Former UN official presses $1 million demand (AP)

UNITED NATIONS ? The lawyer for an American asking for $1 million in damages from the United Nations on Wednesday described how her client was arrested, humiliated by "wanted posters" at his office and fired after he said his colleagues in Kosovo might be taking kickbacks.

The American, James Wasserstrom, who flew in from Kabul, Afghanistan, to attend the hearing, says the actions were retaliation for his speaking up.

"What on Earth went on here, and why?" Judge Goolam Meeran, of India, asked at the hearing. "There are certain lines of inquiry here that trouble me."

The case is a high-profile test case for the U.N.'s new court system for employee issues. The independent tribunal replaces the secret, delay-plagued system that legal experts in 2006 called "dysfunctional" and critics said heavily favored U.N. management.

The U.N. Dispute Tribunal set up two years ago holds open hearings and its rulings are binding on the Secretary-General, unlike the system it replaced.

Wasserstrom said he thought he could get a fair hearing under the new setup.

"At least now we have professional judges, high standards, real rules of evidence," Wasserstrom said during a break in Wednesday's proceedings.

Under a whistleblower protection policy signed by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005, all U.N. employees are to be offered protection from retaliation.

But Wasserstrom says his U.N. job was eliminated in 2007 after he reported on colleagues he suspected were taking kickbacks from local officials in the energy sector.

He says he was arrested by U.N. police, his apartment searched and his office was taped off for months while posters bearing his picture were posted warning he should not be allowed on U.N. premises while the mission investigated him alleging conflict of interest, after Wasserstrom signed a consulting contract to start after his U.N. job ended.

The U.N. Ethics Office at the time said the treatment of Wasserstrom "seemed to be excessive," but it found no evidence that the actions were retaliatory.

Two Ethics Office employees who handled the Kosovo case, Susan John and Robert Benson, told the tribunal on Wednesday that the actions against Wasserstrom had seemed "disproportionate," but they maintained there was no sign of retaliation.

Wasserstrom worked for the U.N. for 25 years. He seeks more than $1 million for lost wages, compensation for defamation and mental distress.

"What happened destroyed his U.N. career," said his attorney, Mary Dorman.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111012/ap_on_re_us/un_un_tribunal

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Reasons to Have a Home Inspection

Whenever you are considering buying a home, you should obtain a home inspection done. Home inspectors are the people who are trained to find all the little things that can go wrong with the main things that can go wrong that the average person simply does not understand. Home inspection can sometimes use faulty wiring in the ceiling, bad, whatever. While you may be in love with the home you're looking for, when he's ready to fall apart and you do not even know. Although the shell may look good on the inside can be filled with all sorts of problems. Here are some of the causes is a potential dream home to be checked: o Codes: Many times when a property is sold, it can not be up to date on some code changes that took place during the previous owner, who lives there. For example, in the roofs in Florida now have what is known as "hurricane belt and you do not know to look for them, but a home inspection agent will. Why is this important? If you buy a house, and it is later determined that it does not comply with current code, you're the one who should pay for it to come to code and subsequent fines can be levied as well. Price negotiation O: If the inspection team at home that you have done things that are wrong with the house and must be corrected, you can use this leverage as a piece when it comes time to negotiate the price you will pay for the house. The home owner may be willing to take less than they originally would have if they realize that the repairs will be made anyway. This will help save you money and potential headaches. o No buyer's remorse: When your dream home, you have just purchased starts to fall apart, you will experience a feeling of sick in your stomach is known as buyer's remorse. Oh, if only you knew about the pipe or pipes or roof leaks ... with a home inspection done, you know these things beforehand, so you will know what you're getting into. Or Piece of Mind: Buying a home is probably the biggest investment you will ever make. Want to go to the closing table with a generally good feeling about what you do. Have a certified home inspection done before committing to buying this will give you peace of mind that you must sign on the dotted line. If you have never met a home owner who does not want to run your home inspection at home they are selling, then you should sirens blaring, and you should run away quickly. It 'just for a home inspection done and even though it may cost a few hundred dollars for a first time, you can actually save you thousands of dollars in the long term. Remember, to always know what you are buying before you buy. Welcome to the Best South Florida Home Inspection, Inc. Our inspectors are licensed and insured home. We provide a detailed home inspection West Palm Beach home as well as on-site report. The next day, our clients receive confidential written report, including photographs and cost estimates. Our services do not work out of control. If you have questions about the review, we have available.

Tags: long term, dream home, roof leaks, home owner, home inspection, first time

Source: http://www.212articles.com/reasons-to-have-a-home-inspection/

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Navajos seek exemption for Grand Canyon flights

An American Indian tribe whose reservation borders the Grand Canyon wants to boost its economy by giving tourists an aerial view of the massive gorge.

Nearly 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon each year, and some undoubtedly take a highway that runs through Navajo Nation communities.

