Business, social media to prevent babies with HIV

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) ? Business and social media leaders teamed up Friday to tackle the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies, saying the medicine and the money are largely in place, and with the right organizational skills they can eliminate HIV-infected births by 2015.

John Megrue, CEO of Apax Partners U.S., will chair a business group that includes bankers and consulting experts and will help coordinate work being done by several governments and other international donors, as well as filling in gaps in the funding.

Women need to receive antiretroviral drugs to prevent the virus being passed to their unborn babies.

"There are no technological issues around it. There are no medical issues around it. It does not exist in the wealthy part of the world," Megrue said. "But there are still almost 400,000 children a year born ? primarily in sub-Saharan Africa ? with HIV."

Ambassador Eric Goosby, a top U.S. AIDS official, said that although the group set a goal of zero transmission by 2015, in reality about 13 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers will unavoidably be born with the virus.

Randi Zuckerberg, who founded RtoZ Studios after leaving the Facebook company that her brother Mark started, will lend the power of social media to increase awareness about the issue, by pulling in 1,000 influential Twitter and Facebook users in an expansion of an earlier social media effort to raise $200 million to fight malaria.

"I'm calling this a social good broadcast experiment," she said. "The long-term vision is for this to be a group of thousands or millions of people who can all broadcast in a coordinated manner where there is a global crisis."

Other business leaders involved in the project include Dominic Barton, managing director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and Cynthia Carroll, CEO of the mining company Anglo American PLC.

"AIDS," Carroll said, "should not be a disease of children."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-01-27-EU-Davos-Forum-AIDS/id-a6f7f91405354e6486487e6f1f4ee69a

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Iran's offer to talk nukes: A win for the West? (The Week)

New York ? Tehran says it's willing to resume discussions, but insists it won't cave to foreign demands that it stop enriching uranium

Facing a potentially devastating oil embargo, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that his government was ready to resume talks with foreign leaders who want to curb Iran's controversial nuclear program. But Ahmadinejad said international pressure would not force his country to give up enriching uranium, a demand that caused talks to break down last year. Are tough sanctions working, or is Ahmadinejad just trying to trick the West into loosening the noose?

It's foolish to trust Iran: Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling mullahs aren't really seeking a nuclear truce, says Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary. They're just trying to give President Obama "an excuse to back away from the confrontation." They know Obama has to talk tough to counter election-year attacks from Republicans, but they're confident he's in no rush to start an embargo that could trigger "a spike in oil and gas prices and help send an already shaky economy into another tailspin."
"Will Obama take Ahmadinejad's bait?"

Tehran can't win this time: "No one trusts Iran" when it insists it wants only nuclear energy, not bombs, says The Seattle Times in an editorial. That's why the U.S., Europe, and even China are now hitting Iran with "hardball diplomacy." Otherwise, Tehran will never start "talking seriously" about definitively swearing off a quest for nuclear weapons. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can compete with bluster and bellicosity, but he is no match for a united front."
"Diplomats flex their economic options and Iran gets squeezed"

Iran's leaders care about survival more than nukes: "It's far too early to declare victory," says Michael Moran at Slate, but "the end is nigh." With its currency collapsing and oil revenues threatening to dry up, Tehran is getting desperate ? why else would it threaten a suicidal move like shutting down Gulf oil shipping lanes? The mullahs know their regime's very survival is at stake, and it looks like they're "interested more in self-preservation and holding onto power than in [sowing the seeds of] nuclear Armageddon."
"Iran's crisis: The Saudis in the catbird seat"

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Dow approaches highest level since 2008 crisis (AP)

The Dow Jones industrial average was trading near its highest close since the 2008 financial crisis Thursday afternoon after solid news on factory orders and strong earnings from U.S. manufacturers highlighted the economy's growing momentum.

Broader market indexes edged lower, though they are also sharply higher this year. Traders appear less afraid of spillover damage from the European debt crisis, and data on jobs and manufacturing have been consistently strong.

"With global risk off center stage and attention going back to the fundamentals, this market was ready to explode, which is exactly what it is doing," said Doug Cote, chief market strategist with ING Investment Management.

Before the market opened, the government reported that unemployment claims rose only modestly last week after a steep decline the week before. The long-term trend still indicates an improving job market.

Orders to factories for long-lasting manufactured goods increased in December for the second straight month, and a key measure of business investment rose solidly.

That strong demand was apparent in quarterly earnings reports from U.S. manufacturers. 3M stock rose 1.1 percent after its fourth-quarter profit beat Wall Street's estimates.

Caterpillar, the world's biggest heavy equipment maker, soared 3 percent, the most of the 30 companies in the Dow, after beating analysts' estimates last quarter. The company expects to do the same this year as global demand remains high.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 14 points, or 0.1 percent, at 12,771 shortly after noon. 3M and Caterpillar led the gains.

The Dow is within reach of its post-financial crisis high of 12,810, reached in April 2011. The last time it closed higher than that was on May 20, 2008, when it settled at 12,826. The Dow's post-crisis high during the trading day was 12,928, reached in May 2011.

The Dow is up nearly 5 percent so far this year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have gained even more.

The Dow would need to rise another 11 percent to get to its record high close of 14,164, reached on Oct. 9, 2007.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell three points to 1,322. It was dragged lower by volatile financial companies and telecommunications firms. The Nasdaq composite index shed seven points to 2,811.

AT&T fell 2 percent, by far the most of the 30 companies in the Dow, after its earnings missed Wall Street's forecasts. The company remains heavily dependent on the Apple iPhone, which it pays to subsidize, but recently lost its exclusive rights to sell the phone in the U.S.

