Occupy Wall Street campaigners buy-up debt to abolish it

A group of campaigners linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement is buying-up distressed loans for pennies in the pound and cancelling them to "liberate debtors at random".

As a test run the group spent $500 on distressed debt, buying $14,000 worth of outstanding loans (Reuters)

The Rolling Jubilee project is seeking donations to help it buy-up distressed debts, including student loans and outstanding medical bills, and then wipe the slate clean by writing them off.
Individuals or companies can buy distressed debt from lenders at knock-down prices if it the borrower is in default or behind with payments and are then free to do with it as they see fit, including cancelling it free of charge.
As a test run the group spent $500 on distressed debt, buying $14,000 worth of outstanding loans and pardoning the debtors. They are now looking to expand their experiment nationwide and are asking people to donate money to the cause.
David Rees, one of the organisers behind the project, writes on his blog: "This is a simple, powerful way to help folks in need - to free them from heavy debt loads so they can focus on being productive, happy and healthy.
"Now, after many consultations with attorneys, the IRS, and our moles in the debt-brokerage world, we are ready to take the Rolling Jubilee program live and nationwide, buying debt in communities that have been struggling during the recession."
A video released to promote the project says: "We shouldn't be forced into debt to cover basic needs like healthcare, housing and education. We need a jubilee, a clean slate. The math is on our side; a little bit of money goes a long way. If we can raise $50,000 we can buy a million dollars worth of debt and abolish it.
"We bailed-out the banks and in return they turned their backs on us. We don't owe them anything, we owe each other everything. It's time for a bail-out of the people, by the people."

- telegraph.co.uk

Urine Powered Generator !!!

These Teenage Girls from Africa Made a Urine Powered Generator! Here's how it works:
--Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.
--The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
--The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the    hydrogen gas.

--This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.

Brazil launches nationwide literacy program

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday inaugurated a nationwide literacy program, saying education is the key to equal opportunity.

Noting that an average 15 percent of the country's children cannot read or write by the age of eight, Rousseff said literacy and basic math comprehension are essential to the future of Brazil's children.

"More than any other initiative, education ... can ensure access to equal opportunities," said the president.

The effort, which requires an investment of 1.33 billion U.S. dollars in literacy initiatives for pre-school children, is aimed at making Brazilian children able to read and write by the age of eight.

The fund will be used to train 360,000 teachers to teach some 8 million children in more than 100,000 schools in the next two years.

Promoting reading and writing among children cannot be achieved by the government alone, said Rousseff, adding that families and society as a whole need to get involved also.

"The future of the country is at stake," she said. "The poor education of public school children is at the root of inequality."

Birds evolving faster in Americas, study says

The rate of evolution of birds appears to be accelerating, particularly in North and South America, says new research based on a genetic family tree of every bird species known to man.

Using a genetic map of 9,993 bird species, a team of researchers — including scientists at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University — found that the rate of bird diversification is increasing, particularly in North America, parts of Asia and South America.

"We find that birds have undergone a strong increase in diversification rate from about 50 million years ago to the near present," the scientists say in a study published in the journal Nature today.

Based on previous studies, the researchers expected to reach the opposite conclusion and find that the rate at which new bird species proliferate would diminish over time, in part as a result of human impacts on natural habitats.

But the scientists, including SFU biologist Arne Mooers, post-doctoral fellow Jeff Joy and colleagues at Yale University, University of Sheffield in the U.K., and the University of Tasmania in Australia, found that the rate at which new species variations are developing is picking up speed.

"Perhaps birds are special," said Mooers in a statement. "Maybe they’re so good at getting around they can escape local competition from relatives and start anew elsewhere, producing bursts of new species at different times and in different parts of the globe."

How daylight changes affects the health

Academic research shows that losing an hour of daylight can be linked to negative effects on both the mind and body, including disturbed sleep patterns, seasonal depression and obesity.

Both the amount and quality of sleep have been shown to be important for mental and physical health, says Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center in Illinois. “Disturbed sleep is associated with depression, memory and learning impairments, cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk factors (diabetes and heart disease), obesity, and impaired ability to fight infections.”

