Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301601199?client_source=feed&format=rss
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শুক্রবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
শুক্রবার, ১৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Increased brain activity predicts future onset of substance use
Apr. 17, 2013 ? Do people get caught in the cycle of overeating and drug addiction because their brain reward centers are over-active, causing them to experience greater cravings for food or drugs?
In a unique prospective study Oregon Research Institute (ORI) senior scientist Eric Stice, Ph.D., and colleagues tested this theory, called the reward surfeit model. The results indicated that elevated responsivity of reward regions in the brain increased the risk for future substance use, which has never been tested before prospectively with humans. Paradoxically, results also provide evidence that even a limited history of substance use was related to less responsivity in the reward circuitry, as has been suggested by experiments with animals.
The research appears in the May 1, 2013 issue of Biological Psychiatry.
In a novel study using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Stice's team tested whether individual differences in reward region responsivity predicted overweight/obesity onset among initially healthy weight adolescents and substance use onset among initially abstinent adolescents. The neural response to food and monetary reward was measured in 162 adolescents. Body fat and substance use were assessed at the time of the fMRI and again one year later.
"The findings are important because this is the first test of whether atypical responsivity of reward circuitry increases risk for substance use," says Dr. Stice. "Although numerous researchers have suggested that reduced responsivity is a vulnerability factor for substance use, this theory was based entirely on cross-sectional studies comparing substance abusing individuals to healthy controls; no studies have tested this thesis with prospective data."
Investigators examined the extent to which reward circuitry (e.g., the striatum) was activated in response to receipt and anticipated receipt of money. Monetary reward is a general reinforcer and has been used frequently to assess reward sensitivity. The team also used another paradigm to assess brain activation in response to the individual's consumption and anticipated consumption of chocolate milkshake. Results showed that greater activation in the striatum during monetary reward receipt at baseline predicted future substance use onset over a 1-year follow-up.
Noteworthy was that adolescents who had already begun using substances showed less striatal response to monetary reward. This finding provides the first evidence that even a relatively short period of moderate substance use might reduce reward region responsivity to a general reinforcer.
"The implications are that the more individuals use psychoactive substances, the less responsive they will be to rewarding experiences, meaning that they may derive less reinforcement from other pursuits, such as interpersonal relationships, hobbies, and school work. This may contribute to the escalating spiral of drug use that characterizes substance use disorders," commented Stice.
Although the investigators had expected parallel neural predictors of future onset of overweight during exposure to receipt and anticipated receipt of a palatable food, no significant effects emerged. It is possible that these effects are weaker and that a longer follow-up period will be necessary to better differentiate who will gain weight and who will remain at a healthy weight.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon Research Institute, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Eric Stice, Sonja Yokum, Kyle S. Burger. Elevated Reward Region Responsivity Predicts Future Substance Use Onset But Not Overweight/Obesity Onset. Biological Psychiatry, 2013; 73 (9): 869 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.11.019
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/gnD24aukvZ8/130418100152.htm
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Gun control backers: Senate defeat won't stop us
Family members of those lost in the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, Mark and Jackie Barden, with their children Natalie and James, who lost Daniel; Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan, upper left, and and Jeremy Richman, father of Avielle in the back, stand together as President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Washington. Obama spoke about measures to reduce gun violence and a bill to expand background checks on guns that was defeated in the Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Family members of those lost in the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, Mark and Jackie Barden, with their children Natalie and James, who lost Daniel; Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan, upper left, and and Jeremy Richman, father of Avielle in the back, stand together as President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Washington. Obama spoke about measures to reduce gun violence and a bill to expand background checks on guns that was defeated in the Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords is helped as she arrives for a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Washington, about measures to reduce gun violence and the bill to expand background checks on guns that was defeated in the Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? One day after the demise of gun control legislation, Senate supporters of the measure vowed to try again, while a leading opponent accused President Barack Obama of taking the "low road" when he harshly criticized lawmakers who voted against key provisions.
"When good and honest people have honest differences of opinion about what policies the country should pursue about gun rights...the president of the United States should not accuse them of having no coherent arguments or of caving to the pressure," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
The fate of the bill was sealed in a string of votes on Wednesday, when Republicans backed by a small group of rural-state Democrats rejected more extensive background checks for gun purchasers and also torpedoed proposed bans on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines.
The Senate delivered its verdict four months after a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., left 20 first graders and six school aides dead. The tragedy prompted Obama to champion an issue that Democrats had largely avoided for two decades, and that he himself ignored during his first term in the White House.
Two additional votes were set for later in the day, but they were on relatively minor provisions, and the bill itself was moribund for the foreseeable future.
Cornyn said he agreed with Obama that Wednesday had been a shameful day, but added it was because of the president's own comments, rather than the events on the Senate floor.
"He could have taken the high road...instead he chose to take the low road and I agree with him it was a truly shameful day."
Cornyn spoke shortly after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the struggle for tougher gun legislation was not over.
"This is not the end of the fight. Republicans are in an unsustainable position," he said, after voting with few exceptions against a tougher requirement for background checks for gun purchasers, a proposal that shows very high support in most public opinion polls.
Reid offered no timetable for renewing the drive to enact legislation that Obama has placed near the top of his domestic agenda.
Another Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said the proposed expansion of background checks that he co-authored would have passed easily had it not been for the National Rifle Association's decision to take the vote into account in deciding which candidates to support or oppose in 2014.
"If they hadn't scored it, we'd have had 70 votes," he said. Instead, it drew 54, six short of the 60 needed to advance.
Manchin also told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Wall Street Journal that the outcome would have been different if the Senate had acted more quickly after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. "If we'd have gone to a bill like this immediately, boom," he said, predicting it would have received 65-70 votes.