Stocks had their highest close in eight months Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it plans to keep interest rates extremely low until late 2014 to encourage lending and investment and support the economic recovery.

The announcement lifted investments across many markets and continents. Bond prices rose in the U.S. and Europe. So did commodities, the euro, emerging market currencies and European stocks.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.95 percent from 1.99 percent late Wednesday. The prospect of more bond-buying by the Fed helped make Treasurys more attractive. A bond's yield falls as demand for it increases.

A strong bond auction by Italy also brightened Europe's outlook, signaling to investors that lenders believe Italy will not be dragged into the debt crisis. And Greece resumed talks with its lenders over writing off some of its crushing debt.

Benchmark indexes in France, England, Germany and Italy closed up 1 to 2 percent.

Among the other U.S. companies making big moves after reporting quarterly earnings:

? Time Warner Cable Inc. rose 7 percent after the company reported earnings that were far above analysts' estimates. The national cable TV provider also raised its dividend 17 percent to 56 cents per share and announced plans to buy back more of its own stock.

? United Continental Holdings, the parent company of United and Continental airlines, surged 7.4 percent. The company's fourth-quarter loss narrowed, its adjusted earnings were more than double what analysts had expected and the cost of integrating the two companies fell.

? Netflix soared 21.5 percent, the most of any stock in the S&P 500, after the video streaming and DVD-by-mail company reported a huge gain in customers and a bigger fourth-quarter profit than analysts had expected.

? Colgate-Palmolive rose 1.3 percent after saying it will raise prices in the U.S. for the first time in years to cover higher costs for materials. The company's profit declined last quarter, but core sales in emerging markets were much stronger.

___

Follow Daniel Wagner at http://www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street

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Simon Cowell to launch DJ talent show (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? TV personality and music producer Simon Cowell is launching a new talent competition to find the world's best DJs.

Already known to television audiences in Britain and the United States as the acerbic judge on hit talent shows like "American Idol", "The X Factor" and "Britain's Got Talent", the 52-year-old is looking to expand his empire.

"DJ's are the new rock stars, it feels like the right time to make this show," he said in a statement.

The new format will be co-produced by SYCO, Cowell's joint venture with Sony Music, and Overbrook Entertainment, a U.S. entertainment company founded by Hollywood star Will Smith.

Sony Pictures Television will also be a partner in the venture, which has been in development for more than a year. Smith's wife Jada Pinkett Smith has been involved for Overbrook.

The three parties said they would announce their broadcast partners in Britain and the United States soon.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Patricia Reaney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/people_nm/us_simoncowell_dj

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China: Overseas groups distort truth about unrest (AP)

BEIJING ? China on Tuesday accused overseas advocacy groups of twisting the truth about unrest in a politically sensitive Tibetan region in order to undermine the government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said order has been restored in Luhuo county in southwestern China after a clash Monday between police and Tibetans that left one Tibetan dead and four others injured.

Five police were also injured in the clash, Hong said. He called the Tibetans involved in the violence in Sichuan province's Ganzi prefecture a "mob" and said authorities will act firmly to fight crime and maintain order.

"Overseas forces of 'Tibet independence' have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet," Hong said in remarks carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The unrest comes amid high tensions following the self-immolations of at least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans in the past year. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Ganzi is a rugged, deeply Buddhist region filled with monasteries that has been at the center of dissent for years. It is among the traditionally Tibetan areas of Sichuan province and other parts of western China that have been closed to outsiders for months amid a massive security presence.

Tibet activist groups and witnesses said police opened fire on protesters in Monday's violence in Luhuo. The London-based International Campaign for Tibet said three Tibetans were killed and nine wounded, while another group, Free Tibet, said one died and up to 30 others were shot and wounded in Luhuo, also known as Draggo in Tibetan.

A Tibetan monk from Shouling monastery in Luhuo said in a phone interview that police fired at about 10,000 protesters, killing one Tibetan farmer and injuring 32.

"The protesters just want peace and religious freedom," said the monk who would not give his name out of fear of government retaliation. He said the demonstrators were mostly local Tibetan residents plus a few monks and Han Chinese residents.

"Today it is quiet here, but we can see police patrolling around the government offices and the monasteries," he said.

Tuesday was a holiday for the Lunar New Year and calls to the local government and Communist Party offices rang unanswered.

Xinhua said more than 100 people, including monks, gathered to attack a police station after hearing rumors that three monks would set themselves on fire.

It said some were armed with knives and hurled stones as they smashed two police vehicles and two fire engines and stormed nearby shops.

In a sign of the government's sensitivity over the unrest, state-controlled domestic media did not report it. Hong's remarks were carried only by Xinhua's English-language service and were not posted on the Foreign Ministry's website.

Many Tibetans resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule and the large-scale migration of China's ethnic Han majority to the Himalayan region. While China claims Tibet has been under its rule for centuries, many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for most of that time.

___

Gillian Wong can be reached on http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tibet

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Apple?s Q1 2012: $46.3B In Revenue, 37M iPhones And 15.4M iPads Sold

We're still a few minutes out from Apple's Q1 2012 earnings call ? but as is par for the course, the raw numbers have made their way out a bit early. And they.. are... insane.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/sPiXv2z7mN0/

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Jennifer Aniston Taking "Pregnant" Pause From Acting?

Jennifer Aniston is reportedly cutting back on her acting schedule amid the latest round of rumors that - you guessed it - the 42-year-old is pregnant.

The actress, who is dating Justin Theroux, has decided not to take on any more movies for the foreseeable future, according to the UK's Daily Mail.

She is still doing promotional work for her new comedy Wanderlust - she and Justin met on set - but Jen told her agent she wants a break afterward.

HMM.

