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Monday, November 28, 2011
'Dark Knight Rises' News: Christian Bale Ditches Batman, Talks Cast
"Dark Knight Rises" watchers, today's your lucky day! We're kicking the week off right with no less than three items straight out of Gotham City and into your virtual reading space, including new interviews with Christian Bale and some terrifying thoughts on what the new "Dark Knight Rises" trailer might look like.
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Australian boy, 14, sentenced in Bali for drugs (AP)
BALI, Indonesia ? An Australian teen was sentenced to two months in detention Friday for buying drugs while vacationing with family on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.
Presiding Judge Amzer Simanjuntak told the packed Denpasar district court that ? when taking into account time already served ? the 14-year-old would be freed in just over a week and immediately deported.
The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, sat sobbing, his head bowed, as his father patted him on the back consolingly while the judge spoke.
Though he could have faced up to 12 years under Indonesia's tough narcotics laws, the panel of three judges said it decided to be lenient because he admitted to buying 3.6 grams (0.13 ounces) of marijuana from a man in front of a supermarket and repeatedly expressed remorse.
The teen, who has been in an immigration detention center since his Oct. 4 arrest, earlier promised to enter a drug rehabilitation program if he was allowed to return to his home in Morrisset Park, just north of Sydney.
He said he had been struggling for some time with his addiction.
Australia ? which has seen dozens of its citizens jailed or placed on death row for drug possession in Indonesia ? had been closely watching the trial.
Many argued the boy was too young to be jailed.
But critics noted that dozens of Indonesian children tied up in people-smuggling cases have been languishing for years in Australian detention centers.
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
Telmex investing in fiber to bring speed up to 20 Mbps | Mexico
Mexican fixed-line telecoms giant Telmex (NYSE: TMX) is investing in upgrading its network to fiber in different parts of the country, with speeds up to 20 Mbps, and will continue to invest as demand dictates, company CFO Carlos Robles said during a conference call with investors.
?We are making investments in different areas of the country, areas which we think are most suitable for those types of speeds because they have applications and uses for them,? Robles said.
?These are speeds of up to 20 Mbps, which by any references in the market are interesting for our customers.?
Asked when the company might start offering speeds of up to 50 Mbps, Robles said: ?Once the market is ready for speeds higher than 20 Mbps, we?ll launch those products.?
The executive said Telmex ended the third quarter with 7.8mn broadband customers, up 9% from the year-ago period. Robles would not say how many of those customers have speeds of 20 Mbps.
Telmex provides broadband through its Infinitum service, packaged with unlimited domestic and long distance voice calls. Customers of those services will be the first to benefit from the fiber-to-the-home upgrades.
Robles said the current offer by parent company Am?rica M?vil (NYSE: AMX) to buy the 40% of Telmex it does not already own would not affect the planned fiber investments.
In the third quarter, Telmex saw profits fall 3.8% to 3.59bn pesos (US$268mn), and sales slipped 2.9% to 27.8bn pesos, as the company has suffered from being unable to offer broadcast TV ? and hence triple play services ? due to licensing restrictions.
Reference: Business News Americas.
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
Iran threatens to hit Turkey if US, Israel attack
Members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij force, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, attend a rally in front of the former US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Militant Iranian students seized the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, believing the embassy to be a center of plots against Iran, and then held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The US severed diplomatic ties in response, and the two countries have not had formal relations since. The men's headbands bear the names of Shiite saints, including Hussein.(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij force, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, attend a rally in front of the former US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Militant Iranian students seized the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, believing the embassy to be a center of plots against Iran, and then held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The US severed diplomatic ties in response, and the two countries have not had formal relations since. The men's headbands bear the names of Shiite saints, including Hussein.(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? A senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard says the country will target NATO's missile defense shield in Turkey if the U.S. or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards' aerospace division, is quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying the warning is part of a new defense strategy to counter what it sees as an increase in threats from the U.S. and Israel.
He says Iran will now respond to threats with threats rather than a defensive position.
Tehran says NATO's early warning radar station in Turkey is meant to protect Israel against Iranian missile attacks if a war breaks out with Israel.
Turkey agreed to host the radar in September as part of NATO's missile defense system.
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Gingrich could draw GOP ire on immigration
FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at a town meeting at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)
FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at a town meeting at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)
FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential hopeful former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista buy a pork chop lunch as they campaign at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gestures during a news conference at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. Gingrich has never been a conventional Republican and he certainly doesn't see it as the way to catch Mitt Romney. He's not backing away from his unorthodox stand on immigration, which critics call amnesty. But party insiders wonder if a thrice-married, 68-year-old with a multimillion-dollar Freddie Mac contract is the best choice to face President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter, File)
ATLANTA (AP) ? Newt Gingrich has charged into the fray over illegal immigration, risking conservative ire just as his Republican presidential campaign ? once declared all but dead ? has vaulted into front-runner status.
The firebrand former House speaker broke with what has become a reflexive Republican hard line on immigration, calling for "humane" treatment for otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for decades, establishing deep family and community ties.
Gingrich suggested they should be provided a pathway to legal residency but not citizenship. Republicans, he said, should see illegal immigrants through the prism of another issue near and dear to the GOP faithful: family values.
"I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter-century," Gingrich said at a televised debate Tuesday night.
The response was swift.
Some conservatives asserted he had wounded his candidacy, perhaps fatally.
"Newt did himself significant harm tonight on immigration among caucus and primary voters," tweeted Tim Albrecht, deputy chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, whose state holds the lead-off caucuses in January.
Immigration has proven to be politically treacherous for Republicans trying to appeal to the party's conservative base. Just ask Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who said critics of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants "did not have a heart." Perry had to apologize for the remark.
William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said Gingrich's campaign "will now take the 'Perry plunge.'"
