Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Athens natives bringing College Town Film Festival to hometown


Athens High School graduates Matthew Jordan and Eric Zudak are bringing their one-of-a-kind touring film festival, dubbed the College Town Film Festival, to their hometown and Ohio University Oct. 2-5.

The College Town Film Festival is designed to bring together working professionals, students and academicians. Its goal is to locate local professors to champion, examine and discuss new films in an academic setting.

Held at the Athena Cinema in uptown Athens, the College Town Film Festival will feature several members of the Ohio University faculty and staff.

Both Jordan and Zudak have connections to the University. Jordan is an associate professor in the Department of Film/Video and Media Studies at Penn State University. His father, Don Jordan, is a professor emeritus of Asian history at OHIO. Zudak is a film producer and founder of the College Town Film Festival. His father, the late Lawrence Zudak, was a professor of economics at OHIO prior to his retirement in 1983.

The College Town Film Festival will include the screening of 10 feature-length films as well as eight short films. Most of the screenings will be followed by panel discussions or question-and-answer sessions featuring the films? actors, directors or producers, as well as members of the OHIO community whose expertise can shed additional light on the films? topics or the filming itself.

Those screenings include:

  • ?No Horizon Any More,? a documentary highlighting the struggles of living in Antarctica, 2 p.m., Oct. 3. This screening will be followed by a panel discussion with film director Keith Reimink and Ryan Fogt, assistant professor of meteorology at OHIO.
  • ?Tribe Wanted: Sierra Leone,? a documentary capturing Hermione Way?s experience living with a tribe, 4 p.m., Oct. 3. It will be followed by a panel discussion with film director Jonathan Sarno; Geoff Dabelko, an OHIO professor and director of environmental studies at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs; Bruce Martin, assistant professor of recreation and sport pedagogy; and Jeremiah Asaka, president of the Ohio University African Student Union.
  • ?Karaoke Man,? a romantic comedy produced by Zudak, 7 p.m., Oct. 3. It will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Zudak, writer/director Mike Petty, cowriter Kevin Guzowski, and Annie Howell, assistant professor of film at OHIO.
  • ?Twilight of the Gods,? a drama exploring the relationship between composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, 1 p.m., Oct. 4. It will be followed by a panel discussion with director Julian Doyle; Dennis Delaney, associate professor of theater/directing at OHIO; and Associate Professor Vladimir Marchenkov and Professor Dora Wilson, both of whom teach in OHIO?s School of Interdisciplinary Arts.
  • ?Too Cold Out There Without You,? a documentary about the Rev. Christopher Fike?s gender transition and his life as a priest, social worker and single parent. This screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Fike, film director Amy Gattie, and Delfin Bautista, director of OHIO?s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center.
  • ?That?s What She Said,? a comedy starring Anne Heche and directed by Carrie Preston who stars in HBO?s ?True Blood? and who earlier this month won an Emmy for her role on ABC?s ?The Good Wife.? This screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Preston and Pearl Gluck, a visiting assistant professor of film at OHIO.


Other highlights of the film festival include:

  • ?Making Movies with Monty Python,? a seminar featuring tales from Julian Doyle, a British filmmaker best known for editing Monty Python?s ?Life of Brian,? 1 p.m., Oct. 5.
  • Closing Night Concert Party at Jackie O?s, featuring musical act Guiney and Grimes, 10 p.m., Oct. 5. Guiney was the bachelor on season four of ABC?s ?The Bachelor? and signed a record deal in 1994. Grimes is an actor and singer-songwriter who has had roles in ?E.R.,? ?Party of Five,? ?Band of Brothers? and ?American Dad.?


The College Town Film Festival kicks off with an opening night party at 9 p.m. Oct. 2 at Jackie O?s.

For a full schedule of events and ticket information, visit http://collegetownfilmfestival.com/.

Source: http://www.ohio.edu/compass/stories/13-14/9/college-town-film-festival.cfm

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

92% We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks

All Critics (50) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (4)

Sometimes it takes a feature-length documentary to stitch together a story we think we already know.

A real-life cyber-thriller with real-life consequences, Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is a riveting and revelatory documentary ...

Gibney builds a remarkable level of suspense, given how exhaustively WikiLeaks has been covered in the media.

Engaging, kinetic, revelatory and unexpected.

At once an awkward mingling of two complex life stories and a gripping, necessary look at how information is gathered, shared and, yes, stolen.

Who is "We" in the title We Steal Secrets? There's no need for a spoiler alert, but it's neither Gibney nor Assange.

Alex Gibney's film is an absorbing examination of the world's most infamous information portal.

Gibney doesn't set out with an agenda either to pillory or to sanctify Assange; he seeks out the various profiles that Assange has shown his followers, fans, enemies and interlocutors over the years. And they are not all in synch

Superb, unbiased filmmaking that allows us to make up our own mind about Assange and whether his idealist vision as an innovator has become confused by self-obsessed paranoia

Which is the real Assange? This movie cannot say. It's as if Gibney threw up his hands, put the whole mess in the audience's lap and said, "Here, YOU figure this guy out."

A psychological suspense film with an open ending that's more haunting than the tricky climaxes of most post-Hitchcock thrillers.

With an approach that feels like a thriller, Gibney looks at both sides of the debate over the site's purpose and effectiveness.

Smart and opinionated, it's a great introduction to this ongoing story.

Gibney continues his run as the premier nonfiction filmmaker working today.

Arguably furthers WikiLeaks' stated purpose, but with a necessary whiff of the investigative filmmaker's instinctive skepticism.