"She wants to focus on herself and hopefully becoming a mother," says a source to the British paper, succinctly, with no evidence to support that whatsoever.

Of course, there is also an alleged professional reason: "She is thinking of launching her own fashion line which would allow her to spend more time at home."

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux recently went on vacation to Colorado, where they reportedly spent every night in together. You know what THAT means.

It means if nothing else, tabloids will have a field day, given that Brad Pitt just got Angelina Jolie pregnant with #7 recently ... according to nonsense sources.

AH, good times. Nice to see Brangelina and Anistoux powering the gossip rumor mill early and often to ensure 2012 is off to a rousing, absurd start.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/jennifer-aniston-taking-pregnant-pause-from-acting/

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Britney Spears? conservatorship is set to be dropped as she prepares to wed for the third time

The Toxic hitmaker’s father Jamie was handed control of her personal and financial affairs following her much-publicised breakdown in 2008. Spears has since got her life on track – she’s released her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale, and toured the world to promote the release. Her longtime boyfriend and former agent Jason Trawick marked the [...]

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How to Make a Boombox Out of a Toolbox [Video]

Yes, that shiny Bose dock does look out of place in your workshop. But you know what would look awesome? A homebuilt blaster made out of a shiny red toolbox. This video shows you how to do it. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/4_XV_Wguv4U/how-to-make-a-boombox-out-of-a-toolbox

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Apple announces iBooks2, a new textbook program for iPad

Apple's new textbooks for iPad will let students zoom and rotate images, watch movies, and even complete tasks like dissecting frogs

Textbooks just got a whole lot cooler.

Skip to next paragraph

At its anticipated education event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Apple announced iBooks2, a digital textbook service for the iPad.

"I don't think there's ever been a textbook that made it this easy to be a good student," Apple?s Roger Rosner said at the event.

At the very least, these digital textbooks would capture the attention of the most distracted students ? and make the rest of us want to return to school. The textbooks demonstrated at the event were fully interactive, allowing students to zoom and rotate 3D images to more fully explore the structure of DNA, for instance, or a plant cell. The digital books might also be used to dissect digital frogs, conduct genetic experiments on plants, or explore elements on the periodic table. Students raised in the YouTube and Facebook era won?t be disappointed: users of these digital textbooks can even view movies within textbook chapters.

Apple?s Phil Schiller took the opportunity to take a jab at traditional, dead tree books. ?They're not portable, not durable, not interactive, not searchable,? he said at the press conference.?

Still, for all the digital bells and whistles, iBooks2 also took a page out of traditional textbooks. As with dead tree books, students can highlight and mark up the digital texts. They can also use those highlights and notes to create virtual 3-by-5-inch study cards similar to flash cards.?

Other highlights include fairly standard iPad features like the ability to swipe across the display to open textbook pages, switch to landscape or portrait mode, and pinch and tap to zoom in or out.

To spur digital content, Apple also unveiled iBooks Author, a new platform that lets anyone create interactive e-books or digital textbooks for the iPad.

?In like five minutes flat, we created an e-book and deployed it to the iPad,? said Schiller at the New York event. ?I hope you find that as inspiring and empowering as I do.?

Starting Thursday, the books are available through a free app called iBooks2 that users can download from the App Store. The textbooks are priced at $14.99 or less, according to Apple, and once purchased, can be redownloaded at no additional charge.

The launch is part of Apple?s strategy to revamp the textbook industry, say experts. Apple has already partnered with a number of major textbook publishers, including Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, together responsible for about 90 percent of all textbooks in the US.

Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.

Join the Monitor's book discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/FZAdryXiSWU/Apple-announces-iBooks2-a-new-textbook-program-for-iPad

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Why bats, rats and cats store different amounts of fat

Friday, January 20, 2012

Animals differ in the amount of fat they carry around depending on their species, status and sex. However, the causes of much of this variation have been a mystery. The Bristol study shows that many differences can be understood by considering the strategies animals employ to avoid two causes of death: starvation and being killed by predators.

These causes of death often exert opposite pressures on animals, for example, storing lots of fat helps animals survive periods without food but also slows their running and so makes getting caught by a predator more likely. Animals can be stronger to compensate, but the energetic costs of extra muscle mean that the animal would starve quicker during a food shortage.

Led by Dr Andrew Higginson of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, the researchers used mathematical models to explore how much muscle and fat animals should have in their body to give themselves the best chance of survival. They showed that an important consideration was how much carrying fat increases the energetic costs of movement. The models revealed that the size of this cost influenced whether larger animals should have more fat than smaller animals, or vice versa.

Dr Higginson said: "Our results explain differences between different families of mammal. For example, larger bats carry proportionally less fat than small bats but larger carnivores carry more fat than small carnivores. Among rodents, it's the medium-sized species that carry around the most fat! These differences agree with the models predictions if you consider the costs of carrying fat for these three groups. Bats fly and so have high costs of carrying extra weight, whilst carnivores spend much of their time resting and so will use less energy than busy scurrying rodents."

The work, published in The American Naturalist, also shows that much of the variation between animals in their amounts of fat and muscle can be explained by differences between the sexes, how much animals have to fight to get food, and the climate in which they live.

The researchers plan to put the theory to the test by looking in more detail at the amounts of fat stored by different animals. If their theory is correct, much of the mystery in how species and sexes differ in their amount of fat will have been solved.

###

University of Bristol: http://www.bristol.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Bristol for this article.

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Search resumes above waterline after ship shifts (AP)

ROME ? The cruise ship grounded off Tuscany shifted again on its rocky perch Friday, forcing the suspension of diving search operations for the 21 people still missing and raising concerns about the stability of the ship's resting place.

