Pakistan port run by China a "matter of concern" for India: minister

BANGALORE (Reuters) - China's role in operating a strategically important port in Pakistan is a "matter of concern", India's defence minister said on Wednesday, as New Delhi and Beijing jostle for influence in the region.

Indian policy-makers have long been wary of a string of strategically located ports being built by Chinese companies in its neighbourhood, as India beefs up its military clout to compete with its Asian rival in what it sees as its sphere of influence.

Management of Gwadar port, around 600 km (370 miles) from Karachi and close to Pakistan's border with Iran, was handed over to state-run Chinese Overseas Port Holdings last week.

When complete, the port, which is close to the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane, is expected to open up an energy and trade corridor from the Gulf, across Pakistan to western China.

India, the world's biggest arms importer in recent years, plans to spend around $100 billion over the next 10 years in upgrading its mostly Soviet-era military hardware to keep pace with China's ramping up of defence spending.

The country was bound to modernise its armed forces in response to China's own modernisation, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony told reporters at a press conference at an air show in the southern city of Bangalore, adding that strengthening its north-eastern border with China was not a confrontation with its neighbour.

"It is our duty. If they are doing it, we will also do it," said Antony, adding that the presence of a Chinese delegation at the show was a "welcome step," without elaborating.

Despite the push to overhaul its military, India's defence budget will not escape a tightening of government spending this year, Antony said, as New Delhi looks to rein in its fiscal deficit.

"Our priority areas will not face budget cuts. Those essential to operational preparedness, there won't be any budget cuts," Antony said.

A long-awaited deal for India to buy over 100 Rafale fighter jets from France's Dassault Aviation is being reviewed by a cost negotiation committee, Antony said, adding that the delay in finalising the deal was not due to budget cuts.

(Reporting by Anurag Kotoky and A. Ananthalakshmi; Additional reporting by Frank Daniel in NEW DELHI; Writing by Henry Foy; Editing by Matthias Williams and Jeremy Laurence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-port-run-china-matter-concern-india-minister-095902118--business.html

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Syrian capital erupts with fresh fighting

BEIRUT (AP) ? Heavy fighting between rebels and President Bashar Assad's forces broke out in parts of Damascus on Wednesday in some of the worst violence to hit the Syrian capital in weeks.

Activists said the clashes were focused in the city's western districts, and residents in the heart of Damascus said the heavy thud of shelling emanating from the neighborhoods under attack was louder than in recent months, when government forces tried to dislodge rebels from the capital's suburbs.

Damascus has not seen the scale of violence that has destroyed whole neighborhoods in Syria's other urban centers like Aleppo and Homs. While the government has lost control of parts of those cities, it has kept a tight grip on the capital despite the rebels' attempts to storm the city center from their enclaves in its outskirts.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, said Wednesday's shelling of Jobar and Qaboun is part of a wider government offensive on the towns and villages on the capital's doorstep that have been opposition strongholds since the beginning of the uprising against Assad in March 2011.

A government official said army troops are chasing rebels in the suburbs of Harasta, Sbeineh, and Jober. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Fighting also erupted in the central province of Homs, where a blast targeting a military complex early Wednesday killed an unknown number people, the SANA state news and activists said.

There were conflicting reports about the nature of the explosion in the city of Palmyra. The Observatory said a car bomb blew up near a compound that houses a military intelligence branch and a state security agency, killing several regime troops.

SANA said two suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives near a garage in a residential area of the city, killing a number of people, wounding dozens and causing significant material damage in the area.

After the blast, rebels clashed with government soldiers guarding the compound, according to the Observatory, which relies on reports from activists on the ground.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although car bombs and suicide attacks targeting state institutions have been a hallmark of Islamic militants fighting alongside Syrian rebels aiming to topple Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.

Homs has been an opposition stronghold since the Syrian uprising erupted nearly two years ago. The province and its capital of the same name were the scene of massive protests early in the revolt, which has since devolved into a civil war that has turned urban centers like Homs and the northern city of Aleppo into battlefields.

The United Nations say more than 60,000 people have been killed since conflict started in March 2011. At least 700,000 Syrians have fled their homes, seeking shelter in neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and more than one million people have been displaced within Syria during 22 months of fighting, according to aid agencies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-clashes-erupt-syrian-capital-112149794.html

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Surprise Open-Heart Surgery for Runner

Like many relatively recent college graduates, Jane Lee wasn't always on top of her doctor's appointments. She was young and had just run a half marathon, so she assumed she was in good health.

But as Lee trained for her first full marathon alongside her fraternal twin sister, she realized something was wrong. Her sister was able to run longer and faster than Lee despite their equally long training hours.