The film is fascinating and provocative, deftly navigating complex personalities and shifting allegiances.

Who decides what stays secret? This brilliant documentary explores that question, itself a meta-narrative as the documentarian exposes the secrets of the secret-sharers.

No quotes approved yet for We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/we_steal_secrets_the_story_of_wikileaks_2013/

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Russia rejects US demand for Snowden's extradition

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who has apparently stopped in Moscow while trying to evade U.S. justice, saying that Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border.

Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with him or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn't say where Snowden is, but he angrily lashed out at the U.S. for demanding his extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct of U.S. officials, and we proceed from that."

U.S and Ecuadorean officials said they believed Snowden was still in Russia, where he fled Sunday after weeks of hiding out in Hong Kong following his disclosure of the broad scope of two highly classified counterterror surveillance programs to two newspapers. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans' phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.

Lavrov claimed that the Russian government has only found out about Snowden's flight from Hong Kong from news reports.

"We have no relation to Mr. Snowden, his relations with the American justice or his travel around the world," Lavrov said. "He chooses his route himself, and we have learned about it from the media."

Snowden booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight from Moscow Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't show up on the plane. Russian news reports said he has remained at a transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, but he hasn't been seen there by the media.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has embraced Snowden and WikiLeaks experts are believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum.

Assange on Monday declined to discuss where Snowden was but said he was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.

Ecuador's foreign minister hailed Snowden on Monday as "a man attempting to bring light and transparency to facts that affect everyone's fundamental liberties."

The decision whether to grant Snowden the asylum he has requested is a choice between "betraying the citizens of the world or betraying certain powerful elites in a specific country," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters while visiting Vietnam. He said Tuesday that he didn't know Snowden's exact whereabouts.

A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, and the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. had made demands to "a series of governments," including Ecuador, that Snowden be barred from any international travel other than to be returned to the U.S. The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.

Secretary of State John Kerry urged Moscow to "do the right thing" and turn over Snowden.

"We're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed," President Barack Obama told reporters when asked if he was confident that Russia would expel Snowden.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. was expecting the Russians "to look at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

Some experts said it was likely the Russian spy agencies were questioning Snowden on what he knew about U.S. electronic espionage against Moscow.

"If Russian special services hadn't shown interest in Snowden, they would have been utterly unprofessional," Igor Korotchenko, a former colonel in Russia's top military command turned security analyst, said on state Rossiya 24 television.

The Kremlin has previously said Russia would be ready to consider Snowden's request for asylum.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to The Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Snowden also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-rejects-us-demand-snowdens-extradition-092352868.html

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Advocates in California, among several states, fighting ...

Quincy Wright, right, is hugged by a friend during a breaking the silence gathering at True Colors in Hartford, Conn., on April 19. True Colors, a non-profit organization working to help the needs of sexual and gender minority youth, has a mentoring program for more than 75 gay foster youth. Advocates in a handful of states including Florida, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts are starting a national dialogue to take steps to make sure gay foster youth are treated equally by foster parents, caseworkers and fellow foster kids. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Quincy Wright, right, is hugged by a friend during a breaking the silence gathering at True Colors in Hartford, Conn., on April 19. True Colors, a non-profit organization working to help the needs of sexual and gender minority youth, has a mentoring program for more than 75 gay foster youth. Advocates in a handful of states including Florida, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts are starting a national dialogue to take steps to make sure gay foster youth are treated equally by foster parents, caseworkers and fellow foster kids. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

By Kelli Kennedy, Associated Press

MIAMI ? Sixto Cancel says his ultra-religious foster family frequently talked about their disdain for his homosexuality at the dinner table, trashed his room and called him homophobic slurs. While he was still a teenager, he says, they kicked him out of their Connecticut home after he had lived there for nearly a decade.

?I?ve had foster homes who completely said you can?t live here if you?re gay,? said Cancel, a 21-year-old student at Virginia Commonwealth University who bounced between half a dozen foster homes while in care. ?For a long time I had that self-hatred and uncomfortableness with who I am.?

Discrimination against gay and lesbian youths in foster care is prevalent enough around the country that federal health officials sent a letter in 2011 encouraging states to develop training for caseworkers and foster parents on the issue.

Advocates in a handful of states including Florida, California, Connecticut, Illinois and Massachusetts have increased efforts to train caseworkers, recruit foster parents and assign mentors. Officials don?t want to force youths to disclose their sexuality, but must try to create environments where they feel safe to come out when ready. Without such support, the federal government memo says, gay and lesbian youths who leave the foster care system can wind up homeless

?I?ve had conversations with many youth in the system who will not come out because they saw how staff treated their friends in the system after they came out,? said Kamora Herrington, mentoring program director of True Colors, an organization that helps gay foster youths in Connecticut.

Last year, a lesbian girl who Herrington worked with was kicked out of a Connecticut foster home after the family?s grandmother, who was very opposed to homosexuality, moved in. Herrington said the last time she heard from the girl, she was hitch-hiking across the country.

The nonprofit True Colors has a mentoring program for more than 75 young people, as well as a policy program that works closely with Connecticut child welfare workers. DCF also has a program liaison in every office where caseworkers can get referral services if they are working with a gay child or need help educating a foster family.

In California, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center received a $13.3 million, five-year grant from the federal government to ultimately find permanent homes for gay foster youths. The center has already trained about 500 child welfare workers on gay and transgender issues this year and is creating a curriculum that can be duplicated nationally.

The second part of the program links the youth with services from family counseling to education assistance, and makes sure each service is sensitive to their sexual orientation.