However, crews began combing the area above the waterline in the evening after officials determined the ship had stabilized enough, and they will evaluate the situation Saturday morning to see if the diving operation can resume, said Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro.

The diving operation focuses on an area where passengers would have sought lifeboats, Nicastro said.

"We are ready to go for the morning," he said, as long as the partially submerged ship is not shifting.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-charted rocks off the island of Giglio a week ago. Eleven people have been confirmed dead.

It was not clear if the slight movements registered by sensors placed on board the Costa Concordia were just vibrations as the ship settles on the rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio or if the massive ocean liner is slowly slipping off the reef.

The sensors detected that the ship's bow was moving about 15 millimeters (half an inch) an hour and the stern about 7 millimeters (one-quarter inch) an hour, said Nicola Casagli of the University of Florence, who was called in by Italian authorities to monitor the ship's stability.

The Concordia's movements are being watched since any significant shift could be dangerous for divers trying to locate those missing since the Concordia ran aground Jan. 13. An additional fear is that movement could damage tanks holding a half-million gallons of fuel oil and lead to leaks.

The sea floor drops off sharply a few meters (yards) from where the ship is resting, and Italy's environment minister has warned it risks sinking.

Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship before everyone was safely evacuated, is under house arrest, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

On Friday, relatives of some of the 21 missing were at Giglio's port getting briefings from rescue teams.

Casagli told Sky TG24 that some movement in the Concordia was only natural given the immense weight of the steel-hulled ship, which is being held in place by two huge rocks at bow and stern.

But the latest movements indicate it isn't stable, he said. "These are small, regular movements that are being monitored because they're going in the same direction," he told Sky.

Late Thursday, Costa-owner Carnival Corp. announced it was conducting a comprehensive audit of all 10 of its cruise lines to review safety and emergency response procedures in the wake of the Costa disaster. The evacuation was chaotic and the alarm to abandon the ship was sounded after the Concordia had capsized too much to get many life boats down.

____

Andrea Foa contributed from Giglio, Italy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Finance Defends Bain, Misses Point ? Interloper

Reformed Broker and Epicurean Dealmaker recently provided a necessary service in defending Bain Capital from scurrilous and misinformed attacks. I suggest, however, that this ?rallying of the finance troops? is an example of preaching to the converted, and talking over the heads of an increasingly motivated anti-finance movement. Again, the anti-Bain idiocy deserved a corrective response and both Josh and TED did so effectively. However, there is a sense in which the argument is merely shoring up the walls of the finance cocoon.

The Other End of the Pendulum

It is possible to view the socioeconomic conditions of 2005 as the converse of 1975. Thirty years ago, corporate management was largely powerless in the face of labor power, taxes were extreme and government intervention was the ?vampire squid? of the age.? Profits sucked and unless investors were fully exposed to the major geopolitical clusterfuck of Iran-related East tensions, returns were scarce to non-existent.? Beginning with Reagan, the pendulum began to swing back, slowly crushing labor and, for our purposes, culminating with the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

To be employed in finance in the 75-05 period was to believe fully in the primacy of bottom line, profit-related orthodoxy. If nothing else, it sustained the efforts to clear the political and regulatory anti-business, socialist clutter of 1970s. As an organizing principle, faith in the bottom line provided the advantages of clarity and measurability in addition to the obvious outsized creation of wealth.? Bain Capital, among many others, is the walking, talking, strutting embodiment of this thirty-year transition ? the realization of a Platonic form dreamed up by William F. Buckley and other 1970s-era pro-business conservatives.

The Financial Crisis was a clear representation of the other end of the socioeconomic pendulum, and the excesses, arrogance, avarice and overall public destructiveness of finance was clearly analogous to that of organized labor and misguided government in the 70s. To blindly defend Bain now is to associate ourselves with the spluttering, enraged defenders of organized labor in the early 80s. In both cases, an intellectually-consistent orthodoxy not acclimated to criticism had ceased to function for wide segments of the population, in the current case the un- or under-employed.

We are conditioned, in finance, to accept as an axiom that aggregate corporate profitability should be the end goal of almost all government policy.? Primarily, we only really argue about the means to achieve this. Outside of the finance cocoon however, this is exactly the mode of thinking they believe is the problem.? For people who haven?t experience real wage growth in a couple decades (i.e almost everybody in numerical terms), finance-generated, corporate profit-friendly policy solutions to the current economic malaise are a ridiculous, tragic joke. ?Oh, really? You want license to fire more of us in the pursuit of productivity?? While cutting unemployment insurance? Where do I sign up??.

Incumbent politicians and the banking industry will use all of their considerable intellectual capital to maintain the current, rent-seeking status quo. The truth in the end, however, is that many of the actions of the investment banks during the lead up to the GFC were entirely indefensible, and eventually history will show this. It does not, importantly, mean that the economically important aspects of finance should be ?thrown out with the bathwater? of reform or that every element of the business is corrupt.? But, in defending the finance industry from attempts to reform we are going to have to understand that for most Americans, referrals to the benefits of increased profitability are going to fall on deaf, increasingly angry ears.

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Source: http://interloping.com/2012/01/18/finance-defends-bain-misses-point/

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NewsDaily: U.S. adds partners to communications satellites

U.S. adds partners to communications satellites

---

By Andrea Shalal-EsaPosted 2012/01/17 at 8:57 pm EST

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2012 (Reuters) ? Canada and four other countries will contribute $620 million toward the $1 billion cost of building and operating a ninth satellite in a new U.S. military communications system, a move that will improve cooperation among those countries and save money at a time when defense budgets are shrinking.