Obama spoke in clipped, angry tones at the White House on Wednesday after the Senate scuttled legislation he had campaign for energetically.
"I see this as just Round One," the president said, flanked by relatives of Newtown's victims and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011.
Looking ahead to the 2014 congressional elections, he added, "If this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass common-sense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters."
Obama blamed lawmakers' fear that "the gun lobby would spend a lot of money" and accuse them of opposing the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.
A spokesman, Josh earnest, told reporters on Thursday, "we're pretty close to a consensus on this just about everywhere except in the United States Congress. And as the President alluded to yesterday, I think that is an indication of the pernicious influence that some special interests have in the United States Congress. And that is going to require a vocalization of public opinion to overcome it."
Emotions were high on Wednesday at the Capitol.
When the background check amendment failed in the Senate, Patricia Maisch, watching from a visitors' gallery, shouted "Shame on you!" Maisch helped restrain the gunman at the 2011 Tucson shooting in which six people died and 13, including Giffords, were wounded.
___
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Laurie Kellman, Richard Lardner and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
North Korea issues new threats over protests in South
By Robert Birsel and Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea issued new threats against South Korea on Tuesday, vowing "sledge-hammer blows" of retaliation if South Korea did not apologize for anti-North Korean protests the previous day when the North was celebrating the birth of its founding leader.
The North also rejected what it called "cunning" U.S. overtures for talks, saying it will not be humiliated into being dragged to sit at the negotiating table by Washington.
But a senior U.S. military official in South Korea said the North Korean leadership was looking for a way to cool down its rhetoric after weeks of warnings of war.
On Monday, the North dropped its shrill threats against the United States and South Korea as it celebrated the 101st anniversary of the birth of its first leader, Kim Il-Sung, raising hopes for an easing of tension in a region that has for weeks seemed on the verge of conflict.
But the North's KCNA news agency said on Tuesday the North Korean army had issued an ultimatum to the South after rallies in the South on Monday at which portraits of North Korea's leaders were burned.
"Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now," KCNA reported, citing military leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as North Korea is officially known.
The North's Foreign Ministry also rejected what it said was cunning U.S. scheming aimed at defusing tensions on the Korean peninsula with an offer of talks while deploying military assets capable of launching nuclear strikes against it.
"We do not oppose dialogue but we will not sit down at talks table in humiliation against opponents who are swinging the nuclear club against us," an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the KCNA news agency.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Seoul last week that Washington was open to dialogue with Pyongyang on the condition that the talks would lead to eliminating nuclear arsenal from the North.
South Korean media reported several small demonstrations in the capital, Seoul, on Monday. One television station showed pictures of a handful of protesters burning a portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Small counter-protests, by South Koreans calling for dialogue with the North, were also held, media reported.
The North has threatened nuclear attacks on the United States, South Korea and Japan after new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February.
The North has also been angry about annual military exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces, describing them as a "hostile" act. The United States dispatched B52 and B2 stealth bombers from their bases to take part.
OFFER OF TALKS
But along with the new threat on Tuesday, the North's KCNA raised the possibility of dialogue.
"If the puppet authorities truly want dialogue and negotiations, they should apologize for all anti-DPRK hostile acts, big and small, and show the compatriots their will to stop all these acts," KCNA cited the North's military as saying.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman later told a briefing the North Korean ultimatum was not worth a response and South Korea was waiting for the North to make a "wise decision".
Last week, the South's President Park Geun-hye offered talks but the North rejected the overture as a "cunning" ploy.
Park will meet U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on May 7 to discuss economic and security issues, including "countering the North Korean threat", the White House said on Monday.
The U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a North Korean missile test or nuclear test were possible but he believed it was trying to tone down its the war of words.
"The DPRK leadership is trying to figure out a way to off-ramp from the heightened state of rhetoric that we've been seeing for the past several weeks," the official told reporters.
North Korea faced difficulties trying to "fix and tune up" its Soviet-era conventional weapons, and that was why it wanted nuclear weapons, and the missiles to deliver them.
"They are replacing that decreasing conventional capability with increasing asymmetric capability of weapons of mass destruction, intercontinental ballistic missiles and special operations forces," the official said.
The United States has offered talks with the North, but on the pre-condition that it abandons its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea deems its nuclear arms a "treasured sword" and has vowed never to give them up.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, ending his visit to Korea, appeared to open the door to talking without requiring the North to take denuclearization steps in advance. Beijing, he said, could be an intermediary.
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests but it was not believed to be near weapons capability.
Missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea are both banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions that were expanded after the North's February test.
The aim of the North's aggression, analysts say, is to bolster the leadership of Kim Jong-un, the 30-year-old grandson Kim Il-Sung, or to force the United States, which has 28,000 troops in South Korea, to open talks.
A U.S. Marine transport helicopter crashed in South Korea on Tuesday, near the border with North Korea, with 21 people on board during exercises with South Korean forces.
The U.S. military described the accident as a "hard landing" and said six people were in stable condition in hospital. South Korean media said the helicopter caught fire after all on board got out. The cause of the accident would be investigated, the U.S. military said.
(Additional reporting by Se Young Lee and Christine Kim; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-issues-military-threats-founders-birthday-000221193.html
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The Reference Frame: Panspermia follows from Moore's law
Just several years ago, when this blog already existed, I got converted to the idea of panspermia which says that the earliest forms of life were born somewhere in outer space before the Earth was formed ? and they just found Earth to be a particularly hospitable destination where they could further evolve and flourish.
Now, the Physics arXiv Blog discusses the preprint
Life Before Earthby two biologists, Alexei Sharov and Richard Gordon, who aren't affiliated with any "top theoretical universities" that brings us a cool new argument in favor of the panspermia paradigm.