Even when clocks change backward or forward by just an hour, circadian misalignment — the difference between the timing of a person's natural internal clock and their required work or sleep/wake schedule — can occur, which Zee says “has been shown to increase risk for mood disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and breast cancer.”

Canada's newest dinosaur an 'alien-horned' beast

Scientists have come up with a likeness of Canada’s newest dinosaur, Xenoceratops foremostensis, more than 50 years after the first fossilized fragments of one were dug up in southern Alberta.

Its new name comes from the Greek words meaning “alien-horned face.”

Pieces of skull and neck bone sat on a shelf in Ottawa’s Museum of Nature after they were unearthed at a dig near Foremost, Alta., in 1958.

They were forgotten until 2003 when paleontologists Michael Ryan and David Evans started their own investigation for their research paper on fossils that were first discovered in that area of Alberta – the far southeast corner.

Six years later, they found additional skull fragments from the same creature that had been placed in an old plaster field jacket.

As detailed in the October issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, the pair took all the fragments to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where they were able to put together a metre-long piece of neck bone.

As a result, a team was able to imagine what the animal looked like. In a word, it was fearsome. The animal weighed 3,000 kilograms, with a beak-like mouth and a frightening appearance that included a massive neck shield topped by two large spikes. They think it was six metres long. The dinosaur roamed Alberta almost 80 million years ago, making it the oldest-known, large-bodied dinosaur from Canada.

“Xenoceratops foremostensis shows us that even the geologically oldest ceratopsids [big-horned dinosaurs] had massive spikes on their head shields and that their cranial ornamentation would only become more elaborate as new species evolved,” said Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

According to Ryan, the horns might have been used to attract female counterparts. He theorizes the males with the bigger horns were more successful reproductively.

“The early fossil record of ceratopsids remains scant…Xenoceratops provides new information on the early evolution of ceratopsids,” said the report’s co-author, David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto.

Student loans: parents being 'misled' on application forms

When every penny counts, some students could be losing out on £120 a year. 

Parents filling in their part of their son's or daughter's student loan application are being "misled" into over-declaring their income, according to a Guardian reader who says students could be missing out on millions of pounds in grants and loans as a result.

Peter Coombes – not his real name – says the Student Loans Company (SLC), which administers the student finance scheme, is failing to make it clear on its complex application forms that parents are only required to declare their household's "taxable" income, rather than "all" the household income it currently requests.

Parents unaware of the rules could wrongly be including income from Isas and other tax-free savings in their declaration, resulting in their offspring receiving lower grants and payments.

Coombes, who does not wish to be named because he fears it could cause problems for his daughter who is in her second year at university, says many students at English universities whose parents have significant tax-free savings could easily be losing out on £120 a year, although in some cases the amount could be much higher.

Each year, parents or other household members such as a partner have to declare their household income to the SLC, which uses the information to calculate the amount students will receive in maintenance grants and loans.

The legislation governing this area is very clear: parents should be declaring taxable income only, meaning any money they have invested in cash or stocks and shares Isas, and other tax-free savings products such as those from National Savings, does not have to be included.

Despite this, the forms and guidance notes which parents and other household members have to fill in fail to make this clear, a misleading state of affairs the loan company should take steps to clarify, Coombes argues. A form sent to Money by the SLC makes no mention of this major caveat.

Coombes says a two-parent family with £16,000 in cash Isas would have earned about £480 last year, assuming an interest rate of 3%. If declared to the SLC, this would reduce their child's annual grant by £87 and their loan by half this amount.

A SLC spokeswoman confirms that Isa income can be disregarded: "Interest, dividends and other income from Isas are classed as non-taxable. The guidance on the financial assessment [the Assessing Financial Entitlement guidance document for assessors] has not changed, neither has the regulatory definition of taxable income.

"We regularly review our advice and communications to customers to make sure the information we provide is accurate and accessible."