But others praised Gingrich for emerging as a "voice of reason" on an emotionally charged topic.
"With me, personally, I fall right in line with him," said Columbia, S.C., Gingrich supporter Allen Olson, a former tea party official. "It's utterly impossible to round up 12 million people and ship them off."
The stance is not a new one for Gingrich. Aides say he was saying the same thing at town halls and forums long before he was running for president. It's laid out clearly on a campaign Web page.
What is new is the scrutiny he's receiving. Recent polls have shown Gingrich at or near the top of the Republican field, along with Mitt Romney. With a little less than six weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, people are listening to the former Georgia congressman.
And far from a stumble, Tuesday night's remarks seemed a calculated tactic to draw a contrast with Romney, whom he now sees as his chief rival to the party nomination and who has had his own trouble with conservatives, largely because of the health care overhaul law he pushed through as governor of Massachusetts.
But Romney has been tough on illegal immigration while running for president. He said Tuesday night that what Gingrich was proposing would act as a magnet for foreigners to enter the country illegally.
The Gingrich team countered by pointing to comments Romney made on NBC's "Meet the Press" in 2007, during which he called proposals similar to the one Gingrich was backing "reasonable."
In Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday, Romney didn't address those past comments directly.
"My view is that those people who have waited in line patiently to come to this country legally should be ahead in line," he told reporters. "And those people who have come here illegally should not be given a special deal."
Opponents of illegal immigration say Gingrich has a checkered history on the topic.
While in Congress, Gingrich voted for amnesty for illegal immigrants in 1986 and for smaller, more specific amnesties throughout the 1990s, said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which advocates tighter immigration controls. The organization gave Gingrich a "D'' for his time in Congress.
Beck said he believed Gingrich was playing to the Republican establishment, which has been softer on illegal immigration than the grass-roots wing of the party.
But the Gingrich team worked furiously Wednesday to fend off a potential backlash, rushing out several news releases praising his stance, including one with remarks from the son of former President Ronald Reagan.
"My father never would have broken up a family to try and make, in fact, a point on immigration," Michael Reagan said on Fox News. "And so he would have applauded Newt Gingrich on that."
Gingrich himself said he is "prepared to take the heat for saying let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship."
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chuckled when asked about Gingrich's remarks. Chambliss was booed in 2007 at an annual meeting of the Georgia Republican Party for championing an amnesty program similar to what Gingrich is pushing now. One of his critics at the time, Chambliss said, was Gingrich.
"But I wouldn't underestimate Newt," Chambliss continued. "He's one of the smartest politicians out there, and don't think he hasn't thought this through."
___
Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Tom Beaumont in Iowa contributed to this report.
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Rats help Colombia sniff out deadly landmines (Reuters)
BOGOTA (Reuters) ? In a laboratory on the grounds of a police-guarded complex, 11 white-furred rats wait their turn to impress trainers and perhaps receive a bit of sugar as reward.
The rodents could play an important role in making conflict-wracked Colombia safer. They are in the final stages of a training program to find landmines that kill or injure hundreds of people each year in Colombia.
The government project, which began in 2006, trains specially bred rats to detect the metals used in landmines, thousands of which have been laid during the country's decades-long conflict with left-wing guerrillas.
Colombian scientists decided to use rats because, like the dogs more traditionally used in land mine detection, they have a highly developed sense of smell. But the rats are lightweight and unlikely to detonate mines.
The rats are first taught to recognize voice commands and the specific smells of metals used in landmines, and then to work in large, outdoor areas, where the rodents will sniff and scratch when they find mines, as watchful handlers who will be well-trained in demining stand close by.
It has taken government scientists five generations of rats to be confident their training program is thorough enough to begin sending rats out into the countryside.
In the laboratory, an element of instinct has been built into the training, with baby rats scurrying after their mothers in plastic mazes during practice sessions. The mothers show their young how finding the dead end containing the same wires and metal pieces used in landmines can earn you a treat.
"These rats will be a great help, and will provide great input to those trying to carry out demining," said Erick Guzman, the police official and former canine handler who now is responsible for much of the rats' outdoor training.
"We are hoping that this generation will be ready at the beginning of next year to be tested in a real environment," he added as his favorite rat Sophie perched on his shoulder.
LANDMINES A CONSTANT MENACE
Experts say it is impossible to estimate the number of undetonated mines which remain in Colombia, but their impact is horrifying real.
In the first half of 2011, for example, mines killed 40 people and injured another 247, government statistics show. That compared with 535 dead and injured throughout 2010.
Experts confirm that most mines are planted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), other guerrilla groups and criminal gangs to deter security forces. The government says 31 of the country's 32 provinces may contain mines.
"Contrary to what you see in other countries that have signed the Mine Ban Treaty, mines continue to be planted in our country ... while other countries continue to get the number of mines down, ours goes up," Luisa Fernanda Mendez, the scientific director of the rat program said.
Landmines are a pressing problem for security forces. More than half, or 63 percent, of land mine victims are military and police personnel, according to government figures.
Land mine clearance in Colombia is unusually slow-going because mines are sown in very close proximity to each other in rural areas only, making clearance operations treacherous.
The Colombian government cleared less than a tenth of a square mile in all of 2010, but uncovered a total of 194 explosive devices.
Non-government organizations (NGOs) in Colombia have until recently only been allowed to help land mine victims, not to mount demining operations themselves.
"Currently there is no humanitarian demining process except the one undertaken by the armed forces ... we have objections to that demining because, in our judgment, the process is not compatible with international standards for humanitarian demining," said Alvaro Jimenez, the national coordinator of the Colombian Campaign Against Mines.
"Demining should be a development carried out in service of the community, and the community should participate in all the steps."
