Merkel defends concessions in euro crisis

BERLIN (AP) ? German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended concessions made to struggling Spain and Italy at a European Union summit on Friday as she prepared to address lawmakers at home, where media headlines loudly proclaimed her political defeat.

Merkel had been opposed to some of the measures that she and the other 16 leaders of the euro countries agreed on Friday. They include allowing Europe's bailout fund to give money directly to a country's banks, without imposing strict austerity conditions on the government.

She insisted her tough-love approach was intact, but German papers on Friday were damning, reading "Merkel buckles" and "Merkel's defeat."

Heading in to the Thursday-Friday summit in Brussels, Merkel had appeared in a thoroughly uncompromising mood ?insisting on the importance of getting budgets in order and improving eurozone strugglers' competitiveness while brushing aside talk of shared debt liability in Europe.

But in a victory for Spain and Italy, she agreed that funds set up to bail out indebted governments will be allowed to funnel money directly to stressed banks ? once an "effective single supervisory mechanism" for banks is set up.

Merkel said that was a "medium-term" prospect, while EU President Herman Van Rompuy stressed that all involved will work speedily to have a draft of the necessary legal and institutional framework for a centralized banking authority by year's end.

Leaders also agreed that countries that pledge to implement reforms and budget policies demanded by the EU's executive Commission could tap rescue funds without having to go through the tough austerity measures that Greece, Ireland and Portugal were forced to accept in return for their bailout cash. That could make seeking outside help more politically palatable to governments such as Italy's, but also leaves Merkel open to accusations of watering down her insistence that aid must come with strings attached.

Merkel made a "180-degree turn," tweeted Carsten Schneider, a prominent lawmaker with Germany's opposition Social Democrats, demanding an explanation.

"Italy pushed through cash without conditions ? that will set the tone for all," he wrote.

But Merkel insisted in Brussels that "we remain completely within our approach so far: help, trade-off, conditionality and control, and so I think we have done something important, but we have remained true to our philosophy of no help without a trade-off."

And she was at pains to stress that there still wouldn't be money with no strings attached, insisting that countries would still be obliged to comply in a given time frame with recommendations for their economies set out by the European Commission.

"The discussion has been going a bit as though there were no conditionality any more ... that's not the case," she told reporters before leaving Brussels.

Markets cheered the agreement, with the DAX up 3.6 percent in afternoon trading in Frankfurt, Spain's Ibex up 4.7 percent and Italy's FTSE-MIB up a stunning 5.3 percent. The euro up 2 percent at $1.2680.

Crucially, borrowing rates for Spain and Italy dropped sharply. The benchmark rate on Spain's 10-year bond dropped 0.45 percentage points to 6.45 percent. Italy's fell 0.22 percentage points to 5.87 percent.

Merkel was to address Parliament in Berlin later Friday ahead of previously planned votes on approving her cherished European budget-discipline fund, the so-called fiscal compact, and the eurozone's future ?500 billion ($623 billion) permanent rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism. Parliament won't be voting on the decisions made at the summit.

Merkel faced skepticism at home, where her hard-nosed approach to crisis management has been popular.

Under the headline "Merkel buckles," the Bild newspaper argued that the summit decisions "mark a turning point in crisis policy" and said that "Merkel gave up her hard position." The top-selling daily paper has been a cheerleader for a tough approach.

Leading news website Spiegel Online headlined its story on the summit: "The night in which Merkel lost," while Die Welt newspaper wrote of "Merkel's defeat in a historic night."

In the Netherlands ? which has backed Merkel's tough line and holds elections in September ? caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte was blasted by euroskeptic Geert Wilders, who brought down Rutte's minority coalition earlier this year when he refused to support an austerity package designed to cut the Dutch budget deficit.

"Rutte slavishly on his knees for the Italian and Spanish mafia: Billions of euros of direct support from the ESM for their banks possibly after all," Wilders tweeted.

Still, Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING in Brussels, questioned whether Italy had in fact followed up its victory over Germany in football's European Championship on Thursday night with a victory at the summit. He noted that moves such as recapitalizing banks directly are still subject to some conditions and there was no immediate decision to help out Italy.

"The only real concrete decision taken ... is the start of a single bank supervision," he said. "In the end, the German principle of conditional integration is still intact."

"Short-term relief for Spain and Italy, however, remains very cryptic and limited," Brzeski said.

Analysts also noted that the amount of money available in the rescue fund, or ESM, is dwarfed by the amount of debt across the continent. Italy alone has outstanding debt of ?2.4 trillion.

