Assad says will live and die in Syria

DOHA (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said he would “live and die” in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria, amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. “I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

Russia Today’s web site, which published a transcript of the interview conducted in English, showed footage of Assad speaking to journalists and walking down stairs outside a white villa. It was not clear when he had made his comments.

The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.

The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.

“I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford … It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” the 47-year-old president said.

“I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.”

QATAR, TURKEY CHIDE OPPOSITION

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar’s central role in the effort to end Assad‘s rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged the Syrian opposition to set its personal disputes aside and unite, according to a source inside the closed-door session.

“Come on, get a move on in order to win recognition from the international community,” the source quoted him as saying.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu delivered a similar message, saying, according to the source: “We want one spokesman not many. We need efficient counterparts, it is time to unite.”

An official text of a speech by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah showed he told the gathering: “The Syrian people awaits unity from you, not divisions … Your agreement today will prove to the international community that there is a unity … and this will reflect positively in the international community’s stance towards your fair cause.”

Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Turkey’s Hatay border province, two civilians, a woman and a young man, were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

International rivalries have complicated mediation efforts. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

Syria’s conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, whose origins lie in Shi’ite Islam, has fuelled sectarian tensions across the Middle East. Sunni Arab countries and Turkey favor the rebels, while Shi’ite Iran backs Assad, its main Arab ally.

“VICIOUS CIRCLE”

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said London would now talk to rebel groups inside Syria, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week criticized the SNC and called for a new opposition body to include those “fighting and dying”.

But the plan for a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing ran into trouble almost as soon as it was proposed by SNC member Riyad Seif.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups – which include Islamists, leftists and secularists – will have in a proposed assembly. Seif said he hoped for agreement on that on Thursday night, although the talks may continue into Friday.

Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the participants were moving towards consensus: “The atmosphere was positive. We all agree that we don’t want to walk away from this meeting in failure,” he told reporters.

Seif’s proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the devastating conflict.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats – along the lines of Libya’s Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute in Washington told a forum in Doha it would not work for Syria. “It’s not a ridiculous idea, but it’s not going to succeed,” he said.

A diplomat on the sidelines of the talks said international divisions in the U.N. Security council did not help.

“It’s a vicious circle. They are asking the opposition to unite when they admit they are not themselves united,” he said.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Exclusive: SEC left computers vulnerable to cyber attacks – sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Staffers at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission failed to encrypt some of their computers containing highly sensitive information from stock exchanges, leaving the data vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the computers were unprotected, there was no evidence that hacking or spying on the SEC‘s computers took place, these people said.

The computers and other electronic devices in question belonged to a handful of employees in an office within the SEC’s Trading and Markets Division. That office is responsible for making sure exchanges follow certain guidelines to protect the markets from potential cyber threats and systems problems, one of those people said.

Some of the staffers even brought the unprotected devices to a Black Hat convention, a conference where computer hacking experts gather to discuss the latest trends. It is not clear why the staffers brought the devices to the event.

The security lapses in the Trading and Markets Division are laid out in a yet-to-be-released report that by the SEC’s Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer.

NO DATA BREACHED

The revelation comes as the SEC is encouraging companies to get more serious about cyber attacks. Last year, the agency issued guidance that public companies should follow in determining when to report breaches to investors.

Cyber security has become an even more pressing issue after high-profile companies from Lockheed Martin Corp to Bank of America Corp have fallen victim to hacking in recent years.

Nasdaq OMX Group, which runs the No. 2 U.S. equities exchange, in 2010 suffered a cyber attack on its collaboration software for corporate boards, but its trading systems were not breached.

One of the people familiar with the SEC’s security lapse said the agency was forced to spend at least $ 200,000 and hire a third-party firm to conduct a thorough analysis to make sure none of the data was compromised.

The watchdog’s report has already been circulated to the SEC’s five commissioners, as well as to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and is expected to be made public soon.

SEC spokesman John Nester declined to comment on the report’s findings.

SEC NOTIFIED EXCHANGES

Rich Adamonis, a spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange, said the exchange operator is “disappointed” with the SEC’s lapse.

