Archbishop of Canterbury condemns welfare changes

LONDON — The new archbishop of Canterbury has joined other bishops in criticizing the British government's plans to change the welfare system.

Justin Welby backed an open letter from some 40 Church of England bishops that said the proposed changes would drive children and families into poverty.

Sunday's statement marked Welby's first political statement since he was named in his new role as the head of the Church of England. Welby is due to be formally enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on Mar. 21.

The planned changes, which would cap rises in welfare payments until 2016, aim to cut government spending. The archbishop said a "civilized society" has a duty to support the vulnerable amid rising living costs.

The welfare bill will be debated in the House of Lords next week.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Qatar announces large natural gas discovery

DOHA, Qatar — Qatar says it has discovered as much as 2.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in an offshore field.

Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sadah told reporters Sunday the discovery was made at the field known as Block 4 North, off the shore of the Gulf island nation. The field is operated by Qatar Petroleum along with its partners Mitsui Gas Development Qatar and Germany's Wintershall.

Al-Sadah, who is also managing director of Qatar Petroleum, said "we are very pleased" with the discovery. He said it was part of an effort by the country to "prudently explore for and develop our natural resources" as part of contribute to the country's economic prosperity.

OPEC member Qatar is a major exporter of oil and natural gas.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Denmark's TV2 used computer game image for report

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A Danish television channel has admitted it mistakenly used an image from a computer game to illustrate a news report about Syria.

TV2 Head of News Jacob Nybroe said Sunday the picture that was used as a backdrop behind news anchor Cecilie Beck on Feb. 26 came from adventure game Assassin's Creed.

He says he learned about the mistake this week, following speculation about the origin of the image on social media sites.

One of the TV channel's employees had found the image online and thought it was a photo of Damascus' skyline.

Nybroe says it was a terrible mistake and a "reminder to us all of the importance of verifying the sources of pictures."

___

Online:

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/video/index/id/65097458/

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Time spin-off highlights risks facing magazines

LOS ANGELES — From Sports Illustrated to People to its namesake magazine, Time Inc., was always an innovator. But now when the troubled magazine industry is facing its greatest challenge, the company Henry Luce founded is struggling to find its way in a digital world.

Time Warner Inc.'s decision to shed its Time Inc. magazine unit last week underscores the challenges facing an industry that remains wedded to glossy paper even as the use of tablet computers, e-readers and smartphones explodes.

Although the new devices might seem to present an array of opportunity for Time Inc.'s 95 magazine titles, many publishers have found the digital transition troublesome. Digital editions of magazines represented just 2.4 percent of all U.S. circulation in the last half of 2012, or about 7.9 million copies, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

Although that number more than doubled from a year earlier, it's hardly gangbusters growth, considering that the number of tablets in the U.S. also more than doubled last year to 64.8 million, according to research firm IHS.

The fact that so few tablet owners are buying magazines on their devices is a concern because both ad and circulation revenue from print editions have fallen more than 20 percent since their peak near the middle of the last decade. And, according to forecasts, there's no recovery in sight.

"We have to get much better at capturing those (digital) readers," said Mary Berner, president of The Association of Magazine Media.

Before publishers can accomplish that, they need to address a number of problems, experts say. First, the range of free content on the Web has given some readers the impression that it's not necessary to pay for the digital versions of magazine stories. Also, there's no industry standard for pricing. Publishers aren't in agreement over whether to include free access to digital copies as part of a print subscription.

There are technical challenges, too. It's been difficult for magazine makers to create compelling digital editions that fit every screen size and resolution.

Berner acknowledges that customer confusion is part of what's preventing the magazine industry from selling more digital copies. She is working with industry players like Time Inc., Hearst Corp., Conde Nast and Meredith Corp. to standardize both the format of magazines and the way they are sold.

"There used to be a couple ways you used to be able to get a magazine: you could subscribe or buy it at the newsstand. Now there's 25 ways. Joe Average consumer just isn't that clear on it yet," she said. "The confusing part is hurting."

