Belaid's widow asks Tunisia government to protect her family

TUNIS (Reuters) - The widow of assassinated politician ???????????Chokri Belaid said on Saturday she was asking the Tunisian government to provide her family with official protection.

"After the killing of Chokri I am asking the Ministry of the Interior to provide official protection to me I and my daughters ... If any attack happens to the family, I will accuse the Ministry of Interior officially," Basma Belaid said On television.

Belaid's killing by an unidentified gunman on Wednesday -- Tunisia's first such political assassination in decades -- has shaken a nation still seeking stability after the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

Belaid's family has accused the ruling Islamist party Ennahda of responsibility for his killing. The party denies any hand in it.

''We intend to begin judicial action to sue all those who accuse Mr Rached al-Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahda party, be they politicians or journalists who are exploiting the blood of the deceased for narrow political ends at the expense of the truth'', Rached Gannouchi, the head of Ennahda, said in a statement on Saturday.

Tunisia's political transition had been more peaceful than those in other Arab nations such as Egypt and Libya, but tensions are running high between Islamists elected to power and liberals who fear the loss of hard-won freedoms.

Nejib Chebbi, leader of the Republican secular party, said that the Tunisian president provided him with official protection after he received death threats a few weeks ago. Secularists fear that the assassination of Belaid could prompt other copycat killings in Tunisia.

Belaid's funeral on Friday drew the biggest crowds seen on Tunisia's streets since the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

(Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/belaids-widow-asks-tunisia-government-protect-her-family-011717427.html

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When Did God Get Into the Wedding Business?

Gay rights campaigners gathering outside the Houses of Parliament on Feb. 5, 2013, in London, where Parliament held a vote on whether to allow same-sex couples to marry

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The British House of Commons voted to approve same-sex marriage on Tuesday. The issue deeply divides the ruling Conservative Party, as well as the Church of England. The church accepts same-sex civil unions as a legal institution but opposes gay marriage, which church leaders say undermines the sacred place of marriage in society. Was marriage originally a legal or a religious institution?

A legal institution, mostly. Marriage developed independently in hundreds of human civilizations, so it?s difficult to pinpoint history?s first marriage or even the society that first conceived of marriage as an institution. Early Sumerian marriage agreements, which date to the third millennium B.C., are among the oldest records relating to marriage. The couples swore an oath to a series of deities in a small number of agreements, but most of the records contain no mention of gods or religion, suggesting that the Sumerians viewed weddings as legal events. The terms of marriage were decidedly contractual, including specific worldly punishments for cheating. (The penalty for male infidelity was 10 shekels in alimony to the jilted wife. If the wife strayed, she would be strangled and dumped into a river.) There is no indication that someone who violated the marriage agreement suffered the eternal wrath of Shamash and Marduk, or that those deities took a personal interest in strong marriages.

The ancient Hebraic take on marriage is difficult to ascertain. Scholars have argued for years over whether to translate the Old Testament word describing a marriage agreement as ?contract,? which is a simple agreement between two parties, or ?covenant,? which includes an additional vow to God. One of the difficulties is that the Old Testament uses the same word to describe both God?s relationship with the Israelites and a husband?s promise to his wife. Some ancient Hebrew writers explicitly analogized those two commitments, and, of course, the Ten Commandments mention God?s aversion to adultery. However, like the Sumerian marriage agreements, documents describing ancient Jewish marriages are mostly lists of legal obligations and consequences and rarely contain spiritual language. It?s likely that the idea of marriage as a sacred union involving God developed over time among ancient Jews, but the evidence is open to interpretation.

What about the pre-Christian Greeks, the founders of modern Western society? Some of Plato?s writings cast marriage in a semi-spiritual light. He wrote that, ?Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.? That romantic sentiment echoes the New Testament notion that ?two will become one flesh.? But Plato?s general philosophy was practical: Marriage was good for Greek society. He even advised young men to choose a partner based on the interests of the polis, not love or other personal desires. Aristotle had a utilitarian and legal view of marriage as well, writing that marriage ?combines the useful with the pleasant.? It appears that marriage was a contractual matter in ancient Greece.

The New Testament injected God into marriages like never before, most obviously by physically placing Jesus at the wedding at Cana, where he blessed the union by turning water into wine. Jesus also said of the sanctity of marriage, ?What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.? A small number of Christians moved in the fifth century to describe marriage as a religious rite on a par with baptism, but it wasn?t until the 1200s that marriage had completed its transition from contractual agreement to Christian sacrament.

Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b34df03b5a6671a5cf60ad0f56fa1bd5

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Navy pulling carrier from Persian Gulf over budget worries

Kristina Young / Handout / EPA

The USS Harry S. Truman at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean in December 2012.

By Jim Miklaszewski and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News

Published 6:30 p.m. ET: Budget constraints?are prompting?the U.S. Navy to cut back the number of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf region from two to one, the latest example of how contentious fiscal battles in Washington are impacting the U.S. military.

According to Defense Department officials, the USS Harry S. Truman, which was set to leave for the Persian Gulf region on Friday, will now remain stateside, based in Norfolk, Virginia.?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the change to the department?s ?two-carrier policy? in the Persian Gulf region early Wednesday.

The U.S. has steadily kept two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf for much of the last two years. In 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued a directive to keep two in the area given the volatility of the region.

The cutback is largely a result of automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, passed by Congress during the summer of 2011. Congress has failed to pass a budget for the fiscal year, and has instead opted on passing legislation that will keep spending at the same level as last year. But that means the Pentagon has been operating with less money and is unsure of what the future holds for its bottom line.

Under sequestration, the Navy would lose $4 billion over the next six months, the last half of fiscal year 2013. The Navy was already $4.6 billion in the hole for this year because the continuing resolution for 2013 was budgeted at 2012 rates.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tells NBC's Chuck Todd if a sequester is allowed to happen it will "badly damage" the readiness of the U.S. military.

Navy officials say the Defense Department ordered members of their branch and all services to ?prepare for sequestration,? even though it?s not yet clear the automatic budgets cuts will kick in next month.?

?We cut back to one carrier in the Gulf region to save money now, or wait until sequestration and be forced to cut back to zero carriers,? a senior defense official told NBC News.

It?s not certain whether the Defense Department or the White House would permit a zero carrier presence in the Persian Gulf, no matter what the budget constraints, given rising tensions over Iran. The Truman would still conduct exercises off the US East Coast and would be ?surge ready? in the event of an emergency or disaster.

A statement from Pentagon Press Secretary George Little assured that the United States will ?maintain a robust presence? in the area, but cited the pending sequestration cuts as the reason the Navy sent Panetta the request.

?This prudent decision enables the U.S. Navy to maintain these ships to deploy on short notice in the event they are needed to respond to national security contingencies,? read the statement.

Revelation of the cutbacks comes the same day as news that Panetta is recommending military pay increases be limited to one percent in 2014. Uniformed military will still get a raise, but it will be much smaller ?to reflect the difficult budget decisions? facing the department, a defense official told NBC News.

At a speech Wednesday, the outgoing secretary of defense warned that the budget battles in Washington are putting America at risk. ?

?The Department of Defense and other agencies across government have been living under a serious shadow -- the shadow of sequestration ... Today, with another trigger for sequestration approaching on March 1st, the Department of Defense is facing the most serious readiness crisis in over a decade,? he said to a crowd at Georgetown University.

?Make no mistake, if these cuts happen there will be a serious disruption in defense programs and a sharp decline in military readiness,? Panetta said in his speech Wednesday.

?We have begun an all-out effort to plan for how to operate under such a scenario, but it is already clear that no good options exist.?

On Tuesday, President Obama called on Congress to pass ?a small package of spending cuts and tax reforms? to avoid the automated cuts set to kick in at the beginning of next month.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Kelly Ayotte ? who have toured the country warning that sequestration cuts could put U.S. national defense at risk ? responded on Wednesday by introducing a bill that would avoid cuts by slashing the federal workforce by 10 percent.?

Additional reporting from Courtney Kube

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16873226-navy-to-pull-aircraft-carrier-from-persian-gulf-over-budget-worries?lite

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Disney's stock shines even as earnings decline

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Disney won over more fans on Wall Street with its latest quarterly performance, despite a slight drop in its earnings.

The downturn announced Tuesday was less pronounced than the modest dip analysts anticipated as Walt Disney Co. digested higher programming costs at its ESPN television network and dealt with a less appealing line-up of home video releases in its movie studio. Higher expenses for distributing box-office hits such as "Lincoln" and "''Wreck-It-Ralph" also created a drag during the holiday-season quarter.