Navajo lawmaker Walter Phelps sees potential in that number. He has sponsored legislation in the Tribal Council that asks the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Park Service to exempt air tour operators flying to or from the reservation from having to use valuable allocations required for commercial air tours at the Grand Canyon, similar to what the Hualapai Tribe has.

"It's an opportunity that Navajo has not expanded into," he said. "My interest is that if the FAA is willing to consider an exemption for Navajo, I know that people will come knocking on our doors, then we can talk tourism, then we can talk development."

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Navajo officials have talked about taking tourists from Cameron to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, which boasts a wide view of the Grand Canyon, but Phelps said it's too soon to think about possible routes. The tribe would have to get the blessing of the Park Service and an exemption from allocations if any of the flights cross over into the park boundaries.

The FAA granted the Hualapai Tribe an exemption more than a decade ago after finding that it would suffer adverse economic impacts by regulating flights. The Hualapai reservation lies south of Grand Canyon National Park, while the Navajo Nation is on the east end of the canyon.

The difference between Hualapai and Navajo is that the Hualapai Tribe already was operating flights from its reservation that includes a 108-mile stretch of the Grand Canyon outside the park boundaries when Congress mandated that the Park Service and the FAA come up with a way to manage flights over the Grand Canyon. The result was a series of route restrictions, curfews and temporary caps on the number of flights allowed each year.

Park officials want fewer Grand Canyon flights

The Navajo Nation wants its position known before a final plan for overflights is released, which is expected sometime next year. More than 400,000 people take air tours of the Grand Canyon each year, but hikers and tourists on the ground say the aircraft are too noisy.

The Park Service's preferred alternative would allow 8,000 more flights per year over the Grand Canyon for a total of 65,000, and the limit on the number of daily air tours would be set at 364, an increase of 50. Transport flights and those not carrying tourists would be rerouted so they don't fly directly over the canyon, and all aircraft would have to convert to quiet technology over the next 10 years.

The Hualapai Tribe would keep its exemption from annual allocations under all alternatives.

The comment period ended in June with nearly 30,000 comments submitted to the National Park Service. Individual Navajos who live near the confluence of the rivers asked that the Park Service quiet helicopter traffic near their homes, but the tribal government has not submitted comments, said Palma Wilson, deputy superintendent at the Grand Canyon.

"We're moving forward with the final plan and as fast as they can get them in, that's fine," she said.

Phelps said the revenue generated from air tours would be of particular benefit to residents on the western side of the reservation who were prevented from making even minor repairs to their homes for decades because of a land dispute with the neighboring Hopi Tribe. He said it's no guarantee that the Navajo Nation will get what it wants, "but at least we have to try."

One of his fellow lawmakers, Katherine Benally, was far more optimistic at a meeting last week in Cameron, saying "my little brother is underestimating the Navajo Nation. We're going to comment, demand that they listen."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44874545/ns/travel-destination_travel/

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Get in the Halloween spirit with some live alerts from Pops

 

A few weeks back we took a look at Pops, a rather unique alert application for Android, and they have reached out to let us know they are offering some free Halloween alerts. If you currently are using Pops you will want to grab these free packs, and if you are not a current Pops user be sure to hit the break for download links!

read more


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/66EqAwGtNas/get-halloween-spirit-some-live-alerts-pops

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Radiation hotspot in Tokyo linked to mystery bottles

TOKYO | Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:59am EDT

TOKYO

(Reuters) - A radiation hotspot has been detected in Tokyo seven months into Japan's nuclear crisis, but local officials said on Thursday high readings appeared to be coming from mystery bottles stored under a house, not the tsunami-crippled Fukushima atomic plant.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, struck by a devastating quake and tsunami in March, has released radiation into the atmosphere that has been carried by winds, rain and snow across eastern Japan.

Officials in Setagaya, a major residential area in Tokyo about 235 km (150 miles) southwest of the plant, said this week it found a radioactive hotspot on a sidewalk near schools, prompting concerns in the country's most populated area far from the damaged nuclear plant.

The radiation measured as much as 3.35 microsieverts per hour on Thursday, higher than some areas in the evacuation zone near the Fukushima plant, the center of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

But the local government found several bottles under the floor of a nearby house emitting high levels of radiation.

"A measuring device, when pointed at them, showed very high readings. Radiation levels were even exceeding the upper limit for the device," Setagaya Mayor Nobuto Hosaka told a news conference.

Officials from the Education Ministry are now looking into the matter, including the contents of the bottles.

Public broadcaster NHK said no one had been living in the house in question.

The city of Funabashi, near Tokyo, said that a citizens' group had measured a radiation level of 5.8 microsieverts per hour at a park, but that the city's own survey showed the highest reading at the park was a quarter of that level.