Massachusetts was one of the first states to open a co-ed group home for gay foster teens after child welfare officials said they were seeing too many of the young people living on the streets. Roughly 100 foster youths have lived in the home which is run by gay and straight staffers. Child welfare officials there also recently started mentoring program along with life skills classes that teach things like cooking and budgeting.

But officials in Massachusetts, Illinois and many states say recruiting foster parents and mentors is one of the biggest challenges.

?What is typical across the country is also typical here, in that LGBT couples are more interested in adoption than becoming foster families so we have a dearth in interest in foster families,? Colby Swettberg executive director of Adoption & Foster Care Mentoring, which contracts with the Massachusetts child welfare system.

Finding adoptive homes for gay youths in foster care is part of a national push for all children in the system, but advocates say many are still left out.

?Many of our kids have been told they?re not family appropriate: ?We?re not even going to look for a family for you. We?re going to look for a group home,?? said Robin McHaelen, executive director of True Colors.

Illinois child welfare officials began hiring 29 new recruiters this year. Part of their job will be finding foster families and mentors for young gay people. The department estimates that about 450 gay youths come into the system each year.

Efforts in Florida include a regional task force on gay foster youths started by the Village Counseling Center in the northern part of the state and increased training for Department of Children and Families caseworkers in a 20-county region that includes Jacksonville and Daytona Beach.

David Abramowitz, a regional director for the Florida Department of Children and Families, sent a memo to staff in December saying he?s also heard stories that gay youths facing discrimination in foster care. Abramowitz said he mentors a young man ?who tells me horror stories of how he was treated? while living with a foster family that forced him to shave his head and tried to turn him straight. Abramowitz said he?s also encountered difficulties trying to help gay youths in foster care in his region because many aren?t disclosing.

After being kicked out of one foster home, Cancel went to live in another, but when his foster mother found out he was gay, she said she didn?t want him living there because it conflicted with her religious beliefs. A few days later, she relented, explaining she hadn?t changed her mind on the issue, but he could still live in the home as long as his sexuality wasn?t discussed.

For Cancel, who was about to graduate, it was a condition he accepted, but he said he realizes it?s an unfair burden placed on many other foster youths.

?It?s not OK for some people to live in a home where they know they?re not welcome and they?re not part of the family because of that specific aspect,? he said.

Source: http://blogs.presstelegram.com/outinthe562/2013/06/23/advocates-in-california-among-several-states-fighting-discrimination-toward-gay-foster-kids/

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House investigators: Disability judges are too lax (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314916960?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Sony and Disney Trial Home Streaming While Movies Are in the Theater

Sony and Disney Trial Home Streaming While Movies Are in the TheaterIn the ongoing battle against piracy, Disney and Sony have made a bold step: they're both testing an on-demand service (in, um, South Korea) which allows people to rent movies and stream them in their own homes while they're still playing in theaters.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sony and Disney are the first of the US studios to ever offer viewers with the option to either buy a ticket for the theater or just watch it in their own home using cable or internet. So far Django Unchained, Wreck-it Ralph, and Brave have all been offered up under the scheme.

While it's the first time that streaming and theater options have been available from the off, the exclusive 90-day play window has been broken before in the past. In May, Upstream Color went hit iTunes and Amazon Instant Video after a month in the theaters, and there have been a handful of European trails along similar lines.

Whether the trial will prove successful remains to be seen, of course?but if it is, it might not be too long before the other major Hollywood studios try something similar. If that happens, it might be time for theaters to start worrying. [WSJ]

Image by Pinkcandy/Shutterstock

Source: http://gizmodo.com/sony-and-disney-trial-home-streaming-while-movies-are-i-554744778

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High court sends back Texas race-based plan

People wait outside the Supreme Court in Washington as key decisions are expected to be announced Monday, June 24, 2013. At the end of the court's term, several major cases are still outstanding that could have widespread political impact on same-sex marriage, voting rights, and affirmative action. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

People wait outside the Supreme Court in Washington as key decisions are expected to be announced Monday, June 24, 2013. At the end of the court's term, several major cases are still outstanding that could have widespread political impact on same-sex marriage, voting rights, and affirmative action. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

People wait outside the Supreme Court in Washington as key decisions are expected to be announced Monday, June 24, 2013. At the end of the court's term, several major cases are still outstanding that could have widespread political impact on same-sex marriage, voting rights, and affirmative action. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

People line up in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013, before it opened for its last scheduled session. The Supreme Court has 11 cases, including the term's highest profile matters, to resolve before the justices take off for summer vacations, teaching assignments and international travel. The court is meeting Monday for its last scheduled session, but will add days until all the cases are disposed of. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(AP) ? The Supreme Court has sent a Texas case on race-based college admissions back to a lower court for another look.

The court's 7-1 decision Monday leaves unsettled many of the basic questions about the continued use of race as a factor in college admissions.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said a federal appeals court needs to subject the University of Texas admission plan to the highest level of judicial scrutiny.

The compromise ruling throws out the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the Texas admission plan.

Kennedy said the appeals court did not test the Texas plan under the most exacting level of judicial review.

He said such a test is required by the court's 2003 decision upholding affirmative action in higher education.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the lone dissenter.

Justice Clarence Thomas, alone on the court, said he would have overturned the high court's 2003 ruling.

Justice Elena Kagan stayed out of the case, presumably because she had some contact with it at an earlier stage when she worked in the Justice Department.

Abigail Fisher, a white Texan, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008. She has since received her undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University.