European leaders also agreed at the summit that bonds purchased by the rescue fund for Spain's bailout will no longer enjoy preferential treatment to other bondholders in case of a default.

Previously, they looked set to enjoy "senior" status, which had the unintended consequence of scaring private investors away. Merkel insisted that was a one-time move that won't affect future moves by the ESM.

And she made clear that her opposition to moving soon to jointly issued eurobonds remains unchanged. Experts say eurobonds would help weaker countries like Spain by spreading their debt risk across multiple countries.

But Germany worries about being exposed to that new debt and says eurobonds would remove pressure on weaker countries to reform their economies by cutting red tape, fighting tax evasion and lower business costs.

Leaders delayed their discussion of such long-term issues until October.

Van Rompuy and other senior EU officials had laid out a vision for the future make-up of the eurozone in a sweeping document presented before the summit. It includes share debt and giving up national powers over budgets to a central authority.

Merkel has been a leading advocate of much deeper European integration as a response to the crisis ? though she has insisted that debt-sharing can come only at the end of that process.

___

Don Melvin, Angela Charlton and Paul Wiseman in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Nigerian romance scammers use stolen pictures of Private ...

It was always going to happen at some point, and now it has been confirmed. ?Romance scammers have used stolen pictures of a Private Investigator to find their victims! ?Yet another reason to always question the truth when dating someone online, until you meet them offline face to face. ?Above all else ? if you meet someone online for friendship/romantic reasons ? NEVER send them money without checking them out first. (This article follows on from our previous post which can be found?here)

Imagine being part of an international romance scam that?s bilking hundreds of people out of money. The worst part? You have no idea your face is being used to con people you?ve never met.

That?s what happened to retired Elkhart police detective Brett Coppins, now a private investigator who runs Coppins Investigative and Security Group.

According to the Colorado Attorney General?s office, a ?Nigerian Internet Romance Scam? used photographs of?United States Armed Forces?members on online dating websites and social networking sites such as Facebook to defraud 374 victims from 38 states in the United States and 40 countries around the world out of more than $1 million.

Coppins said his first thought that something wasn?t right came shortly after December 2010, when he returned home from a stint in?Iraq, where he worked as a civilian for the U.S.Defense Department. That?s when he received a Facebook message from a woman he?d never met.

?She said it had been going on for months and she was madly in love with this guy and absolutely devastated that it was all a scam,? he recalled.

Part of the message read:?I?m not here to start trouble. I fell so hard for you. I needed to find you. Now that I have, it still hurts.?

After at least 10 more messages from women he didn?t know, including one who used facial recognition software to track him down, Coppins realized someone used pictures of him from Facebook, Linked-In and other websites to build a phony online dating profile.

?That was kind of the first indicator that these women had really been devastated, just taken advantage of emotionally,? Coppins said.

That?s when he decided to put on his investigator hat. Through Facebook correspondence with some of the women who?d contacted him and using other resources, he realized part of what was happening.

?My understanding is they would look to see if these women were making comments about being recently widowed or things like that and they would send emails to them, personal emails, pretending to be wanting to build a relationship with them,? Coppins explained.

The man those women believed they were talking to online went by the name of Ronald Raines, and used photographs of Coppins.

In reality, according to a 27-page indictment from the Colorado Attorney General, Ronald Raines? online profile and several others that used photographs of U.S. military members were being manned by scam artists in?Nigeria?who were also working with a mother and daughter from Brighton, Colorado, a city outside Denver.

?After an on-line relationship was established, the perpetrator would often send the victim fake military documents and personal photographs in order to convince the victim that they were truly a member of the U.S. military serving in a foreign country, usually Afghanistan,? the indictment reads.

According to court documents, the perpetrator would then begin asking the victim to send money to an ?agent? in Colorado via Western Union or Money Gram.

Those ?agents? were the 73- and 40-year-old Colorado women. Court documents also allege the 40-year-old frequently used her 16-year-old daughter to both send and receive wires containing stolen money. Then, according to the indictment, the women would keep 10 percent of the money and send the rest to Nigeria, Ecuador, Great Britain, India, United Arab Emirates and the United States.

The scam had allegedly been in operation since 2009. The women are facing felony charges of violating the Colorado Orgainized Crime Control Act including theft, money laundering, forgery, identity theft and criminal impersonation.? They each face life in prison if convicted.

Coppins believes his photographs were taken by friends of African men he met during his time in Iraq then became friends with on Facebook. Even though his photo was one of many used in the scam, Coppins maintains he?s not a victim.