U.S. officials also said on Tuesday they would negotiate with Boeing this year about work on a tenth satellite approved by Congress in the fiscal 2012 defense appropriations bill; the company, the prime contractor on the $10 billion satellite program, last week won a $377 million contract to build the satellite.

The United States, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands had signed a 20-year memorandum of understanding cementing the partnership for the satellite system on January 12, building on an existing bilateral agreement with Australia on the Wideband Global Satellite Communications (WGS) program signed in 2007.

Officials from all seven countries met in Washington on Tuesday for an initial steering meeting on the program.

The agreement went into force last week, and a Dutch military official said his country had begun using satellite communications from the three WGS satellites already in orbit.

The U.S. Air Force is due to launch a fourth satellite on Thursday from Cape Canaveral.

Tightening budgets and greater reliance on coalitions for warfighting have increased the number of weapons programs that involve funding and participation by foreign governments.

For instance, Lockheed Martin Corp is developing the next-generation F-35 fighter for U.S. military forces and eight international partners.

OPEN TO FURTHER EXPANSION

U.S. officials said they remained open to expanding the cooperation agreement if other countries were interested, but there were no specific expansion plans at the moment.

The deal gives Canada and the other countries access to critical wideband satellite services that carry large bandwidth and high data rate communications to military forces around the globe at a rate corresponding to their level of contribution.

Heidi Grant, U.S. Air Force deputy undersecretary for international affairs, said the agreement would strengthen ties among the partner countries, improve the resiliency of military communications, provide greater operational flexibility, and enhance the ability of allied forces to work together.

She said battlefield demand for information was at a record high and expanding exponentially given how important satellite communications have become to military operations.

Lieutenant Colonel March Assel with the Luxembourg military said the agreement was a "golden opportunity" for a small country like his to have access to a global satellite system.

U.S. Major General John Hyten, director of space programs for the U.S. Air Force acquisition office, said the primary driver for the partnership was operational, but said the deal would also have "huge" financial benefits for the United States and its partners at a time when defense budgets are falling.

WGS, the next-generation wideband satellite communications system, is augmenting and replacing the current Defense Satellite Communication System.

CODE OF CONDUCT

Separately, the U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced that the United States would join with the European Union and other nations to develop an international code of conduct that would establish guidelines for responsible use of outer space.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States had a vital interest in protecting its space systems from space debris and irresponsible actors, but would not sign a code of conduct that "in any way constrains our national security-related activities in space or our ability to protect the United States and our allies."

There are about 60 countries and government consortia that operate satellites, and the Pentagon tracks about 22,000 objects in space, of which about 1,100 are active satellites.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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Another day in the sun for Wentworth (Offthekuff)

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The week at the White House: jobs, campaign dollars (Washington Bureau)

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Experimental Drug Might Help Some a Bit With Colon Cancer (HealthDay)

TUESDAY, Jan. 17 (HealthDay News) -- The experimental cancer drug regorafenib appears to extend survival slightly in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, a new trial indicates.

Regorafenib is a so-called multikinase inhibitor, which targets several of the ways cancer develops and grows, researchers said.

"The drug was tested on patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who had progressed after standard therapies, meaning they had no treatment options available," lead researcher Dr. Axel Grothey, a professor of oncology at the Mayo Clinic, said during a noon press conference at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The drug is designed to stop tumor progression, both by preventing cancer cells from growing and by preventing these cells from developing the blood vessels needed to keep them alive, the researchers explained.

In the trial, more than 700 patients with metastatic colon cancer were randomly selected to receive regorafenib or placebo.

In addition, all patients received care to treat symptoms, but not to change the course of the disease, the researchers noted.

Treatment included antibiotics to fight infections, painkillers and corticosteroids.

The investigators found that patients taking regorafenib survived an average of 6.4 months, compared with five months for those receiving a placebo -- an increase in survival of 29 percent.

In addition, 44 percent of the patients taking regorafenib responded to the drug or had their cancer slowed, compared with 15 percent of the patients receiving placebo, they reported.

Based on these findings, the trial was stopped in October so that all patients could be offered the drug.

The trial was funded by the maker of regorafenib, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals.

"The drug helped patients live longer," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. "But you have to keep in mind that these patients had advanced disease."

And, the gains were modest, he added. "Patients who got the drug lived about one month longer. Unfortunately, the difference between the groups in the time it took for the disease to get worse was small -- about six days," he said.

Lichtenfeld thinks that using the drug earlier in treatment might have more impact. "But not every drug, when moved earlier in the course of the disease, is necessarily proven to be effective," he cautioned.

Grothey noted regorafenib is being tested in a phase 2 trial in patients with earlier stage colorectal cancer, in hopes that the results will be even more dramatic.

Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more on colon cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120118/hl_hsn/experimentaldrugmighthelpsomeabitwithcoloncancer

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UK scientists find 'lost' Darwin fossils (AP)

LONDON ? British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years.

Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.

Using a flashlight to peer into the drawers and hold up a slide, Falcon-Lang saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq."

"It took me a while just to convince myself that it was Darwin's signature on the slide," the paleontologist said, adding he soon realized it was a "quite important and overlooked" specimen.

He described the feeling of seeing that famous signature as "a heart in your mouth situation," saying he wondering "Goodness, what have I discovered!"

Falcon-Lang's find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker ? a botanist and dear friend of Darwin ? and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin's mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker.

The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate's career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution.

Falcon-Lang said the unearthed fossils ? lost for 165 years ? show there is more to learn from a period of history scientists thought they knew well.

"To find a treasure trove of lost Darwin specimens from the Beagle voyage is just extraordinary," Falcon-Lang added. "We can see there's more to learn. There are a lot of very, very significant fossils in there that we didn't know existed."