Radiation levels in the 20 km radius evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant ranged from 0.5 to 64.8 microsieverts per hour, government data showed this week.

About 80,000 residents have evacuated this zone. A microsievert quantifies the amount of radiation absorbed by human tissue.

In Yokohama, also near Tokyo, radioactive strontium-90, which can cause bone cancer and leukemia, was detected in soil taken from an apartment rooftop, media reported.

Strontium has been detected within an 80 km zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but this is the first time it has been found in an area so far away, local media added.

Radiation exposure from natural sources in a year is about 2,400 microsieverts on average, the U.N. atomic watchdog says.

Japan's education ministry has set a standard allowing up to 1 microsievert per hour of radiation in schools while aiming to bring it down to about 0.11 microsievert per hour.

(Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa and Nick Macfie)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/Ft3_y8BB4Ro/us-japan-nuclear-idUSTRE79C0PL20111013

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Americans Sargent, Sims share economics Nobel (AP)

STOCKHOLM ? Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for research that sheds light on the cause-and-effect relationship between the economy and policy instruments such as interest rates and government spending.

Sargent and Sims ? both 68 ? carried out their research independently in the 1970s and `80s. But it is highly relevant today as world governments and central banks seek ways to steer their economies away from another recession.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that both Sargent's and Sims' methods are used daily ... in all central banks that I know of in the developed world and at several finance departments too," Nobel committee member Torsten Persson told the AP.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the winners have developed methods for answering questions such as how growth and inflation are affected by a temporary increase in the interest rate or a tax cut.

"Today, the methods developed by Sargent and Sims are essential tools in macroeconomic analysis," the academy said in its citation.

Sargent is a professor at New York University, Sims a professor at Princeton.

Sims told a news conference in Stockholm by telephone that he was sleeping when he got the call from the prize committee and that he had not expected to win.

"Actually, at first we were called twice, and my wife couldn't find the talk button on the phone, so we went back to sleep," he said.

Sims said there was no easy way in which his work could help resolve the current financial turmoil.

"I don't have any simple answer, but I think the methods that I have used and Tom has developed are central to finding our way out of this mess," he added. "I think they point a way to try to unravel why our serious problems develop and new research using these methods may help us lead us out of it."

Asked how he would invest his half of the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, given the turbulence of today's financial markets, Sims said: "First thing I'm gonna do is keep it in cash for a while and think."

Sargent told The Associated Press he was surprised by the award, and he hadn't yet thought of how to celebrate it.

"I'm just going to teach my classes. I teach two classes today. I don't know if that's a celebration," he said by phone, preparing his notes for class on a train about to depart from New York to Princeton, where he is teaching macroeconomics this semester.

He didn't think the Nobel would change his life. "I hope not at all. I'm going to work and keep doing what I do. I like what I do," he said.

The academy said Sargent showed how "structural macroeconometrics" can be used to analyze permanent changes in economic policy ? a method that can be applied to study how households and companies adjust their expectations concurrently with economic developments.

Sims developed a method based on so-called "vector autoregression" to analyze how the economy is affected by temporary changes in economic policy and other factors, like an increase in the interest rate, the academy said.

"Sargent has primarily helped us understand the effects of systematic policy shifts, while Sims has focused on how shocks spread throughout the economy," the academy said.

The winners developed models to measure the sometimes surprising ways that people respond to changes in economic policy.

"People form their own ideas about what's going to happen independently of what the economists say is going to happen," said David Warsh, who writes the blog Economic Principles.

Warsh gave a simple example of the kinds of things Simms and Sargent shed light on: Suppose a government imposes a tax on corn to raise more money. Consumers might confound the government's plan by substituting wheat for corn ? and causing tax revenue to drop instead of rise.

The winners' use of complicated economic models usually keeps them a step or two removed from the pressing economic and political issues of the day. But Warsh says they contributed to the models being used now to determine whether governments should be cutting deficits or spending more money to lift the economy out of its rut.

And Sargent famously weighed in on the fight against inflation in the early 1980s. Many economists believed it would take years of high interest rates to bring inflation down. But Sargent believed that inflation could be tamed much faster if the Federal Reserve acted decisively enough to break the public's expectations that prices would continue to rise rapidly.

That is basically what happened: Then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates so quickly and so much that inflation expectations were shattered.

NYU said Sargent, who is married with three adult children, is an advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Chicago and has had an ongoing involvement with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His current work involves developing models to understand persistently high European unemployment rates; using new statistical methods to characterize the changing behavior of the Fed since WWII and the changing responsiveness of the U.S. economy to Fed actions; and applying techniques of robust control from engineering to optimal policy and the study of individual behavior, the university said.

The economics prize capped this year's Nobel announcements. The awards will be handed out Dec. 10 ? the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death. The economics prize is not among the original awards established in Nobel's 1895 will but was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in his memory.