The challenge to the Texas plan gained traction in part because the makeup of the court has changed since the last time the justices ruled on affirmative action in higher education in 2003. Then, Justice Sandra O'Connor wrote the majority opinion that held that colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies.

O'Connor retired in 2006, and her replacement, Justice Samuel Alito, has shown himself to be more skeptical of considerations of race in education.

Another factor fueling Fisher's lawsuit was that the university has produced significant diversity by automatically offering about three-quarters of its spots to graduates in the top 10 percent of their Texas high schools, under a 1990s state law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. The admissions program has been changed so that now only the top 8 percent gain automatic admission.

More than 8 in 10 African-American and Latino students who enrolled at the flagship campus in Austin in 2011 were automatically admitted, according to university statistics. Even among the rest, both sides acknowledge that the use of race is modest.

In all, black and Hispanic students made up more than a quarter of the incoming freshmen class. White students constituted less than half the entering class when students with Asian backgrounds and other minorities were added in.

The university said the extra measure of diversity it gets from the slots outside automatic admission is crucial because too many of its classrooms have only token minority representation, at best. At the same time, Texas argued that race is one of many factors considered and that whether race played the key role in any applicant's case was impossible to tell.

The Obama administration, 57 of the Fortune 100 companies and large numbers of public and private colleges that feared a broad ruling against affirmative action backed the Texas program. Among the benefits of affirmative action, the administration said, is that it creates a pipeline for a diverse officer corps that it called "essential to the military's operational readiness." In 2003, the court cited the importance of a similar message from military leaders.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-06-24-US-Supreme-Court-Affirmative-Action/id-859313ea60ff426f9a8607d5d3bf67ba

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Why 2 Birds in the Hand May Be Better Than a "Hobbit" Skull (in a Cave Deposit, at Least)

labeled bags of bones

Labeled bags of bones

The light flickers, and then goes out. The humming of the air conditioning stops. The sounds of Jakarta?s hustle-bustle and infamous traffic gridlock slowly seep into the room, softly lit by the glow of my laptop screen. It?s a late October afternoon, the rainy season started a few days ago, and I?m at the National Research and Development Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta, Indonesia. On the table in front of me, now only dimly lit from my laptop screen, lies a cast of a famous human skeleton. Carefully arranged on a fine layer of black velvet, these pieces represent Homo floresiensis, the enigmatic hominin species from Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Excavation in progress

Excavation in progress

The discovery in 2003 of Homo floresiensis, affectionately referred to as a ?hobbit?, took scientists worldwide by surprise, and challenged many things thought to be understood about human evolution. Intense scientific debates followed about the validity of Homo floresiensis and its status as a separate species, and many of these debates continue to this day. Behind the black velvet covered table, however, stacked up high against the walls, are hundreds of boxes and plastic containers, each of which contains evidence of the other animals that lived and died among Homo floresiensis. I can?t help but think that these boxes and containers, not the skeleton on the table, will help us to better understand the rise and fall of Homo floresiensis.

Liang Bua interior

Liang Bua interior

Liang Bua is a limestone cave in western Flores, located on the southern slope of a lush green valley that over time has been cut down by the Wae Racang river. Its sediments have yielded an enormous number of animal bones, and despite its star status, ?hobbit? remains are hugely outnumbered by the remains of other animals, such as rats, pygmy elephants, Komodo dragons, bats, and most importantly in my case, birds. My first encounter with the ancient birds of Liang Bua was in 2006, when I made my first trip to Jakarta. Coping as best as I could with the heat (I?m northern European after all), I spent my days carefully unwrapping tissue paper only to find bird bones, some very large, most of them small, tucked inside. I couldn?t help but feeling a bit overwhelmed when I left Jakarta.

Now, several years and many trips to Jakarta later, the birds from Liang Bua are speaking, figuratively at least (technically, parrots may talk but they and others make sounds). And their story is fascinating! Although bird remains probably make up only about 1% of the total number of animal bones excavated from Liang Bua (which is a lot more than the hominin bones by the way), they are consistently present from the top layers of sediment all the way down to the bottom of the cave. On top of that, the birds are incredibly diverse, which means that the ?hobbits? lived in a world full of birds. The nearby forests were home to pigeons, parrots, small owls, and goshawks. A barn owl probably roosted at the eastern cave wall next to the entrance.

Further back in the cave, swiftlets nested high up against the wall in the dark crevices. When I visited Liang Bua in 2011, I was so excited to see living swiftlets darting in and out of the cave like acrobats. I had been looking at the bones of these birds for months, but I fell in love with them as they gathered above the forest canopy in the late afternoon to feed on insects. Fossil swiftlet bones, which are found as deep as 9.5 m, show that these tiny birds have been doing this for tens of thousands of years. They own this place.

River valley Liang Bua area

River valley in the Liang Bua area

Throughout prehistory, occasional overflowing of the nearby Wae Racang river likely created marshy and muddy areas that were excellent feeding grounds for all kinds of water birds, including snipes, plovers and sandpipers, probing and prodding the mud with their long bills in search of food (invertebrates mostly). Brahminy Kites patrolled the river for fish or hung out near the mouth of the cave, waiting for a fly-by bat or swiftlet snack. Kingfishers and small rails could be found in the woodlands close to the river, while little buttonquails scurried around in the drier grasslands higher up.

Despite this seemingly peaceful setting, life at Liang Bua wasn?t all peachy. The remains of multiple individuals of giant marabou storks and vultures illustrate a darker side of Liang Bua. Carcasses of pygmy Stegodon (an extinct relative of elephants), probably brought into the cave by Homo floresiensis (Morwood et al., 2004, 2005; van den Bergh et al., 2009), must have attracted the attention of these fierce scavenging birds.