The Organization of American States hopes to help NGOs expand their fledgling demining operations. They have mounted a program, to be completed by the end of the year, to train and accredit NGO demining teams to work in Colombia.
But despite any critiques of the government's current demining effort, rat project director Mendez has high hopes.
"If we do not begin to master the demining process, we will never complete the terms of the treaty, and moreover, we'll never have a free countryside," she said, while giving the rat crawling up the sleeve of her lab coat an affectionate pat.
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A bigger, better Infinity Blade 2 coming to iOS devices December 1 (Appolicious)
Developer ChAIR Entertainment raised the bar on what the iPhone (as well as iPad and iPod touch) was capable of creating in terms of graphics, and the original Infinity Blade was among the first games to use publisher Epic Games? Unreal Engine 3 to render its realistic 3-D graphics.
With Infinity Blade, ChAIR and Epic set a new standard on the kinds of games that could be brought to Apple?s mobile devices. The title featured a simple premise that had players taking on the role of a lone warrior venturing through a series of sword duals on the road to fighting the God King, a powerful final boss. When players were killed by the God King (as they often were), they would take on the role of their former character?s descendant ? retaining all the equipment and powers they had gained along the way ? to give battling the God King another go. The game packs graphics on-par with some console video games, and the developer received awards as well as plenty of sales for the title. The graphics on Infinity Blade 2, as you can see below, do not disappoint.
A hard act to follow
The follow up to Infinity Blade has some serious shoes to fill, but ChAIR is bringing quite a few new features to bear with the title. Right out of the gate, the game is optimized for Apple?s top-of-the-line hardware, leveraging the power of the dual-core A5 chips found in the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. Graphically, Infinity Blade 2 should follow its predecessor in setting the bar for graphics on mobile devices across the board.
ChAIR is also bringing back everything that worked about Infinity Blade including its low-impact navigation system, simple but responsive touch controls and focus on a few core elements of sword-dueling fun. It's adding a lot more to the package the second time around. There?s a much bigger emphasis on the game?s storyline this time out, whereas Infinity Blade had very little. In fact, Epic and ChAIR have released a novella on iTunes called ?Infinity Blade: Awakening,? which bridges the gap between the two games.
In terms of technical improvements, ChAIR has worked on Infinity Blade 2?s touch controls to make them more responsive and let players feel more attuned to the actions of their characters. Sword-fighting is handled in much the same way: players dodge, block or parry enemy attacks until they can find an opening in that enemy?s defenses, at which point they slash away as quickly as possible to rack-up damage.
Bigger and better
But around this simple kernel, a lot of cool new things have been added. Navigation is straightforward, but the game world has been substantially expanded. You won?t just gather new equipment, you?ll actually gather materials to improve the items you find or forge new ones. ChAIR also added new fighting styles for players to explore. Instead of just battling with a sword and a shield, for instance, you?ll now be able to wield two weapons at once (or a two-handed weapon). All three styles fundamentally change the way you?ll have to approach Infinity Blade 2?s battles.
While ChAIR is improving a lot of what the first Infinity Blade had to offer for its second go-round, what is most interesting is how much the game is going to take advantage of everything that Apple?s iOS system has to offer. Along with the use of the A5 chip for some of the most stunning graphics available on the platform, the game will use iCloud to allow players to switch devices mid-game. Additionally, gamers will be able to take advantage of features found exclusively within iOS 5, Apple?s mobile operating system that debuted earlier this year. This includes playing the game on a TV screen using iOS 5?s HDMI output feature.
Infinity Blade 2 stands ready to be the first iOS title to really make use of everything the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iOS 5 have to offer. It?s hard not to be excited for ChAIR?s new release. It has a hefty pedigree to live up to following its first title, but it sounds like Infinity Blade 2 is going to be the game that sets the high water mark for iOS titles in 2012.
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Thursday, November 24, 2011
Why gratitude is good for business, year round - Fortune Management
By Vickie Elmer, contributor
FORTUNE -- When Kristina Bouweiri started hosting customer appreciation lunches in 2009, she thought she was just helping a friend boost her lagging business.
Little did she know that the lunches, which have been held in posh restaurants around Washington, D.C. like The Palm and Capital Grille, would introduce her to almost 900 of her clients, giving her own business a jolt.
Bouweiri's unexpected success is testament to the power of appreciation and gratitude in business.
"Instead of going after new business, we decided to go back to old clients and thank them, and develop relationships," she says. For almost 20 years, her company Reston Limousine had done little or nothing to thank its almost 20,000 clients. Now, says Bouweiri, "I consider it the most important initiative that I have."
As opposed to showing appreciation one day a year -- at Thanksgiving or New Year's or in an annual customer appreciation sale -- some businesses are building it into their daily and weekly plans and policies. And they are seeing the benefits to this approach: Workers are often more engaged when they feel appreciated and customers are more likely to come back and give referrals.
"Gratitude motivates positive reciprocal behavior," says Randy Raggio, a marketing professor at the University of Richmond. If a customer believes that a business has his best interests at heart, that customer is more inclined to develop a long-term relationship with the business.
Raggio first grew interested in gratitude in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when the state of Louisiana ran a thank-you-for donations campaign. Many people who saw the campaign were more likely to donate or volunteer in the future, according to his research, even those who had not previously participated in that particular campaign.
A business might show their appreciation by having private sales for their best customers, by offering a few chocolates with the bill, or simply by saying thanks for your business. It needs to be genuine and it's better if it's not open to all.
Customer appreciation, Raggio says, usually comes in the form referring a friend, writing a positive review online, or perhaps a willingness to pay more later on.
For years, Susan Whitcomb says she has made good use of gratitude at her Fresno, Calif.-based leadership coaching business, The Academies. This year, she decided she would write a list of "10 things I'm grateful about you" for each of her four staffers, which she says she'll give to them just before Thanksgiving. One of the notes acknowledges a colleague's "courage to stretch," learn to make sales calls, manage others, and her "commitment to make me look good."