?You could tell [the women who contacted me] were really struggling and it was pretty difficult for me to sometimes deal with emotionally, knowing that my pictures, my photographs were being used to do something that really hurt some people,? he said.

When asked how people who have Facebook, Linked-In and other social networking profiles can protect themselves from falling victim to something similar, Coppins suggested using the maximum security settings on those networking websites to keep your photographs private and ?Googling yourself,? or putting your name into search engines every once in a while to see what comes up.

?Welcome to the 21st?Century. This is the world that we live in and it?s difficult,? he added. ?Facebook is one of those things where people just don?t take time to lock down. What they don?t realize is that those photos can go anywhere and everywhere.?

?

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FDA clears first new weight-loss pill in 13 years

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

(AP) ? The Food and Drug Administration has approved Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade.

Despite only achieving modest weight loss in clinical studies, the drug appeared safe enough to win the FDA's endorsement, amid calls from doctors for new weight-loss treatments.

The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. The drug should be used in combination with a healthy diet and exercise.

Obesity Society President Patrick O'Neil said he's encouraged by the drug's approval because it underscores the notion that lifestyle changes alone are not enough to treat obesity.

"This is good news because it tells us that the FDA is indeed treating obesity seriously," said O'Neil, who teaches at Medical University of South Carolina and was the lead researcher on several studies of Belviq. "On the other hand, it's not the answer to the problem ? or even a big part of the answer."

Even if the effects of Belviq are subtle, experts say it could be an important first step in developing new treatments that attack the underlying causes of obesity.

"The way these things tend to work is you have some people who do extremely well and other people don't lose any weight at all. But if we had 10 medicines that were all different and worked like this, we would have a real field," said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the weight loss program at Weill-Cornell Medical College.

The FDA denied approval for Arena's drug in 2010 after scientists raised concerns about tumors that developed in animals studied with the drug. The company resubmitted the drug with additional data earlier this year, and the FDA said there was little risk of tumors in humans.

Arena and its partner Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., expect to launch the drug in early 2013.

With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent of the adult population, many doctors have called on the FDA to approve new weight loss treatments.

But a long line of prescription weight loss offerings have been associated with safety problems, most notably the fen-phen combination, which was linked to heart valve damage in 1997. The cocktail of phentermine and fenfluramine was a popular weight loss combination prescribed by doctors, though it was never approved by the FDA.

In a rare move, the FDA explicitly stated in a press release that Belviq "does not appear to activate" a chemical pathway that was linked to the heart problems seen with fen-phen.

The FDA said the drug acts on a different chemical pathway in the brain, which is believed to reduce appetite by boosting feelings of satiety and fullness.

Belviq is one of three experimental weight-loss drugs whose developers have been trying for a second time to win approval, after the FDA shot them all down in 2010 or early 2011 because of serious potential side effects.

Vivus Inc.'s Qnexa is thought to be the most promising of the drugs, achieving the most weight loss. But the FDA has delayed a decision on that pill until July.

Shares of San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped $2.54, or 28.7 percent, to close at $11.39. Shares of Mountain View, Calif.-based Vivus rose $1.94, or 7.4 percent, to $28.33. Shares of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., the third drugmaker with an obesity pill before the FDA, rose 20 percent to close at $4.92.

Arena's studies showed that patients taking Belviq, known generically as lorcaserin, had modest weight loss. On average patients lost just 3 to 3.7 percent of their starting body weight over a year. About 47 percent of patients without diabetes lost at least 5 percent of their weight or more, which was enough to meet FDA standards for effectiveness. By comparison, average weight loss with Qnexa is 11 percent, with more than 83 percent of patients losing 5 percent of their weight or more.

The FDA said patients should stop taking Belviq after three months if they fail to lose 5 percent of their body weight. Patients are unlikely to see any significant weight loss by staying with the drug.

Side effects with the drug include depression, migraine and memory lapses.

In May a panel of expert advisers to the FDA voted 18-4 to recommend approval of Arena's drug, concluding that its benefits "outweigh the potential risks when used long term" in overweight and obese people.

Experts say the challenge of weight loss drug development lies in safely turning off one of the body's fundamental directives: to eat enough food to maintain its current weight.

While several drugs are available for short-term weight loss, until Wednesday there was only one FDA-approved prescription drug for long-term weight loss: Xenical from Roche, which is seldom prescribed because of unpleasant digestive side effects and modest weight loss. Belviq is the first new prescription drug approved to treat obesity since Xenical's approval 13 years ago.