Their modern-day counterparts, the African marabou storks and vultures, have a love-hate relationship. Marabou storks signal that it is safe for vultures to approach a carcass, helping them in their quest for food. But, as their massive straight bill is poorly equipped for tearing off chunks of meat, they then often resort to intimidating vultures to drop their chunk, or even steal the meat directly from them. We can only imagine what the scene at Liang Bua must have looked like. If these videos of modern marabou storks and vultures are any indication, I?m not placing bets on who got the last scraps of Stegodon meat, but it may not have been a hobbit or even a komodo dragon:

The bird remains from Liang Bua paint a lively and colorful background for Homo floresiensis, but their implications extend far beyond a soundtrack to the hobbit story. Birds are closely associated to vegetation, and their presence throughout the stratigraphic sequence serves as a paleoecological signal, much more so than mammals. Changes in local climate affect vegetation, which in turn affects the bird community. The diverse assortment of birds in the Pleistocene sediments indicates that Liang Bua?s surroundings hosted a range of different habitats, including mature and floristically diverse forests that would have provided plenty of food and other resources for Homo floresiensis. In the Holocene sediments, bird diversity appears to drop. This may well be biased due to smaller sample sizes in the Holocene, but we cannot rule out changes in the local ecology. The absence of water birds (abundant in Pleistocene deposits) during the Holocene might reflect a shift to a drier climate, which is on par with isotope data from the region (Westaway et al., 2009).

swiftlets over forest near Liang Bua

Swiftlets over forest near Liang Bua

However, as the Wae Racang river changed its course, snipes and plovers may no longer have been attracted to the cave surroundings. Forest birds, such as swiftlets, parrots, and pigeons made it unscathed into the Holocene, indicating that despite a shift to a drier climate during the terminal Pleistocene, enough forest remained nearby to sustain populations of these birds. Interestingly, a majority of the bird species observed in the Pleistocene sediments are still found on the island today. While pygmy elephants, hobbits, giant marabou storks, and vultures disappeared toward the end of the Pleistocene, most birds seem unaffected by this extinction event, or were able to cope with changing environmental conditions. What made them different?

As more material is excavated and studied, the Liang Bua avifauna continues to grow and the resolution of its paleoecological and paleoenvironmental signal will increase. It might show us what happened to the wetlands and forests over time, tell us who was eating whom, and when each character arrived on the scene. Moreover, it allows us to test hypotheses about climate change, extinction patterns, and yes, human evolution.

I hear a clanking sound as the air condition comes back to life. Delicious cold air hits my face. Back to the birds it is.

References:

van den Bergh, G. D., H. J. M. Meijer, R. A. Due, K. Szabo ?? , L. W. van den Hoek Ostende, T. Sutikna, E. W. Saptomo, P. Piper, K. M. Dobney, and M. J. Morwood. 2009. The Liang Bua faunal remains: a 95 k.yr. sequence from Flores, East Indonesia. Journal of Human Evolution 57:527?537.

Meijer, H.J.M., Sutikna, T., Saptomo, W.E., Due, R. A., Wasisto, S., James, H.F., Morwood, M.J., & Tocheri, M.W. Late Pleistocene-Holocene non-Passerine Avifauna of Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia). The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33(4).

Morwood, M. J., P. Brown, Jatmiko, T. Sutikna, E. W. Saptomo, K. E. Westaway, R. A. Due, R. G. Roberts, T. Maeda, S. Wasisto, and T. Djubiantono. 2005. Further evidence for small- bodied hominins from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 437:1012?1017.

Morwood, M. J., R. P. Soejono, R. G. Roberts, T. Sutikna, C. S. M. Turney, K. E. Westaway, W. J. Rink, J.-X. Zhao, G. D. van den- Bergh, R. A. Due, D. R. Hobbs, M. W. Moore, M. I. Bird, and L. K. Fifield. 2004. Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature 431:1087?1091.

Westaway, K. E., R. G. Roberts, T. Sutikna, M. J. Morwood, R. Drysdale, R., J.-X. Zhao, and A. R. Chivas. 2009a. The evolving landscape and climate of western Flores: an environmental context for the archae- ological site of Liang Bua. Journal of Human Evolution 57:450?464.

Images: by author.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=why-two-birds-in-the-hand-may-be-better-than-a-hobbit-skull-in-a-cave-deposit-at-least

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Vodafone launches bid for Kabel Deutschland

FILE- This is a Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 file photo of pedestrians as they walk past a Vodafone outlet in Oxford Street, London. Britain's Vodafone PLC has launched a takeover bid Monday June 24, 2013 for Germany's biggest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland, as part of its push to dominate media services in its biggest market. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

FILE- This is a Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 file photo of pedestrians as they walk past a Vodafone outlet in Oxford Street, London. Britain's Vodafone PLC has launched a takeover bid Monday June 24, 2013 for Germany's biggest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland, as part of its push to dominate media services in its biggest market. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

(AP) ? Britain's Vodafone PLC has launched a takeover bid for Germany's biggest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland, as part of its push to dominate media services in its biggest market.

Vodafone, a British cellphone company with wide international interests, confirmed Monday it will offer 87 euros per share for Kabel Deutschland. The deal values the German company at 7.7 billion euros ($10.2 billion), but when including 3 billion euros in net debt, the total value is 10.7 billion euros.

Vodafone Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said the combination comes amid growth in German demand for fast broadband and data services.