- Guardian.co.uk

New 'super-Earth' found in six-planet system

An international team of astronomers has discovered what they are calling a new “super-Earth,” which is seven times the size of Earth and has the right conditions to support life.Called HD40307g, the new planet exists in a zone of a nearby star and is part of a six-planet system.

Scientists had already known about the star and its other three uninhabitable planets but after using an instrument that was more sensitive to wavelengths, they were able to discover another three, including the super-Earth.

A report, appearing in Astronomy and Astrophysics, said the super-Earth exists in an area that supports liquid water and is in the outermost orbit from the star.

Its orbit around the host star is at a similar distance to Earth’s orbit around our Sun and also gets a similar amount of energy from the star that Earth receives from the Sun. This means there is a stable atmosphere to support life. As well, the planet is likely to be rotating on its own axis as it orbits the star, producing a daytime and night-time effect, much like Earth.

“The longer the orbit of the new planet means that its climate and atmosphere may be just right to support life,” said Hugh Jones of the University of Hertfordshire, which participated in the research.

“Just as Goldilocks likes her porridge to be neither too hot nor too cold but just right, this planet, or indeed any moons that it has lie in an orbit comparable to Earth, increasing the probability of it being habitable.”

The planet orbits the star in about 200 Earth-days and now joins a growing list of 800 known planets beyond our solar system.

The super-Earth and its two sister planets were previously undetectable until the team used the Harps instrument at the European Southern Observatory’s facility in Chile. The instrument detects tiny changes in the colour of a star’s light triggered by a planet’s gravitational tug.

Lead author of the paper, Mikko Tuomi, said the instrument allowed for increased “sensitivity” and enabled the team to identify three new planets.

Trend to part-time work has impact on EI (Eligibility Insaurance) figures

A trend towards more short-lived and part-time jobs has made it harder than ever for many Canadians to qualify for employment insurance benefits, even if they've contributed to the federal program, according to data released Monday.

Statistics Canada says only 78.4 per cent of Canadians who lost their jobs last year were eligible for benefits - the lowest rate since the agency started collecting comparable information in 2003.

It's also down from 83.9 per cent who were eligible to collect benefits in 2010.

Put another way, less full-time permanent work means fewer employees who work enough hours to qualify for EI benefits.

"The share of these contributors who last worked in a permanent, full-time job - where one can generally have enough hours to qualify for EI - declined from 51 per cent to 45 per cent in 2011," the agency said.

"At the same time, there was an increased share of those who last worked in temporary, non-seasonal work, where one generally accumulates fewer hours."

To be eligible for EI benefits, contributors require from 420 to 700 hours worked, depending on the unemployment rate in their region. First-time employees, or those with limited work experience in the past two years, need 910 hours.

Economist Erin Weir, president of the Progressive Economics Forum, said the report shows the rules are not working for many Canadians who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

"The case is quite compelling for the government to focus on making employment insurance benefits more accessible," he said.

Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter says the numbers could also be interpreted to show that fewer permanent full-time workers are losing their jobs - but he agrees that the more vulnerable workers are being left out in the cold.

"Often times, it is the last in, first out," Porter said. "It shows that the people who are often let go first are the people least firmly attached to their jobs."

Monday's report found there was on average of 1.34 million people unemployed in 2011.

Murray beats Tsonga to reach ATP semi-finals

Andy Murray swept into the semi-finals of the ATP Tour Finals as the world number three defeated France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) at London's O2 Arena on Friday.

After Novak Djokovic's win over Tomas Berdych earlier on Friday, Murray knew he only needed to take one set off seventh seeded Tsonga to guarantee his third appearance in the last four of the season-ending event.

The 25-year-old took just 33 minutes to achieve his goal and he eventually sealed his second win of the tournament, advancing from Group A in second place behind Djokovic, despite a late flurry from Tsonga.

After a glorious year which has featured his first Grand Slam title at the US Open, a gold medal in the Olympic singles and a first appearance in the Wimbledon final, Murray would love to cap the campaign with a first Tour Finals crown.

To do that he is likely to have to get past defending champion Roger Federer, who will be the Scot's semi-final opponent on Sunday if, as expected, the Wimbledon champion finishes top of Group B.