Advertisers are making matters worse. The ad industry has been slow to warm to the notion that they still need to pay top dollar to advertise in the tablet editions of magazines, even though much cheaper website ads are just a finger-swipe away.

But many magazines still command significant premiums. A full-page ad in Elle magazine, for instance, costs $155,680 to reach the readers of 1.1 million copies, or about $141 for every 1,000, according to a rate card that the magazine posted online.

Compare that to a 30-second ad during this year's Super Bowl, which —at most— cost $37 per 1,000 TV households, or $4 million to reach 108 million TV sets, according to CBS. A typical website ad costs in the single-digit dollars per 1,000 viewers, although pricing varies by ad size and other features.

Magazine insiders say the price of their ad space is worth it because ads reach a targeted, engaged audience that actually wants to see the commercial come-ons. Even so, advertisers bristle at the idea that tablet editions command the same price premium as print pages.

"The costs per thousand are out of whack," said George Janson, director of print for GroupM, a subsidiary of advertising agency giant WPP, whose clients include Ikea, Mars Inc., Marriott and Xerox. "The advertising challenge is there haven't been a lot of metrics. There's very little accountability. That's starting to change now at the advertisers' insistence."

The magazine industry's slim but growing digital subscriber base could help convince advertisers of the value of magazines. Research firm eMarketer predicts that while print magazine ad revenue will remain flat at about $15.1 billion from 2011 to 2016, digital magazine ad revenue will grow from $2.7 billion to $4.1 billion over the same period.

"Tablets have reinvigorated magazine ad revenues," said eMarketer spokesman Clark Fredricksen.

But even as overall magazine advertising revenue grows, it's not expanding nearly as fast as U.S. ad spending as a whole. The predicted turnaround won't return the industry to pre-recession levels —and it may come too late for Time Warner Inc.

Revenue at its Time Inc. unit slipped to $3.4 billion in 2012, about 38 percent below its peak in 2004. Operating profit declined to $420 million, down by more than half of the $934 million posted eight years earlier.

Analysts say spinning off the magazines into a separate, publicly traded company reduces Time Warner's risk. On Friday, two days after Time Warner announced the spin-off, its shares hit a 52-week high of $57.85.

Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Capital Markets, said the spin-off frees Time Warner from the uncertainty of the magazine industry's digital transition.

"It has the potential to save money, increase revenue per ad, improve measurement, and increase distribution," he wrote in a research note, "but it also competes with a growing number of free online publications and there may be few ad slots in the new medium."

In other words, it's better for parent Time Warner to separate itself now.

Reed Phillips, the CEO of media company advisory firm DeSilva + Phillips, said that for the parent company, there is too much risk involved if the magazines stay.

"Will you come out on the other end as large and as profitable as the current company? There's a lot of concern," he said. "Because of the volatility, that's why Time Warner wants to spin off Time Inc."

Meanwhile, magazine publishers are carefully parsing consumer behavior data to learn how they might make digital magazines more attractive to readers and advertisers. They want to know which ads attract consumers and how long readers engage with an ad. They trying to learn how people read magazines (So far, it's still front to back). It's still not clear whether such data is valuable to advertisers and worth paying more.

"This is a fairly early stage business," said Liz Schimel, the chief digital officer at Meredith Corp., which was in talks to combine with Time Inc. before talks were called off. "We're still in lots of conversations about models and features and metrics."

Magazines don't have a lot of time to figure the digital transition out. TV and digital ad spending is growing quickly, and there are more ways than ever to track down consumers and get a company's message in front of them.

"It's not just print and TV and radio," said Brenda White, a senior vice president in charge of publishing industry ad spending at Starcom USA, a subsidiary of ad agency giant Publicis Groupe, whose clients include Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. "There are all these different digital channels: mobile, tablets, social. Publishing companies have had to evolve their business models to keep up."