"The combination of Vodafone Germany and Kabel Deutschland will greatly enhance our offerings in response to those needs and is consistent with Vodafone's broader strategy of providing unified communications services."

Kabel Deutschland Holding AG, which has more than 8 million customers, said that its management and supervisory boards "welcome this announcement."

Kabel Deutschland shares were up 1.7 percent in midday Frankfurt trading at 85.52 euros.

Vodafone made a preliminary approach to Kabel Deutschland earlier this month. That was followed by a preliminary takeover proposal from U.S. rival Liberty Global.

Though the reaction of the markets appeared to suggest the price was in line with expectations, analysts like Keith Bowman offered a note of caution, wary of Vodafone's track record on mergers. In 2000, the company took over Mannesmann AG in a stock-swap deal valued at $180 billion ? at the time, the largest corporate merger ever ? a price many analysts believed overvauled the German company.

"Vodafone's European acquisition track record is not great, still marred somewhat by its previous over payment for Germany's Mannesmann, whilst rival cable group Liberty Global could still look to bid for Kabel," Bowman said in a statement that followed the announcement.

Bowman also noted that another element of uncertainty comes from Vodafone's tussle with Verizon Communications Inc., the New York-based company. Vodafone and Verizon together own Verizon Wireless, the largest cellphone carrier in the U.S. and a very profitable operation.

Verizon Wireless once had a policy of using its cash to pay down debt ? a policy that ended only in January. Analysts saw that debt reduction strategy as a way to squeeze Vodafone and persuade it to sell its 45 percent stake.

New York-based Verizon Communications owns the other 55 percent of Verizon Wireless and controls its operations.

"The deal comes at a time when the exact future of its US Verizon business is still up in the air," Bowman said, adding that economic "prospects for Europe continue to remain challenging."

Ronald Klingebiel, a Warwick University professor who has consulted for the telecoms industry, said mobile companies like Vodafone increasingly pursue "multi-play strategies," to give customers broadband, fixed and mobile telephone lines and television.

But he said that Vodafone may have approached Kabel Deutschland because its present systems, which rely on Deutsche Telekom's fixed-line system are running at capacity.

"Deutsche Telekom is struggling to upgrade its network with vectoring technology, something that will increase its control over competitive data traffic," he said.

"This may have convinced the Vodafone leadership to buy into Kabel Deutschland, a high-capacity cable-network provider, whom they had already approached at other times without concluding a deal."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-24-Germany-Kabel%20Deutschland-Vodafone/id-e6c62569a0bd4bc182111eedd2fd4ff6

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Uncertainty over the benefits of feeding birds in winter

June 24, 2013 ? Wild bird populations are generally thought to benefit from being given additional food in winter but our understanding of the effects of such food provision is incomplete.

The results of a new study, carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), has found that feeding wild blue tits in winter resulted in less successful breeding during the following spring.

The research, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that woodland blue tits that were provided with fat balls as a supplementary food during the winter months went on to produce chicks that were smaller, of lower body weight and which had lower survival than the chicks of birds that did not receive any additional food.

Dr Jon Blount from Biosciences at the University of Exeter who led the research said: "Our research questions the benefits of feeding wild birds over winter. Although the precise reasons why fed populations subsequently have reduced reproductive success are unclear, it would be valuable to assess whether birds would benefit from being fed all year round rather than only in winter. More research is needed to determine exactly what level of additional food provisioning, and at what times of year, would truly benefit wild bird populations."

Dr Kate Plummer, lead author of the paper, said: "There could be a number of different explanations for our results. One possibility is that winter feeding may help birds in relatively poor condition to survive and breed. Because these individuals are only capable of raising a small number of chicks, they will reduce our estimation of breeding success within the population. But more research is needed to understand whether winter feeding is contributing to an overall change in the size of bird populations."

It is estimated that around half of UK householders feed birds in their gardens. This equates to around 50-60 thousand tonnes of bird food provisioned each year and contributes to a thriving bird food industry.

Jane Lawler, Marketing Director at Gardman, commented: "As the wider scientific evidence shows, feeding wild birds with appropriate foods delivers a range of positive benefits. A number of unanswered questions remain, however, and this is why we have been supporting this and other research, using the information gained to inform our products and the advice that we provide to our customers."

The three year study was conducted across nine woodland sites in Cornwall. During winter, populations of blue tits were left unfed, given plain fat balls or given fat balls enriched with vitamin E -- a vitamin commonly present in bird food such as nuts and seeds. Nest boxes and bird feeders were distributed around the woodland study sites and reproductive success was investigated by checking the nest boxes in the spring to determine the number of eggs laid and the growth and survival of chicks.

Studies elsewhere have shown that feeding wild birds in winter can have almost immediate benefits for survival and can enhance future breeding success, so the latest results provide important new information and inform the debate around the role that feeding wild birds may play in their population processes. Whether providing food is detrimental or beneficial to wild bird populations, it is clear that more research is needed to better understand its effects.

The study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Royal Society, Gardman Ltd and the BTO.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/wcdq5VhRpT8/130624111011.htm

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Mystery of the gigantic storm on Saturn

June 24, 2013 ? We now understand the nature of the giant storms on Saturn. Through the analysis of images sent from the Cassini space probe belonging to the North American and European space agencies (NASA and ESA respectively), as well as the computer models of the storms and the examination of the clouds therein, the Planetary Sciences Group of the University of the Basque Country has managed to explain the behaviour of these storms for the very first time. The article explaining the discovery, the lead author being Enrique Garc?a Melendo, researcher at the Fundaci? Observatori Esteve Duran -- Institut de Ci?ncies de l'Espai, of Catalonia, was published in Nature Geosciences.

