German businesses, consumers upbeat despite crisis (AP)

BERLIN ? German business and consumer confidence ended 2011 on a high note despite ongoing fears about the European economy, two closely watched surveys showed Tuesday.

The Ifo Institute's monthly index of business confidence increased to 107.2 points from 106.6, as participants' assessment of their current situation remained unchanged but expectations for the next six months rose.

"Overall, latest Ifo data give ground for optimism that the German economy will weather the ongoing negative influence from eurozone debt crisis developments and the general worsening of prospects for external demand from the rest of Europe fairly well," said Timo Klein, an economist with IHS Global Insight.

Economists had been predicting a drop to 106 amid weakness in the global economy and serious concerns about the financial future of several eurozone countries.

"The German economy seems to be successfully countering the downturn in Western Europe," said Ifo president Hans-Werner Sinn. "This bodes well for Christmas."

Consumer confidence also proved resilient, according to the GfK research institute's forward-looking indicator for January. It remained unchanged from December's 5.6 points as people were optimistic "despite rising economic risks and further escalation of the debt crisis."

There were mixed messages from the survey, however, as German income and economic expectations both rose but consumers' willingness to buy dropped significantly, GfK said.

"Willingness to buy did not benefit from the improvement in economic and income expectations..." Gfk said, noting that it still remained at a "comparatively high level."

GfK said its survey of 2,000 consumers was almost complete before the most recent EU summit in Brussels and that it is unclear whether the inclination to hold back on purchases may now be resolved with the broad agreement reached there.

But it also said that while economic expectations are "defying the rising fears of recession," that might change as the debt crisis hurts German exports.

"With most German companies operating at above average capacity, the labor market is very robust and unemployment figures continue to fall," GfK said. "Whether this trend can be sustained remains to be seen ? the European debt crisis is increasingly likely to become a problem for Germany's export economy."

Dutch consumer confidence, by contrast, fell sharply in December to below the deepest lows of 2008 and 2009, according to a new report Tuesday.

The differing outlook is unusual, given the two economies' close trade links and common view on economic policy, as the Dutch government has consistently backed German policies throughout the crisis.

The country's Central Bureau for Statistics pointed to worries over the Dutch housing market, wage stagnation, and forecasts for a mild recession in the Netherlands in 2012 as key differences.

Ifo, which surveyed approximately 7,000 German businesses, said that their assessment of their current situation remained unchanged for the third month in a row, while expectations for the next six months ticked up for the third month in a row.

Earlier this month, Ifo lowered its forecast for German growth for 2012 to 0.4 percent because of the financial turmoil and a cooling global economy.

The government's independent economic advisers last month predicted that output would expand by 0.9 percent in 2012. Both forecast growth of 3 percent this year.

Another German think tank, the IfW institute, on Tuesday lowered its 2012 growth projection from 0.8 percent to 0.5 percent, while Essen's RWI institute lowered its forecast from 1 percent to 0.6 percent.

Carsten Brzeski, an economist with ING Global Research said that while it is clear that the German economy is cooling, the Ifo results indicate it is "heading towards a soft patch but not falling off the cliff."

"The length of the soft patch will to a large extent be determined by the management of the debt crisis," he said. "The German economy should remain the stronghold of the Eurozone. It is faltering, but not falling."

_____

Toby Sterling in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111220/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_economy

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Genome tree of life is largest yet for seed plants

Friday, December 16, 2011

Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, The New York Botanical Garden, and New York University have created the largest genome-based tree of life for seed plants to date. Their findings, published today in the journal PLoS Genetics, plot the evolutionary relationships of 150 different species of plants based on advanced genome-wide analysis of gene structure and function. This new approach, called "functional phylogenomics," allows scientists to reconstruct the pattern of events that led to the vast number of plant species and could help identify genes used to improve seed quality for agriculture.