While she admits that she cannot quantify how that has helped her businesses, Whitcomb says she knows it has helped during the recession's slowest months.
Gratitude is an effective tool largely because "it is a precursor to develop trust," says Betsy Bugg Holloway, a marketing professor at Samford University in Birmingham, Al. And trust itself is an extremely powerful driver for loyalty, no matter the type of relationship. Just the same, gratitude is only valuable when it comes across as genuine.
"It's not meant to be any magical formula for wealth," says John Kralik, author of A Simple Act of Gratitude. He started writing notes in 2008, as his life and law firm were both suffering. His firm was losing money and had lost its office lease. "I was very embarrassed that I couldn't provide the Christmas bonuses that I had always provided to my employees," he recalls.
So he wrote appreciation notes to his staff, and sent similar notes to clients who paid their bills on time. He wrote to his children, his friends, and to lawyers who sent a client his way. Kralik says one of the lawyers wrote back to him, saying that he had no idea Kralik would want a client like that. "If you like one, I have 10 more," the lawyer wrote.
He sees the link between the thank-you notes and his business thriving again. "As you take care of the paying clients, they pay even faster. They value you," he says. One client's timely check allowed his firm to relocate and pay the new rent. Others brought him more business. "When you're feeling especially crummy, it's a good time to sit down and write about 10 thank-you notes," Kralik says.
Heidi Kallett had been sending out thank-you notes, but she was looking for another way to keep her stationery and gifts stores, The Dandelion Patch, going. So she and her friend, the limousine company owner, came up with what they thought would be a one-time client appreciation lunch, and invited administrative assistants at the companies that used the limousine company.
The lunches work especially well because assistants are hardly invited to special meals but often watch their bosses head off to a fancy business lunch.
"We don't sell anything. It's very low key. We just stand up and introduce ourselves for two minutes," says Kallett. Then they give away door prizes and swag bags.
Bouweiri came up with a dozen other local business owners who also would be interested in meeting her clients; these partners and others now sponsor the event - and serve as "ambassadors" for the limo company in their circles.
The appreciation lunches have paid off: Last year, revenues at the company increased by 27%, mostly as a result, she says, of the client appreciation lunches, which are held about 10 times a year. Even when she raised rates 10% and added a fuel surcharge in September 2009, "customers were not batting an eyelash. We've created long-term lasting relationships," she says.
"I came up with this idea because I was trying to help Heidi -- and I ended up helping myself," said Bouweiri.
Source: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/23/why-gratitude-is-good-for-business-year-round/
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AP Sources: Talks resume toward ending NBA lockout (AP)
NEW YORK ? Talks aimed at ending the NBA lockout have resumed, two people with knowledge of the situation said Wednesday, with a quick settlement necessary to start the season by Christmas.
The discussions began quietly Tuesday and are expected to continue through the Thanksgiving holiday, the people told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the talks were supposed to remain confidential.
The talks between representatives of the owners and players are now centered on settling their lawsuits: The players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league in Minnesota and the league filed a pre-emptive suit in New York, seeking to prove the lockout was legal.
Neither side commented on the talks, first reported by Yahoo Sports, though the league said in a statement it "remains in favor of a negotiated resolution" to the lockout.
The news revived the hopes of saving the Christmas slate, when the league schedules some marquee matchups to kick off its national TV package. The NBA finals rematch between Dallas and Miami was to headline three games this season
The league had wanted to open a 72-game schedule on Dec. 15, pushing the start of the playoffs and finals back a week, if players had agreed to the last offer. But players rejected the owners' most recent proposal on Nov. 14, announcing instead they were disbanding the union to pave the way to sue the league.
The plan now would be for 66 games if a resolution comes soon. The league played a 50-game schedule in 1998-99 during its last lockout, when a deal didn't come until January, so there's still hope of some games this season even if it doesn't include Christmas.
Commissioner David Stern has said it would take about 30 days from an agreement to the start of the regular season.
David Boies, one of the attorneys representing the players, has repeatedly said he hoped the league would be compelled to settle rather than risk a potentially lengthy trial that could end with players being awarded about $6 billion in damages.
Because the union disbanded, it cannot negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, but the settlement talks could lead to that. The CBA can only be completed once the union has reformed.
When talks broke down, the sides were still divided over the division of revenues and certain changes sought by owners to curb spending by big-market teams that players felt would limit or restrict their options in free agency. Owners are insistent on a 50-50 split of basketball-related income. Union officials indicated they could be open to that, even though they were guaranteed 57 percent in the old CBA, but only if the league conceded on some of the "system" issues.
With the union no longer representing the players, it was unclear who was involved in the new round of talks. NBPA executive director Billy Hunter is officially part of the players' legal team so he's able to take part in the talks, though his participation in negotiations could strengthen the league's contention that the disclaimer strategy was a "sham" and the union hadn't really gone anywhere.
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Sehwag falls after Windies score 590 in Mumbai (Reuters)
MUMBAI (Reuters) ? India lost opener Virender Sehwag after the hosts had made a flying start to their pursuit of West Indies' imposing total, reaching the lunch interval on 74 for one wicket on the third day of the third and final test at Wankhede Stadium on Thursday.
Sehwag (37) began in typical explosive fashion as India looked to eat into the tourists' first innings tally of 590, hitting three fours and a six, before he was bowled by West Indies captain Darren Sammy.
Medium-pacer Sammy, who was swatted for a six by Sehwag in his first over, managed to breach the right-handed batsman's defence with a ball that moved back off the pitch after the openers had put on 67 for the first wicket.
At the interval, Gautam Gambhir (30) and Rahul Dravid (one) were together at the crease.