The argument is based on a computer science meme, Moore's law, that claims that the number of transistors on a circuit is exponentially increasing with the doubling time that is either 18 or 24 months or so.
Just for the sake of completeness, this is how the number of transistors grew from the 1970s:
Growing by a factor of 1 million (20 doublings) in 40 years translates almost exactly to a 2-year doubling time.
I think you will agree that the line ? with a logarithmic y-axis ? is indeed remarkably straight. The case of biology is designed to be as similar as possible. Instead of transistors, they count the functional genome's base pairs (bp). The result looks like this:
The functional non-redundant genome size apparently grows 10-fold in a billion of years or so.
In particular, the red dots are ordered truly linearly ? the growth is exponential ? and there's no doubt that if you extrapolate the number back to "the origin of Earth" 4.7 billion years ago, you still get a genome size above 10,000 base pairs.
The most obvious criticism you may raise is that this naive straight-line "Moore's law" just fails. The line is allowed to bend. Equivalently, the explosion of the genetic information in an animal could have grown exponentially but with a much shorter doubling time when life was really getting started. Maybe. However, note that you could raise the same objection in the case of the integrated circuits but Moore's law seemed OK even when computers were very, very young.
Even when Moore's laws in this particular form ? one could of course guess that other precise quantities grow exponentially but this "transistor/base pair count" seems to be particularly well-behaved ? are correct, a question is whether we may "prove" or at least find an argument that "explains" why the doubling time should be constant. I don't have such a "theoretical proof" and I am interested in it if you know one.
However, as I have previously stated, there is a reason why I think that the idea that "all steps to life had to occur on Earth" is probably wrong. It's just unnecessary and based on a one-size-fits-all egalitarian reasoning that has obvious limitations.
If you believe that even short DNA molecules were first born on Earth, you probably defend such a viewpoint by pointing out that our blue, not green planet is so unusually hospitable and obeys the conditions we need for life. So it had to be here.
This claim seems to treat the word "life" in a very sloppy, ambiguous way. It's the higher life similar to ours that needs the oceans to swim in and other achievements that Earth seems to boast and employ to defeat many competing tourist destinations. However, when we talk about the origin of life, we're not talking about the origin of mammals. The latter could have taken place on Earth but that does not imply that the former event had to occur terrestrially, too.
In fact, I find it pretty obvious that the concentration of the habitats to friendly hot spots is becoming more focused as one goes towards the higher life forms. If a professional (=paid) string theorist is picked as the prototype of the highest life form on Earth, its or his or her habitat is confined to several floors at Princeton, New Jersey, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a dozen of comparably small places that are getting less and less characteristic. These are much more special places than the places where mosquitos and fungi flourish ? which is almost everywhere on Earth.
If you revert this "increasing concentration of genetic capital" to reconstruct the distant past, it seems reasonable to think that the "optimum place" for some extremely old, primordial life forms was less localized than the Earth's surface. After all, it's probably not true that these life forms needed a nice amount of planetary gravity ? gravity becomes almost irrelevant for very small cells etc. much like it is irrelevant in particle accelerators. Similarly for water etc.
I think that the volume of "cavities in rocks" and similar things that are flying around all stars in the Milky Way is probably higher than the volume right above the Earth's surface where we expected terrestrial life. In particular, even if you insist that the temperature is right, you don't need an Earth-like planet at the right radius that orbits a given star. The rocks may be just enough.
I don't want to be excessively specific about the "less demanding conditions" that the early life could have depended upon because I haven't spent too much time with thinking about all such possible conditions. But I surely do believe the general principle that the primitive life is less choosy and less picky than advanced life. This very general principle is enough for me to prefer the hypothesis that the very early life was born at rather generic extraterrestrial places and it just found the Earth to be a particularly hospitable place for a further evolution.
What do you think?
Source: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/04/panspermia-follows-from-moores-law.html
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বুধবার, ১৭ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Samsung Galaxy S 4 priced at $150 on Sprint and T-Mobile, hits both carriers in late April
US launch details for the Galaxy S 4 are arriving at last, and both Sprint and T-Mobile are on the vanguard. The two carriers plan to sell Samsung's flagship for $150 in 16GB form, albeit with different pricing strategies: T-Mobile's plan includes its now-standard device payment installments, while Sprint is discounting the phone from its normal $250 price through a $100 instant credit for those switching to the network. Just when you'll have the chance to plunk money down also varies. Sprint plans to offer pre-orders starting on April 18th, with an actual launch on April 27th. T-Mobile isn't giving customers the same opportunity to buy in advance, although they will get to take the Galaxy S 4 home a few days earlier, on April 24th. We're still waiting on other American carriers to hop on the bandwagon, but we suspect it won't be long.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/aAIh12F2yeA/
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শুক্রবার, ১২ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Obama's budget puts squeeze on wealthy's ... - Financial Post
U.S. President Barack Obama wants to prevent people from accumulating too much money in their tax-advantaged retirement accounts or trusts for heirs, adding to pressure on the wealthy after raising tax rates in January.
Obama?s 2014 budget proposal, released Wednesday in Washington, would increase estate taxes and limit techniques used by the wealthy to transfer assets through trusts.
Obama?s US$3.77-trillion budget includes cuts to social security, tax hikes on wealthy
President Barack Obama proposed a US$3.77-trillion budget on Wednesday that combines controversial cuts to social safety net programs with tax increases on the wealthy.
Continue reading.
The plan also caps at US$3.4-million the amount individuals can amass in tax-preferred individual retirement accounts and requires those who inherit IRAs to take taxable distributions within five years instead of over their lifespan.
Financial planners and tax professionals said such changes could mean big headaches for individuals, especially the wealthy, as they plan for retirement or strategize about passing on assets to their heirs.