"Ever since Darwin first described the 'abominable mystery' behind the rapid explosion of flowering plants in the fossil record, evolutionary biologists have been trying to understand the genetic and genomic basis of the astounding diversity of plant species," said Rob DeSalle, a corresponding author on the paper and a curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology who conducts research at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics. "Having the architecture of this plant tree of life allows us to start to decipher some of the interesting aspects of evolutionary innovations that have occurred in this group."

The research, performed by members of the New York Plant Genomics Consortium, was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Plant Genome Program to identify the genes that caused the evolution of seeds, a trait of important economic interest. The group selected 150 representative species from all of the major seed plant groups to include in the study. The species span from the flowering variety?peanuts and dandelions, for example?to non-flowering cone plants like spruce and pine. The sequences of the plants' genomes?all of the biological information needed to build and maintain an organism, encoded in DNA?were either culled from pre-existing databases or generated, in the field and at The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, from live specimens.

With new algorithms developed at the Museum and NYU and the processing power of supercomputers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and overseas, the sequences?nearly 23,000 sets of genes (specific sections of DNA that code for certain proteins)?were grouped, ordered, and organized in a tree according to their evolutionary relationships. Algorithms that determine similarities of biological processes were used to identify the genes underlying species diversity.

"Previously, phylogenetic trees were constructed from standard sets of genes and were used to identify the relationships of species," said Gloria Coruzzi, a professor in New York University's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the principal investigator of the NSF grant. "In our novel approach, we create the phylogeny based on all the genes in a genome, and then use the phylogeny to identify which genes provide positive support for the divergence of species."

The results support major hypotheses about evolutionary relationships in seed plants. The most interesting finding is that gnetophytes, a group that consists mostly of shrubs and woody vines, are the most primitive living non-flowering seed plants?present since the late Mesozoic era, the "age of dinosaurs." They are situated at the base of the evolutionary tree of seed plants.

"This study resolves the long-standing problem of producing an unequivocal evolutionary tree of the seed plants," said Dennis Stevenson, vice president for laboratory research at The New York Botanical Garden. "We can then use this information to determine when and where important adaptations occur and how they relate to plant diversification. We also can examine the evolution of such features as drought tolerance, disease resistance, or crop yields that sustain human life through improved agriculture."

In addition, the researchers were able to make predictions about genes that caused the evolution of important plant characteristics. One such evolutionary signal is RNA interference, a process that cells use to turn down or silence the activity of specific genes. Based on their new phylogenomic maps, the researchers believe that RNA interference played a large role in the separation of monocots?plants that have a single seed leaf, including orchids, rice, and sugar cane?from other flowering plants. Even more surprising, RNA interference also played a major role in the emergence of flowering plants themselves.

"Genes required for the production of small RNA in seeds were at the very top of the list of genes responsible for the evolution of flowering plants from cone plants," said Rob Martienssen, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "In collaboration with colleagues from LANGEBIO [Laboratorio Nacional de Genomica para la Biodiversidad] in Mexico last year, we found that these same genes control maternal reproduction, providing remarkable insight into the evolution of reproductive strategy in flowering plants."

The data and software resources generated by the researchers are publicly available and will allow other comparative genomic researchers to exploit plant diversity to identify genes associated with a trait of interest or agronomic value. These studies could have implications for improving the quality of seeds and, in turn, agricultural products ranging from food to clothing.

In addition, the phylogenomic approach used in this study could be applied to other groups of organisms to further explore how species originated, expanded, and diversified.

"The collaboration among the institutions involved here is a great example of how modern science works," said Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, a term assistant professor at Columbia University's Barnard College and a research associate at the Museum's Sackler Institute. "Each of the four institutions involved has its own strengths and these strengths were nicely interwoven to produce a novel vision of plant evolution."

###

American Museum of Natural History: http://www.amnh.org

Thanks to American Museum of Natural History for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116103/Genome_tree_of_life_is_largest_yet_for_seed_plants

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World's shortest woman wants to be Bollywood star (omg!)

AGPUR, India (AP) ? A high school student in central India was recognized as the world's shortest woman by Guinness World Records on Friday as she turned 18, saying she hopes to earn a degree and make it in Bollywood.

