Israeli, Palestinian leaders serious on talks: Kerry

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian leaders are both committed to reviving peace talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday, but he acknowledged that progress on the long-stalled negotiations would be difficult.

Israeli-Palestinian talks broke down in late 2010 in a dispute over construction of Jewish settlements on occupied West Bank land that Palestinians want as part of their future state.

Kerry, who held separate talks with both sides in May, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wanted the peace process to move forward. This would be Kerry's fifth attempt to restart talks.

"I believe they believe the peace process is bigger than any one day or one moment, or certainly more important to their countries than some of their current political challenges," he told a news conference in Kuwait with Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah.

"That is why both of them have indicated a seriousness of purpose. I would not be here now if I didn't have the belief this is possible," he said.

Kerry said he did not want to set any deadlines for the peace process but added that there needed to be progress before the U.N. General Assembly in September.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Sylvia Westall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-palestinian-leaders-serious-talks-kerry-122607681.html

monta ellis wiz khalifa taylor allderdice mixtape reggie wayne taylor allderdice vincent jackson vicki gunvalson pierre garcon

lern2play Resources and Information. This website is for sale!

By using our site, you consent to this privacy policy: This website allows third-party advertising companies for the purpose of reporting website traffic, statistics, advertisements, "click-throughs" and/or other activities to use Cookies and /or Web Beacons and other monitoring technologies to serve ads and to compile anonymous statistics about you when you visit this website. Cookies are small text files stored on your local internet browser cache. A Web Beacon is an often-transparent graphic image, usually no larger than 1 pixel x 1 pixel that is placed on a Web site. Both are created for the main purpose of helping your browser process the special features of websites that use Cookies or Web Beacons. The gathered information about your visits to this and other websites are used by these third party companies in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. The information do not include any personal data like your name, address, email address, or telephone number. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/lern2play

When Is Veterans Day 2012 brooke burke Alexa Vega Bram Stoker books Paula Broadwell Photos Veterans Day 2012 Nate Silver

NSA Surveillance Scandal: Snowden On the Run, Asks Ecuador for Asylum

Edward Snowden is reportedly seeking political asylum in Ecuador after arriving to Moscow today. Meanwhile, the US has revoked his passport. The former NSA contractor has been on the run since he first revealed details of Verizon's participation in a telecommunications industry program to store information on all telephone calls, and then broke news of the NSA/Silicon Valley PRISM system that watches over the whole Interent. Developing...

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/vMKKJWOeAfg/nsa-surveillance-scandal-snowden-on-the-run-asks-ecua-511588927

san antonio spurs greta van susteren the five year engagement chris kreider correspondents dinner 2012 white house correspondents dinner 2012 whcd

Oddest couple share 250 million year old burrow

June 22, 2013 ? Scientists from South Africa, Australia and France have discovered a world first association while scanning a 250 million year old fossilised burrow from the Karoo Basin of South Africa.

The burrow revealed two unrelated vertebrate animals nestled together and fossilised after being trapped by a flash flood event. Facing harsh climatic conditions subsequent to the Permo-Triassic (P-T) mass extinction, the amphibian Broomistega and the mammal forerunner Thrinaxodon cohabited in a burrow.

Scanning shows that the amphibian, which was suffering from broken ribs, crawled into a sleeping mammal's shelter for protection. This research suggests that short periods of dormancy, called aestivation, in addition to burrowing behaviour, may have been a crucial adaptation that allowed mammal ancestors to survive the P-T extinction.

The international team of scientists was led by Dr Vincent Fernandez from Wits University, South Africa and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The other authors from Wits University include Prof. Bruce Rubidge (Director of the newly formed Palaeosciences Centre of Excellence at Wits), Dr Fernando Abdala and Dr Kristian Carlson. Other authors include Dr Della Collins Cook (Indiana University); Dr Adam Yates (Museum of Central Australia) and Dr. Paul Tafforeau (ESRF).

After many impressive results obtained on fossils, synchrotron imaging has led to revived interest in the studies of the numerous fossilised burrows discovered in the Karoo Basin of South Africa and dated to 250 million years ago. The first attempt to investigate one of these burrow-casts surprisingly revealed a world-first association of two unrelated animals.

The fossil was recovered from sedimentary rock strata in the Karoo Basin. It dates from 250 million years ago, at the beginning of the Triassic Period. At that time, the ecosystem was recovering from the Permo-Triassic mass extinction that wiped out most of life on Earth. In the Pangea Supercontinent context, what is now South Africa was an enclave in the southern half called Gondwana. It was the scene of pronounced climatic warming and increased seasonality marked by monsoonal rainfall. To survive this harsh environment, many animals, including mammal-like reptiles (mammal forerunners), developed a digging behaviour, attested by the numerous fossilised burrow casts discovered in the Karoo Basin. These casts have long been thought to enclose fossilised remains, triggering interest from palaeontologists. Early this year, an international group of scientists started to research the contents of these burrows using X-ray synchrotron computed microtomography.