China 'plans manned space launch' in 2013

A Chinese rocket takes off with the Venezuelan
earth observation satellite Miranda from the
Gobi desert in Jiuquan, northwest China's
Gansu province in September

AFP - China is aiming to launch its next manned space mission as early as June 2013, state media reported Saturday, as the country steps up its ambitious exploration programme.

The Shenzhou-10, with three crew members, is aiming for a primary launch window in June, Niu Hongguang, deputy commander-in-chief of the manned space programme, told China National Radio in an interview Friday.

Niu, speaking on the sidelines of China's 18th Communist Party Congress that kicked off Thursday in Beijing, said officials had identified a back-up launch window for July or August.

He said one of the three astronauts would likely be a woman.

China sent its first female astronaut, Liu Yang, into space earlier this year on the Shenzhou-9 in the country's first manual space docking mission.

The docking procedure was a major milestone in the country's ambitious space programme that has a goal of building a space station by the end of the decade.

In its last white paper on space, China said it was working towards landing a man on the moon, but did not specify a time-frame.

So far only the United States has achieved that feat, most recently in 1972.

Beijing has said it will also attempt to land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time in the second half of 2013 and transmit back a survey of the lunar surface.

China sees its space programme as a symbol of its rising global stature, growing technical expertise, and the Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

The country sent its first man into space in 2003. It completed a space walk in 2008 and an unmanned docking between a module and rocket last year.

EU budget talks for 2013 collapse

British Conservative MEPs clashed with Martin Schulz
over a 9bn euro request for 2012

Talks to agree the EU's 2013 budget have collapsed, after negotiators from the EU and member states were unable to agree on extra funding for 2012.

The EU Commission and European Parliament had asked for a budget rise of 6.8% in 2013.

But most governments wanted to limit the rise to just 2.8%.

The failure of the talks will dent hopes of agreement on the 2014-2020 budget, which is up for discussion later this month, correspondents say.

Friday's dispute was over an extra 9bn euros (£7bn; $12bn) in "emergency funding" for 2012, to cover budgets for education, infrastructure and research projects.

But Germany, France and other governments questioned the funding, and eight hours of talks produced no agreement.

"Under these conditions, we felt that negotiations which hadn't really begun by six o'clock in the evening couldn't reasonably be expected to finish during the night," said the parliament's lead negotiator, Alain Lamassoure.

At the European parliament, UK Conservative MEPs clashed with Parliament President Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat, over the extra 9bn euros shortfall for 2012.

In 2012 the budget was 129.1bn euros, a 1.9% increase on 2011.


Among the schemes facing a shortfall this year is the Erasmus student exchange programme.

It has allowed nearly three million young Europeans to study abroad since it was launched 25 years ago.

In an open letter to EU leaders on Friday more than 100 famous Europeans, including film directors and footballers, warned that "thousands could miss out on a potentially life-changing experience".


- BBC.co.uk

UK: Space spending to be increased by £60m a year

Investing in space technology is seen as one path
to re-balance the British economy

Chancellor George Osborne has increased spending on space technology by £60m per year over the next two years.

The investment is part of a plan to increase the UK's contribution to the European Space Agency.

The government hopes this will attract more hi-tech jobs and contracts to Britain.

Overall spending in civil research has, however, declined by 5% in real terms since 2010 - a reduction which is set to continue.

Mr Osborne made the announcement in a speech to the Royal Society, calling for a national debate on where the UK can lead the world in scientific excellence.

The European Space Agency (Esa) investment will lift UK's contribution to the Paris-based organisation by an average of 30% at a time when many other nations are struggling to meet their contributions or even reducing them.

By increasing its contribution, the expectation is that the UK will get more research contracts in return and this will increase the competitiveness of British space companies, enabling them to win future orders in what is a growing global market for products and services.

Recent data have shown that the UK space industry recorded a total turnover of over £9.1bn in 2010/11, representing an average annual growth rate of 7.5% since 2008/09.

While other sectors have shrunk during the recession, these figures gave Science Minister David Willetts powerful ammunition to persuade the Treasury to back space as a key sector for further growth.

