Iran's 'diplomat sheikh' a gentle touch in nuclear talks

Despite Hassan Rohani?s impressive revolutionary pedigree, it is his quarter-century of involvement with Iran?s nuclear program that will most interest the US and Israel.

As the top nuclear negotiator from 2003-05, Mr. Rohani oversaw the only nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, earning him the nickname ?diplomat sheikh? and impressing his European counterparts as a smart and able negotiator.

Rohani ?is naturally courteous, respectful, and engaged. He?s straightforward and pragmatic to deal with ? but intensively protective of Iran, its people, and of the Islamic revolution,? former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote this week in The Telegraph.

Mr. Straw recalled a moment in October 2003, when he and the German and French foreign ministers traveled to Iran to forge a nuclear deal. They were about to leave without it.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.

?We then watched as [Rohani] worked the phones to the president [reformist Mohammad Khatami], and, crucially, to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, to gain greater freedom of maneuver. It showed impressive flexibility. After a round of tough negotiations, we got a deal: the Tehran Declaration,? Straw wrote.

That nuclear history is crucial to understanding Rohani?s promises of ?moderation? and recalibrating antagonistic relations with the West.

In the US and European capitals, skepticism about an overnight transformation runs deep. The P5+1 group (the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) has been engaged with Iran for 1.5 years ? mostly fruitlessly.

Rohani pledged that Iran will be ?more dynamic? in P5+1 talks and says it is ready for ?more transparency? to ease Western fears it seeks a nuclear weapon. But he has also made clear that Iran?s fundamental demands ? recognition of its ?right? to peaceful nuclear enrichment and lifting nuclear-related sanctions ? have not budged.

There is now a chance of ?moving from the confrontation era to the cooperation era,? says Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former member of Rohani?s negotiating team now at Princeton University.

Presidents do not trump Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?s decisions on the nuclear file, but they set a tone. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?s provocative rhetoric virtually dared world powers to pile on sanctions, and current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili has been criticized as inflexible.

?[Rohani?s] strategy is really based on cooperation, on engagement and common interests and removing hostilities?and resolving every problem in a peaceful way,? says Mr. Mousavian, describing the cleric as a strategic thinker who ?consults with everyone? and ?argues a lot, different aspects, different scenarios? before making a decision.

Hardliners have attacked Rohani?s conciliatory approach for years, accusing him of suspending enrichment in a 2004 deal for nothing, prompting Iran to resume enrichment in mid-2005. Even Khamenei cast the deal as a mistake and said he doubted the Europeans would follow through. Mohammad ElBaradei, chief of the UN nuclear watchdog agency at the time, said the agreement Rohani struck with Britain, France, and Germany was fundamentally watered down under American pressure.

Iran "moved rapidly" and suspended enrichment within a week, writes Mr. ElBaradei in his 2011 memoir. But the deal fell apart months later because ?the offer prepared by the Europeans proposed few of the benefits discussed at the time of the Paris Agreement?. Not only was the proposal meager, but its tone was patronizing, bordering on arrogant.?

Yet in a 2004 speech to Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, Rohani described how during earlier negotiations Iran was simultaneously expanding its uranium conversion work.

?While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan,? he said. ?By creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.?

He also spoke then about the depth of mutual mistrust: ?They think we are out to dupe them, and we think in the same way ? that they want to trick and cheat us. Therefore, we should build trust, step by step and in practice.?

Interestingly, Rohani states: "In the end, we ? the Europeans and us ? might compromise, accept something less than 100 percent, and reach an accord."

Rohani?s rhetoric is qualitatively different from the firebrand ?enemy? theme of recent years, and his election presents a ?new opportunity? for the West, Mousavian says.

?The question is: Whether the West will have learned enough lessons, and whether they would again miss the new opportunity, or not,? he says. ?Will the international community ? specifically the US ? follow the [same] regime change [policy], radical threats, pressures, isolation, all this you have heard for 30 years? Or this time will they really go for a genuine, sincere engagement??

Rohani will almost certainly choose a new nuclear negotiator to replace Jalili, after the criticisms leveled at the current team. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, a former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran who has a PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT, is reportedly on the shortlist.