Two burrow casts were selected from the collection at Wits to be scanned using the state-of-the-art facility at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). Using the unique properties of the X-ray beam which enables non-destructive probing, the scan of the first burrow started to reveal the skull of a mammal-like reptile called Thrinaxodon, an animal previously reported in another burrow.

As the scan progressed, the three-dimensional reconstruction displayed results beyond expectations: the mammal-like reptile was accompanied by an amphibian Broomistega, belonging to the extinct group of Temnospondyl.

"While discovering the results we were amazed by the quality of the images," says lead author Fernandez, "but the real excitement came when we discovered a second set of teeth completely different from that of the mammal-like reptile. It was really something else."

Besides the pristine preservation of the two skeletons, the team focused on the reasons explaining such an unusual co-habitation. Fernandez explains: "Burrow-sharing by different species exists in the modern world, but it corresponds to a specific pattern. For example, a small visitor is not going to disturb the host. A large visitor can be accepted by the host if it provides some help, like predator vigilance. But neither of these patterns corresponds to what we have discovered in this fossilised burrow."

The scientists gathered all the information to try to reconstitute the events that led to this incredible fossil aggregation, testing scenarios one after another. "It's a fascinating scientific question: what caused the association of these two organisms in the burrow? One of the more obvious possibilities is a predator-prey interaction, but we inspected both skeletons looking for tooth marks or other evidence implying predation, ultimately finding no support for one having attempted to feed on the other," says Carlson.

His colleague, Cook, adds that the consecutive broken ribs resulted from a single, massive trauma. The amphibian clearly survived the injury for some time because the fractures were healing, but it was surely quite handicapped. According to Fernandez this Broomistega is the first complete skeleton of this rare species that has been discovered. "It tells us that this individual was a juvenile and mostly aquatic at that time of its life," he says.

The scientists eventually concluded that the amphibian crawled into the burrow in response to its poor physical condition but was not evicted by the mammal-like reptile.

Numerous Thrinaxodon specimens have been found in South Africa, many of them fossilised in a curled-up position. Abdala says: "I have always been fascinated by the preservation of Thrinaxodon fossils in a curled-up position that show even tiny bones of the skeleton preserved. It's as if they were peacefully resting in shelters at the time of death."

The shelters prevented disturbance of the skeletal remains from scavengers and weathering. "We also think it might reflect a state of torpor called aestivation in response to aridity and absence of food resources," Abdala says.

Piecing all the clues together, the team finally elucidated the enigmatic association, concluding that "the mammal-like reptile, Thrinaxodon, was most probably aestivating in its burrow, a key adaptation response together with a burrowing behaviour which enabled our distant ancestors to survive the most dramatic mass extinction event. This state of torpor explains why the amphibian was not chased out of the burrow," says Rubidge.

Both animals were finally entrapped in the burrow by a sudden flood and preserved together in the sediments for 250 million years.

Tafforeau says: "Thanks to the unique possibilities for high quality imaging of fossils developed during the last decade at the ESRF, these unique specimens remain untouched, protected by their mineral matrix. Who knows what kind of information we'll be able to obtain from them in the future and which would have been completely lost if the specimen had been prepared out of its burrow cast?"

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/n3CQsxObqJs/130622154602.htm

Caleb Moore House of Cards Colin Kaepernick Chris Culliver Atlanta school shooting Superbowl Kickoff Time 2013 30 rock

On a technicality, Hong Kong and China extradite themselves from Snowden

The case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden was one that neither Hong Kong nor Beijing wanted to get involved in. With a stalling maneuver, Hong Kong let Mr. Snowden flee US extradition.

By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / June 23, 2013

A giant screen at a Hong Kong shopping mall shows Edward Snowden, the former contractor accused of leaking information about NSA surveillance programs. He left Hong Kong on Sunday.

Vincent Yu/AP

Enlarge

By allowing Edward Snowden to leave Hong Kong Sunday, hours after the United States sought to extradite him, the government there has rid itself ? and Beijing ? of an awkward diplomatic and legal problem.

Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford

Beijing Bureau Chief

Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.

Recent posts

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; // google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

Indeed there are strong suspicions in the former British colony that the Hong Kong authorities deliberately gave the fugitive NSA whistleblower time to get out.

The US extradition request, filed on Saturday, ?did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law,? the Hong Kong government said on Sunday, so it had asked Washington for ?additional information.?