Jyoti Amge stood just 62.8 centimeters (24.7 inches) tall ? shorter than the average 2-year-old ? when Guinness representatives visiting from London measured her at a ceremony attended by about 30 family and friends in the town of Nagpur, in Maharashtra state.

A teary-eyed Amge, dressed in one of her finest saris, called the honor an "extra birthday present" and said she felt grateful for being small, as it had brought her recognition. After receiving a plaque, she and her guests cut a birthday cake.

"I have put Nagpur on the world map. Now everyone will know where it is," said Amge, who says she dreams of one day becoming a Bollywood film star as well as pursuing a university degree after she finishes high school this year.

"I want to be an actor," she said.

She measured 7 centimeters (2.76 inches) shorter than the 22-year-old American Bridgette Jordan, who had held the title since September.

"Jyoti encourages us all to look beyond mere size and to just celebrate our differences," Guinness adjudicator Rob Molloy said.

This was not Amge's first Guinness record. Until Friday she was considered the world's shortest teenager, but in turning 18 qualified for the new title. She has grown less than 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) in the last two years, Guinness said in a statement, and will grow no more due to a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia.

Her teenage title brought the chance for multiple Guinness-sponsored trips to Japan and Italy for tours and meetings with other record holders, she said.

The title of shortest woman in history continues to be held by Pauline Musters, who lived in the Netherlands from 1876 to 1895 and stood 61 centimeters (24 inches) tall.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_worlds_shortest_woman_wants_bollywood_star105024752/43924865/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/worlds-shortest-woman-wants-bollywood-star-105024752.html

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Gaddafi's death may be war crime: ICC prosecutor (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? The death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was captured and killed by rebels in October, may have been a war crime, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Thursday.

"I think the way in which Mr Gaddafi was killed creates suspicions of ... war crimes," ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters.

"I think that's a very important issue," he said. "We are raising this concern to the national authorities and they are preparing a plan to have a comprehensive strategy to investigate all these crimes."

Under pressure from Western allies, Libya's National Transitional Council has promised to investigate how Gaddafi and his son Mo'tassim were killed.

Mobile phone footage showed both alive after their capture. The former Libyan leader was seen being mocked, beaten and abused before he died, in what NTC officials said was crossfire.

The U.N. Security Council referred Gaddafi's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators to the ICC in February and authorized military intervention to protect civilians in March. The ICC indicted Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and the former intelligence chief for war crimes.

Saif al-Islam is now in the custody of the Libyan authorities who have said they plan to try in him in Libya instead of handing him over to The Hague-based ICC. Moreno-Ocampo has said this was possible.

Moreno-Ocampo has also said he was investigating allegations that the anti-Gaddafi forces and NATO were also guilty of war crimes during the civil war.

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111216/wl_nm/us_libya_icc

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APNewsBreak: Feds say Arpaio violated civil rights (AP)

PHOENIX ? The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release, is a result of the U.S. Justice Department's three-year investigation of Arpaio's office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency's top level.

The Justice Department's conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government's harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field.

Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.

The civil rights report said federal authorities will continue to investigate complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos, whether the sheriff's office failed to provide adequately police services in Hispanic communities and a large number of sex-crimes cases that were assigned to the agency but weren't followed up on or investigated at all.

The report took the sheriff's office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes. Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office, known as MCSO, has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.

"Arpaio's own actions have helped nurture MCSO's culture of bias," wrote Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, adding that the sheriff frequently gave such racially charged letters to some of his top aides and saved them in his own files.

"MCSO is broken in a number of critical respects. The problems are deeply rooted in MCSO's culture," he said Thursday.

The Justice Department's expert on measuring racial profiling said it's the most egregious case of racial profiling in the nation that he has seen or reviewed in professional literature, Perez said.

Investigators interviewed more than 400 people, including Arpaio, reviewed thousands of documents and toured county jails as part of its probe, he said.

If the sheriff's office doesn't turn around its policies and practices, the federal government could pull millions of dollars of federal funding.

Arpaio's office did not immediately respond to AP requests for comment.