Yet P5+1 negotiators are unlikely to be uniformly reassured. Like other Iranian officials, Rohani has publicly rejected nuclear weapons, but speaks strongly about Iran's right to nuclear energy. After so many years grappling with the nuclear issue, including writing his own 1,200-page memoir on Iran's nuclear diplomacy, Rohani's views are relatively well known.

In the 2004 closed-door speech Rohani acknowledged that Iran's secrecy in the early stages of its nuclear effort "is the root of all problems. If we had done it openly, the problem would have been far simpler."

?If one day we are able to complete the [nuclear] fuel cycle and the world sees that it has no choice, that we do posses the technology, then the situation will be different,? Rohani said, according to a September 2005 transcript by the quarterly journal of Iran's Center for Strategic Research, the Expediency Coucil think tank of which Rohani has been director since 1992. A translation is posted online by armscontrolwonk.com.

?The world did not want Pakistan to have an atomic bomb or Brazil to have the fuel cycle,? Rohani said. ?But Pakistan built its bomb and Brazil has is fuel cycle, and the world started to work with them. Our problem is that we have not achieved either one, but we are standing at the threshold. As for building the atomic bomb, we never wanted to move in that direction.?

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irans-diplomat-sheikh-gentle-touch-nuclear-talks-190504117.html

aipac vanessa minnillo

AP PHOTOS: Slave descendants' community dwindling

SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. (AP) ? Sharron Grovner stands in the backyard of her home that faces this island's fecund saltwater marshes. The setting sun gives way to the stillness of evening, and the only sound one can hear are the ocean waves lapping against the shore.

These are the same shores where generations ago, Grovner's ancestors landed as slaves brought over to work a cotton plantation. They are the same shores where today the remaining descendants still fish for their dinner. They're the shores where ferries now embark to the mainland carrying hopes of employment while leaving behind a dwindling community.

Grovner is one of only 47 residents, most of them descendants of those West African slaves known as Geechee, who remain on Sapelo Island; their ancestors were brought to work the plantation of Thomas Spaulding in the early 1800s. Isolated over time to the Southeast's barrier islands, the Geechee of Georgia and Florida, also known as Gullah in the Carolinas, have retained their African traditions more than many other African American communities in the U.S.

Once freed, the ex-slaves were able to acquire land and created settlements on Sapelo Island, of which only the tiny 464-acre Hog Hammock community still exists. Residents say a sudden tax hike, lack of jobs, and development are endangering one of the last remaining Geechee/Gullah communities dotting the coast from Florida to North Carolina.

Here's a gallery of images from Sapelo Island.

_____

Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-slave-descendants-community-dwindling-163638198.html

pope joan strikeforce tate vs rousey strawberry festival

Research Gives New Permanence To Quantum Memory

Link Information - Click to View

Research Gives New Permanence To Quantum Memory
Quantum computers are real, but thanks to the fragility of quantum information, they can?t yet do anything you couldn?t do faster on a normal computer. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Sydney and Dartmouth College have found ...????

Source: Wired
Posted on: Thursday, Jun 20, 2013, 8:13am
Views: 30

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128733/Research_Gives_New_Permanence_To_Quantum_Memory

woodward keratosis pilaris rock and roll hall of fame 2012 brandon rios oklahoma news nascar news doppler radar

Stars, fans take to Twitter, grieve for Gandolfini

4 hours ago

Reaction was swift Wednesday to the news that actor James Gandolfini had passed away at the age of 51. Stars ranging from actress Susan Sarandon, to actor Rob Lowe, to "Jersey Shore" regular JWoww weighed in on Twitter about the legacy of "The Sopranos" star. Here's a sampling:

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/james-gandolfini-death-draws-twitter-reactions-stars-fans-6C10387235

la dodgers lawrence o donnell magic johnson jetblue pilot solicitor general neighborhood watch dodgers sale

Current global food production trajectory won't meet 2050 needs

June 19, 2013 ? Crop yields worldwide are not increasing quickly enough to support estimated global needs in 2050, according to a study published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by research associate Deepak Ray and colleagues from the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota.

Previous studies estimate that global agricultural production may need to increase 60-110 percent to meet increasing demands and provide food security. In the current study, researchers assessed agricultural statistics from across the world and found that yields of four key crops -- maize, rice, wheat and soybean -- are increasing 0.9-1.6 percent every year. At these rates, production of these crops would likely increase 38-67 percent by 2050, rather than the estimated requirement of 60-110 percent. The top three countries that produce rice and wheat were found to have very low rates of increase in crop yields.