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tens of thousands in Spain anti-austerity protest

MADRID — Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in dozens of Spanish cities on Sunday to protest sky-high unemployment, what they say is the government*s inefficient handling of the economy and corruption scandals.

Many protesters carried placards critical of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's ruling Popular Party, which is immersed in a corruption investigation centered on former treasurer Luis Barcenas and alleged under-the-table payments to party officials while in opposition.

King Juan Carlos' son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, is also under investigation on suspicion of having embezzled several million dollars.

Rallies were organized in Madrid and 60 other cities by 150 organizations including trade unions representing the construction, car and television industries as well as police and health services.

Police estimated some 20,000 people marched in the northeastern port city of Barcelona, but authorities did not have figures for a large rally held in Madrid.

Unemployed protester Javier Alonso, 55, said the government's labor reform policies were destroying employment while not easing the country's slide into recession.

"All they have achieved is to give employers greater facilities to fire workers and us 50-year-olds have been rewarded with cheap dismissals which have simply dumped us on the streets," Alonso said.

Spain's unemployment rate is at a staggering 26 percent and the economy is immersed in its second recession in three years, with many young graduates and qualified professionals emigrating to find jobs elsewhere.

Health care worker Isabel Montanes said she was protesting because the cuts were badly affecting those worst off in Spain's society.

"They want to cut what most sustains a country, which is education and health care," she said.

"The unemployment rate is so immense that young people believe they have no future here, and we are embittering their existence," Montanes said.

General Workers Union spokesman Candido Mendez said it was clear most people rejected the government's austerity policies, which he said were pushing many toward poverty and away from democracy.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bill sees role for dental practitioners in Mass.

Bill sees role for dental practitioners in Mass.

BOSTON — Dental hygienists with advanced training could perform certain procedures now reserved for dentists, including routine fillings and tooth extractions, under a bill that supporters believe would improve access to oral health care for low-income Massachusetts residents and underprivileged children.

The legislation would create a new, midlevel position called advanced dental hygiene practitioner, similar to a nurse practitioner in a physician's office and comparable to dental therapists that operate in more than 50 other countries. The proposal is being viewed with some alarm by dentists, who are worried about patient safety and adequacy of the training requirements contained in the bill.

"We love our dentists. They do a good job, but there are not enough of them," said state Sen. Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, who has sponsored the bill along with Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox.

A dental practitioner would not supplant the traditional family dentist nor prompt any fundamental realignment of responsibilities in a typical dentist's office, backers insist. In fact, the vast majority of people with dental insurance who see a dentist regularly for cleanings and other services would likely encounter no change in routine.

But for the poor, the uninsured and those who live in parts of the state where there are too few dentists, the advanced hygienist could provide access to preventative care that is otherwise not available.

"It is long overdue," said Jacklyn Ventura, a dental hygienist who directs Mass Healthy Smiles, a private organization that offers screenings and other services, such as cleanings and fluoride, to children in community settings such as public schools and day care facilities.

"Dentistry is so expensive. When families have more than one child, it can put them back six months just to have regular visits," Ventura said.

Supporters see the bill as a natural extension of a three-year-old Massachusetts law that allowed professionals like Ventura to provide typical dental hygiene services in public settings without direct supervision from dentists.

The legislation would take it a step further by allowing dental practitioners to perform non-surgical tasks, including the pulling teeth or filling small cavities — but only when such procedures do not require root canal, periodontal surgery or other more complex intervention.

"It would bridge that gap between what public health hygienists can do and what dentists can do," said Katherine Pelullo, who chairs the Council on Regulations & Practice for the Massachusetts Dental Hygienists' Association.

In more than half of the state's 351 cities and towns, no dentists accept MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, and 53 percent of children in families eligible for MassHealth did not see a dentist in 2011, according to the association. Additionally, the group says, more than 600,000 residents live in areas of the state designated as having a shortage of dentists, and elderly in nursing homes often go without dental care.