?We are going to penalize people for being diligent about their planning and their saving and for accumulating wealth,? David Scott Sloan, chair of the national estate planning practice at the Holland & Knight LLP law firm in Boston, said of the proposals. ?If you save too much, we?re going to tax it.?
We are going to penalize people for being diligent about their planning and their saving and for accumulating wealth
The budget plan calls for returning the estate tax in 2018 to 2009 levels, which is a reversal from the so-called fiscal- cliff budget deal Obama signed in January. That law made the estate-tax terms permanent and indexed them for inflation.
?We believe that in these fiscal times, that it?s responsible policy in 2018 for the estate tax to return to the 2009 parameters,? Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a press briefing Wednesday.
Not ?Permanent?
Obama?s budget would drop the per-person exemption from estate taxes to $3.5-million from US$5.25-million this year and increase the top estate tax rate to 45% from 40%. The US$3.5-million exemption wouldn?t be indexed for inflation.
?It gives us new meaning to the word permanent,? Sloan said. ?Apparently permanent means five years.?
The proposal to restore the estate tax to 2009 levels may re-ignite discussions among wealthy families and advisers that occurred last year when the threshold was set to drop to US$1-million, said Jay Messing. He?s a senior director of planning in the Northeast for the private bank unit of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co.
Obama?s proposal, which lays out his priorities on taxes and spending, is not expected to advance in Congress, where the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-held Senate have adopted non-binding budget resolutions so different in their goals that there?s little prospect for compromise.
Recycled Proposals
The budget plan recycles proposals from prior years including those to curtail the use of so-called grantor trusts, change rules around valuations of assets in estates and limit to 90 years how long trusts can escape generation-skipping transfer taxes. The proposals related to estate and gift taxes are projected to raise about US$79-billion over the next decade.
?These are powerful tools,? said Carol Harrington, head of the private client group at the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery in Chicago. While the proposals would have a long-term effect if enacted, they probably won?t raise as much revenue as the budget projects over the next several years, she said.
?People just won?t use the technique,? Harrington said. Instead, they will look for other tax-advantaged ways to pass wealth to heirs or keep appreciating assets in their estates until they die, she said.
IRA Limits
Obama?s budget also would limit using IRAs as an estate-planning tool because it generally would require non-spouse beneficiaries to take distributions from IRAs they inherit over no more than five years. That provision would raise about US$4.9-billion over the next decade.
IRAs are retirement accounts that let people contribute money without paying income taxes up front. The money grows tax- free inside the account, and holders must pay taxes at ordinary income rates when they withdraw the funds.
IRA owners can begin withdrawing money without penalty after they turn 59 1/2 and must start withdrawing money after they turn 70 1/2.
Heirs of IRAs must take distributions and pay taxes on them, though currently the payments can be stretched over a long period. A five-year limit would make the accounts less attractive for heirs because the distributions are taxed as ordinary income and the tax hit would come much sooner, said Suzanne Shier, director of wealth planning and tax strategy at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp.
?It?s shifting the economics if you don?t have the extended payout,? she said.
Capital Gains
People may look instead to save in traditional investment accounts where long-term capital gains are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income, she said.
IRAs have evolved from a retirement-planning technique into an estate-planning tool for some wealthy families. The issue gained attention during the presidential campaign last year when Republican nominee Mitt Romney disclosed that his IRA held between US$18.1-million and US$87.4-million, and at one time the maximum value exceeded US$100-million.
The budget?s proposed cap on retirement savings would apply to the total of an individual?s tax-favoured accounts including IRAs and 401(k)s. It would be reached by barring taxpayers from adding more tax-free money once the limit is reached. Sponsors of retirement plans and IRA trustees would report each participant?s account balance as of the end of the year.
Roth IRAs
The limit would be set starting at US$3.4-million, the amount needed to fund a $205,000 annual annuity for a 62-year-old, and be indexed for inflation. Balances from Roth IRAs and the value of defined-benefit plans would count toward the cap, said a Treasury official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
Less than one percent of Americans age 60 or older had combined 401(k) and IRA balances totalling US$3-million or more as of year-end 2011, according to the Washington-based Employee Benefit Research Institute.
?Tax incentives have to be looked at in the context of the tradeoffs,? Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said today at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing. ?We are encouraging the vast majority of Americas to save as much as they possibly can.?
Reprising Proposals
Obama?s budget also reprises many of the administration?s proposals including a 28% cap for high earners on the value of tax breaks such as the mortgage interest deduction, retirement contributions and municipal bond interest.
The limit on the value of itemized deductions and the so- called Buffett Rule proposals revived in the budget would increase income taxes for some wealthy families, said Messing of Wells Fargo Private Bank.
The Buffett Rule, named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, would impose a 30% minimum tax on households with more than US$2-million in annual income after charitable contributions.
The budget also repeats a call to tax the share of private-equity managers? profits in buyout deals, known as carried interest, at ordinary income rates rather than preferential rates provided to long-term capital gains.
Bloomberg News
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Putin on Finland's criminal blacklist by 'mistake'
HELSINKI (AP) ? Vladimir Putin, banned in Finland?
Finnish police say the Russian president's name was mistakenly placed on a secret criminal register that could theoretically have gotten him arrested at the border.
TV station MTV3 reported Wednesday that Putin was placed there for his contact with Russian motorcycle gang Night Wolves, though he wasn't suspected of a crime in Finland. But National Police Board spokesman Robin Lardot told the AP the listing was a mistake and that Putin's name was removed from the list.
"The National Police Board has investigated the case and indeed found that such a mistaken entry was in the register," Lardot told The Associated Press. "We have ordered it to be removed and are investigating the case very thoroughly. We don't know how it got there." He declined further comment.