The report will require Arpaio to set up effective policies against discrimination, improve training and make other changes that would be monitored for compliance by a judge. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement. If not, the federal government will sue him and let a judge decide the complaint.

Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, has long denied the racial profiling allegation, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants.

Arpaio has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.

The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff's office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.

One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.

The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.

The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.

A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops ? almost all involving Latino drivers ? that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.

Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the U.S. legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city ? in some cases, heavily Latino areas ? over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.

Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff's posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."

The report said that the sheriff's office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 letter about a person's dismay over employees of a McDonald's in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn't speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer "for the info," said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of "for our operation."

Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.

Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.

The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.

Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.

The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.

The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff's office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.

Federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sheriff's office has limited the willingness of witnesses and victims to report crimes or talk to Arpaio's office.

"MCSO has done almost nothing to build such a relationship with Mariciopa County's Latino residents," Perez wrote.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_sheriff_civil_rights

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Newt and Mitt assailed in Iowa (Politico)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa ? It was back to the ?90s on the stage here Thursday night, as Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney battled decades-old attacks on their conservative credentials and business records in the final debate before the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Under harsh attacks from their underdog opponents and persistent scrutiny from the Fox News debate moderators, the two Republican front-runners both tried to avoid an 11th-hour stumble.

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Gingrich attacked on Freddie

Gingrich appeared to get the rougher end of the bargain, finding himself on the defensive from the very first question.

The former House speaker vehemently denied charges that he made a fortune in the influence business, betrayed conservatives as a leader in Congress and lacks the temperament to be president.

Under assault from multiple opponents over his work as a consultant for the troubled lender Freddie Mac, Gingrich declared that money had not influenced his political views.

?I have never once changed my positions because of any kind of payment,? Gingrich said, brushing aside the barb. ?I was a national figure who was doing just fine doing a whole variety of things, including writing bestselling books.?

Accused by both Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann of being unfriendly to core conservative voters, Gingrich urged voters to look at his record.

?I think on the conservative thing, it?s sort of laughable to suggest that somebody who campaigned with Ronald Reagan and with Jack Kemp and has had a 30-year record of conservatism is somehow not a conservative,? Gingrich said.

Attacked for having once suggested he?d support Republicans who support some abortion rights, Gingrich shot back: ?I said I wasn?t gonna go out and purge Republicans.?

Romney, too, struggled to fight off charges of ideological insincerity, taking issue with Fox host Chris Wallace when he suggested that Romney had shifted positions on gay rights and gun-related issues since running for Senate against Ted Kennedy 17 years ago.

?I do not believe in discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation,? Romney said. ?In 1994 and throughout my career, I?ve said I oppose same-sex marriage.?

Romney acknowledged, as he has before, that his position on abortion changed over time.

He also addressed the attack ? leveled by both Gingrich and the Democrats ? that as a private equity executive he was responsible for laying off thousands of American workers.

?In the real world, some things don?t make it, and I believe I?ve learned from my successes and my failures,? Romney said. ?We did our very best to make those businesses succeed. I?m pleased that they did.?

Gingrich and Romney didn?t direct attacks at each other. But Bachmann, Santorum and Ron Paul were more than happy to do the honors.

More often than not, they aimed at Gingrich.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1211_70535_html/43922802/SIG=11mbpv7jl/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70535.html

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Saddam Hussein Plates: U.S. Returns Stolen Items To Iraq

NEW YORK -- Authorities in New York City say the United States is giving the Iraqi government stolen dinnerware once used by Saddam Hussein.

Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that stolen china that belonged to King Faisal II also was turned over to Iraqi diplomats.

U.S. authorities had learned in November that the items had been smuggled into the country and sold on eBay Inc.'s online auction site to an art group in New York City.

The group had been using some of the plates in an art exhibit. It agreed to voluntarily turn over the items to the U.S. government to be returned to Iraq.

The Iraq dictator was captured by U.S. forces in 2003 and executed in 2006.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/saddam-hussein-plates-us-iraq_n_1149893.html

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