The Division of Health Care Finance and Policy estimated that 31,000 hospital emergency room visits in 2011 resulted from preventable dental crises.

Supporters of the bill say they do not foresee a huge rush by current dental hygienists to become advanced practitioners. Achieving that designation would require an additional 12-18 months of study in a master's level program, along with 500 hours of practice under the direct supervision of a dentist and other requirements.

Still, many dentists are wary.

"It clearly is a major change in the practice paradigm in oral health," said Dr. Paula Friedman, president of the Massachusetts Dental Society and professor at Boston University's Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine.

"I have real concerns about safety of the public from someone who has only had 18 months of postsecondary education. The reality is that many people feel four years of dental school is not enough to teach people what they need to know," Friedman said.

The dental society has yet to take a formal position on the legislation. Friedman says it needs more vetting. Chandler said lawmakers are prepared to address concerns about safety and training and fine-tune the bill if necessary.

"We have to guarantee the safety of our patients," she said.

In 2009, Minnesota became the first U.S. state to license a similar category called dental therapists. In Alaska, dental therapists have provided care to native tribes for the past decade.

A number of states are weighing similar laws including New Hampshire, where a hearing was held this month on a bill allowing dental therapists.

The Massachusetts bill has been referred to the Legislature's Committee on Public Health. No hearing date has been set.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Budget cuts force military jets to drop air shows

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Deep budget cuts in Washington mean military flight teams will likely be no-shows at air shows across the U.S. starting this spring, leaving dozens of host cities bracing for thinner crowds and lost tourism dollars.

When $85 billion in automatic cuts kicked in March 1, the Air Force canceled shows at bases from Florida to Arizona and grounded its formation-flying pilots, the Thunderbirds. The Army's Golden Knights parachute team also canceled performances. The Navy's famous Blue Angels said only that military commanders intend to cancel their April shows, though nothing is officially canceled yet.

John Cudahy of the International Council of Air Shows says at least 150 U.S. air shows each year count on military performers. Without them, he estimates up to a third of the shows might cancel altogether.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nuclear chief: US plants safer after Japan crisis

WASHINGTON — Two years after the nuclear crisis in Japan, the top U.S. regulator says American nuclear power plants are safer than ever, though not trouble-free. A watchdog group calls that assessment overly rosy.

"The performance is quite good," Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane said in an interview with The Associated Press.

All but five of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors were performing at acceptable safety levels at the end of 2012, Macfarlane said, citing a recent NRC report. "You can't engage that many reactors and not have a few that are going to have difficulty," she said.

But the watchdog group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, has issued a scathing report saying nearly one in six U.S. nuclear reactors experienced safety breaches last year, due in part to weak oversight. The group accused the NRC of "tolerating the intolerable."

Using the agency's own data, the scientists group said 14 serious incidents, ranging from broken or impaired safety equipment to a cooling water leak, were reported last year. Over the past three years, 40 of the 104 U.S. reactors experienced one or more serious safety-related incidents that required additional action by the NRC, the report said.

"The NRC has repeatedly failed to enforce essential safety regulations," wrote David Lochbaum, director of the group's Nuclear Safety Project and author of the study. "Failing to enforce existing safety regulations is literally a gamble that places lives at stake."

NRC officials disputed the report and said none of the reported incidents harmed workers or the public.

Monday marks the two-year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. U.S. regulators, safety advocates and the industry are now debating whether safety changes imposed after the disaster have made the nation's 65 nuclear plants safer.

New rules imposed by the NRC require plant operators to install or improve venting systems to limit core damage in a serious accident and set up sophisticated equipment to monitor water levels in pools of spent nuclear fuel.

The plants also must improve protection of safety equipment installed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and make sure they can handle damage to multiple reactors at the same time.

Macfarlane, who took over as NRC chairwoman last July, said U.S. plants are operating safely and are making progress on the new rules, which impose a deadline for completion of 2016 — five years after the Fukushima disaster. "So far, industry seems to be cooperating," she said.