The Burbank, Calif. company offset some of those problems with an advertising upturn at its ABC network, higher spending at its theme parks and a reversal of an operating loss in its video games division.

It was good enough to set the stage for Disney's stock to hit a new high in Wednesday's trading. The shares gained $1.48, or 2.7 percent, to $55.77 in Tuesday's extended trading after the release of the financial results. If the stock reaches that level Wednesday, it will top its previous peak of $54.87, which the shares touched just last week.

When Disney does well, it tends to lift spirits throughout the stock market. That's because Disney is one of the 30 companies that comprise the influential Dow Jones industrial average and also is part of the Standard & Poor's 500 index that serves as a basis for many investment funds. Both the Dow Jones and S&P indexes are nearing their all-time highs reached in 2007.

Although he didn't make a concrete forecast, Disney CEO Robert Iger painted a bright picture for analysts during Tuesday conference call.

"We're confident about the year ahead, as well as our ability to create continued long-term growth," Iger said.

Most analysts have been optimistic about Disney's prospects for several reasons.

Cable and TV satellite providers are expected to pay Disney higher fees to carry its channels on their systems. Disney also is opening new theme parks and adding more attractions such as "Cars Land," which helped bring in more crowds and boost spending at its southern California resort during the latest quarter.

On the movie studio side, Disney plans to release several potential crowd pleasers later this year, including a prequel to "The Wizard of Oz," a sequel to the 2001 animation hit "Monsters Inc." and a new take on "The Lone Ranger" starring Johnny Depp. Meanwhile, sequels are already in the planning stages for three of the most successful film franchises in Hollywood history: "Pirates of the Caribbean," ''The Avengers" and "Star Wars." Disney just picked up the rights to the latter franchise in late December when the company completed its $4.06 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The next installment in the "Star Wars" saga, due out in the summer of 2015, will be directed by acclaimed science-fiction film maker J.J. Abrams. In Tuesday's conference call, Iger also confirmed Lucasfilm will make at least two other films outside the "Star Wars" saga. The first two peripheral projects are being overseen by Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," and Simon Kinberg, whose credits include writing "X-Men: The Last Stand."

Looking even further ahead, Disney has lined itself for a big payday from Netflix Inc. by licensing its latest theatrical releases to the Internet video subscription service beginning in 2016. That deal was reached in early December.

Disney earned $1.38 billion, or 77 cents per share, during its fiscal first quarter, a three-month stretch that ended Dec. 29. That compared with net income of $1.46 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the same period in 2011.

Excluding certain charges and one-time gains, Disney said it would have earned 79 cents per share. On that basis, the results exceeded the average estimate of 76 cents per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue climbed 5 percent from the previous year to $11.3 billion ? about $130 million above analyst predictions.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-05-Earns-Disney/id-0593af646c7245eebca21c8ab5e2b24e

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Next Week's Asteroid Flyby Shows Earth is in 'Cosmic Shooting Gallery'

The people of Earth are not doing enough to protect their home planet from the threat of an asteroid impact, scientists said today (Feb. 5) as they track a space rock slated to make a close shave next week.

The asteroid due to pass exceptionally close to Earth on Feb. 15 ? called 2012 DA14 ? was discovered only last year by amateur astronomers with the help of a grant from a non-profit agency. While asteroid 2012 DA14 poses no risk of hitting Earth, there are likely hundreds of thousands more rocks like it out there, its discoverers said.

"We live in a cosmic shooting gallery and it's a reminder that we need to keep doing our work to find these things and to prevent the only preventable natural disaster, which is asteroid impact," said Bruce Betts, a planetary scientist at the Planetary Society, the non-profit space research and exploration organization that helped sponsor the discovery of asteroid 2012 DA14.

"We are not doing enough" to find potentially dangerous asteroids, Bruce told reporters today during a teleconference. "We're doing more than we were 15 years ago, and these surveys are helping out. We're discovering them faster. To be safe, we need a lot higher rate of discovery."

