nokia. The Finnish christian louboutin sale company is the highest-volume cell phone manufacturer worldwide, but has struggled in the U.S. and in staying ahead of the technological curve.

Now, for the first time in a decade, Nokia appears to have a fighting chance in the North American phone market. AT&T Mobility will carry and help promote the Lumia 900, a Windows phone that looks to be Nokia’s flagship product, the companies announced here on Monday for the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Elop explained in an interview with CNN that the Lumia 900 will be the anchor in Nokia’s larger invasion of the elusive U.S. market. “There is much more that we can do in this battle,” he said.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announces the company\’s strategy for U.S. re-entry.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announces the company’s strategy for U.S. re-entry.

Nokia will have to lean on other phone manufacturers that are also betting on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system in order to spur interest from both consumers and application developers, Elop said. They are up against Apple, which develops iOS for its iPhones, iPads and iPods; and Google, which makes the Android software that powers most smartphones on the market.

“We believe that the industry has shifted from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems,” Elop said at Nokia’s news conference. “With Lumia, our intent has been to establish a series of beachheads.”

HTC, which fights for both the Windows and Android camps, unveiled a new Windows phone on Monday for AT&T, the Titan II. It has a giant 4.7-inch screen and an unusually beefy 16-megapixel camera.

“This is my personal device,” HTC CEO Peter Chou said at AT&T’s news conference, held on the eve of CES. “I’ve been using this all the time.”

That Chou currently favors a Windows Christian Louboutin Flats phone over one of the dozen or so more popular HTC models that run Google’s Android could signal a change in allegiance for a major smartphone player.

HTC launched the first Android phone in 2008, T-Mobile USA’s G1, and collaborated again with Google for the major Nexus One initiative. But Samsung has quickly surpassed HTC as the leading Android device maker by just about all meaningful metrics, and Google has chosen Samsung as the anointed partner for every Nexus phone since the first.

While Microsoft supporters unite, the Android army is not putting down its rifles. The number of new phones with Google software announced so far at CES is far greater than those of any other platform, including RIM (one: the BlackBerry Curve 9370 world phone for Verizon Wireless) and Apple (none).

Before AT&T and its partners made a big hoopla about the two new Windows phones on Monday, the cellular giant unveiled six Android devices: four smartphones, a waterproof tablet called the Pantech Element, and a Samsung phone-tablet hybrid with a 5.3-inch screen and stylus that’s called the Galaxy Note. Separately, LG showed the Spectrum, an Android with a 4.5-inch screen for Verizon, and Motorola Mobility issued a news release to announce new Droid devices.

Androids outnumber all other phones here, but few people in the industry are counting Microsoft out.

“It’s not a numbers game,” AT&T executive Glenn Lurie said in an interview. “It’s a quality game.”

HTC and Nokia, which are launching the new Windows phones, succeeded in creating a fair bit of hype, but they lacked some important details. Neither announced release dates or pricing.

More details from Nokia on the Christian Louboutin Suede Fringe Pumps Lumia 900 will be announced in the coming weeks, and the new phone, with its 4.3-inch screen and refined 8-megapixel camera, will hit stores in the coming months, Elop said. Nokia’s less stellar Windows phone for T-Mobile, the Lumia 710, is set to arrive on January 11, he said.

It says there are “sufficient concerns” about the recommendations on how much people should drink.

The report has been welcomed by charities christian louboutin sneaker and public health experts.

Advice on the maximum units of alcohol that should be consumed was introduced in 1987 – 21 units in a week for men and 14 for women.

In 1995, the advice was changed to recommend that men did not regularly drink more than three to four units per day. The figures were two to three units for women. It also says that after heavy drinking people should leave 48 hours for the body to recover.

The report questioned whether this “appeared to endorse daily drinking”.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

There are sufficient concerns about the current drinking guidelines to suggest that a thorough review of the evidence concerning alcohol and health risks is due”

Science and technology committee report

Alcoholic man needs new liver at 26

It said having two alcohol-free days would “would enforce the message that drinking every day should be avoided”.

It also says there “could be merit” in setting a lower limit for older people in the same manner as there are more specific rules for children and pregnant women.

The idea of increasing the daily limit, was however, ruled out.

The report highlighted problems when it came to understanding how many units of alcohol there are in a drink.

A survey by the Office for National Statistics suggested that 90% of people had heard of units, yet fewer than one in three knew how much one unit of wine was and that only 13% kept a check on the units they drank.

The report does support the concept of the unit, but said more work was needed to help people understand them.

It says: “There are sufficient concerns about the current drinking guidelines to suggest that a thorough review of the evidence concerning alcohol and health risks is due.”

Matt Maden, from Bournemouth, was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, as a result of alcohol abuse, when he was 21 years old, and now needs a liver transplant.

The chairman of the committee, Andrew Miller, said: “Alcohol guidelines are a crucial tool for government in its effort to combat excessive Christian Louboutin Sneakers and problematic drinking. It is vital that they are up-to date and that people know how to use them.”

“Unfortunately, public understanding of how to use the guidelines and what an alcohol unit looks like is poor, although improving.

“While we urge the UK health departments to re-evaluate the guidelines more thoroughly, the evidence we received suggests that the guidelines should not be increased and that people should be advised to take at least two drink-free days a week.”

Alan Maryon-Davis, a professor of public health, said: “Broadly speaking [alcohol guidelines] are fit for purpose, but they need a bit of clarification.

“The word ‘daily’ I would object to. It gives the impression that it is a good idea to drink every day, which clearly it isn’t.”

He thinks that phrases such as “in a day” or “in 24 hours” should be adopted.
Review welcome

Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, from the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said: “The main recommendation of setting up a review of evidence to come up with clear guidelines would be very valuable indeed.”

Wine and Spirit Trade Association spokesman Gavin Partington said: “People want simple, consistent advice on how to drink responsibly.

“Through our commitment to the Responsibility Deal, the vast majority of alcohol labels on UK shelves will contain responsible drinking guidelines by 2013, supported by point-of-sale information in both the on-and-off trades.”

It is estimated 6,000 babies are born every year in England with foetal alcohol syndrome because their mothers drank alcohol when pregnant

Alcohol Concern chief executive Eric Appleby said: “Accessible and reliable public information on alcohol harm is an essential element in tackling Britain’s problem with alcohol misuse. However, the government must accept that information alone is insufficient.

“With the new alcohol strategy currently being developed, the government has the opportunity to confront alcohol harm on several fronts, including minimum price control and the empowerment of communities to control local licensing.”

Chris Sorek, chief executive of alcohol awareness charity Drinkaware, said: “Drinkaware welcomes the committee’s recommendation for greater efforts on helping people understand the unit guidelines and how to use them.

“While the committee recognises that public awareness of alcohol units is now high, it supports Drinkaware’s evidence that more needs to be done to raise awareness of how many units are in alcoholic drinks.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “It’s crucial that people have good advice about alcohol so they can take responsibility for their own health.

“The current guidelines were developed following a thorough review of the evidence and consultation with experts. We will consider these recommendations and look at whether it is necessary to review our guidance.

“Next month, we are launching new Change4Life Christian Louboutin Rolando Platform Pumps Purple adverts which will advise people about the harm alcohol can do to our health. We will also shortly be publishing a strategy to tackle alcohol misuse.”

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