"Particularly troubling are places where population and food production trajectories are at substantial odds," Ray says, "for example, in Guatemala, where the corn-dependent population is growing at the same time corn productivity is declining."

The analysis maps global regions where yield improvements are on track to double production by 2050 and areas where investments must be targeted to increase yields. The authors explain that boosting crop yields is considered a preferred solution to meet demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture. They note that additional strategies, such as reducing food waste and changing to plant-based diets, can also help reduce the large estimates for increased global demand for food.

"Clearly, the world faces a looming agricultural crisis, with yield increases insufficient to keep up with projected demands," says IonE director Jon Foley, a co-author on the study. "The good news is, opportunities exist to increase production through more efficient use of current arable lands and increased yield growth rates by spreading best management practices. If we are to boost production in these key crops to meet projected needs, we have no time to waste."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/CuioDIM_HG4/130619195135.htm

Colorado Marijuana elizabeth warren puerto rico diane sawyer Washington Election Results drudge report Presidential Election 2012

Dusty surprise around giant black hole

June 20, 2013 ? ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy. Rather than finding all of the glowing dust in a doughnut-shaped torus around the black hole, as expected, the astronomers find that much of it is located above and below the torus. These observations show that dust is being pushed away from the black hole as a cool wind -- a surprising finding that challenges current theories and tells us how supermassive black holes evolve and interact with their surroundings.

Over the last twenty years, astronomers have found that almost all galaxies have a huge black hole at their centre. Some of these black holes are growing by drawing in matter from their surroundings, creating in the process the most energetic objects in the Universe: active galactic nuclei (AGN). The central regions of these brilliant powerhouses are ringed by doughnuts of cosmic dust [1] dragged from the surrounding space, similar to how water forms a small whirlpool around the plughole of a sink. It was thought that most of the strong infrared radiation coming from AGN originated in these doughnuts.

But new observations of a nearby active galaxy called NGC 3783, harnessing the power of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile [2], have given a team of astronomers a surprise. Although the hot dust -- at some 700 to 1000 degrees Celsius -- is indeed in a torus as expected, they found huge amounts of cooler dust above and below this main torus [3].

As Sebastian H?nig (University of California Santa Barbara, USA and Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel, Germany), lead author of the paper presenting the new results, explains, "This is the first time we've been able to combine detailed mid-infrared observations of the cool, room-temperature dust around an AGN with similarly detailed observations of the very hot dust. This also represents the largest set of infrared interferometry for an AGN published yet."

The newly-discovered dust forms a cool wind streaming outwards from the black hole. This wind must play an important role in the complex relationship between the black hole and its environment. The black hole feeds its insatiable appetite from the surrounding material, but the intense radiation this produces also seems to be blowing the material away. It is still unclear how these two processes work together and allow supermassive black holes to grow and evolve within galaxies, but the presence of a dusty wind adds a new piece to this picture.

In order to investigate the central regions of NGC 3783, the astronomers needed to use the combined power of the Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope. Using these units together forms an interferometer that can obtain a resolution equivalent to that of a 130-metre telescope.

Another team member, Gerd Weigelt (Max-Planck-Institut f?r Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), explains, "By combining the world-class sensitivity of the large mirrors of the VLT with interferometry we are able to collect enough light to observe faint objects. This lets us study a region as small as the distance from our Sun to its closest neighbouring star, in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away. No other optical or infrared system in the world is currently capable of this."

These new observations may lead to a paradigm shift in the understanding of AGN. They are direct evidence that dust is being pushed out by the intense radiation. Models of how the dust is distributed and how supermassive black holes grow and evolve must now take into account this newly-discovered effect.

H?nig concludes, "I am now really looking forward to MATISSE, which will allow us to combine all four VLT Unit Telescopes at once and observe simultaneously in the near- and mid-infrared -- giving us much more detailed data." MATISSE a second generation instrument for the VLTI, is currently under construction.

Notes

[1] Cosmic dust consist of silicate and graphite grains -- minerals also abundant on Earth. The soot from a candle is very similar to cosmic graphite dust, although the size of the grains in the soot are ten or more times bigger than typical grain sizes of cosmic graphite grains.