Sehwag and Gambhir took India past 50 in just the 11th over of the innings but the hosts slowed down considerably after the fall of the wicket, adding just seven runs in 4.3 overs up to the break.
Earlier, India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin completed his second five-wicket haul in three tests as West Indies were finally dismissed for an imposing 590 in the morning.
Resuming on their overnight score of 575-9, the visitors, who won the toss and opted to bat first, added 15 runs in 3.1 overs before Devendra Bishoo was bowled by Ashwin.
Ashwin, 25, who grabbed a maiden five-wicket haul on debut in the first test in Delhi, finished with figures of 5-156 from 52.1 overs.
Building on half-centuries from the top six batsmen, including Darren Bravo's classy 166, the West Indies total has almost certainly ended any hope India had of inflicting a 3-0 series whitewash on the visitors.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by John O'Brien; To query or comment on this story, email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Basics Of Real Estate Investing : 31Night.com, A World of ...
Real estate investing may not be everyone?s cup of tea, but some people who have already tried investing in real estate know that it can be highly profitable and lead to much better quality of life. There are several keys to making significant profits in real estate investing deals. And when the deals are profitable, you will certainly be well on your way to success.
For real estate investing newbies, don?t be afraid of the challenges and pitfalls you may encounter along the way. There is definitely a lot to learn, but in the long run after you have gained some experience, you?ll hopefully become a master at closing profitable real estate deals.
There are 5 core skills that are necessary for building a real estate investing business. These will be the key factors in creating a profitable real estate investment portfolio.
These are the 5 core skills of real estate investing:
1) You must learn when and where to find the right kind of sellers.
2) You must learn the art of being a master negotiator when it comes to closing your real estate investment deals.
3) You must be able to quickly and accurately analyze each real estate investment deal so you?ll know exactly when to proceed and when to pull the plug.
4) You must become an expert in all areas of real estate investing and understand such terms as lease options, cash sales, wrap mortgages, short sales and other terminology common in the real estate investing trade.
5) You should totally understand the meaning and concept of investing in real estate, including all of the financial risks and benefits.
Now is a great time to consider investing in real estate. There are great potential rewards and the effort you put forth can yield enormous monetary returns on your investment.
Your confidence level will grow when you?ve gained some experience and closed on your first few real estate deals. But, don?t stop there?
Continue to learn about real estate investing and to develop your investment skills. In a short time you may find yourself managing a profitable and growing portfolio of investment properties.
Continue to follow your real estate investing ?game plan? and always keep an eye out for the hidden investment opportunities. The opportunities are definitely out there and with a little knowledge and desire can be yours for the taking. So, why not get started in what might be a new and exciting (and profitable) career today?
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Source: http://www.31night.com/2011/11/the-basics-of-real-estate-investing/
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Lunatic Preparing to Bomb Government Buildings Arrested [Bombs]
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
FindLaw Launches Legal Pulse | Library Stuff
Press Release ? ?FindLaw.com is introducing FindLaw Legal Pulse ( legalnews.findlaw.com ), a new content area that offers continuously updated legal headlines from around the world, along with news, photo feeds and analysis from such sources as Reuters, the Associated Press, New York Times and Washington Post. The content covers a broad range of law-related topics ? everything from Supreme Court decisions to legislative updates, everyday legal issues and even sports and celebrity news.?
? Copyright 2011, Information Today, Inc., All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.librarystuff.net/2011/11/21/findlaw-launches-legal-pulse/
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Monday, November 21, 2011
Andrew Reinbach: Grover Norquist and the Death of the GOP
It was Euripides who said "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."
Grover Norquist should be thinking about that quote from Euripides. Because he's obviously gone mad with power.
He's forced, bullied, and otherwise persuaded most of Republicans in Congress to swear they'll never raise taxes, and he says he's ready to enforce it. If that pledge plunges the federal budget and world's economy into the slough of despond -- well, that's tough. What Little Grover wants, Little Grover gets.
He's probably not thinking about that. He's probably thinking about how close he is to drowning the government in a bathtub. But he should be thinking about it, and about Euripides, because if the Democrats have any brains at all -- and they do have some, anyway -- they can run against that pledge for the next year, sweep the elections, and destroy little Grover in the process.
Here's why. Right now, the Super Committee's failure to do its job and straighten out the nation's finances threatens to kick yet another support from the global house of cards we laughingly called a "system". Together with the molasses-like Euro crisis oozing its way across Europe, the result will give us all a real kick in the pants.
The magic number that supposedly solves all our budgetary problems is $4 trillion in revenues, program cuts, or both -- a magic number the Super Committee was never going to even approximate. Republicans insist the nation's lowest tax rates in 50 years are too high. Democrats refuse to preside over what amounts to national suicide.
The national interest? Who cares?
What the Republicans are really saying of course is that they're afraid of Little Grover and what he calls raising taxes. And they don't really have to be.
Not because Little Grover won't have a fit if they defy him. He will. It's because Republicans can solve this crisis -- and come out of it looking like heroes -- just by keeping their word and letting the so-called "temporary" Bush tax cuts expire -- which is what they promised when they were passed.
And if they don't -- they won't -- Democrats can hammer on the fact that Republicans broke their word, have little honor, and chose disaster over upsetting Little Grover.
This is because allowing the "temporary" Bush tax cuts to expire in 2012 would produce, more or less, the magical $4 trillion, and it's Little Grover's definition of raising taxes that's preventing the Republicans from honoring their word. Master Norquist, you see, says that allowing said cuts to expire as promised is raising taxes, and he's willing to demolish any Republican who says otherwise.
The facts apparently have no place in this matter, so it's a very small step to say -- as many are right now -- that Master Nordquist and his friends at Koch Industries are deliberately destroying the Republican Party -- not to mention the nation -- because they see no reason to be men of honor themselves.