He said one of the most "bizarre" slides came from Hooker's collection ? a specimen of prototaxites, a 400 million-year-old tree-sized fungus.

Hooker had assembled the collection of slides while briefly working for the British Geological Survey in 1846, according to Royal Holloway, University of London.

The slides ? "stunning works of art," according to Falcon-Lang ? contain bits of fossil wood and plants ground into thin sheets and affixed to glass in order to be studied under microscopes. Some of the slides are half a foot long (15 centimeters), "great big chunks of glass," Falcon-Lang said.

"How these things got overlooked for so long is a bit of a mystery itself," he mused, speculating that perhaps it was because Darwin was not widely known in 1846 so the collection might not have been given "the proper curatorial care."

Royal Holloway, University of London said the fossils were 'lost' because Hooker failed to number them in the formal "specimen register" before setting out on an expedition to the Himalayas. In 1851, the "unregistered" fossils were moved to the Museum of Practical Geology in Piccadilly before being transferred to the South Kensington's Geological Museum in 1935 and then to the British Geological Survey's headquarters near Nottingham 50 years later, the university said.

The discovery was made in April, but it has taken "a long time" to figure out the provenance of the slides and photograph all of them, Falcon-Lang said. The slides have now been photographed and will be made available to the public through a new online museum exhibit opening Tuesday.

Falcon-Lang expects great scientific papers to emerge from the discovery.

"There are some real gems in this collection that are going to contribute to ongoing science."

Dr. John Ludden, executive director of the Geological Survey, called the find a "remarkable" discovery.

"It really makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections," he said.

____

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

____

Online:

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/archives/jdhooker/home.html

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_darwin_fossils

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Video: ?Tabatha Takes Over? a gay dance club!

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Americans Aren't Getting Any Skinnier (HealthDay)

TUESDAY, Jan. 17 (HealthDay News) -- One in three American adults and one in six American children are obese, new government reports show.

That's the bad news. The good news is that over the past 12 years, those rates have remained roughly the same.

"The stabilization of obesity rates has been going on for some time. And, this is not just the U.S. It's happening all over the world," said Katherine Flegal, author of the reports and a senior research scientist with the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Even if we can just keep the prevalence rates the same, we're doing well," said registered dietitian Nancy Copperman, director of public health initiatives in the Office of Community Health at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.

"It's as if you're on an expressway going 65 miles per hour. You can't suddenly throw the car in reverse. You have to slow down before you can reverse course. Hopefully, what we're doing now is slowing down so we can reverse course," Copperman said.

The reports on the obesity trends -- one on adults and one on children and teens -- are published in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Flegal is the lead author of the study on obesity in adults, and the senior author on the study on obesity in children and adolescents.

The consequences of obesity are far-reaching. People who are obese are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, certain cancers, high cholesterol, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and gynecological problems, according to the CDC.

The estimated medical costs of caring for the obese average about $147 billion a year, the CDC estimates.

In the current study of obesity trends in adults, Flegal and her colleagues reviewed data from the most recent U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), from 2009 to 2010. They compared this data to older adult obesity data from 1999 through 2008. The newer set of data included nearly 6,000 adult men and women. The older set of data included almost 23,000 American men and women.

According to the latest data, the average body mass index (BMI) was 28.7 for men and women. BMI is a rough estimate of a person's body fat. The higher the number, the more overweight or obese a person is. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is overweight in an adult, and 30 or above is considered obese for an adult, according to the CDC. This means the average American is overweight, but not obese.

However, the rate of obesity was nearly 36 percent for both adult men and adult women in 2009 to 2010. In general, this rate has remained stable since 1999, according to the study.

Several groups did see small, but statistically significant increases in the rate of obesity over the 12-year study period. They included non-Hispanic black women, and Mexican-American women and men, according to the study.

The second study compared the most recent obesity figures (2009-2010) in children and teens from NHANES to obesity trends from six other surveys dating back to 1999 to 2000. The most recent data included 4,111 American children.

In 2009 to 2010, nearly 17 percent of children and adolescents were obese and almost 32 percent were overweight or obese, according to the study. Obesity rates from 2007 to 2008 and 2009 to 2010 stayed the same. The researchers did find an increase in the prevalence of obesity in male children and teens when they compared the most recent figures to 1999 to 2000.

In infants, overweight is measured through weight-for-recumbent length. Almost 10 percent of infants had a high weight-for-recumbent length measurement. But, this rate was the same in 2009 to 2010 as it was in 1999 to 2000, except for one group. Mexican-Americans infants were more likely to have a high weight-for-recumbent length than infants born to other groups.

"We need to think about the populations that are shown in these studies to have a higher prevalence of obesity, and what interventions we can do," Copperman said. "We need to figure out what is different about them, and we may need to tailor prevention specifically to those populations."

Copperman also said it's important to focus on prevention to avoid obesity in the first place. "When you look at this from a public health perspective, it's easier to prevent something than to let it run its course and then try to treat it. Being overweight and obese isn't just a cosmetic thing, it's a disease," she added.

More information

Learn more about living at a healthy weight from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120117/hl_hsn/americansarentgettinganyskinnier

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Hulu challenges cable with first original drama (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Hulu, the popular online video service, has taken another step to becoming a full-fledged alternative to cable television by commissioning its first scripted original TV show to go live next month.

The new political documentary-style drama "Battleground" is set in Wisconsin and executive-produced by JD Walsh, Hagai Shaham and Marc Webb. It follows Hulu's first original documentary series Morgan Spurlock's "A Day In The Life."

The majority of Hulu's programming to date has been licensed from its parent companies, News Corp, Walt Disney Co and Comcast Corp's NBC Universal, as well as other program makers.