Putin's inclusion would be a major source of embarrassment in bilateral relations.
Finnish Interior Minister Paivi Rasanen, whose ministry oversees the police, conveyed her "sincerest apologies" to Putin over the mistaken entry.
"The Interior Ministry considers it of grave concern if a member of the police has made such groundless entries into the database of suspects."
MTV3 said the content of the register is known only to a few top officials. But in a statement later Wednesday, police called it a "computerized personal data file intended for nationwide used by the police."
They said it includes information on people who are suspected of offenses punishable by prison "or having contributed to an offence subject to imprisonment of more than six months, or to an unlawful use of narcotics."
The Night Wolves says on its Web site that the club's prototype was born in the 1980s from the desire to protect musicians who were holding illegal concerts during the Soviet era.
The muscle-flexing Russian leader has not been averse to being associated with tough bikers and has described motorcycles as "the most dramatic form of transport."
Three years ago, he leaped onto a Harley Davidson to join about 5,000 bikers at an international convention in southern Ukraine sporting black sunglasses, black jeans and black fingerless gloves.
The head of Finland's national police force, Mikko Paatero, apologized for the "mistaken" inclusion of Putin's name in the database.
"This kind of incident is extremely exceptional and is not acceptable under any circumstances," Paatero said in a statement.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/putin-finlands-criminal-blacklist-mistake-135714285.html
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Seven shortlisted for $65,000 Griffin poetry prize
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The Griffin Poetry Prize, created by businessman Scott Griffin, awards $65,000 each year to an international poet and a Canadian one.
Photograph by: Handout
TORONTO ? Canadian poets David W. McFadden, James Pollock and Ian Williams are competing for the lucrative Griffin Poetry Prize.
The prize ? created by businessman Scott Griffin ? awards $65,000 each year to an international poet and a Canadian one.
Toronto resident McFadden is up for What?s the Score (Mansfield Press) while Pollock ? who lives in Madison, Wis., ? is in the running for Sailing to Babylon (Able Muse Press). And Williams, of Brampton, Ont., made the cut for Personals (Freehand Books).
The international finalists are: Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems by Houston-based Fady Joudah, translated from the Arabic, written by Ramallah-based Ghassan Zaqtan (Yale University Press); Liquid Nitrogen by Jennifer Maiden (Giramondo Publishing); Night of the Republic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Alan Shapiro, who is a professor at the University of North Carolina; and Our Andromeda by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Brenda Shaughnessy (Copper Canyon Press).
The judges ? Suzanne Buffam (Canada), Mark Doty (U.S.A.) and Wang Ping (China) read 509 books of poetry from 40 countries, including 15 translations.
The seven finalists will receive $10,000 for participating in short list readings on June 12. The winners ? to be announced the following night ? will each receive $65,000.
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ১১ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Arkansas Senate aims to cut off state funds to abortion providers
By Suzi Parker
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - The Republican-led Arkansas Senate, in the latest statehouse swipe at abortion providers around the country, approved a bill on Tuesday that sponsors said was aimed at cutting off the last vestiges of state funding to groups such as Planned Parenthood.
While it does not explicitly name Planned Parenthood or any other organization, the bill would bar all Arkansas state funds from going to any entity that provides abortions, refers patients to abortion providers or contracts with any group that does so.
The measure cleared the state Senate on a mostly party-line 19-11 vote, and now moves to the Republican-controlled House, where it is expected to gain final passage.
Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, has not said whether he would sign the bill. But the Arkansas legislature last month overrode his veto of two previous bills placing new restrictions on abortions, including one to ban most abortions from being performed after the 12th week of pregnancy.
"The hardworking taxpayers of Arkansas should not have to see their money sent to organizations that perform abortions," said David Ray, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Arkansas. "Surely with all of our nation's pressing problems in education, transportation and rampant government overspending, we can find something more responsible to do with these funds."
Abortion rights advocates say the latest bill could effectively cut off funding for domestic violence shelters or rape crisis centers that also happen to offer abortion referrals.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which operates in Arkansas, does not currently receive any state dollars for its abortion or other family planning services, which are funded from other sources.
But if the bill becomes law, the organization stands to lose two state grants for HIV and syphilis prevention programs that it administers in Arkansas public high schools and reach about 2,000 women, men and teenagers, according to Planned Parenthood.
"Today's vote is extremely disappointing for the thousands of teens who count on us for life-saving prevention programs," said Jill June, the group's president and CEO.
Bills similar to the latest measure in Arkansas have passed in other states, including Indiana, New Jersey and Texas, according to the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group in Washington, D.C.
In the most restrictive anti-abortion action to date, North Dakota's lawmakers approved legislation to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, though legal scholars have questioned whether that measure or a post-12-week ban would survive likely court challenges.
Efforts to clamp down on abortion and abortion providers in Arkansas were made after Republicans won control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time since the Reconstruction era following the Civil War.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arkansas, the national ACLU and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights plan to sue the state in federal court over the 12-week ban before it becomes law this summer.
(Reporting by Suzi Parker; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Steve Gorman and Pravin Char)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arkansas-senate-aims-cut-off-state-funds-abortion-060440555.html
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Gunman dead after holding four firefighters hostage in suburban Atlanta
Gwinnett County spokesperson Edwin Ritter tells the media that a flash-bang device was used, as there was concern for the firefighters safety, and that the gunman died after an exchange of gunfire during the rescue.
By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News
A gunman who was holding four firefighters hostage outside of Atlanta was killed during a tactical operation, police said Wednesday.
Following a standoff, the Gwinnett County Police Department SWAT team entered the residence where a barricaded gunman was holding four firefighters hostage in Suwanee, Ga.