Honor is a quaint notion these days, of course, but in this case, it may prove a useful one, if only because it's not only useful here but, as Henry Kissinger used to say, has the added virtue of being true.
Let every Democrat running for office use these lines as their mantras, and they've got useful weapons that could knock back the right wing for a generation: Your kids are hungry because Republicans broke their word; the Republican's "honor" meant nothing to them; Republicans are afraid of Little Grover.
The bonus: If the Democrats use it, the logic stands a fair chance of breaking Little Grover's stranglehold on a Republican Party that used to be considered the very guardians of fiscal prudence. Certainly, the GOP will blame him for the result.
Nothing's at stake if Democrats don't use it but our future. And all it'll take to use it is a little fortitude -- testicular or otherwise. Of course, that seems to've been in short supply recently in Democratic precincts.
Visit my website, WWW.Reinbachsobserver.com
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/super-committee-grover-norquist_b_1106284.html
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Union Pacific Railroad unveils Autoflex Convertible Rail Car production model
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Source: www.breakingtravelnews.com --- Saturday, November 19, 2011
Rail Car designed and built by UP Employees provides customers enhanced safety and service, superior security and flexibility. ...
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Chicago mayor rallies Obama support in Iowa (AP)
DES MOINES, Iowa ? Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel launched an ardent defense of President Barack Obama in Iowa on Saturday, telling local Democrats that in order to create security for the middle class, "we just can't cut our way to prosperity."
Obama's former chief of staff rallied about 1,300 people during the Iowa Democratic Party's largest annual fundraiser in Des Moines. Emanuel told the crowd that Republicans want to solve the nation's debt problem only through spending cuts, while Obama favors a balanced approach of cuts and tax increases.
"To create true middle-class security, we can't just cut our way to prosperity," Emanuel said. "We must out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the world."
Emanuel said Obama has made crucial, tough decisions based on his principles to help the country ? and not in an attempt to lay the groundwork for a second term in the White House. And he asked the crowd whose judgment they wanted leading the country during such a critical economic time.
"In the next four years, there will be more challenges and more crises that will determine the economic vitality of the middle class and the economic future of this country," Emanuel said. "Whose character, whose judgment do you want in that office?"
Obama has a solid history in Iowa. His surprising win in the state's precinct caucuses four years ago launched him on the road to the White House, and he easily carried the state in the 2008 general election.
Emanuel's appearance in the key early-caucus state was a chance for Democrats to grab attention from Republican presidential candidates making their case to social conservatives just across town, and he used the opportunity to criticize GOP candidate Mitt Romney.
The mayor cited the sharply different views that Obama and Romney had on rescuing the auto industry and propping up the nation's financial system. He argued that Obama's views have been proven right, while Romney's stance to not offer federal financial assistance would have destroyed the two key industries.
Emanuel also said Romney has flip-flopped in his political views, such as taking a more conservative stance on abortion and gun control.
"Mitt Romney says he's a man of steadiness and consistency. If that's true, then I'm a linebacker for the Chicago Bears," said the slim, 5-foot-8 1/2 mayor.
In an interview before the event, Emanuel said he was looking forward to the prospect of a lengthy, heated Republican primary race ? and the exposure it gives to the GOP candidates.
"I think a lot of people want to see it over quickly, and I don't think they're going to get that," he said.
Sounding the populist theme that Obama has been offering in recent weeks, Emanuel also said the president is focused less on the difficulty of his tasks as president and more on the struggles of the American middle class.
"He continues to help them try to get their feet back on the ground. That's the struggle he's worried about, not his struggle," Emanuel said.
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Sunday, November 20, 2011
Haitian president: Plan for new army needs study (AP)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? Haiti's president on Friday put off a controversial plan to restore the country's disbanded military until a commission can be formed to study how best a new army can replace the U.N. peacekeeping force.
President Michel Martelly said he was appointing a civilian commission that over the course of 40 days will identify the goals of a new military force.
The restoration of the military was one of Martelly's campaign promises but drew immediate opposition from foreign diplomats and other critics, who said the country would be better off beefing up its underfunded and undermanned national police force.
"This decision does not question our first and constant determination to strengthen the National Police," Martelly said during a speech in the capital's central plaza to mark a battle that led to independence from France in 1804. But, he also said, "I'm telling you today that the dignity of the Haitian people is coming with the creation of the armed forces."
Martelly told his audience of diplomats, government officials and supporters that the new military force would combat smuggling and patrol parts of Haiti where he said terrorists are a constant threat. He did not elaborate on what he meant by terrorists, who have not been known to pose a threat in Haiti.
A government official had said earlier that Martelly would use the national speech to issue a decree creating the new military. Besides the issue of cost, some critics have expressed alarm at restoring a military that had been notorious for abuses before it was disbanded in 1995 under former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Martelly also urged former soldiers who were dismissed in "humiliating conditions" to "bury grudges" and he apologized to Haitians who suffered at the hands of the army.
Some critics have also questioned whether Haiti needs a new army as it still struggles to recover from the January 2010 earthquake and a cholera epidemic that's given the country the highest infection rate in the world.
But many in Haiti welcome the military's restoration as a source of potential jobs amid deep poverty ? and as a point of national pride. The idea resonates in a country where Martelly and other politicians have denounced the U.N. peacekeeping force that has helped keep order since Aristide's ouster in 2004.
"You can't talk about the withdrawal (of the U.N. force) if you don't have a plan for your own army," Martelly told a crowd of about 100 supporters who interrupted his speech at times to chant, "Long live the army."
Martelly said a decree will be announced on Monday that will name members of the commission. During its 40-day mandate, the panel will define the mission of the army in meetings with business and religious leaders, lawmakers, attorneys, political parties and grassroots groups.