Andy Forsell, Hulu's programming executive, said Spurlock's show had been a success based on data it collected on its audience, but he declined to reveal the program's view counts.

Spurlock's series is being followed up with a second season and being joined by another six-episode documentary series called "Up to Speed" by Richard Linklater, who is perhaps best known for movies "Dazed and Confused" and "School of Rock".

The challenge for Hulu is to ensure it can generate a return on investment in expensive content like scripted drama, which is typically more costly than producing a documentary or reality show.

"We can make the economics work, I've got a budget for originals but there's not the same pressure as a traditional network since we don't have worry about filling airtime," Forsell said.

The original shows will be available on Hulu's free Web service rather than just to its paying Hulu Plus subscribers as the start-up increases its user base and builds its reputation for original programming. But Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said the dual revenue model of advertising and subscription fees is key to Hulu's future.

"At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50 percent more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services," Kilar said in a blog post on Friday.

PAYING SUBSCRIBERS

Hulu said on Friday it had more than 1.5 million paying subscribers at the end of 2011, and revenue grew 60 percent to $420 million.

Early last year, Kilar forecast that Hulu would generate around $500 million in revenue during 2011. The revenue miss was indirectly blamed on a "soft advertising market" in the second half of the year.

Like other Web companies trying to bring more TV shows and movies online, Hulu is in a race with rival Netflix Inc to buy and develop more content to add to and maintain its subscriber base.

Kilar said the company will spend around $500 million on content in 2012 covering new content acquisition, re-licensing existing content on the service and originals. It is an increase from the $375 million it said it spent last year.

Netflix, which has some 23 million U.S. subscribers, said last March it had secured exclusive rights to the 26-episode television series "House of Cards" a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher.

It was reported last year that Netflix would spend around $100 million to produce the show.

Services like Netflix are increasingly being recognized as direct competition or replacements for premium cable channels such as Time Warner Inc's HBO and CBS Corp's Showtime.

(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120115/en_nm/us_hulu

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Anti-sense might make sense for treating liver cancer

ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2012) ? A new study shows that it is possible to selectively target and block a particular microRNA that is important in liver cancer. The finding might offer a new therapy for this malignancy, which kills an estimated 549,000 people worldwide annually.

The animal study, by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC -- James) and at Mayo Clinic, focused on microRNA-221 (miR-221), a molecule that is consistently present at abnormally high levels in liver cancer.

To control the problem molecule, the researchers designed a second molecule as a kind of mirror image of the first. That mirror molecule is called an antisense oligonucleotide, and it selectively bound to and blocked the action of miR-221 in human liver cancer transplanted into mice. The treatment significantly prolonged the animals' lives and promoted the activity of important tumor-suppressor genes.

"This study is significant because hepatocellular carcinoma, or liver cancer, generally has a poor prognosis, so we badly need new treatment strategies," says principal investigator Thomas Schmittgen, associate professor and chair of pharmaceutics at Ohio State's College of Pharmacy and a member of the OSUCCC -- James Experimental Therapeutics program.

The findings are published in the journal Cancer Research.

For the study, Schmittgen and his colleagues injected liver cancer cells labeled with the luminescent lighting-bug protein luciferase into the livers of mice. The researchers used bioluminescence imaging to monitor tumor growth.

When the tumors reached the appropriate size, they gave one group of animals the molecule designed to block miR-221; the other group received a control molecule.

Key findings include the following:

• After treatment with the antisense oligonucleotide, half the treated animals were alive at 10 weeks versus none of the controls.
• The antisense oligonucleotide significantly reduced levels of miR-221 in both tumor and normal liver samples.
• Treatment with the antisense oligonucleotide caused a three-fold increase in the activity of three important tumor-suppressor genes that are blocked by miR-221 in liver cancer. (The tumor suppressors were p27, p57 and PTEN.)

"Overall, this study provides proof-of-principle for further development of microRNA-targeted therapies for hepatocellular carcinomas," Schmittgen says.

Funding from the National Cancer Institute and from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases supported this research.

Other researchers involved in this study were Jong-Kook Park, Jinmai Jiang, Lei He, Ji Hye Kim, Mitch A. Phelps, Tracey L. Papenfuss and Carlo M. Croce of Ohio State; Takayuki Kogure and Tushar Patel of Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida; and Gerard J. Nuovo.

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Journal Reference:

1. J.-K. Park, T. Kogure, G. J. Nuovo, J. Jiang, L. He, J. H. Kim, M. A. Phelps, T. L. Papenfuss, C. M. Croce, T. Patel, T. D. Schmittgen. miR-221 Silencing Blocks Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Promotes Survival. Cancer Research, 2011; 71 (24): 7608 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-1144

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120103135458.htm

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Ind. House Democrats stall session over labor bill

Bob Hedrick, Max Hutka and Steve Adams, from left, wait outside of the Statehouse, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. The Legislature prepares to convene and Republicans vow to push to make Indiana the first state in a decade to enact labor legislation that would ban labor contracts requiring all workers to pay union fees, minority Democrats consider their options for blocking the bill. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Bob Hedrick, Max Hutka and Steve Adams, from left, wait outside of the Statehouse, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. The Legislature prepares to convene and Republicans vow to push to make Indiana the first state in a decade to enact labor legislation that would ban labor contracts requiring all workers to pay union fees, minority Democrats consider their options for blocking the bill. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Penny Shepherd; of Merrillville, Ind, wears a rats outfit as she protest outside of the Statehouse Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Protestors rally outside of the House Chamber at the Statehouse Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer speaks during a news conference at the Statehouse Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. Indiana's House Democratic leader said Wednesday that party lawmakers will stall work in the chamber until certain demands are met over a Republican right-to-work bill that was blocked last year by their five-week boycott. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Speaker of the House Brian Bosma speaks during a news conference at the Statehouse Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Democrats were poised to sit out another day of the Indiana House session on Thursday as they try to stop their state from becoming the first in more than a decade to enact right-to-work legislation.