The NRC has been working closely with plant operators "to make sure they understand what we are requiring and that we understand about their situation as well," Macfarlane said.

Even so, the U.S. industry faces a range of difficulties. Problem-plagued plants in Florida and Wisconsin are slated for closure, and four other reactors remain offline because of safety concerns. Shut-down reactors include two at the beleaguered San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California, which hasn't produced electricity since January 2012, when a tiny radiation leak led to the discovery of damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Macfarlane said the agency won't let the San Onofre plant reopen until regulators are certain it can operate safely, which may take several months.

Joseph Pollock, vice president of Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association, said plant operators are "working aggressively" to meet the 2016 timeline set by the NRC and have already spent upwards of $40 million on safety efforts. Utilities have bought more than 1,500 pieces of equipment, from emergency diesel generators to sump pumps and satellite phones, Pollock said, and the industry is setting up two regional response centers in Memphis and Phoenix.

The industry expects to meet the 2016 timeline "with the current understood requirements," Pollock said. If the requirements change or new regulations are added, "then obviously we would have to review that," he said.

Even before the new rules are completely in place, the NRC is considering a new regulation related to the Japan disaster: requiring nuclear operators to spend tens of millions of dollars to install filtered vents at two dozen reactors.

NRC staff recommended the filters as a way to prevent radioactive particles from escaping into the atmosphere after a core meltdown. The filters are required in Japan and throughout much of Europe, but U.S. utilities say they are unnecessary and expensive.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said filters may work in some situations, but not all. The group is calling for a "performance-based approach" that allows a case-by-case determination of whether filtering is the best approach to protect public safety and the environment.

"We're not against filtering. It's how you achieve it," said Marvin Fertel, the group's president and CEO.

The filter issue has ignited a debate on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both parties have sent out a flurry of dueling letters for and against the proposal. Twenty-eight Republicans in the House and Senate, joined by more than two dozen House Democrats, have sent letters opposing the requirement as hasty and unnecessary.

A dozen Democratic senators and five House members have written letters backing the requirement, which they say will ensure public safety in the event of a Japan-style accident. The five-member commission is expected to vote on the issue in the next few weeks.

"It's not the time to be rash with hasty new rules, especially when the NRC has added 40-plus 'safety enhancements' " to its initial requirements following the Japan disaster, said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the committee, said the filters were needed to protect the 31 U.S. nuclear reactors that have similar designs to the ones that melted down in Japan.

The filters "world reduce the amount of radioactive material released into the environment" in a severe nuclear accident, Boxer wrote in a letter signed by 11 fellow Democrats. "These technologies have been demonstrated in nuclear plants around the world."

Boxer, whose committee has held seven oversight hearings since the Japan disaster, has asked the NRC to report to her on the agency's progress implementing the post-Fukushima safety reforms.

"It is vital that U.S. nuclear power plants fully incorporate the lessons learned from this disaster," she said.

___

Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter; https://twiitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Reports: Harvard secretly searched deans' emails

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard University administrators secretly searched the emails of 16 deans last fall, looking for a leak to reporters about a case of cheating, two newspapers reported.

The email accounts belonged to deans on the Administrative Board, a committee addressing the cheating, The Boston Globe and The New York Times reported, citing school officials. The deans were not warned about the email access and only one was told of the search afterward.

Harvard will not comment on personnel matters or provide additional information about the board cases that were concluded during the fall term, Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in an email Sunday. If the committee's work were compromised, Harvard College would protect the process, he said.

"Generally speaking, however, if circumstances were to arise that gave reason to believe that the Administrative Board process might have been compromised, then Harvard College would take all necessary and appropriate actions under our procedures to safeguard the integrity of that process, which is designed to protect the rights of our students to privacy and due process," he said.

Smith's office and the Harvard general counsel's office authorized the search, the Globe reported.