The commission will be required to present its findings on Jan. 1, Haiti's independence day.
Georges Michel, a defense adviser in the Interior Ministry, said the commission was a necessary step to ensure the army becomes a reality.
"The reinstatement of the army will be done but it will be done properly and according to rules and procedures," Michel said after the ceremony. "The president will not tolerate or condone anything anarchic."
There seemed to have been high hopes among the men who showed up in downtown Port-au-Prince to learn more about Martelly's effort to restore the army. But they were dashed as the president announced that he would form a commission.
"It's a speech to put people to sleep," Jonel Jean-Juste, 38, a sometime student who said he had viewed the army as a job opportunity. "Putting together a commission is not going to bring the army back."
One diplomat who attended the morning ceremony, Spanish Ambassador Manuel Hernandez Ruigomez, said he welcomed the commission.
"It's a very good idea to consider the commission and see what the country really wants," Hernandez said.
For months, former soldiers from the disbanded army have led training exercises for hundreds of men and a few women who are eager to serve their country or secure a full-time job. The presence of the hopeful soldiers, dressed in camouflage and heavy boots, has raised concerns among some international officials that they could be used as private militias.
Samson Chery, a former sergeant who runs a group in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, withheld judgment on the new commission.
"We won't criticize the president," Chery said by telephone. "We are waiting for Jan. 1 for the report of commission."
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Video: S&P to Update Bank Credit Ratings
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45355658#45355658
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
Robert Wagner not suspect in Natalie Wood's death: police (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Homicide detectives who have reopened an inquiry into the death Natalie Wood said on Friday that the film star's husband, actor Robert Wagner, was not considered a suspect in the case.
The new investigation was opened into Wood's 1981 drowning off the California coast after a yacht captain said that he lied about the incident three decades ago and now holds Wagner responsible for her death.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Lt. John Corina told reporters at a news conference on Friday that the original finding that Wood's death was an accidental drowning had not changed.
But detectives had reopened the investigation based on new information from several sources "which we felt was substantial enough to make us take another look at this case," Corina said.
Asked by reporters if Wagner, who is now 81, was considered a suspect, Corina responded: "No."
In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, yacht captain Dennis Davern said Wagner fought with Wood, 43, shortly before she went missing from the "Splendour" and Wagner showed little interest in trying to find her.
Wood had spent the night dining and drinking with Wagner, and her "Brainstorm" co-star Christopher Walken.
Her body was found floating in a Catalina Island cove off the coast of California on November 29, 1981. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning, noting that Wood had been drinking and was intoxicated when she died.
Questions over the circumstances surrounding her death have lingered for 30 years.
A spokesman for Wagner has said that the actor's family had not been contacted by the sheriff's officials but "fully supports" the department's efforts.
The family members trust that the sheriff's department "will evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid and that it comes from a credible source or sources, other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death," spokesman Alan Nierob said in the statement.
The department has asked that anyone with information about Wood's drowning contact sheriff's homicide investigators or an anonymous tip line.
Wood, who was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko to Russian immigrant parents in San Francisco, appeared as a child in such films as the Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
She was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award as a teenager for her role opposite screen legend James Dean in the classic 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause."
Wood was also nominated twice for best actress Oscars, for parts in the 1961 film "Splendor in the Grass" and "Love with the Proper Stranger" two years later. She never won the award.
(Editing by Greg McCune)
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Science on a Mission: Engineering a Sustainable Future for Haitians without Homes
Graduate student Dustin Mix works with community members in L?og?ne to develop plans for engineered housing. (credit: A. Taflanidis)
Suppose, for a moment, that you were presented with an opportunity to put what you learned in the classroom, what you learned in the lab, what you learned in the field to use for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of people. That you could save hundreds of thousands of lives by putting to work the knowledge that you share in the classroom everyday. Consider the basic principles of physics put into practice to rescue a society at risk.
Here?s the catch: following this path probably won?t net highly-cited articles in traditional research journals, well-attended conference presentations, or even fame and fortune. You?ll run into the occasional brick wall of apathy, you?ll have to wander through unfamiliar places to find funding, and you?ll have to plan your journey with the expectation that everything that could go wrong will. But most daunting of all, you?ll need to think with your head, and act with your heart.
Engineering2Empower, a dedicated team of faculty and students initiated by engineering professors at the University of Notre Dame earlier this year to address the creation of sustainable housing in Haiti, has knowledge and heart.
Looking for Solutions in the Rubble
When an earthquake of unprecedented scale struck Haiti in 2010, Tracy Kijewski-Correa and Alexandros Taflanidis, early-career professors in the department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, were called upon by their medical practitioner colleagues to asses the structural conditions that led to the widespread collapse of housing units. They traveled to L?og?ne, a Haitian town 18 miles west of Port-au-Prince with a history of support from the Notre Dame community.
?Medical personnel informed us that they couldn?t sustain their work without the help of engineers. We went down to figure out what went wrong, and it didn?t take too long,? says Kijewski-Correa of her first trip to Haiti after the earthquake. ?Cultural and economic factors need attention. We can?t just provide building codes.?
A bit embarrassed by the irony of the situation, Kijewski-Correa and Taflanidis explain how they started to process what they had seen in Haiti just three months after the earthquake.
?We had really nice seats on the airplane on the way home. We had he best seats we?ve ever had on a flight, and I wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep,? reiterates Kijewski-Correa, shaking her head, ?but we spent the time brainstorming.?
?We knew what went wrong,? adds Taflanidis, recalling their in-flight brainstorming session. ?We started to think about what solutions were available, but we killed them fairly easily. These solutions would work well in many other countries, but the market constraints and the cultural constraints in Haiti create a very tough problem.?