Other safety failures for diet pills have continued to pile up in recent years.

Four years ago Sanofi-Aventis SA discontinued studies of its highly anticipated pill Acomplia due to psychiatric side effects, including depression and suicidal thoughts. In 2010, Abbott Laboratories withdrew its drug Meridia after a study showed it increased heart attack and stroke.

Associated Press

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Elan Emerging Technologies Cloud Computing Technology a better ...

Elan Emerging Technologies is a leading cloud computing services providing company which has been delivered of internet applications and protocols that are commonly processed by machines like computers is usually done using this information technology system which is known as cloud computing Technology. Cloud computing is the process of making use of networks to supply a computing service to users. Cloud computing is advantage in that it uses the available software and by doing so, that would otherwise be incurred into software application.

Traditional business applications has been very complicated and expensive. Lots of variety hardware and software required to run them are app need good .You need a whole team of experts to install, configure, test, run, secure, and update them. Before adopting a cloud service, it is important to keep a a few fundamental considerations in mind to ensure a smooth adoption. This transition from a technology-driven model to a service-driven model empowers the data center to use visualization, pooling and other cloud computing technologies to satisfy user requirements.

Cloud computing technology is World wide web-based(WWW) computing, where shared resources, software and details are provided to computers and other devices on demand, just like the electricity grid. Cloud computing is eliminate of the task distributing and making commodity-technology infrastructure, software platform or as a power. Business and knowledge main process which need every company to growth in IT services, by software development company such as cloud computing, data centers, and Software as a Service (SaaS).


Elan Emerging Technologies is a Leading Web Services providing Company that provides Cloud Development and Cloud Computing Apps development by highly professional Cloud Computing application developers with best technologies support and latest features provided by Cloud Computing Application Development companies.

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Microsoft attack puts spotlight on Greek tensions

ATHENS (Reuters) - Gunmen driving a van packed with gas canisters firebombed the Athens headquarters of Microsoft on Wednesday, underscoring the threat of instability as Greece asks for more time and less hardship in cutting its crippling debt.

Fire gutted the ground floor of the blue four-storey HQ of the U.S. software giant, blackening its walls with flames, on the eve of yet another European summit seeking a solution to a regional debt crisis first unleashed by Greece.

At least two attackers were involved in the sophisticated assault at 4.45 a.m. (0145 GMT) in Maroussi, a northern suburb of the sprawling Greek capital, police said.

Brandishing pistols and an automatic rifle, they kept security guards at bay and set fire to the van carrying three gas canisters and five cans of gasoline. No one was hurt in the early morning assault.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and police said it was too early to say who was to blame. Suspicion, however, fell on left-wing militants, who have a long and violent history in Greece. Anti-terrorist units were investigating the incident.

Since the end of a military dictatorship in 1974, Greece has been scarred by political violence and assassination, much of it carried out by the militant November 17 group, named after a student uprising which was bloodily suppressed by the army.

Authorities have dismantled the group, whose victims included the CIA station chief in Athens, but splinter organizations committed to the same radical left-wing or anarchist ideals remain active.

Social tensions are rising in Greece over the harsh terms of an international bailout saving the country from bankruptcy but only at the cost of deep economic suffering.

Branches of Macdonald's, Citi and Starbucks in Athens have been set on fire by protesters and militants in the past using petrol bombs or gas canisters.

The attacks usually take place at night and there have rarely been injuries, but three bank staff suffocated in May 2010 when protesters set their branch on fire during a protest march in central Athens.

The assault on Microsoft is a new headache for big multi-nationals in Athens already considering quitting the debt-ridden country because of unpaid bills, falling revenues and the prospect that Greece might be forced to leave the euro.

"They entered the office in a van ... in an effort to burn the whole place down," Ernst-Jan Stigter, general manager of Microsoft's Greek unit, told reporters on Wednesday. "We're grateful there were no injuries and all our crew is safe."

The fire department estimated the damage at about 60,000 euros ($75,000). Staff were told not to come to work.

Contacted by Reuters, Citibank, Coca-Cola and pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said they had no immediate plans to step up security, which has already been tightened after violent protests seen previously in Athens.

NO QUICK RESPITE

The Greek government is unlikely to win any immediate respite from the bailout conditions at a two-day summit of EU leaders starting on Thursday whose chances of making a decisive response to the debt crisis are rated as low.

The harsh conditions attached to a 130-billion-euro ($162.12 billion) lifeline from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, on top of 110 billion in 2010, have helped condemn Greece to five years of record-breaking recession that have enraged the population.