“From the moment we were informed, we have been actively seeking clarity from the SEC to understand the full extent of the use of improperly secured devices and the information involved, as well as the actions taken by the SEC to ensure that there is proper remediation and a complete audit trail for the information,” he said.

A spokesman for Nasdaq OMX declined to comment on the security lapse at the SEC.

Since the internal investigation was concluded, the SEC initiated disciplinary actions against the people involved, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The SEC also notified all of the exchanges about the incident.

The SEC’s Trading and Markets Division, which has several hundred staffers, is primarily responsible for overseeing the U.S. equity markets, ensuring compliance with rules and writing regulations for exchanges and brokerages.

Among the division’s tasks is to ensure exchanges are following a series of voluntary guidelines known as “Automation Review Policies,” or ARPs. These policies call for exchanges to establish programs concerning computer audits, security and capacity. They are, in essence, a road map of the capital markets’ infrastructure.

Although they are only voluntary guidelines, exchanges take them seriously.

Under the ARP, exchanges must provide highly secure information to the SEC such as architectural maps, systems recovery and business continuity planning details in the event of a disaster or other major event.

That is the same kind of data used by exchanges last week after Hurricane Sandy forced U.S. equities markets to shut down for two days.

Prior to re-opening, all of the U.S. stock market operators took part in coordinated testing for trading on NYSE’s backup system.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro recently said the SEC is working to convert the voluntary ARP guidelines into enforceable rules after a software error at Knight Capital Group nearly bankrupt the brokerage and led to a $ 440 million trading loss.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Karey Wutkowski and Lisa Shumaker)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Roger Waters plays with band of wounded veterans

NEW YORK (AP) — Roger Waters honored wounded veterans in New York by performing with them at the annual Stand Up for Heroes benefit, Thursday night.

The founding member of Pink Floyd took to the stage of the Beacon Theater with 14 wounded soldiers he met recently at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He rehearsed with them at the hospital, and for the past few days in New York.

The event benefited the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps returning veterans and their families, and featured Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, and others.

Before the show, Waters chatted with veterans and called the experience “fantastic.” He says he’s “looking forward to pulling for the rest of these guys with their comrades” during the healing process.

He says that he shares “enormous empathy with the men.”

“I lost my grandfather in 1916 and my father in 1944, so I’ve been around the sense of loss and what loss from war can do to people,” Waters said.

“I never talk about the politics because it’s not relevant to me. I’m not interested in it,” he said. “What I am interested in is the burdens these guys bear and would never question motive or even dream of talking about any of the politics.”

He added: “If any of us have a responsibility in our lives it is to tear down the walls of indifference and miscommunication between ourselves and our fellow men.”

Waters said he rehearsed with many of the soldiers at the hospital in between their medical procedures. Before the show, he walked the red carpet with Staff Sgt. Robert Henline, who was not in the band. In 2007, Henline was the sole survivor of a roadside bombing north of Baghdad. As a result, he suffered burns over 38 percent of his body and his head was burned to the skull.

Henline, who fought for his life after the attack, has endured more than 40 surgeries.

Still, he maintains a sense of humor. On the open red carpet on a chilly night, Waters pushed closer to Henline for warmth.

“Get next to the burn guy. I’m good. I’m heated up,” Henline joked.

No surprise. The retired soldier says he’s been doing stand-up comedy for the past year and a half.

Waters performed three songs with the veterans, including the Pink Floyd classic, “Wish You Were Here.”

Waters said he didn’t think there would be a reunion with his former band.

“I think David (Gilmour) is retired by and large. I shouldn’t speak for him. But that’s the impression I get.”

Waters then added: “Hey whatever. All good things come to an end.”

While his mammoth tour of “The Wall” ended this summer, Waters promised the theatrical version would hit the Broadway stage in the near future.

The Bob Woodruff Foundation has supported more than 1 million veterans, service members, and their families since it began in 2008.

_____

John Carucci covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at —http://www.twitter.com/jcarucci_ap

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Malaria vaccine disappoints in African babies trial

LONDON (Reuters) – A GlaxoSmithKline experimental malaria vaccine touted as a new weapon in the fight to eradicate the deadly disease proved only 30 percent effective when given to African babies in a crucial clinical trial.