Devastated by centuries of violence and neglect, Haiti is considered one of the poorest countries in the Americas. While many U.S. universities and aid organizations arrived to assess the damage post-earthquake, they?re eventually forced to walk away.
?No one in academia wants to tackle this. A lot of people find it difficult to get involved in a place that doesn?t have a starting infrastructure that can be tweaked. Beyond the technical difficulties, this work doesn?t get you millions of dollars, it doesn?t get you papers that will be well-cited. There?s no incentive to work on this in academia,? says Kijewski-Correa from her perspective as an professor and a civil engineer.
Understanding What Went Wrong
?It?s basic physics, F = ma,? explains Kijewski-Correa. ?Typically in earthquake prone zones, steel reinforcements provide the ability for walls to flex and ride out the very strong ground motion of an earthquake without crumbling. When an earthquake comes, there?s ground acceleration. The forces that are going to result from that are proportional to the mass of the structure. Those forces are distributed based on the stiffness of the walls. In Haiti, the walls are very brittle. So, they blow out, they collapse. The forces are then redistributed to the columns. These are very thin concrete columns with little steel reinforcement. They are also blown out by the forces, resulting in a ceiling collapse.?
In the United States, homes are built with an emphasis on the frame, for example, a wood frame sheathed with drywall. That?s what Kijewski-Correa and Taflanidis wanted immediately for the Haitians, but the Haitians don?t have wood or drywall.
When Kijewski-Correa and Taflanidis got back to the university setting, they put together a team of students, and they went to work developing a plan to engineer resilient, sustainable housing for the people of L?og?ne. But they kept in mind the shortcomings of earlier missions.
?If you want to empower the Haitians, you have to listen to what they want. Safety and privacy is of exceptional importance to them. The houses should look like they are fortified from the outside,? emphasizes Taflanidis.
?Taking the rubble [from destroyed housing] and recycling it had seemed like a great idea,? says Kiljewski-Correa of previous redevelopment plans. ?The UN thought this was green and sustainable, but the Haitians wouldn?t live in these houses because they were like tombs.?
In March 2011, the team returned to Haiti for a community planning workshop intent on learning more about what mattered to the Haitians. After meeting with community leaders and interviewing homeless Haitians in transient camps, the team was ready to go back to the university and put their plans to paper.
Out of the Classroom, Into the Spotlight
The E2E plan includes lockers for the storage of building materials and a transitory phase in which tarps can be secured to the steel framework until concrete slabs are purchased. (credit: T. Kijewski-Correa)
The idea for Engineering2Empower came to Taflanidis following a conference in August of this year. The engineers, feeling lost in a world of business plans and marketing, needed a way to promote the work they wanted to do.
?I?m not a businessman. I don?t understand all of these things very well,? he laughed, breaking with the seriousness that had gripped the conversation.
?As academics, we promote our work through papers and conferences, so this is completely new to us,? adds Kijewski-Correa. ?We know that whatever aid is there now will move on to the next disaster in 3 or 4 years. NGOs focus on short-term needs. Their job is not to innovate. Innovation comes out of university settings. That?s what we?re good at. E2E is a banner for the innovation that will drive new solutions, because sometimes just tweaking the old solutions doesn?t help.?
?If you think about it from an educational perspective,? says Kijewski-Correa, ?we teach our students to solve challenging problems, and I can?t think of one problem that is more challenging. These people have no resources, they are illiterate, they have no government to rely on. They want a house that has a strong appearance, [but they don't have the resources to build it]. And then we?re going to throw in hurricanes and earthquakes, and we need to develop something that doesn?t create a economic dependence on foreign aid. You put all that together, and then you tell students, ?now solve that problem.? Those are the problems that we are solving.?
So what?s the solution?
?We decided to build frames. We take what they have, reinforced concrete, and we give them a couple of innovations,? explains Kijewski-Correa. ?The walls should be like skin, and there should be a frame that is like a skeleton. By reducing the mass and concentrating the limited resources that we have into very precise locations, we no longer have an F = ma problem. We want to concentrate our engineering and resources into the places that matter most.?
?They used to build like this in the old days,? says Kijewski-Correa. ?When we walked around and looked at the area, they were building one of these, they call them gingerbread houses. They had houses built of wood when they had wood on the island. There?s an example where a concrete house collapsed right beside a wood-frame one that?s a hundred years old. It?s still standing. But building here with wood now is unsustainable?we?re trying to use this idea with the steel framework.?
Since access to wood is limited and quality control is important, the frames would be made of steel and would be purchased pre-fabricated at community depots. Because Haitians tend to build homes very slowly, one brick at a time, communal resources have been built into the E2E plan to assist and empower the Haitians on what could be a multi-year journey to home acquisition.
In an effort to allow families to procure building materials gradually, self-storage locker systems have been proposed. These lockers, secure at the community depots, would allow families to purchase pressed concrete panels once they had saved enough money and store them until they had enough panels to complete their home. The home-building plan, which includes several steps, also allows for a transient shelter phase once the steel framework has been erected. The families can live in their home while they?re building it. The price? Cheaper or comparable to a traditional masonry home.
The E2E team is going back to Haiti next month. They plan to build a prototype on the University of Notre Dame campus in the coming year, and they are working with MBA students to develop a viable business plan.
?We?re trying to create a presence because we need community support to help us finish the work,? says Kijewski-Correa. ?This is real scholarship that matters, that affects peoples lives.?
If you would like to learn more about Engineering2Empower and their plan to engineer an empowered Haiti, visit their website here ? Engineering2Empower.
?The E2E plan includes lockers for the storage of building materials and a transitory phase in which tarps can be secured to the steel framework until concrete slabs are purchased. (credit: T. Kijewski-Correa)
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=8728e92b9a5d6193785dfe49e9b603fc
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