Greeks argue that the cuts in jobs, wages and pensions demanded by lenders have spared a corrupt, tax-evading elite and heaped an unfair burden on the poorest sections of society.

The streets of Athens are scarred by repeated bouts of violent protest. Banks, fast-food chains and government ministries have been targeted in arson or bomb attacks.

Responding to huge public pressure after a June 17 election, conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has called for tax cuts, extra help for the poor and jobless, a freeze on public sector lay-offs and two more years to bring Greece's deficit under control.

He will miss the two-day EU summit after undergoing eye surgery on Saturday. Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said the prime minister would send a letter to EU leaders calling for "a different approach".

"It will assure them that we will honour our commitments and that we want to meet the fiscal consolidation targets, a balanced budget and other targets included in the accord with our European partners," Kedikoglou told 9.84 radio.

But, he added, "Our experience over the past two years shows that the recipe has brought a rapid rise in unemployment and a deepening recession. Accordingly, they have to let us try a different approach. We are seeking room for growth."

Fast losing patience with the slow pace of reform and a litany of broken promises, the country's euro zone partners, led by paymaster Germany, are reluctant to give more leeway.

The Greek wish-list goes far beyond the "adjustments" offered by euro zone partners to make up for weeks of paralysis during two elections since May and a deeper than expected recession.

All sides have played down prospects for any meaningful progress on Greece at the summit, and Athens says it will take its case to European capitals and Washington once Samaras has recovered from surgery to repair a damaged retina.

Greece's delegation to the summit will be led by 83-year-old President Karolos Papoulias. An aide, who declined to be named, said the president would fly economy class.

(Additional reporting by Tatiana Fragou, Karolina Tagaris, George Georgiopoulos and Deepa Babington; Writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Barry Moody and Peter Millership)

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Sirius XM details GoogleTV app ahead of the I/O party

SiriusXM details GoogleTV app ahead of the Google IO Party

The fine folks at Sirius XM just couldn't wait for Google I/O to kick off. Yesterday the satellite radio giant tipped off Reuters (not that it was the only one "spilling the beans," mind you), and today it's offering up even more information on its upcoming Google TV offering. The app, still slated for a broad 2012 release, will be available as a free download for US subscribers via the Google Play store. The list of features includes Start Now, which lets users listen to programming from up to five hours prior, pausing / fast forwarding / rewinding and Tune Start, which brings up the beginning of an already played song. Also on-board is the Show Finder, a program guide that lets subscribers set show alerts. The company will be demoing the product later this evening at I/O. In the meantime, check out the press release after the break.

Continue reading Sirius XM details GoogleTV app ahead of the I/O party

Sirius XM details GoogleTV app ahead of the I/O party originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Queen to meet ex-IRA man on Northern Ireland trip

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The Dark Underbelly of Home Improvement | the home tome

or: When Home Improvement Makes you Hyperventilate

or: Home Improvement Projects that you are Unexpectedly Forced Into

or: Home Improvement Projects that have no Style Aspect and Are Therefore Not even Remotely Fun

Though I think this has a certain?vintage charm,
this pipe is apparently not supposed to look like this.

or: When the Plumber Estimate Increases by 1000% in the Course of Seven Minutes

or: Fun Fact: Did You Know that Chimneys Aren?t Just for Fireplaces? They Lead from your Furnace and Hot Water Heater, Too!

or: Corrosion: Pipes gone Bad

This is a chimney. I never even noticed it before.
Turns out it?s not supposed to be rusty.

or: Gulp

or: What About that New Guest Bed/Car/Sandwich I was Saving Up For?

or: Did I Somehow Invite a Costly Plumbing Crisis by Declaring it Home Improvement (HIMP) Month?

or: Did We Not Hug our House Enough?

Well, as you can see, I have had some trouble deciding what to call today?s installment. Once I got finished brainstorming titles, I didn?t have any energy left to write an actual post. Suffice it to say that what?s going on in our basement (and up through the roof) isn?t pretty ? let?s just hope those new pipes are made of pure gold?

I repeat: have you hugged your house today? (Not to be an alarmist, but IF YOU DON?T MAKE NICE-NICE WITH YOUR HOUSE IT COULD SUDDENLY TURN ON YOU?)

***

Stay tuned for more HIMP Month Madness: Details on getting our house?s interior painted from white to?drumroll?wait for it?white, fabulous guest bloggers, and a tutorial on tools that you would be a tool to miss.

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