The gunman had taken five firefighters hostage but allowed one of them to leave to move the fire truck, police said.
As officers entered the home, a small explosion could be heard. Officials later said it was used to distract the suspect. The sound of gunfire followed.
One officer suffered a non life-threatening injury in the exchange, and the four firefighters have "superficial wounds," Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Edwin Ritter said. It is believed the suspect was killed by gunfire, he said.
The firefighters responded to a medical call with one fire truck and an ambulance around 3:41 p.m., police said. They came from a nearby station, officials said, and they were trained as both emergency medical technicians and paramedics.
Local NBC affiliate WXIA reported that the house where the firefighters were being held hostage was foreclosed on in November and is currently bank-owned.
Ritter said that once the firefighters were taken hostage, the suspect demanded his power, cable and cell phone be turned on.
Suwanee is a suburban community about 35 miles northeast of Atlanta.
John Bazemore / AP
A police officer clears a path for an ambulance after an explosion and gunshots were heard near the scene where a man was holding four firefighters hostage Wednesday, April 10, 2013 in Suwanee, Ga. A police spokesman said the suspect was dead and none of the hostages suffered serious injuries.
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This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 5:25 PM EDT
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If That Awesome G.I. Joe Trailer Were an 80s Toy Commercial
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Halle Berry, Michael Kors launch Watch Hunger Stop
In this April 6, 2013 photo provided by Michael Kors, Kors and actress Halle Berry pose for a photo at Kors' Midtown office in New York. Kors and Berry have announced a partnership with the U.N. World Food Programme to raise money and awareness to tackle the issue of world hunger. (AP Photo)
In this April 6, 2013 photo provided by Michael Kors, Kors and actress Halle Berry pose for a photo at Kors' Midtown office in New York. Kors and Berry have announced a partnership with the U.N. World Food Programme to raise money and awareness to tackle the issue of world hunger. (AP Photo)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Halle Berry says she's a woman of compassion and Michael Kors says he's a man of action. Together, they want to make a dent in the battle against hunger around the world.
The actress and fashion designer announced a philanthropic campaign Monday called Watch Hunger Stop that includes raising money through the sale of a version of Kors' best-selling Runway watch. For each $295 watch sold, 100 meals will be provided to children through the U.N. World Food Programme.
Berry and Kors are planning to visit places together where the meals will be sent. They could land in Africa, in Syria, perhaps Central America.
The 46-year-old Berry, who is expecting her first child with fiance Olivier Martinez, said in an exclusive joint interview Saturday with Kors: "I hope we go while I'm pregnant, so I can talk about prenatal care."
"And I will have time off," she said, patting her belly and smiling. "I'm not working right now." (There was no sign of a baby bump in her chic black sheath with a bit of beading at the neckline.)
Berry, who has a 5-year-old daughter, said she wanted to meet and talk with mothers struggling to feed themselves and their children while she was expecting. It will help build a connection, she said.
"It's so important to me, being a mom, that I can help educate women on how important it is that when you have a healthy child, it helps set them up for life."
Kors and Berry hope to involve 5 million people, either through donations of time or money.
Berry, who supports the Jenesse Center, an anti-domestic violence shelter in Los Angeles, said working with the U.N. "is the next evolution in my philanthropic world. It puts my heart and compassion on a global scale."
Kors is a longtime supporter of God's Love We Deliver, a New York-based organization that delivers meals to those in need. "The change you saw when people going hungry got a meal ? it was an immediate difference. This isn't about research or a big political or social change, this is about giving a meal to people who need them."
"I go all over the globe traveling, and there are very few things in the world that are solvable catastrophes," he said. "This is one of them."
The designer said he asked Berry to be his partner in the campaign because "I'm enthralled by fabulous jugglers."
The message would be strongest coming from two well-known voices, he said. "I wanted someone talented, check. Someone compassionate to the world, a great mother, someone incredibly glamorous and chic ? and who makes it all look easy."
"If we can use our celebrity, I want to. I don't want it to go waste," Berry said. "If would be a shame not to use it."
There are many fundraising products for many good causes, Kors said, but choose a watch and it's simple math: a direct formula that it's 100 meals per watch as a conversation starter. Plus, he wears a watch, although he uses his cellphone to check the time. The watch is to make more of "a James Bond statement," he joked.
___
Follow Samantha Critchell at http://www.twitter.com/ap_fashion and http://www.twitter.com/sam_critchell/
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How to Buy, Arrange, and Care For Flowers Like a Pro
Arranging flowers? We know. It's scary. Which is why it's so easy to go for the pre-made bouquets at a flower shop, or to stick to one, simple type, or to forgo flowers altogether and dive into chocolate cake instead.
To get over our flower-arranging anxiety, we spoke to our favorite flower guru: Meredith Sexton, the florist for the Vetri Family of restaurants in Philadelphia. Armed with a good pair of scissors, we got to work?and realized that the process itself is just as rewarding as the final product.
Choosing Your Flowers
Pick a color sequence of no more than three colors. It's easy to get carried away while browsing a flower shop?but making something beautiful is easier when your flowers match each other. In the winter, we're fans of purple and orange; white, green and blue; or, in honor of a holiday like Valentine's Day, red, white, and pink.
Get inspired. If you fall in love with one color or type of flower, carry it around the shop with you. Then, match up the potential accompaniments, seeing if their colors and shapes work well together.
If you're making multiple bouquets, pick a base flower. Look out for an inexpensive, filler flower in a neutral color?and then stretch it throughout all of your arrangements. This allows you to buy in bulk?and to have fun picking special items for each separate bouquet. Meredith is a fan of using white limonium as her base flower; they're small, elegant, and allow the bigger, more colorful flowers to pop.