Nearly three dozen Democrats holed up inside a small Statehouse conference room for more than three hours Wednesday, the first day of the 2012 session. They debated behind closed doors, between bites of pizza, about how they would block the divisive labor bill that they halted last year with a five-week boycott.

The measure would bar businesses and private unions from mandating that workers pay union fees for representation. Lawmakers from the House blocked the bill last year by leaving the state for weeks, denying Republicans the two-thirds attendance needed to conduct business.

This time, Democrats said they planned to stall work indefinitely.

"What's the urgency?" House Democratic Leader Patrick Bauer said Wednesday. "They are ignoring the public input."

Bauer, who led last year's walkout, said Republicans were "railroading" the revived measure through the chamber and more public hearings should be held.

Most Indiana House Democrats were no-shows on the floor Wednesday when House Speaker Brian Bosma tried three times to gavel the House into order. He plans to try again Thursday, and said a Democratic boycott won't lead Republicans to back off on the bill.

"We will do our very best to encourage them to do what is right, which is to show up at work and do what they were elected to do," Bosma said. "Democracy is about participating, not going on strike."

He said a joint hearing of the House and Senate labor committees on the bill will take place as scheduled Friday, although the House committee might not be able to take a vote on the proposal.

Bosma and other Republicans contend that the measure got a thorough vetting during a series of hearings last summer.

If Indiana passes the measure, it would be the first state to enact such a law since Oklahoma in 2001, and the 23rd overall. Supporters say it would help attract new business to the state. Opponents call it an attempt to weaken organized labor.

Getting the law passed would be a major victory for national conservatives and business groups, after more than a dozen states considered such legislation last year but none adopted it. It would be another blow to unions, which have fought initiatives to curb labor rights that followed nationwide Republican legislative wins in 2010.

Bauer said his members would not leave Indianapolis this year but would "filibuster" until Bosma agrees to more public hearings. He did not specify how many, but said he wants to meet with Bosma to discuss what it will take for Democrats to return to their seats. Bosma said earlier in the day Wednesday that he had requested meetings with Bauer three times and had not heard back.

When asked how long the Democrats will stay out, Bauer said, "that time schedule is not in our hands."

Rep. Craig Fry, D-Mishawaka, had called a walkout "the only way" to block the bill.

After Democrats walked out last year, the Republican-led Legislature adopted new fines of $1,000 a day on each lawmaker who boycotts their chamber for more than three days in a row. Concern about the 2012 elections and public response to another walkout may have made some lawmakers wary of another.

Some Democrats broke ranks throughout the day and joined Republicans in the House. Up to six Democrats could return to their seats and there would still not be enough lawmakers to conduct business.

As the vast majority of Democrats holed up inside the conference room just steps from the House chamber, union protesters packed the halls outside the room and cheered Democrats on. Others lined sidewalks outside. The protest crowds were smaller than the largest ones seen during last year's session.

Bosma has said Democrats were bowing to pressure from union leaders, and complained that Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott spoke to Democrats at their closed-door meeting Wednesday.

However, Bosma and other Republicans pushing the measure have maintained similarly cozy relationships with the state's business lobbyists, keying them in on their plans well ahead of time.

The Indiana AFL-CIO has been airing TV and radio ads targeting Republicans who may be vulnerable in the 2012 elections if they vote in favor of the measure. Bosma and Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels have been airing their own ads throughout the state in support of it, and the National Right to Work Committee has sent staffers to the state to build grass-roots support for the measure.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-05-Indiana-Right%20to%20Work/id-383a7222f07649f68ed642477c2573a4

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File sharing as religious community in Sweden

(AP)? STOCKHOLM ? A file-sharing group that considers itself a spiritual organization said Thursday that Sweden has recognized it as a religious community.

According to documents provided by spiritual leader Isak Gerson, 20, his Church of Kopimism received that approval in late December. The public authority responsible for such decisions was closed for the day and couldn't be reached to confirm the approval, which comes amid a global crackdown on file-sharing websites often used to illegally download movies, TV shows and music.

Gerson said in an interview that some of the church's roughly 3,000 members meet every week to share files of music, films and other content they consider holy and regard copying as a sacrament. He said the church's philosophy opposes copyrights in all forms and encourages piracy of all types of media, including music, movies, TV shows, and software.

The recognition of the Church of Kopimism follows a fierce debate in Sweden about illegal file-sharing over the Internet of copyright-protected films and music. This Nordic country ? home to the men behind the file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay ? already has a political party called The Pirate Party that seeks to reform copyright laws and holds a seat in the European Parliament.

Gerson, a philosophy student, has also been involved in the Pirate Party's youth organization.

Sweden's government defines religious communities as ones that conduct religious activities and services, entitling them to file separate applications for state funding and the right to marry couples. The country also has recognized believers of Norse paganism, elves and gnomes as religious communities.

Gerson said the Church of Kopimism feels strengthened by the government's recognition but that he doesn't think it can stop the law from charging members for illegal file-sharing.

"Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step toward the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution," he said.

The group said it had sent in three applications to the Kammarkollegiet agency to gain approval as a religious community because the agency had been "strict with formalities."

"I think it might have something to do with the governmental organizations abiding by a very copyright friendly attitude, with a twisted view on copying," said Gustav Nipe, the chairman of the Church of Kopimism's board.

____

Malin Rising can be reached at http://twitter.com/malinrising

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/s6ha3a6bw8Y/

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