The surprisingly poor result leaves uncertain whether the vaccine will have a useful role to play in fighting the mosquito-borne disease that kills hundreds of thousands of children a year.

Philanthropist Bill Gates, who has helped fund its development, said further data was needed to determine whether and how the vaccine might be used.

“The efficacy came back lower than we had hoped, but developing a vaccine against a parasite is a very hard thing to do,” he said in a statement.

Results from the final-stage trial with 6,537 babies aged six to 12 weeks showed the vaccine provided “modest protection”, reducing episodes of the disease by 30 percent compared to immunization with a control vaccine, researchers said on Friday.

That efficacy rate one year after vaccination is less than half the 65 percent reported in a smaller mid-stage trial in 2008 that followed babies of a similar age for six months.

It is also a lot less than the 50 percent seen last year in a large Phase III trial involving children aged five to 17 months.

Vaccinating babies, rather than toddlers, is the preferred option, since the new vaccine could then be added to other routine infant immunizations. A separate program for older children would involve a lot of extra costs.

Despite the limited success, Britain’s top drugmaker said it would push ahead with developing the vaccine, called RTS,S or Mosquirix, and Chief Executive Andrew Witty said he still believed it would be an important tool in fighting malaria.

GSK does not expect to make any significant profit from the vaccine, which would only be sold in poor countries.

WORTH BUYING?

Given the target market, it is governments and international groups that will have to fund the vaccine’s roll-out and they will need more evidence before deciding that it is worth buying.

“We will have to have more information to give us a clearer idea as to how useful this vaccine will be,” said Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, which funds bulk-buy vaccination programs for poorer nations.

In particular, Berkley told Reuters he wanted to see longer-term data, including the effect of booster shots, and an analysis of how the vaccine performed in different settings, which might show if it was suited for particular locations.

The setback comes two months after disappointing results with a vaccine against dengue fever, another mosquito-borne disease that is proving a formidable enemy.

Details of the malaria trial were presented at a medical meeting in Cape Town and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes. It is endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide and infected around 216 million people in 2010, killing around 655,000 of them, according to the World Health Organisation.

Control measures such as insecticide-treated bednets, indoor spraying and the use of combination anti-malaria drugs have helped cut the numbers of malaria cases and deaths significantly in recent years, but experts say an effective vaccine is vital to complete the fight against the disease.

The RTS,S vaccine is designed to kick in when the parasite enters the human bloodstream. By stimulating an immune response, it can prevent the parasite from maturing and multiplying in the liver. Without that immune response, the parasite gets back into the bloodstream and infects red blood cells, leading to fever, body aches and in some cases death.

Other teams of scientists around the world are working on other potential malaria vaccines which work in different ways, but RTS,S is by far the furthest ahead in development.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

DIY homes ‘should be made easier’

7 November 2012 Last updated at 19:06 ET

By Kevin Peachey Personal finance reporter, BBC News

Homeowners should not consider it a “pie in the sky dream” to build their own property, according to the new housing minister.

Mark Prisk told mortgage lenders that self-built homes should be considered as one way to boost the UK housing market.

He said that only about 10% of new UK homes were self-built, compared with 60% in France and Germany.

But homebuilders and lenders said this would only ever be a niche market.

Building fund

Self-build has become more prominent through television shows such as Grand Designs and generally they involve an owner buying a plot of land and then hiring an architect to design a property.

Mr Prisk reaffirmed the government’s push for self-built homes at a conference in London organised by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

He said that the UK was also well behind countries such as the US where 45% of new homes were self-built.

Continue reading the main story

A group of residents in Ashley Vale, in Bristol, were worried about the redevelopment of a former scaffolding site in the area.

So they formed a not-for-profit community action group which bought and developed the site itself.

When building work began on 20 self-built homes in 2001, the people involved had no trouble raising the finance.

Borrowing became more difficult when five bungalows were built about five years ago.

But in the third phase of the project two years ago, they only secured mortgages for flats and a community space when the building work was completed.

Despite the increasing difficulty in securing finance, Johanna Nicholls, who chairs the group, said that they were looking for new plots to build more affordable homes.

The government has set aside a £30m investment fund to promote self-build. Sites in North East Derbyshire and Peterborough have recently been approved for a slice of the funding.