Approximately once every Saturnian year -- equivalent to 30 Earth years -- an enormous storm is produced on the ringed planet and which affects the aspect of its atmosphere on a global scale. These gigantic storms are known as Great White Spots, due to the appearance they have on the atmosphere of the planet. The first observation of one of these was made in 1876; the Great White Spot of 2010 was the sixth one to be observed. On this occasion the Cassini space vehicle was able to obtain very high resolution images of this great meteorological structure. The storm initiated as a small brilliant white cloud in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere of the planet, and grew rapidly and remained active for more than seven months. Over this time an amalgam of white clouds was generated which expanded to form a cloudy and turbulent ring with a surface area of thousands of millions of square kilometres. Two year age the Planetary Sciences Group presented a first study of the storm and which was published on the front cover of Nature on the 7th of July, 2011. Now, with this new research, the hidden secrets of the phenomenon have been revealed, studying in detail the "head" and the "focus" of the Great White Spot.

The team of astronomers analysed the images taken from the Cassini probe in order to measure the winds in the "head" of the storm, the focus where the activity originated. In this region the storm interacts with the circulating atmosphere, forming very intense sustained winds, typically of 500 kilometres an hour. "We did not expect to find such violent circulation in the region of the development of the storm, which is a symptom of the particularly violent interaction between the storm and the planet's atmosphere," commented Enrique Garc?a. They were also able to determine that these storm clouds are at 40 km above the planet's own clouds.

Information about the mechanisms causing meteorological phenomena

The research revealed the mechanism that produces this phenomenology. The team of scientists designed mathematical models capable of reproducing the storm on a computer, providing a physical explanation for the behaviour of this giant storm and for its lengthy duration. The calculations show that the focus of the storm is deeply embedded, some 300 km above the visible clouds. The storm transports enormous quantities of moist gas in water vapour to the highest levels of the planet, forming visible clouds and liberating enormous quantities of energy. This injection of energy interacts violently with the dominant wind of Saturn to produce wind storms of 500 km/h. The research also showed that, despite the enormous activity of the storm, this was not able to substantially modify the prevailing winds which blow permanently in the same direction as Earth's parallels, but they did interact violently with them. An important part of the computer's calculations were made thanks to the Centre de Serveis Cient?fics i Acad?mics de Catalunya (CESCA), and the computer services at the Institut de Ci?ncies de l'Espai (ICE), also based in the Catalan capital of Barcelona.

Apart from the curiosity of knowing the physical processes underlying the formation of these giant storms on Saturn, the study of these phenomena enable us to enhance our knowledge of the models employed in research into meteorology and the behaviour of Earth's atmosphere, in a very different environment and impossible to simulate in a laboratory. "The storms on Saturn are, in a way, a test bank of the physical mechanisms underlying the generation of similar meteorological phenomena on Earth," commented Agust?n S?nchez Lavega, Director of the Planetary Sciences Group at the UPV/EHU.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/0vE3bz4zmR0/130624075753.htm

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Benefits of Owning a Pool in Your Backyard - Bruzzese Home ...

Owning a swimming pool has become a popular addition for many people.? During the summer, you?ll find families flocking to their backyard swimming pools (or those of their neighbors).? A pool can offer you numerous benefits that you will get nowhere else. Below are some of the reasons as to why owning a pool could be a great idea for you and your family:

benefits of owning a swimming pool

General health benefits

Apart from the entertainment benefit, a swimming pool provides you with many health benefits. Spending a few minutes a day in the pool helps to exercise your body with no risk of injury as those caused by high impact exercise.? Swimming is also a great aerobic activity! ?If you?re trying to keep fit without the hassles of going to a public place like a gym, then owning a pool is a great option for you.? Personal pools are hygienic, easy to maintain and accessible at whatever time you choose to exercise.?

Helps save money spent on recreational activities

Someone who loves swimming or engaging in other recreational activities will find owning a pool to be beneficial especially when it comes to saving time and money. ?You?ll no longer need to pack up the kids and head out to a public pool thus saving money in gas and time.? Your backyard will become the center of your families recreational activities.? There?s no end to the amount of fun you can have in your own private backyard oasis!

A pool can also help add value to your home

Having an in ground swimming pool in your backyard can easily add value to your home and even attract ?buyers in the event that you plan to sell your home. Many prospective buyers will opt for a home equipped with a pool over one that does not have one. This is especially the case if the pool is properly designed, landscaped and built by a professional pool construction company.

A pool can add an aesthetic touch to your backyard giving it an alluring appeal. Just the look of the sparkling clean water in the neighborhood will transform your home into a charming place where everyone wants to visit and spend some time.? Always be sure to keep your pool maintained and the patio area safe and tidy!

Author About:

Jacqueline Mya is a passionate writer who loves to write Home Improvement related tips. By the way, you can find out more about Pool Maintenance Raleigh ?as well as much more information on all types of services at Pool Repair Raleigh

What are your thoughts on installing a swimming pool in your backyard? ~Gary B.

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Source: http://www.bruzzesehomeimprovements.com/benefits-of-owning-a-pool-in-your-backyard/

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Carrey kicks his 'Kick-Ass 2' for being too violent

Movies

6 hours ago

Image: Jim Carrey in "Kick-Ass 2."

Universal

Jim Carrey in "Kick-Ass 2."

"Kick-Ass 2" won't be in theaters until August, but it already has a major detractor slamming the film on Twitter: Jim Carrey, one of its stars.