"In the last two years, my mileage was increasing a lot, and that was when I started noticing," Lee said. "She was running a lot faster and a lot farther. I thought, maybe it's because I have a heart condition."

When Lee was a baby, her mother noticed she sometimes turned blue, prompting doctors to diagnose her with a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of fallot. Lee was born with a hole in her heart, which caused the oxygen levels in her blood to drop.

Lee had a surgery to fix the hole and subsequently had a normal childhood in Los Angeles full of sports and the occasional check-up at the cardiologist's office. But when she moved to New York City after college, finding a general practitioner took a back seat to everything else in her life until she was about 25, when she noticed her athletic progress had slowed.

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"I kind of forgot about the fact that I ever had a heart condition," she said. "I was never really limited at sports."

So Lee eventually found a general practitioner, who referred her to Dr. Doff McElhinney, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. McElhinney ordered a stress test, an echocardiogram and several other tests before Lee got a diagnosis: She needed a pulmonary valve replacement, which is open heart surgery.

And she needed it soon.

"I really wasn't expecting that because I had been so healthy," she said. "I wasn't that winded during the half [marathon]."

Congenital heart defects occur in about 1 percent of live births, McElhinney said, adding that their severity can vary greatly. A congenital heart defect, or congenital heart disease, just refers to a heart abnormality the patient was born with. Some congenital heart defects require surgery within a few days of birth, but others can go unnoticed until middle age.

McElhinney said patients in their 20s and 30s who, like Lee, had congenital heart problems and surgeries as children often failed to continue seeing cardiologists until they get to him. McElhinney specializes in cardiac catheterization, which involves inserting a flexible tube, or sheath, into a blood vessel in the arm or groin, and pushing the sheath toward the heart to perform diagnostic tests.

"People who had surgery in the 1980s and then went to college may have been told when they were young that they're not going to need anything done," he said. "They went off to college and somehow got out of the care of a cardiologist."

Although the surgeries to correct heart malformations were (and are still) very good, that doesn't mean they're permanent repairs, McElhinney said. Replacement valves, for instance, don't last forever.

Problems that can arise from an untreated heart defect include pulmonary hypertension, which can cut off blood to the lungs; cardiac arrhythmias, which are irregular heart beats; an infection of the heart lining; and congestive heart failure.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/runner-congenital-heart-condition-surprise-open-heart-surgery/story?id=18412265

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Interlude: plugging ?King Leopold's Ghost? ? Creative Writing

02/05/2013

King Leopold?s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

History is usually rendered boring and inaccessible through pedantic language and an influx of context-less facts and statistics.

Hochschild removes all that and writes the story of history as if he were writing a novel. His use of imagery and figurative language builds the reader?s interest, his flow of characters make the reader greedy for the ending to find out what happens to them.

Writings about genocide frequently rely on the shocking statistics, blasted again and again in your face, intended for you to get the true scope of the horror.

Hochschild incorporates Congolese mythos around the White Man at that time to speak for the silenced African voices. There are numbers, yes, because those are undeniable, but Hochschild understands that it is not through bolded text and exclamation marks that these points are made?- he makes devastating use of pathos and humanity, narrating the book as if it is an ?In Conversation With?? As if he has the utmost faith in his readers to know Right from Wrong, so that he doesn?t yell MURDER IS WRONG every other paragraph.

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Once upon a time, cats were lonely, so they wanted someone whose only purpose in existence was to love and cherish cats. Thus, the Creative Writers were born. Out of the glowing bundle of soft and squishy warmness and fluff was a stack of Post-It notes that absolutely adored cats. Cats named that stack Midori, and that was that. View all posts by Midori

Source: http://sotacw.org/2013/02/05/interlude-plugging-king-leopolds-ghost/

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Obama taps REI chief Sally Jewell for Interior secretary (reuters)

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Honoring Those Living With Disabilities and Their Families ...

The following was provided by State Senator Katherine Clark:

Among the many challenges that individuals living with developmental disabilities face is how to learn and work right in their own communities.? When all children get a high-quality education in their own communities, adults get job training and support, and those living with disabilities receive high standards of care, we all benefit.? Community-based programs strengthen our communities, create more opportunity for more families, and make fiscal sense too. ?

Achieving this requires the daily dedication of many organizations, health care providers, and volunteers across the Commonwealth.? And it demands a commitment on our part to support them.

Last week I was honored to be recognized as Legislator of the Year by the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers (ADDP). ADDP?s mission is to promote and ensure the strength of the provider community so they can successfully improve the quality, access and value of community-based services for individuals living with disabilities and brain injuries.? I was humbled by this honor, but the success we have had is a reflection of strong partnerships with the outstanding providers who serve our district.? Three prime examples are EMARC, Triangle Inc. and NuPath.

