Russia and the West lock horns over Syria

President Putin offered no indication that Russia will support a UN Security Council resolution backed by the US, Britain, and France that would open the door for military intervention.

By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / July 17, 2012

Russian President Vladimir Putin (r.) shakes hands with United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan in Moscow, Tuesday, July 17.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Enlarge

Hopes for a diplomatic compromise between Russia and the West over any kind of an orderly transition from the regime of Bashar al-Assad petered out Tuesday ? amid fulsome support for peace and civic accord in Syria from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Skip to next paragraph

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

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

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

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

Meeting in the Kremlin with UN envoy Kofi Annan, even as fighting raged in the streets of Damascus, President Putin insisted that the Kremlin will "do everything" to back the faltering six-point peace plan, which envisages a cease-fire, UN observers on the ground, and talks between rebels and regime over a transitional government.

"From the very start, from the first steps, we supported and continue to support your efforts aimed at restoring civil peace," Putin told Mr. Annan, according to Russian news agencies.?"We will do everything that depends on us to support your efforts," he added.

But the Kremlin leader offered no indication that Russia will support a UN Security Council resolution to be put forward Wednesday. The proposed resolution, backed by the US, Britain, and France, would extend the UN observer mission by 45 days ? the mandate is otherwise set to expire on Friday ? but would put future implementation of the Annan plan under Chapter 7?of the UN Charter, which might open the door to the legal use of outside force.

Russia wants the UN observer team's mandate renewed without any penalties against Assad for use of heavy armor and helicopter gunships?in crowded urban areas.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of employing "blackmail," by threatening to block any renewal of the UN observers' mandate unless Russia backed a Chapter 7 resolution on Wednesday.

Pressure on Assad

Experts say that if such a resolution comes to the floor tomorrow, Russia will almost certainly veto it. Russia has vetoed two previous Security Council resolutions?because they envisaged outside pressure on Assad to step aside.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/5xx2eZ6WZa0/Russia-and-the-West-lock-horns-over-Syria

susan g komen kenyon martin kenyon martin big miracle slab city super bowl snacks appleton

Health Law Critics Sharpen Fight Focus On Insurance Tax Credit ...

According to?news reports, critics?have pinpointed this part of the health law?in their effort to undo the sweeping?overhaul. Meanwhile, USA Today reports that very few middle-income taxpayers will?pay more as a result of the measure's taxes, fees and penalties. ??

The Wall Street Journal: Health Law Opponents Challenge Tax Credit
Opponents of the health care overhaul are seizing on how tax credits to buy insurance are distributed as a new front in their fight against the law. Conservative critics have zeroed in on wording in the law that says state-run programs would be the vehicle for subsidizing the cost of mandatory health insurance for lower-income Americans starting in 2014 (Radnofsky, 7/16).

Politico Pro: Exchange Critics: Businesses Could Sue
The brains behind the next possible lawsuit over President Barack Obama's health law say business groups are already gearing up to challenge whether coverage subsidies could flow through exchanges set up by the feds. Case Western Reserve University?s Jonathan Adler and the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, who argue in a new paper that the health care law only enables subsidies through state-run exchanges, say interest in challenging this major piece of the law is high (Millman, 7/16).

USA Today: Few Will Pay More Under Health Care Law
Though the law is projected to raise more than $800 billion in taxes, fees and penalties over a decade, 40 percent?comes from about 3.5 million households with adjusted gross incomes above $200,000. Employers, insurers and health care providers are slated to fork over much of the rest. That leaves only a few taxes that will fall partially on middle-income taxpayers (Kennedy and Wolf, 7/17).

Other news organizations report on the health law?and charity care?as well as insurers' latest?wave of concerns about how its minimum health benefits standards could interfere with the ability to control costs:

St. Louis Beacon:? Charity Care Remains Pressing Even If Federal Health Law Is Implemented
One question left unanswered by the health reform law is how much charity care nonprofit hospitals must provide in exchange for numerous tax breaks. These hospitals pay no federal income and capital gains taxes, no state and local property taxes and no taxes on purchases.? The issue of whether communities get enough in return for this generosity used to be hotly debated, but it isn't given much ink in the 2,400-page?Affordable Care Act. Even so, hospitals will still need relatively robust charity-care budgets because of the number who will remain uninsured in spite of the ACA (Joiner, 7/16).

CQ Healthbeat:? Insurers Fear Feds' Minimum Benefits Standard Will Limit Their Ability to Control Costs
Insurers responding to a recent proposal governing the information they must provide to help federal officials set standards for minimum health benefits say they are worried the government will do it in a way that makes coverage unaffordable.? Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, which operate in every zip code in the United States, said the proposal goes too far by asking insurers not only to say what benefits they cover, but also how they limit access to covered services (Reichard, 7/16).