The opportunity for individuals and communities to build their own homes was now a realistic option, he said, and lenders should give them the chance.

“I’m not pretending self-build is the entire answer, but it is an element I want to encourage you to incorporate,” he told the audience of mortgage lenders.

‘Crisis’

He said that the number of self-build mortgage products had increased.

However, the fact that these still numbered just over 20 meant that many in the industry only regarded this as niche part of the market, and nothing like sufficient to make a dent in the housing shortage.

“We welcome everyone building houses,” said Stewart Baseley, of the Home Builders Federation.

“There is plenty of room on the pitch for all these balls to be kicked about. But self-build is not the solution that will solve the housing crisis.”

Mark Clare, group chief executive of Barratt Developments, the UK’s biggest housebuilder, said that self-built homes still needed to be financed and expertise needed to put them up.

He said that there would be a one million shortfall of homes by the end of the year.

Some 110,000 homes were being built, but 250,000 new households were being created, as people lived for longer and got married later.

“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said.

Mr Baseley said that three times as many homes were built in the 1950s and 1960s, about half of which were for council housing.

“We are in the midst of a housing crisis,” he said.

BBC News – Business

Read More..

Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery sifting through the wreckage could injure trapped survivors. Crowds of bystanders gathered as rescuers sifted through cement and glass.

The fatality at the Melcom Shopping Center at Achimota, a suburb of Accra, was confirmed by Public Affairs Officer of the Ghana Fire Service Billy Anaglate. “We are still working to find out the fate of others who may be trapped under,” he said.

Other officials told The Associated Press that the death toll was likely to rise.

An AP reporter at the scene saw at least one man pulled from the debris, covered in dust and who was then whisked into an ambulance.

A Greater Accra Regional Public Affairs officer, deputy superintendent Freeman Tettey, confirmed that one person died and told the AP that 51 have been rescued and sent to hospitals around the capital.

“I was on my way to the shop when l saw it crumpling down,” Kojo Boadi, an eyewitness, said.

President John Mahama declared the scene a disaster zone and cut short his election campaign in the north of the country to be able to visit the site. The presidential election is scheduled for December.

The five-story store opened in February is part of the Melcom chain owned by Indian immigrant magnate, Bhagwan Khubchandani. His late father arrived in Ghana in 1929 as a 14-year-old to work as a store boy in the-then Gold Coast.

The store sells a variety of cheap, imported household goods and appliances that are popular with working-class Ghanaians.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

BlackBerry 10 maker dismisses ‘dead on arrival’ comment about new device

OTTAWA – Research In Motion turned to core supporters Wednesday in Ottawa, hoping to upsell its new BlackBerry 10 operating system as the company’s shares fell after a biting report from a securities analyst.

The company (TSX:RIM) invited federal politicians and their staff to a sneak preview of the yet-to-be-released devices, an event that RIM’s Canadian managing director acknowledged was a bit like preaching to the converted.

“Government is a critical constituency for RIM and for BlackBerry,” said Andrew MacLeod.

“It’s where we got our start, in many ways, and it’s an area that we are going to continue to innovate and deliver value.”

RIM shares fell by more than eight per cent Wednesday to $ 8.23 after a report from an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities warned the BlackBerry 10 software may be “dead on arrival.”

“We believe BB10 is likely to be DOA,” James Faucette was quoted saying in a research note obtained by Bloomberg. “We expect the new operating system to be met with a lukewarm response at best.”

MacLeod dismissed Faucette as “not a fan” and as just one voice in a varied landscape of people looking at the new platform.

“Two other analysts came out this week with some very, very positive reactions to the platform and some positive reactions to our prospects,” MacLeod told The Canadian Press.

“We’re focused on delivering value and innovating, and we think if we do that, then we’ll get the rest of the stuff to follow.”

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s stock had been on a rally of late, lifting steadily in the past week to a four-month high. Wednesday’s tumble nearly wiped out all of those gains.

Besides showcasing the BB10 for politicos and business people, RIM was planning to announce Thursday how it would migrate some of the key security features of its current suite of devices to the new model.

“We’re really going to make sure the core DNA — what made Blackberry so attractive to government customers, to enterprise customers — will of course be a key part of the BlackBerry 10 and architecture and system moving forward,” said MacLeod.