[2] The VLTI is formed from a combination of the four 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes, or the four moveable 1.8-metre VLT Auxiliary Telescopes. It makes use of a technique known as interferometry, in which sophisticated instrumentation combines the light from several telescopes into one observation. Although it usually does not produce actual images, this technique dramatically increases the level of detail that can be measured in the resulting observations, comparable to what a space telescope with a diameter of over 100 metres would measure.

[3] The hotter dust was mapped using the AMBER VLTI instrument at near-infrared wavelengths and the newer observations reported here used the MIDI instrument at wavelengths between 8 and 13 microns in the mid-infrared.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/a50idejqDD0/130620071438.htm

ufc 145 weigh ins record store day 2012 detroit red wings jose canseco zimmerman derek fisher lyrid meteor shower

Tim Huelskamp: IRS, Other Scandals Creating 'President O'Nixon'

Thousands of activists rallied outside the Capitol on Wednesday to protest the IRS targeting of conservative and tea party groups, with many of the event?s speakers laying the blame for the fiasco squarely at the White House.

The ?Audit the IRS? rally, organized by the Tea Party Patriots organization in response to the agency?s improper scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, drew members and leaders of tea party groups across the country, radio personality Glenn Beck and the Senate?s tea party trio: Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas.

?When Richard Nixon tried to use the IRS to target his political enemies, it was wrong,? Mr. Cruz said. ?And when the Obama administration does it, it?s still wrong.?

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Kansas Republican, said the two presidents have become so intertwined in his mind that he thinks of Mr. Obama as ?President O?Nixon.?

Ken Hoagland, chairman of Restore America?s Voice PAC, accused former White House counsel Bob Bauer of sending ?memo after memo to the Justice Department, to the IRS and other interested parties urging them to go after law-abiding citizens who wanted to end voter fraud [and] exercise their rights to stop an out-of-control government. This abuse of Americans was directed by Washington at the very highest levels of the Obama administration and campaign.?

The sentiment permeated throughout the crowd, peppered with ?Don?t Tread on Me? Gadsden flags, Colonial American garb, and one suggestive sign, complete with two round balls, apparently questioning the manliness of House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, who often draws the ire of staunch conservatives.

?I hate what our government is doing right now. I don?t like what they?re doing with the IRS, I don?t like what they?re doing with the [National Security Agency], I don?t like what they?re doing with Homeland Security, and definitely with the Justice Department, any of what?s going on,? said Gladys Torres, a retired retail store worker from Long Island, N.Y.

?I feel like we?re living in Nazi Germany. I believe this administration is using all these agencies against the people they don?t agree with politically. And I think that is totally un-American,? she said.

?We will get answers?

Even Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican who has largely stayed out of the partisan fray over the IRS targeting that has engulfed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, promised the crowd in short remarks that ?we will get answers.? Mr. Camp?s Ways and Means Committee is conducting a joint investigation with the oversight committee.

Oversight Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, and ranking member Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, have been waging a back-and-forth battle over transcripts of interviews from witnesses in the investigation.

Excerpts of testimony have revealed involvement of the agency?s Washington office that appears to contradict early IRS claims that the improper scrutiny was confined to a few employees of the Cincinnati office.

?A worker in Cincinnati was quoted as saying we don?t do anything without direction,? said Mr. Camp, who did not mention Mr. Obama or the White House.

But Mr. Cummings, to the consternation of Mr. Issa, released the entire transcript this week of an interview with John Shafer, a Cincinnati employee and self-described ?conservative Republican,? who said the issue for him began when an employee in Cincinnati, not Washington, flagged an application that appeared like it could be a ?high-profile? case, so Mr. Shafer forwarded it.

? Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/huelskamp-irs-obama-nixon/2013/06/20/id/510900

rihanna and chris brown affirmative action helicon zac efron and taylor swift new madrid fault real housewives of orange county bloom energy

Swallow?s fate in House GOP?s hands Wednesday

(Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo) Utah Attorney General John Swallow.

As Republican House members prepared to meet Wednesday to discuss how to deal with a string of allegations against Attorney General John Swallow, the leader of the majority in the chamber said it is "highly likely" the House will investigate the charges even as Swallow made a last-ditch attempt to explain the accusations against him.