One person who's pitching in to help is Jaime Nomen, a dental surgeon by day, and an asteroid hunter by night. Nomen is part of the team at Spain?s La Sagra Observatory that discovered 2012 DA14 about a year ago. [Asteroid 2012 DA14's Flyby: Fact vs. Fiction (Video)]

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about half the width of a football field (150 feet, or 45 meters), and will fly within 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) of our planet on Friday, Feb. 15, zooming closer to the planet than the ring of satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Not long before the asteroid's February 2012 discovery, Nomen and his team won a Planetary Society-sponsored Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grant that allowed them to upgrade the CCD camera on one of their telescopes, which boosted the number of images the team can snap of quick-moving objects.

Projects like the La Sagra search can sometimes find asteroids that slipped through the cracks of the larger NASA-run surveys that are responsible for the majority of the near-Earth asteroid discoveries every year, Nomen said. Still, there are so many mid-range space rocks, such as 2012 DA14, and they move so quickly, that a major survey might look at a spot in the sky one day and not see anything, but the next day, an asteroid might be spotted there, he said.

"Those small objects could appear at any moment," Nomen said. "For sure there are many that remain undiscovered."

While Earth is safe from 2012 DA14, an asteroid that size would do a lot of damage if it did impact our planet. A similar-sized rock slammed into Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, and flattened some 500,000 acres of forest over an area about the size of Tokyo.

And there's plenty more where that one came from.

"The objects are out there and eventually they will hit," Betts said. "It's not a question of whether we'll have catastrophic impacts, it's a question of when."

With some advance warning of an asteroid impact, on the scale of about 10 years, scientists have a number of strategies that could potentially be used to alter the path of a space rock on a collision course. But if such a threat was discovered just months or days ahead of time, the best we could do would likely be to evacuate the area, Nomen said.

NASA will hold another press teleconference on the approaching asteroid 2012 DA14 on Thursday (Feb. 7) at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT). Visit SPACE.com Thursday for complete coverage of that news event.?

You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz.?Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/next-weeks-asteroid-flyby-shows-earth-cosmic-shooting-231844210.html

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Analysis: Economy, military shape US Iran strategy (The Arizona Republic)

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Taking insulin for type 2 diabetes could expose patients to greater risk of health complications, study suggests

Feb. 4, 2013 ? Patients with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin could be exposed to a greater risk of health complications including heart attack, stroke, cancer and eye complications a new University study has found.

Examining the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) ? data that characterises about 10% of the UK population ? a team of researchers from the University's School of Medicine looked at the risk of death for patients taking insulin compared with other treatments designed to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

The team's epidemiological study found people have greater risk of individual complications associated with diabetes such as heart attack, stroke, eye complications and renal disease when compared with patients treated with alternative glucose-lowering treatments.

"Insulin treatment remains the most longstanding blood-glucose-lowering therapies for people with type 2 diabetes, with its use growing markedly in recent years," according to Professor Craig Currie from the School of Medicine, who led the research.

"However, with new diabetes therapies and treatments emerging there has been a new spotlight on treatments to ensure what the best and safest form of diabetes treatment is.

"By reviewing data from CPRD between 1999 and 2011 we've confirmed there are increased health risks for patients with type 2 diabetes who take insulin to manage their condition," he added.

The study adds to previous findings which identified potential health risks of insulin in this specific group of people.

Initial concerns were first raised regarding the use of insulin in type 2 diabetes from a population-based study in Canada, which reported a three-fold increase in mortality.

A similar study of people in UK primary care with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin also reported a 50% risk of increased mortality compared with another common treatment regimen.

Professor Currie adds: "Patients currently being treated with insulin should not, under any circumstances, stop taking their medications, and it is important to emphasise that this report related to only type 2 diabetes which typically starts in older people who are overweight.

"Each patient's individual circumstances are different and treatment decisions are managed by their clinician with all of their medical history fully considered.

"The vast majority of people who take insulin will experience no adverse effects and it remains a reliable and common form of treatment worldwide but this study shows that we need to investigate this matter urgently and the drug regulatory authorities should take interest in this issue.

"Anyone who is concerned should speak to their GP first before taking any action on managing their condition."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cardiff University.

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Journal Reference:

1. C. J. Currie, C. D. Poole, M. Evans, J. R. Peters, C. L. Morgan. Mortality and Other Important Diabetes-Related Outcomes With Insulin vs Other Antihyperglycemic Therapies in Type 2 Diabetes. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2013; DOI: 10.1210/jc.2012-3042

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/top_news/top_health/~3/-3ygpkn0ZVg/130204114244.htm

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