Meanwhile, the company said it had won U.S. security clearance for devices based on the new platform.

RIM announced early Thursday that it had received the crucial Federal Information Processing Standard certification, known as FIPS 140-2.

The certification would enable government agencies to deploy the new devices.

“This is the first time BlackBerry products have been FIPS certified ahead of launch,” RIM said.

Many political staffers, journalists and others swear by the BlackBerry over other devices for one main reason —its keyboard, which can make writing on the fly fast and easy compared with the touch screens offered by RIM’s competitors.

The BB10 line will include a touch screen option, but RIM maintains that its operating system will make typing faster than on other smart phones.

The company said earlier this month that its new BlackBerry smartphones were being tested by 50 phone carriers around the world.

RIM aims to have the new devices on store shelves in the first quarter of 2013, after the crucial holiday tech sales season.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

“Ode to Joy” for Royal Philharmonic Society’s 200th

LONDON (Reuters) – The British music society that commissioned Beethoven to write his Ninth Symphony and its “Ode to Joy” announced on Wednesday it will celebrate the society’s 2013 bicentenary by showing off its manuscript of the work on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Royal Philharmonic Society, founded in London in January, 1813, also will sponsor performances of Beethoven’s last symphony, splash out on commissions of new music and will digitize its archive held at the British Library, the society announced in the London pub where its founders used to meet.

“Some of the most famous works in the classical repertoire were either commissioned by the Philharmonic Society or premiered in the UK at Philharmonic Society concerts,” John Gilhooly, the society’s Irish chairman, told reporters.

“Works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner and Delius, Debussy and Shostakovich, to name but a few,” Gilhooly continued, adding that the society had commissioned “over 60 composers in the last decade alone”.

The society will participate in exhibits in New York and London featuring manuscript versions of Beethoven’s last symphony which contains the “Ode to Joy” that has become a theme song for world peace and freedom.

The society’s archives record that in 1817 it paid Beethoven 50 guineas for the work. The society, which is not publicly funded and is financed by donations, got the “royal” tag in its centenary year.

Gilhooly said a much-photographed and copied bust of Beethoven that the society owns would be making a return visit to concert stages after having been squirreled away in the RPS headquarters for most of the past 30 years.

“It’s going to be a bit like the Olympic torch,” Gilhooly said. “It’s busted out in preparation for a grand tour.”

Founded by a group of professional musicians to make classical music available to a wider audience, the RPS said it was commissioning 16 new works by such prominent composers as Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm and Magnus Lindberg, some of them in conjunction with the Britten-Pears Foundation which is celebrating the centenary of British composer Benjamin Britten.

“I very much admire that they are sponsoring young composers, older composers, making it possible that music, even avant garde or little known music, is written and performed,” Alfred Brendel, one of the world’s most distinguished pianists and a RPS gold medal recipient, who retired from public performance several years ago, told Reuters at the launch event.

The exhibit of letters and manuscripts will be mounted in cooperation with the British Library and the Morgan Library and the Juilliard School of music in New York, which holds another copy of the Beethoven Ninth.

The American and British manuscripts of the symphony, annotated by Beethoven, will be seen together side by side for the first time since 1824 in New York later in the year, the society said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Climate change threatens sweet smell of morning coffee

LONDON (Reuters) – Rising temperatures due to climate change could mean wild arabica coffee is extinct in 70 years, posing a risk to the genetic sustainability of one of the world’s basic commodities, scientists said.

Although commercial coffee growers would still be able to cultivate crops in plantations designed with the right conditions, experts say the loss of wild arabica, which has greater genetic diversity, would make it harder for plantations to survive long-term and beat threats like pests and disease.

A study by researchers at Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in collaboration with scientists in Ethiopia found that 38 to 99.7 percent of the areas suitable for wild arabica will disappear by 2080 if predictions of rising temperatures pan out.

Because coffee is a highly climate-dependent crop, the increase of a few degrees of average temperature in growing regions can put at risk the future of Arabica coffee and the livelihood of millions of people who grow and produce it.

“The extinction of arabica coffee is a startling and worrying prospect,” said Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, who led the study.