- BBC.co.uk

Microsoft demos instant English-Chinese translation

The tech allowed Mr Rashid to present in Chinese,
even though he does not speak the language

Software that can translate spoken English into spoken Chinese almost instantly has been demonstrated by Microsoft.

The software preserves intonation and cadence so the translated speech still sounds like the original speaker.

Microsoft said research breakthroughs had reduced the number of errors made by the instant translation system.

It said it modelled the system on the way brains work to improve its accuracy.

Details about the project were given by Microsoft research boss Rick Rashid in a blogpost following a presentation he gave in Tianjin, China, in late October that had, he said, started to "generate a bit of attention".

In the final few minutes of that presentation the words of Mr Rashid were almost instantly turned into Chinese by piping the spoken English through Microsoft's translation system. In addition, the machine-generated version of his words maintained some of his spoken style.

- BBC.co.uk

Pakistan 'to pay cash to poor to send kids to school'

Events are being held in Pakistan to mark "Malala Day"

Families of three million of Pakistan's poorest children will get cash sums if their child attends school, in a scheme announced ahead of a day of action for a schoolgirl shot by militants.

Under the scheme, funded by the World Bank and UK, families would reportedly get $2 a month per child in school.

The news came as the UN held "Malala Day", in the name of Malala Yousufzai, 15, a Pakistani education campaigner.

She is recovering in the UK after she and two others were shot in October.

Saturday has been declared a global day of action in Malala's name aimed at getting school places for 32 millions girls around the world who are not attending classes.

Diego Vela: Chile’s newest student leader

Diego Vela. Photo by New University Action Party.

The Student Federation of Universidad Católica (FEUC), one of the most influential social groups in the country, chose its new face Thursday night, electing commercial engineering student Diego Vela as its new president.

In an interview with The Santiago Times, Vela said he would continue the student movement’s fight for tuition-free education.

“We are extremely happy about the results of the election,” Vela said. “They show that students are still very committed to the demands the student movement has been making all along for public, free and quality education.”

After a two-day election, Vela secured the fifth consecutive victory for his center-left New University Action Party (NAU) with 53.8 percent of the vote, beating out the conservative Solidarity Party candidate Cristián Stewart, who received 46.2 percent.

While Vela conceded that the student movement’s path will be a difficult one, he remains hopeful that it will ultimately prove successful.

“I am optimistic in that I think we will eventually find a solution (to achieve tuition-free education), but I am also realistic in that I know this isn’t going to happen easily or quickly,” Vela said. “We need to stay in the streets. We need to stay united.”

When asked whether the movement might have to lower its expectations, given its limited progress to date, Vela rejected the idea, stating, “we absolutely cannot compromise on our demands.”

Chilean president Sebastián Piñera’s proposed 2013 budget includes an additional US$1.23 billion investment in education (a 9.4 percent increase from the previous year’s), but student leaders have expressed their dismay at its perceived prioritization of private over public education.

Stewart, whose Solidarity party led by 1.6 percent after the first day of voting, was gracious in defeat.

“I consider (Vela) to be a tremendous person, very human, very sensible,” Stewart told The Santiago Times. “And so I’m quite calm because I think he’ll be a great president.”

The Solidarity Party’s second place finish in the first round of voting prevented the well-established Conservative Movement (MGUC) party from reaching the final round of voting for the first time in their four-decade history. Stewart was thrilled about the exposure.

“I am very content and calm (about the results),” Stewart said. “We were able to convey a message that until this point we hadn’t been able to present on this level.”

Vela will replace fellow NAU member Noam Titelman as FEUC president. He promised to generally continue in the steps of his predecessor, whose accomplishments include successfully petitioning to factor a student’s high school class ranking into their university selection exams.

- The Santiago Times

Headline November11,2012

''iPHONE VS BLACKBERRY'' THE SHOOT-OUT AT MIDDAY!..

For modern men, the battle lines have been drawn. It's the trendy iPhone versus the business-like BlackBerry in the shoot-out at midday.