Finally, one HHS official offers his take on the health law's future --

Kansas Health Institute News: Affordable Care Act Will Survive Elections, Regional HHS Official Predicts
Talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act is partisan bluster that won?t come to pass even if Republicans sweep the November elections, a top Obama administration health care official predicted at a forum here today.? "Even those people who are talking about repealing, privately, they acknowledge that no, the law is here to stay," said Jay Angoff, director of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department region that includes Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. Angoff said that even if Republicans control the White House and U.S. House following the election, they would not have a large enough majority in the Senate to push through legislation to overturn the law. Senate rules require 60 votes to advance most legislation (Sherry, 7/16).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Report - a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations. The full summary of the day's news can be found here and you can sign up for e-mail subscriptions to the Daily Report here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file original stories each day, which you can find on our home page.

Source: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2012/July/17/implementation-news.aspx

christina hendricks lifelock camp david hawaii weather snooki the jerk lake havasu

Carbon-based transistors ramp up speed and memory for mobile devices

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2012) ? Though smartphones and tablets are hailed as the hardware of the future, their present-day incarnations have some flaws. Most notoriously, low RAM memory limits the number of applications that can be run at one time and quickly consumes battery power. Now, a Tel Aviv University researcher has found a creative solution to these well-known problems.

As silicon technology gets smaller, creating a large and powerful memory grows harder, say PhD candidate Elad Mentovich and his supervisor Dr. Shachar Richter of TAU's Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Working with carbon molecules called C60, Mentovich has successfully built a sophisticated memory transistor that can both transfer and store energy, eliminating the need for a capacitor.

This molecular memory transistor, which can be as small as one nanometer, stores and disseminates information at high speed -- and it's ready to be produced at existing high-tech fabrication facilities. Major companies in the memory industry have already expressed interest in the technology, says Mentovich, who was awarded first prize for his work at May's European conference in the session on Novel Materials Approaches for Microelectronics of the Materials Research Society. The basis of the technology has been published in the journal Advanced Materials and Applied Physics Letters.

Closing the technology gap

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are the computing devices of the post-personal-computer (PC) era, says Mentovich. These devices, which are small and battery operated, are quickly closing the gap with their laptop or desktop ancestors in terms of computing power and storage capacity -- but they are lacking in RAM, the run-time memory reserves that computers need to operate various programs. Because current RAM technology is power-hungry and physically large, it doesn't function well in mobile devices. That's where laptops and PC's retain the edge.

As many as 15 years ago, technology experts realized that the problem with shrinking electronics would be the physical size of the hardware needed to make them run. The idea of a sophisticated transistor, which could do the job of both the transistor and the capacitor, was a technological dream -- until now.

In order to tackle this technology gap, Mentovich was inspired by the work of Israel Prize winner Prof. Avraham Nitzan of TAU's Department of Chemistry, who proved that, due to its special structure, a molecule can store both an electric charge and information at the same time. To apply this finding to transistors, Mentovich used C60 molecules, made up of 60 carbon atoms, and put them in the channels of a transistor, creating a smaller-than-silicone, high-speed transistor that could also do the job of a capacitor.

Going mobile

Mentovich believes that this technology is sorely needed in today's mobile world. 2012 was the first year in which big technology companies sold more tablets and smartphones than laptops and notebooks combined, he notes. "When this new technology is integrated into future devices, you will have much more memory on your smartphones and tablets, approaching the level of a laptop. With that kind of memory, you'll be able to run applications simultaneously, and because it is low voltage, power consumption will fall and battery life will be longer."

The next step is to find a fabrication facility with the necessary materials to manufacture the transistors. According to Mentovich, the benefit of this product is that with the right equipment, which is standard in high-tech facilities, and his breakthroughs on how to put the transistors together, these molecular memories could be manufactured anywhere. "The distance to implementation is not far," he says.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120716124951.htm

amas 2011 black friday elliot elliot la galaxy la galaxy jordy nelson

This Mega Rig Shark And Ship Set Is Your Because-Children-Love-Sharks Deal of the Day [Dealzmodo]

Hey kiddies! Are you enjoying your summertime? The sun, the games, the school break, the pool... Ah, it's a good time to be a kid! So how about a new toy? Everyone loves toys! And this $27 Mega Rig Shark Ship Set (regularly $60) comes with an evil-looking shark with glowing red eyes and jaws ready to clamp down on your leg! There's also a ship—an oddly modern ship with harpoons, cranes and apparently an air control tower. For the non-existent flight deck. In case you want to call in an air strike on the shark. It does float, though. So that's pretty cool. And the ship can apparently be made into other vehicles if you want. But the shark, the shark stays the same—terrifying and perfect. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/pQnOQs6it_8/this-mega-rig-shark-and-ship-set-is-your-because+children+love+sharks-deal-of-the-day

justin theroux buenos aires train crash presidential debate argentina train crash nancy pelosi nancy pelosi gop debate