Be wary of the flowers on sale. They're on sale for a reason; the store is trying to move them quickly. If you're looking for your flowers to last up to a week, it's best to buy them full-price.
Big flowers stretch the farthest. If you're on a budget?or if you're nervous about making your own arrangement?go for a larger type of flower. They take up more space in a bouquet, so you can buy less of them?and they're easier to work with while building a bouquet.
Think about timing. Some flowers, like roses and tulips, benefit from a night in water. If you're building a bouquet for the same day, it's important to keep this in mind.
Arranging Your Flowers
Pick your vase. For a rustic look, we're fans of circular, wide-mouthed vases ? even pitchers. For a more refined arrangement, go for a tall, skinny vase.
Where will your flowers be standing? Is your arrangement a centerpiece for a table? Will the vase be standing against a wall? The placement of your bouquet will determine how you arrange it.
If you're using a round, wide-mouthed vase, make the arrangement in your hand first. Start with the flowers you'd like in the center, and start building around them, rotating the bouquet in your hand. When you're satisfied, you can cut them all together?and just plop them in your vase!
If you're using a tall, skinny vase, think about height. Since these vases look beautiful standing against a wall, take advantage of your point of reference. Starting from the front, build your bouquet upwards, so that the tallest flowers stand up in the back. Here's where your filler flowers come in; use them as your tall backdrop, while letting your colors pop in the front.
Prune, prune, prune. Just because you buy the flowers a certain way doesn't mean they're finished. Trim away all extra leaves, thorns, branches, and other distractions; you want the flowers themselves to shine.
Work on symmetry. When you're starting arrangements, it's easiest to make things beautiful by working in symmetry. Putting a pink flower on the left? Put another on the right. Is there a big flower towards the front? Try framing the bouquet with them.
Test for height. Each flower should get two snips: one to test the height, and one to determine the height. This allows room for error?the first snip should allow for a second cut, so that you don't accidentally cut flowers too short.
Experiment! Nothing is permanent. Once you've got the height down, play around! These are only flowers, and they're beautiful on their own. Your job is to have fun with them.
Taking Care of Your Flowers
Change your water every day. If you have time, wash the vase with soap and water, and add a tiny bit of bleach to each new change of water (this will kill the bacteria). Each time you put your flowers in new water, you should give the stems a fresh cut. Meredith is not a fan of flower food; she believes it can make the flowers over-bloom.
Do a mid-week check-in. These are living plants, after all?they're going to morph as they get older. Take some time to prune your bouquet as the week goes on.
Photos by James Ransom and Meredith Sexton.
Flower Arranging 101 Food52
Brette Warshaw is an editorial assistant at Food52. She's a reader, eater, culinary thrill-seeker, and food nerd.
Want more from Food52? Try your hand at arranging a centerpiece or setting a party-ready table.
Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.
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How Parallel Universes Actually Work, Scientifically
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After 'Tan Mom,' New Jersey bans children from tanning beds, spray
Jonathan Sanger / NBC News, file
Patricia Krentcil poses for a portrait in her home in Nutley, N.J., on Monday, March 4, 2013. Krentcil became known as the "Tanning Mom."
By Reuters
NEWARK, N.J. ? New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill into law on Monday banning children under 17 from using commercial tanning beds, a move stemming from the case of a local woman accused of taking her 5-year-old daughter into a tanning booth.
Under the new law, youth age 17 and older must have a parent or guardian present for an initial consultation with a tanning salon. It also bans children under 14 from getting spray tans in tanning salons.
Christie said that while he does not favor government regulation of small business, the new law was important for protecting the safety of minors.
"Governmental regulation of the private sector should always be carefully scrutinized, and sparingly adopted," he said in a statement. "The new restrictions imposed by this bill followed a single but breathlessly reported incident of a parent bringing a minor child into a tanning facility."
Patricia Krentcil of Nutley, New Jersey, was arrested in April 2012 after her daughter showed up at school with a sunburn and officials accused her of taking the child into a tanning booth.
Krentcil, who became known in tabloid stories as the "Tan Mom," testified that her own chocolate-brown hue came from many hours spent under the intense ultraviolet light of a tanning bed or out in the sun soaking up rays.
She denied exposing her daughter to a tanning session, and a grand jury opted not to indict her on charges of endangering the welfare of a child.
New Jersey was already one of several states that have regulations prohibiting anyone age 14 or younger from tanning with commercial ultraviolet devices because of the risk of skin cancer. The new law extends that ban to older teenagers.
Signing the bill into law, Christie noted the skin cancer risk and also that tanning before age 35 has been shown to increase the risk for melanoma by 75 percent.
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Google may launch an Android-based laptop this year
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday that a second U.S. guided-missile destroyer had taken position in the western Pacific on a missile defense mission, as tensions rise over North Korea's threats of war against the United States and its ally, South Korea. The announcement is the latest confirmation of minor adjustments to the posture of the U.S. military, which is seeking to reassure allies in Seoul and Tokyo of American military capabilities to respond to any moves by Pyongyang. U.S. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-may-launch-android-based-laptop-160537905.html
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NKorea refuses to let SKoreans enter joint factory
South Korean vehicles turn back their way as they were refused for entry to North Korea's city of Kaesong, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean vehicles turn back their way as they were refused for entry to North Korea's city of Kaesong, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean army soldiers walk on the empty road after South Korean vehicles which were refused for entry to North Korea at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean vehicles turn back their way as they were refused for entry to North Korea's city of Kaesong, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean Marine K-55 self-propelled howitzers are on positions during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean Marines pass by K-55 self-propelled howitzers during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
PAJU, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material.