___

Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman in Washington, D.C., Ula Ilnitzky in New York and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111010/ap_on_bi_ge/nobel_economics

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Dow, Saudi oil company sign accord for $20B plant

FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2011 photo, Andrew Liveris, Chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical, speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York. Dow Chemical Co. and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011, that they signed an agreement that advances their plan to build one of the world's biggest chemical plants in Saudi Arabia. The $20 billion complex is expected to begin production in 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2011 photo, Andrew Liveris, Chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical, speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York. Dow Chemical Co. and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011, that they signed an agreement that advances their plan to build one of the world's biggest chemical plants in Saudi Arabia. The $20 billion complex is expected to begin production in 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Dow Chemical Co. and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said Saturday that they signed an agreement that advances their plan to build one of the world's biggest chemical plants in Saudi Arabia. The $20 billion complex is expected to begin production in 2015.

The two companies agreed to a joint venture for Sadara Chemical Co., which will own the plant being built in the desert kingdom. The companies estimate it will generate about $10 billion in revenue annually within a few years of operation.

Dow and Saudi Aramco together are investing about $12 billion, and a portion of Sadara will be sold to shareholders in a public offering in 2013 or 2014. The complex, with 26 manufacturing units, will be the largest integrated chemical facility ever built in one go, the companies said.

It will make chemicals and plastics for the energy, transportation and consumer products industries. The companies are looking to sell the products in fast-growing markets such as China, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. Once completed, the complex will have capacity to produce 3.3 million tons a year of chemical products for use in an array of items including auto parts and food packaging.

Dow and Saudi Aramco, which is owned by the kingdom's government, announced in July that their boards had authorized them to set up the joint venture for the plant in Jubail Industrial City. The site is 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of the eastern Saudi city of Dammam.

Dow, based in Midland, Mich., will have access to Saudi Arabia's relatively cheap hydrocarbons, which will be used to make chemicals at the plant. The company has adopted a strategy of moving away from its basic plastics business and toward specialty materials used in consumer electronics and other products.

For Saudi Arabia, the plant will bolster its push to diversify its industrial base, reducing reliance on oil production, the companies said. The Sadara project and related investments are expected to produce thousands of new jobs, they said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-08-Dow%20Chemical-Saudi%20Plant/id-71e7db7870614b48850480ccb8a58166

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New membrane lipid measuring technique may help fight disease

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2011) ? Could controlling cell-membrane fat play a key role in turning off disease? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago think so, and a biosensor they've created that measures membrane lipid levels may open up new pathways to disease treatment. Wonhwa Cho, distinguished professor of chemistry, and his coworkers engineered a way to modify proteins to fluoresce and act as sensors for lipid levels.

Their findings are reported in Nature Chemistry, online on Oct. 9.

"Lipid molecules on cell membranes can act as switches that turn on or off protein-protein interactions affecting all cellular processes, including those associated with disease," says Cho. "While the exact mechanism is still unknown, our hypothesis is that lipid molecules serve sort of like a sliding switch."

Cho said once lipid concentrations reach a certain threshold, they trigger reactions, including disease-fighting immune responses. Quantifying lipid membrane concentration in a living cell and studying its location in real time can provide a powerful tool for understanding and developing new ways to combat a range of maladies from inflammation, cancer and diabetes to metabolic diseases.

"It's not just the presence of lipid, but the number of lipid molecules that are important for turning on and off biological activity," said Cho.

While visualizing lipid molecules with fluorescent proteins isn't new, Cho's technique allows quantification by using a hybrid protein molecule that fluoresces only when it binds specific lipids. His lab worked with a lipid known as PIP2 -- an important fat molecule involved in many cellular processes. Cho's sensor binds to PIP2 and gives a clear signal that can be quantified through a fluorescent microscope.

The result is the first successful quantification of membrane lipids in a living cell in real time.

"We had to engineer the protein in such a way to make it very stable, behave well, and specifically recognizes a particular lipid," Cho said. He has been working on the technique for about a decade, overcoming technical obstacles only about three years ago.

Cho hopes now to create a tool kit of biosensors to quantify most, if not all lipids.

"We'd like to be able to measure multiple lipids, simultaneously," he said. "It would give us a snapshot of all the processes being regulated by the different lipids inside a cell."

Other authors on the paper are postdoctoral researcher Youngdae Yoon, who developed the sensor; Park J. Lee, a doctoral student who developed microscope tools to enable the lipid quantification; and doctoral student Svetlana Kurilova, who worked on the protein cell delivery.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Illinois at Chicago.

Journal Reference:

  1. Youngdae Yoon, Park J. Lee, Svetlana Kurilova, Wonhwa Cho. In situ quantitative imaging of cellular lipids using molecular sensors. Nature Chemistry, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1163

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111009140203.htm

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