In the meantime, there was ?no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong,? the statement added. On Sunday morning, Snowden boarded a plane bound for Moscow, accompanied by legal advisors from the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks according to a post on the group?s Twitter account.

His final destination was unclear.

?I suspect it was ?wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you?ve got 48 hours to get out of Dodge City?,? says Kevin Egan, a Hong Kong lawyer with experience of extradition cases. ?When the government got the clarification it had sought, it might not have been able to let him go.?

?Snowden managed to get away because Hong Kong decided to stall,? adds Claudia Mo, a lawmaker with the pro-democracy Civic Party. ?The matter was too tricky for Sino-American relations ? so Beijing gave instructions he should be given time to leave.?

Snowden had said he planned to challenge any US extradition attempt in Hong Kong courts, declaring his faith in the city?s rule of law. But he faced the possibility of having to stay in jail throughout the court proceedings, which could have taken several years according to local lawyers.

His case was a thorny one for Beijing, anxious to improve relations with the United States and embarrassed by the US fugitive?s presence in Hong Kong, but unable to intervene openly in Hong Kong?s judicial process under the ?one country, two systems? principle that safeguards Hong Kong?s courts.

Hong Kong?s top official, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying had promised that the case would be handled ?in accordance with the laws and established procedures of Hong Kong.? But the politically sensitive case ?would have been quite a test for our rule of law,? says Ms. Mo. ?It would have been a very thorny issue and it is all for the best for both Hong Kong and Beijing that he has gone.?

?This was not a case that Hong Kong or Beijing ever wanted to get involved in,? agrees Mr. Egan. ?The best thing for both of them was for Snowden to leave.??

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/DTvJw4WYO4c/On-a-technicality-Hong-Kong-and-China-extradite-themselves-from-Snowden

Kim Kardashian Baby Lil Snupe aaron hernandez aaron hernandez Paula Dean Racial Slur Vine Summer solstice 2013

Snowden heads to Venezuela via Moscow, Havana: airline source

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden will fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then plans to go to Venezuela, a source at the Russian airline Aeroflot said on Sunday.

The source said Snowden was already on his way to Moscow from Hong Kong and would leave for Havana within 24 hours.

The South China Morning Post also reported that Snowden had left Hong Kong for Moscow and that his final destination might be Ecuador or Iceland. The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website said Snowden was heading for an unnamed "democratic nation".

The flight to Moscow prompted speculation that Snowden might remain in Russia, whose leaders accuse the United States of double standards on democracy and have championed public figures who challenge Western governments.

But Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said he was unaware of Snowden's plans and the Foreign Ministry declined immediate comment on whether he had asked for asylum.

State-run news agency RIA cited an unnamed law enforcement official as saying Russian authorities had "no claims" against Snowden and that there were no orders to detain him.

Interfax news agency cited an unnamed source as saying Snowden apparently did not have a Russian visa, which U.S. citizens need to enter Russia, and that he might not leave the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly, Gleb Stolyarov and Alexei Anishchuk,; Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-fly-venezuela-via-cuba-russia-airline-source-122956797.html

4/20 boston Cnn Live Logan airport Miranda rights Police Scanner boston herald

Heat, LeBron securing places in history

MIAMI (AP) ? Dwyane Wade was walking down the hallway toward the Miami Heat locker room in the wee hours of Friday morning, still in uniform and fussing with the new championship hat atop his head as his team and their families were in the midst of partying the night away.

He stopped briefly and assessed the celebration.

"We're getting pretty good at these," Wade said.

That's understandable, the Heat are getting plenty of practice at throwing themselves end-of-season parties. Four trips to the NBA Finals since 2006, three championships in that span and with the last two titles coming consecutively, it's making the decisions that the Heat and LeBron James made three summers ago look pretty smart.

By topping San Antonio in Game 7 of a back-and-forth NBA Finals on Thursday, the Heat became the sixth franchise in league history to win consecutive championships. It's their third title overall; only four clubs have more. And for James, it capped two seasons where he won all he could ? two regular-season MVPs, two titles, two Finals MVPs, even an Olympic gold medal.

"It feels great. This team is amazing. And the vision that I had when I decided to come here is all coming true," James said. "Through adversity, through everything we've been through, we've been able to persevere and to win back to back championships. It's an unbelievable feeling. I'm happy to be part of such a first-class organization."

James said winning his first title was the toughest thing he's ever done.

It's now the second-toughest. Defending the crown, he said, was even more arduous. He was exhausted when it was over ? and still scored 37 points in the finale, more than he posted in any other postseason game this season.

"Believe in LeBron," Heat President Pat Riley said.

Miami did, all the way to the end.