In a telephone interview, he said the findings made it even more important for organizations such as the World Coffee Research collaboration to continue work to improve the genetic strength of cultivated arabica by preserving wild types.

Researchers used computer modeling to analyze the influence of rising temperatures on the geographical distribution of wild arabica coffee.

The results, published in a the Public Library of Science journal PLOS ONE, showed a “profoundly negative influence” on the number and extent of wild arabica populations, the researchers said.

The researchers conducted two types of analysis. In the locality analysis, they found that the best outcome was for a 65 percent fall in the number of pre-existing bioclimatic ally suitable localities and the worst was for a 99.7 percent drop by 2080.

In the area analysis, the best outcome was a 38 percent reduction in suitable growing regions and the worst case was a 90 percent reduction by 2080.

Davis said the predictions were conservative, since the modeling did not factor in large-scale deforestation now taking place in Ethiopia and South Sudan, another Arabica coffee region.

“The models assume intact natural vegetation, whereas the highland forests of Ethiopia and South Sudan are highly fragmented due to deforestation,” the researchers wrote.

“Other factors, such as pests and diseases, changes in flowering times, and perhaps a reduction in the number of birds (which disperse the coffee seeds), are not included, and these are likely to have a compounding negative influence.”

Cultivated arabica coffee accounts for slightly more than 60 percent of global coffee production, with about 4.86 million tones produced this year and valued at around $ 16 billion in wholesale trade.

Exports of coffee also are crucial to the economies of countries including Brazil, Sudan and Ethiopia, where arabica coffee is thought to have originated.

(Additional reporting by Nigel Hunt; editing by Jane Baird and William Hardy)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Major markets flat on Obama win

7 November 2012 Last updated at 03:31 ET

Continue reading the main story

Major share markets were little changed after US President Barack Obama won a second term in office.

The UK’s main share index, the FTSE 100 rose by just 16 points in early trading, while Japan’s Nikkei ended down by two points.

The US dollar fell slightly, with the euro rising to $ 1.286 from $ 1.281.

Investor attention is now likely to focus on President Obama’s need to secure a deal with the US Congress over looming tax rises and spending cuts.

With the Republicans maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives, this may make negotiations to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff more difficult.

This could see nearly $ 600bn (£375bn) of tax increases and spending cuts hit the US economy in January.

The fear is that the tax increases and spending cuts that could be enacted if there is no agreement over deficit reduction may derail a fragile US economic recovery, and in a worst case scenario even push the economy into a recession.

“We head into the fiscal cliff, trying to find compromise where it wasn’t possible before,” said Rob Ryan, director of markets strategy, Asia-Pacific for Royal Bank of Scotland in Singapore.

Germany’s Dax index was up 48 points in early trading, while France’s Cac had rise by 35 points.

Broader concerns

Continue reading the main story

With Greece there are always a number of stages with any vote. It is a prolonged process to reach any conclusion”

End Quote Justin Harper IG Markets

The spending cuts and increased taxes are not the only concern among investors.

The US economy has been battling various other issues, not least the high levels of unemployment in the country, which have dented consumer sentiment and impacted growth.

Despite encouraging jobless numbers last week, unemployment continues to hover close to 8%.

There are concerns amongst some analysts that the jobs market may not improve anytime soon and that the recovery in the US will remain weak.

That does does not bode well for Asian economies as they rely heavily on US demand for exports and overall growth.

Euro woes

Investors have also been wary of the developments in the eurozone, where the Greek Parliament is set to vote on further budget cuts on Wednesday.

The parliament will vote on 13.5bn euros ($ 17.3bn; £10.5bn) of spending cuts, which include tax increases and cuts to pensions.

These cuts are key to determining whether Greece can get the next 31.5bn euro tranche of its European and International Monetary Fund rescue package.

Greece has warned that without this money, which will be used largely to recapitalise the country’s banks, it will be bankrupt by the middle of the month.

However, there have been protests in Greece against the proposed cuts.

Analysts said that there were fears that it may take some time before Greece is given the money.

“With Greece there are always a number of stages with any vote. It is a prolonged process to reach any conclusion,” said Justin Harper of IG Markets.

BBC News – Business

Read More..