EMARC provides educational opportunities, job training and placement services, housing supports, a food pantry, recreational activities and support groups for people with developmental disabilities and their families.? EMARC serves over 1,000 families per year and operates in all communities in our district. To learn more about the available programs, to volunteer, or to make a donation, please visit: http://www.theemarc.org/. Triangle Inc. is headquartered in Malden and serves over 3,000 people throughout Southern New England. Triangle?s school-to-career project helps high school students develop the skills they need to have success working for community-based businesses.? To learn more see: http://www.triangle-inc.org/. NuPath, headquartered in Woburn and serving many surrounding cities and towns, also provides high-quality educational, career and health and wellness programs.? You can find out how to get involved at http://nupathinc.org/.

These organizations and many like them provide outstanding services, care and educational and employment opportunities.? Even more than that, they bring families together, and they help build up our communities. Through their work, these organizations, their staff members, and the many volunteers and family members who support them remind us all that people matter.? Every person.?

Those who live with an intellectual disability or a brain injury and who struggle to remain in their home communities to get the services they need are not merely an obligation our society bears. They are individuals who deserve our respect and our compassion.? And above all: they have so much to offer us.? They are valuable contributors to our businesses, our schools and our lives, and when we support them, our communities thrive. ?

Source: http://wakefield.patch.com/articles/honoring-those-living-with-disabilities-and-their-families

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The Channels : SBCC student wins award for script in SBIFF

Gabriella Guillen walks off with a $500 gift certificate for Samy's Camera after winning the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's 10-10-10 Student Screenwriting Competition with her screenplay 'Paradise Cafe.'

Photographer: Michael Clark

Writer: Ana Mezic, Associate Editor
February 4, 2013
Filed under A&E, Area, Arts & Entertainment, Events, Film and TV, Local, Movies, Off campus, Top Stories

A City College student won the Santa Barbara Film Festival?s tenth annual 10-10-10 Student Screenwriting Competition with her dark comedy script, ?Paradise Cafe.?

Gabriella Guillen earned her award after the ten-minute films were aired and judged at 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 3 at the Lobero Theatre. The competition?s assigned genre was comedy, but each screenplay had an entirely different approach to the prompt, resulting in a dramatic win.

?I didn?t think I had a chance at all,? Guillen said. ?I was thinking ?This is so dark, no one is going to laugh, no one is going to like it.? I was so nervous. I was sure I wasn?t going to win.?

The 10-10-10 Student Filmmaking and Screenwriting Competition brings together student writers, filmmakers and industry professionals that mentor the students throughout the competition.

The screenwriters have ten days to complete a ten-minute screenplay, which is then assigned a student director who has ten days to film, direct and edit the short film. Guillen worked closely with her director, Benjamin Goalabre.

?My director was great. He was very accepting and every draft I turned in, he loved, so it was really nice to work with him,? Guillen said.

Her screenplay, ?Paradise Cafe? distorts the stereotypical genie-in-a-bottle fairytale with its bar setting and reluctant protagonist. Though it provided laughter throughout, its haunting finale left audience members with hairs raised.

?I originally wanted it to be a dark comedy because I was afraid of comedy. I?m much better at darker things, honestly, so going into it I knew what I wanted to do,? Guillen said.

This is her third year as a City College student. Beginning as a film production major, she has experienced a change of interest.

?I?m a film production student, but the past couple semesters I?ve been taking writing classes so I?m actually leaning more towards writing now,? Guillen said. ?Last semester I took a writing for television class with Ed Caplan and he pushed me towards entering [the competition].?

Outside of the Lobero, high school and college students congregated with other contestants, press and SBIFF workers. The theater quickly filled to maximum capacity speckled with parents, press and judges, but mostly young, eager faces.

?Paradise Cafe? director and City College student, Benjamin Goalabre, explained that filmmakers had to draw screenplays from a hat at random.

?I picked the best script, obviously,? said Benjamin Goalabre. ?We worked together and it went really well. She won because she had the best story.?

Guillen and Goalabre?competed with other City College students. Student director Johan Bodell led his team in creating ?Killer Raise,? a horror comedy that was one of five college-level finalists in the competition.

?Even if we don?t win, it?s a good experience,? Bodell said. ?We can submit the film to other contests and see what happens.

The winning film will be shown at the Santa Barbara Film Festival?s closing night festivities in the Arlington Theatre.

Source: http://www.thechannels.org/ae/2013/02/04/sbcc-student-wins-award-for-script-in-sbiff/

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