The Heat rolled past Milwaukee in a first-round sweep, needed five games to oust Chicago in the second round, but then went to the seven-game limit against Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals and then to the last game again against the Spurs, who actually were 21 seconds away from ending the series in six games before James and the Heat engineered a huge rally.

Without that comeback, a championship-or-bust season would have gone bust.

Instead, legacies were enhanced, more trophies were hoisted, and Miami's place atop the NBA landscape was cemented.

"To be in the championship three years in a row, to win two of those three, is unbelievable," Wade said. "Everybody can't get to the Finals and win six in a row, like win six and not lose one like Michael Jordan. Everyone don't do that. But we are excited about the future of this organization. We are still a good team. And we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we can stay competitive."

Moves will be made, of course. The Heat have some luxury-tax concerns to address, and it would be a shock if they didn't try to get even better through a trade or free agency.

"All it's about now is what's in front of us," Riley said.

Then again, if James keeps getting better, Miami's place in history will probably only rise.

At 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds, James has a combination of size, speed and strength that seems unmatched in the NBA world. After Miami lost the 2011 finals to Dallas, James decided to improve his post play by working with Hakeem Olajuwon. Last season, his focus was on enhancing his mid-range jumper, something he continued working on throughout the season with Ray Allen.

So with about a half-minute left and the Heat up by two points, it was that mid-range jumper that sealed Miami's title. James delivered with 27.9 seconds left to make it a two-possession game. Not long afterward, he had the Larry O'Brien Trophy in one arm, the Finals MVP trophy in the other, ready for a well-deserved break from basketball.

"I want to be, if not the greatest, one of the greatest to ever play this game," James said. "And I will continue to work for that, and continue to put on this uniform and be the best I can be every night."

James has already put himself in that best-ever conversation.

"We all know his work ethic," said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who spent part of his first day as a two-time champion coach at Jim Larranaga's basketball camp at the University of Miami. "It's probably unique for a guy who has been the best in the game since he was in seventh grade. Usually you wouldn't have the type of work ethic that would match that type of talent."

Jordan won six titles, James only has two. But if that's the sole standard, then Jordan isn't even close either, considering Bill Russell won 11 rings in his Boston career. Russell was there for the Heat title clincher, served as part of the on-court trophy presentations, then retreated to a small room not far from the Miami locker room as players meandered in for one of the immediate perks of winning a title ? a photo shoot with the trophy.

James posed for hundreds of photos during his time in there. Camera clicks were a constant sound for about 10 minutes when he was in the room. And before he left, he and Wade waved for Russell to come join them for some more snapshots.

"Get the legend up here," James shouted.

Russell walked to the front of the room as a few people, mostly Heat employees and family members, clapped. He shook hands with the Heat stars, then turned around to face the cameras and said something to James that was barely audible to those even a few feet away.

"You earned this one," Russell said.

James' grin became even broader, and camera shutters kept on whirring. Suddenly, that oft-mocked, oft-replayed "not two, not three, not four" answer James gave during the Heat celebration of their free agency coup in 2010 doesn't look like such a punch line anymore.

"I always felt that when he got up to five, six, seven that he was joking a little bit, but the media decided to take him very seriously," Heat managing general partner Micky Arison said. "I think right now he's real happy with two and next year he'll be worried about three."

James has played 10 seasons now. Including playoffs, his scoring average is 27.6, third-best in league history behind only Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Since the league began charting plus-minus (the point differential when a player is on the court), James' teams have outscored opponents by 3,861 points with him in regular-season and playoff games. Second-best on that list? Wade, at 2,301 points. That gap is simply huge.

With an average season next year, he'll move into the Top 25 in all-time regular-season scoring. He got more rebounds per game this season than ever before, shot the 3-pointer better than ever before, punctuating that by making five in Game 7 of the finals. And here's what might be truly frightening for opponents: For the sixth straight year, James' shooting percentage got better.

"Hopefully people will leave him alone a little more now," Heat forward Shane Battier said. "He takes a lot of heat, I think undeservedly. He's the best player on the planet. And hopefully now with two titles, he'll get more the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, he's the best. He's the best right now."

So are the Heat. And that can't be argued.

The Celtics, Lakers and Bulls are the only franchises to win three straight titles. That will be the challenge for the Heat next year, to take a great run and make it a truly elite run.

For now, though, James wants no part of that conversation. He's going to enjoy this one for a good long while.

"It's the ultimate," James said. "I don't want to think about next year right now, what our possibilities are next year. Got to take full advantage of this one. It's an unbelievable moment for our team."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heat-lebron-securing-places-history-212916314.html

tenacious d steve smith zou bisou bisou tim tebow press conference tebow press conference trina rob dyrdek