Carrey took to Twitter on Sunday to denounce the film, a satirical look at the superhero genre that's a follow up to 2010's "Kick-Ass," saying that he could no longer support the film in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. last December.

The 51-year old actor, who plays Col. Stars and Stripes and pairs up with the titular superhero, later added:

The film began shooting in July 2012 and wrapped production around Thanksgiving of last year.

The creator of the comic book series "Kick-Ass" is based on, Mark Millar, shot back at the Twitter comments on his website's comments forum.

After praising Carrey's talents and his performance in the film, Millar says he was "baffled by this sudden announcement" and Carrey's timing of his thoughts. "Nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay eighteen months ago," he added.

"Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence," wrote Millar, "but 'Kick-Ass 2' isn't a documentary. ... ('K)ick-Ass' avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead on the CONSEQUENCES of violence. ... Ironically, Jim's character in 'Kick-Ass 2' is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place."

Millar also said that "our audience is smart enough to know they're all pretending and we should instead just sit back and enjoy the serotonin release of seeing bad guys meet bad ends as much as we enjoyed seeing the Death Star (in "Star Wars") exploding."

Carrey has been a proponent of gun control for some time, and recently made headlines by mocking gun enthusiasts in a short video reminiscent of "Hee Haw." He also wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post in April, looking for some form of moderation.

"(Gun control) thugs, though menacing, are a minority but they will have their way if good people don't step forward now and make a difference," he said. "Every American has the right to speak their mind. Every American has the right to bear arms. But it is up to every American to draw the line when it comes to the type of guns that are considered a reasonable means of self-defense."

(Warning: Video has some vulgar language.)

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/jim-carrey-slams-his-kick-ass-2-film-being-too-6C10424009

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Actor Paul Giamatti joins 'Downton Abbey' as playboy brother

LONDON (Reuters) - American actor Paul Giamatti is joining the cast of the British award-winning stately home drama "Downton Abbey", starting with the Christmas episode, the show's producers said on Monday.

Carnival Films, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal, and British television channel ITV said Giamatti would play Cora Crawley's maverick, playboy brother Harold in the Christmas episode.

Giamatti, known for films including "Sideways" and "Cinderella Man", will be star alongside Shirley MacLaine and the regular cast members in the drama that won a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.

He is just one of a list of new cast members to star in an eight-part fourth series that includes New Zealand opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their staff.

"We're excited that Paul Giamatti will be joining us on Downton to play Cora's brother Harold, the rather free-spirited uncle to Mary and Edith," Carnival Films' Managing Director Gareth Neame said in a statement.

"We can't wait to see him work alongside Shirley MacLaine, who are both sure to upset the Grantham's apple cart in this year's Christmas Day episode."

The new series will see the return of MacLaine as Martha Levinson alongside series regulars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Jim Carter.

In Britain, series three of "Downton Abbey" that was created by British screenwriter Julian Fellowes was the most watched drama of 2012, averaging 11.9 million viewers.

In the United States, shown on PBS, "Downton Abbey" was the highest-ranked non-U.S. series.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/actor-paul-giamatti-joins-downton-abbey-playboy-brother-180418708.html

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Militants kill 9 foreign tourists, 1 Pakistani

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

FILE - In this May 4, 2004 file photo, Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world, is seen from Karakorum Highway leading to neighboring China in Pakistan's northern area. Gunmen wearing police uniforms killed 11 foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday, June 23, 2013 as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan, officials said. (AP Photo/Musaf Zaman Kazmi, File)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist, who was killed by Islamic militants, from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants, from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

(AP) ? At least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday as they were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said.

The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north ? considered until now relatively safe ? is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

At least a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack, local police officer Jahangir Khan said.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed. The base camp has basic wooden huts, but most tourists choose to sleep in their own tents.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.

"We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime," the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, Volodymyr Lakomov, told reporters outside the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah.

"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-23-Pakistan/id-7820ea0e3bc3470ab551d8915691e6b0

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Photos of the Day (Powerlineblog)

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Garmin Monterra handheld GPS runs Android, ships in Q3 for $650

Garmin's featurepacked Monterra handheld GPS runs Android, ships in Q3 for $650

This technically isn't Garmin's first foray into Android territory, but it could prove to be one of the most successful. The navigation company's just introduced Monterra, a dedicated handheld GPS running a TBA version of Android. Basic specs are in line with what you'd expect from a mid-range smartphone, including a 4-inch touchscreen, an 8-megapixel camera with flash and geotag support, 1080p video capture, 6GB of internal storage and microSD expansion. Naturally, the display is optimized for outdoor use -- it's transflective, so you only need to use the LED backlight in low light, letting you conserve power during daytime river treks and sunlit hikes.

The device is ruggedized, with an IPX7 waterproof rating, and can run on either a rechargeable battery pack (included) or AA batteries. It includes WiFi, ANT+, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC, a built-in FM radio with NOAA weather and SAME alerts, dual-band GPS and GLONASS receiver, a 3-axis compass with accelerometer and gyro, a UV sensor for monitoring the sun's intensity and a barometric altimeter, which can report altitude and predict weather based on pressure shifts. There's also a handful of preinstalled apps designed to take advantage of this plethora of connectivity, including Europe PeakFinder, or you can download favorites from Google Play -- anything from farming aids to efficiency trackers can utilize many of Monterra's bundled sensors. The device is expected to ship in Q3, and should run you about $650 in the US or £600 in the UK.

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Obama to Include Existing Plants in Pollution Plan (WSJ)

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