Harvard spokesman Jeff Neal did not specifically address the allegations but denied any routine monitoring of emails.

"Any assertion that Harvard routinely monitors emails — for any reason — is patently false," he said in an email.

Sharon Howell, Harvard's senior resident dean, criticized Harvard administrators and said they owed the deans an apology for failing to notify the email accountholders until after gaining access to the emails.

"They don't seem to think they've done anything wrong," she told the Globe.

Harvard University said last month that it issued academic sanctions against about 60 students who were forced to withdraw from school for a period of time in a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress. The school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year.

The inquiry started after a teaching assistant in a spring semester undergraduate-level government class detected problems in the take-home test, including that students may have shared answers.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More

Study: Renting a home gets foot in the door for buying

WASHINGTON — Could rental houses owned and managed by deep-pocketed hedge funds and big investors be the post-bust stepping stones to home ownership for huge numbers of renters?

Could they also provide a form of safe harbor or sanctuary for thousands of families who were displaced by financial difficulties from their previous homes through foreclosures or short sales?

A new national study suggests that the answer to both questions is yes.

Over the past five years, according to Wall Street analysts' estimates, between $7 billion and $9 billion worth of distressed single-family homes have been purchased and converted to rentals by institutional investors — hedge funds, private partnerships of high net-worth individuals and even pools of capital raised among investors in foreign countries.

Unlike traditional "mom and pop" rental home investors, these funds have been scooping up dozens, sometimes hundreds, of properties at a time through all-cash purchases of foreclosures, short sales and bulk packages. Some of the bulk acquisitions have come from the troubled-asset portfolios of financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, others from banks that have taken over homes left by strategic defaulters.

Though single-family rental homes have long been a part of the American housing scene, the involvement of large-scale institutional investors is causing the category to explode. According to a new study conducted by pollster ORC International for Premier Property Management Group, a company that works with investors, roughly 52 percent of all rental units in the country are now single-family homes and house 27 percent of all renters.

Recent Census Bureau data cited in the study indicate that the number of single-family rentals grew by 
21 percent between 2005 and 2010 — from the top of the boom through the depths of the bust and foreclosure crisis — compared with a 4 percent increase in total housing units.

What's the significance of this rapid conversion of ownership units to rental? For one thing, according to Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, a mortgage and real estate research firm, mass conversions are contributing to the severe declines in homes-for-sale inventories in markets where foreclosure rates were most pronounced during the bust. Lack of inventory, in turn, is pushing up prices of entry-level homes in those areas.

But the ORC-Premier study suggests that the new waves of single-family rentals may also be providing important pathways to home ownership, not only for first-timers but for those displaced by the housing bust. Fully 60 percent of rental home tenants say they plan to buy a house sometime in the next five years. By contrast, only 44 percent of multifamily apartment building renters have similar plans.

According to the study, the high interest in ownership "reflects the new roles single-family rentals are fulfilling as a stepping stone to home ownership ⅛both⅜ for first-time buyers and as a sanctuary for large numbers of families displaced by foreclosure but who plan to buy again when they can afford to do so."

The study found that, compared with apartment tenants, single-family renters made more money ($75,000 to $100,000 versus $50,000 to $75,000), have more children in their homes and are more concerned about local school quality and community facilities such as parks and recreational areas.

Asked by interviewers what impediments to purchasing a house they anticipate within the coming five years, nearly a third said they may not be able to qualify for a mortgage. The time frame coincides with the number of years that individuals with seriously damaged credit files — a foreclosure, bankruptcy, short sale and multiple defaults on other debt obligations — need to fully rehabilitate their credit and build back their credit scores to a level that will qualify them for a home loan on favorable terms.

Bottom line from the study: Single-family rentals are likely to remain a growing factor in the housing market, as incubators and safe havens for future purchasers. At the same time, though, they may, at least temporarily, depress the national home ownership rate, which stands at around 65 percent, down from 
69 percent during the boom.

23.40 | 0 komentar | Read More