The move to block South Koreans from going to their jobs at the Kaesong industrial complex, the last remaining symbol of detente between the rivals, comes amid increasing hostility from Pyongyang, which has threatened to stage nuclear and missile strikes on Seoul and Washington and has said that the armistice ending the 1950s Korean War is void.
Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang was allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong. Three workers returned Wednesday morning; dozens more were scheduled to return later. But Kim said about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park Wednesday were being refused entry.
North Korean authorities cited recent political circumstances on the Korean Peninsula when they delivered their decision to block South Korean workers from entering Kaesong, Kim said without elaborating.
It's the latest sign of deepening tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea said Tuesday that it will quickly begin "readjusting and restarting" the facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex, including the plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Analysts saw the statement as Pyongyang's latest attempt to extract U.S. concessions by raising fears of war. Experts estimate reactivating the reactor could take anywhere from three months to a year.
The rising tide of threats in recent weeks are seen as efforts by the North to force new policies in Seoul, diplomatic talks with Washington and to increase domestic loyalty to young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by portraying him as a powerful military commander.
North Korea is angry about ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills and new U.N. sanctions over its Feb. 12 nuclear test, its third. The Korean Peninsula technically remains in a state of war because a truce, not a peace treaty, ended the Korean War. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent to North Korea.
The North's plutonium reactor began operations in 1986 but was shut down as part of international nuclear disarmament talks in 2007 that have since stalled. Tuesday's nuclear announcement underscores worries about North Korea's timetable for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, although it is still believed to be years away from developing that technology.
The North's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of U.S. military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at the annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine but that North Korea claims are invasion preparations.
The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the Koreas.
North and South Korea do not allow their citizens to travel to the other country without approval, but an exception had previously been made each day for the South Koreans working at Kaesong.
About 120 South Korean firms run factories in the border town of Kaesong, with 53,000 North Koreans working there. Using North Korea's cheap, efficient labor, the Kaesong complex produced $470 million worth of goods last year.
Pyongyang threatened last week to shut down the park, which is run with mostly North Korean labor and South Korean know-how. It expressed anger over South Korean media reports that said North Korea hadn't yet shut the park because it is a source of crucial hard currency for the impoverished country.
In 2009, North Korea closed its border gate in anger over U.S.-South Korean military drills, leaving hundreds of South Korean workers stranded in Kaesong for several days. The park later resumed normal operations.
"I feel worried that I'm unable to do business and also feel anxious," Joe In-suk, a 54-year-old South Korean who had planned to travel to Kaesong on Wednesday, said at a border checkpoint in Paju, South Korea. About a dozen South Korean trucks were lined up at the checkpoint leading into North Korea.
If North Korea continues to deny entrance to South Korean workers, it could be tantamount to a shutdown because Kaesong factories cannot operate production lines without supplies of raw materials sent regularly by truck from the South to the North.
A South Korean manager whose company runs a factory in Kaesong was worried that buyers would drop future orders if North Korea continued to block workers and supplies from the South.
"For some companies, today's move must have already dealt them a blow," the manager said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media. "We cannot produce goods without raw material."
Seoul's Unification Ministry urged Pyongyang to "immediately normalize" cross-border traffic in and out of Kaesong.
The U.S., meanwhile, called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, saying it would be "extremely alarming" if Pyongyang follows through on a vow to restart its plutonium reactor.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is taking steps to ensure it has the capacity to defend itself and its allies.
But Carney noted that a string of threats from North Korea toward the U.S. and South Korea so far have not been backed up by action, calling the threats part of a counterproductive pattern. He called on Russia and China, two countries he said have influence on North Korea, to use that influence to persuade the North to change course.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called North Korea's development of nuclear weapons a growing threat. In a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Hagel said Washington and Beijing should continue to cooperate on North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
China, North Korea's only major economic and diplomatic supporter, expressed unusual disappointment with its ally.
Hwang Jihwan, a North Korea expert at the University of Seoul, said the North "is keeping tension and crisis alive to raise stakes ahead of possible future talks with the United States."
"North Korea is asking the world, 'What are you going to do about this?'" he said.
The North's nuclear statement Tuesday suggests it will do more to produce highly enriched uranium. The technology needed to make highly enriched uranium bombs is much easier to hide than huge plutonium facilities. North Korea previously insisted that its uranium enrichment was for producing electricity ? meaning low-enriched uranium.
Kim Jin Moo, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in South Korea, said that by announcing it is "readjusting" all nuclear facilities, including the uranium enrichment plant, North Korea "is blackmailing the international community by suggesting that it will now produce weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium."
The North's plutonium reactor was disabled under a 2007 deal made at now-dormant aid-for-disarmament negotiations involving the North, the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
In 2008, North Korea destroyed the cooling tower at Nyongbyon in a show of commitment, but the deal later stalled after the North balked at allowing intensive international fact-checking of its past nuclear activities. North Korea pulled out of the talks after condemnation of its long-range rocket launch in April 2009.
North Korea is believed to have exploded plutonium devices in its first two nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009.
There had long been claims by the U.S. and others that North Korea was also pursuing a secret uranium program. In 2010, the North unveiled to visiting Americans a uranium enrichment program at Nyongbyon.
Analysts say they don't believe North Korea currently has mastered the miniaturization technology needed to build a warhead that can be mounted on a missile, and the extent of its uranium enrichment efforts is also unclear. Some experts estimate North Korea may have enough plutonium for perhaps four to eight rudimentary bombs.
___
Associated Press writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim and Youkyung Lee in Seoul and Kim Yong-ho in Paju contributed to this report.
___
Follow Foster Klug on Twitter at twitter.com/APKlug; Sam Kim at twitter.com/samkim_ap; Youkyung Lee at twitter.com/YKLeeAP
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