Frankly, in the wireless world of modern times, it is the American humorist Robert Benchley who comes to mind, for his famous wisdom: ''There are two types of people: those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who do not.'' And he was damn right:humanity is fat too multifarious and contradictory to be contained by some simple binary opposition. That be damned, however.


These days there are unquestionably two types of people:
Those with iPhones and those with BlackBerrys!

I say people: obviously I mean Students and I also mean everybody. Let me explain a little more. This is never to say that there are not women who own these devices - I've seen them - but unlike men, they cannot be defined by them. Woman who own iPhone just own an iPhone, and they you know, use it, to make phone calls an stuff. They will not plonk it demonstratively on the table every time they sit down with a friend, they will not show you every new application as soon as it comes in, breathless with wonder; they will not go into battle for it.

Why do men do that thing of taking their phones out and putting them next to the cutlery? It's not because they might at any moment get a call a text or an email. After all, should any of these things occur, all they have to do is to take the phone out of their pocket; so we are looking at a -what? two seconds delay before that can can be dealt with.
No: they do it because it's the closest thing we have now to the drawing of guns from holsters. The blokes with the iPhones -who think of themselves as arty, creative, trendy etc -will start showing off what it can do. They will play the guitar on it: they will demonstrate that they can photo of someone and make their face melt.

But the BlackBerry blokes will smile and shake their heads, fully knowing and feeling that the iPhoners are playing right into their hands. Because the point of owning a BlackBerry is that it says:
I am an adult; I am a businessman; I have put away childish things; I do not need distractions; I just need push-email. The more you show me what that Apple thing can do, the more you prove it's just a toy.

This would seem the most airtight of arguments. And then sometime back, I saw the battle lines being drawn right across the table -iPhoners on the left and the BlackBerry men on the right -we would just got tot the stage, when iPhoner called Tim picked up his and played the ocarina on it. Which, as you may know, you do by blowing into it.

And then demonstrated that you can bring up on the screen an image of the planet, and by poking that image wherever you fancy, you can hear someone else play playing their iPhone as an ocarina anywhere else in the world. We listened, as someone called Boondocks, somewhere in the Philippines, played what sounded like clanger channelling Pavarrotti.

I.ll come clean. I own neither. But I feel many times that I am an iPhone worshiper. In Jack Kirby's astonishing Fourth World C Comics saga, the good guys Orion, Lightray, Mister Miracle -all carry strapped to their arms, a Mother Box; small sentient mini-computers able to heal, transport matter, control time and help sort out supervillains. This essentially, is what I think an iPhone is. Or, will be, very soon. Which means that although all you BlackBerry types will be notified first, via push of the Email saying, ''Alien Zombies on jetskis taking over the world,'' the iPhoners will be out there fighting them with their phones.

Until the battery runs out. So, for about a day, maximum I guess.

Many thanks to !WOW!. Good Night & God Bless!

BlackBerry 10, Release in 2013

By Bushra Sabir
Technology Correspondent, SAM Daily Times

BlackBerry 10 won't be released until the first quarter of 2013, the platform has already received a highly prized U.S. government security clearance, the company announced Thursday. BlackBerry 10 won the FIPS 140-2 certification that will allow government agencies to deploy devices that run the OS. The clearance also applies to Enterprise Service 10, RIM's new mobile enterprise management solution.

Rebel Heart (Dust Lands, #2) by Moira Young

Nothing is certain and no one is safe in the second book in the highly praised Dust Lands trilogy, which MTV’s Hollywood Crush blog called “better than The Hunger Games.”

It seemed so simple: Defeat the Tonton, rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh, and then order would be restored to Saba’s world. Simplicity, however, has proved to be elusive. Now, Saba and her family travel west, headed for a better life and a longed-for reunion with Jack. But the fight for Lugh’s freedom has unleashed a new power in the dust lands, and a formidable new enemy is on the rise.

What is the truth about Jack? And how far will Saba go to get what she wants? In this much-anticipated follow-up to the riveting Blood Red Road, a fierce heroine finds herself at the crossroads of danger and destiny, betrayal and passion.