House Majority Leader Brad Dee, R-Ogden, said Tuesday that he believes it is "highly likely" that the House will proceed with an investigation into the allegations against Swallow. He said it remains to be seen whether that would be done under the auspices of impeachment, or if there is some other way to proceed. Swallow would be the first state official ever to be impeached in Utah.

?

Live stream of GOP caucus

Watch the Utah House Republican caucus live at sltrib.com starting at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.

?

Summary of allegations

Utah Attorney General John Swallow and predecessor Mark Shurtleff have come under scrutiny on a number of fronts:

Bribery allegation ? Indicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson has, at times, accused Swallow of helping to arrange to bribe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Swallow says he only helped Johnson set up a lobbying deal.

Special consideration? ? Three Utah businessmen have said Swallow, as a fundraiser for Shurtleff in 2009, suggested that a contribution to Shurtleff?s campaign would win them special consideration from the attorney general?s office if there were complaints about their operations.

Rules violation? ? At least two ethics complaints have been made to the Utah State Bar, including one by the state?s former director of consumer protection alleging Swallow violated attorney-client rules by discussing a consumer-protection case with a potential donor and suggesting the target meet with Shurtleff.

Withholding information? ? The lieutenant governor?s office is in the process of hiring a special counsel to investigate a complaint that Swallow concealed business interests on his candidate financial disclosure forms, including a company central to the Johnson deal.

Posh vacations ? Convicted businessman Marc Sessions Jenson said Swallow and Shurtleff took posh vacations to his Newport Beach, Calif., villa on Jenson?s dime while he was free on a plea deal with the Utah attorney general?s office. Lawyers for Jenson, who is behind bars for securities violations and staring at new felony charges, also have alleged Swallow and Shurtleff orchestrated a ?shakedown? of their client, extracting more than $200,000 in favors from Jenson for themselves and others, and then prosecuting him when he failed to go along with other demands. The lawyers are asking a judge to remove the attorney general?s office from Jenson?s case.

$2 million solicitation? ? Businessman Darl McBride provided a recording of a 2009 breakfast meeting in which Shurtleff offered him $2 million to take down a website criticizing Mark Robbins, Jenson?s former business partner. Shurtleff said he could get the money from Jenson because of his plea deal. Jenson said he refused.

"I think that?s one of the reasons we?re going to have this discussion," he said. "I think that we?re the people?s House and we?re listening to what they?re saying and I?ve always said there will be a time where we will have to have information of our own and not rely on someone else."

He said he doesn?t have faith that the federal investigation will produce anything soon, and as a result it will be necessary for the House to conduct its own fact-finding.

In a late-night email to lawmakers ? one Swallow said he had hesitated to send out of respect for legislators ? the attorney general offered an explanation for his side of the allegations against him, saying they had been "hyper-politicized by the media" and urging legislators to spare the state the cost of an impeachment investigation by letting ongoing probes conclude.

"It is difficult for me to understand how I ended up in this perfect storm of media frenzy fueled by desperate people hoping to avoid the consequences for their actions," he wrote.

Swallow said he respects the Legislature?s right to begin an impeachment investigation. He urged them to do so responsibly and attached a two-page memo responding directly to allegations that have been made against him.

"I apologize for our current situation," Swallow wrote, "but would appreciate the opportunity to share accurate information with you and an opportunity for the current investigations to run their course so I have the opportunity to prove my innocence."

"We?ve tried to be very serious and very methodical and focus on the process, making sure that if we go forward with this, that we do it right," House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, said Tuesday. "What we?re talking about here ? potentially at the end of it, not just the impeachment but the potential trial in the Senate and conviction ? would lead to the removal of a popularly elected official, which is no small thing and something we should take very seriously."

Wednesday?s House GOP caucus could prove to be the first step toward Swallow?s ouster, according to Damon Cann, a political science professor at Utah State University.

story continues below

"This has the potential to be the tipping point where, if the party as a whole turns on Swallow, it could well be his demise," Cann said. "I?d even go as far to say, it?s just a matter of time until folks just can?t support Swallow anymore."

Whether or not the allegations are true, he said, it is becoming enough of a blemish on the Republican Party that GOP lawmakers have to respond.

The caucus is likely to cover some familiar turf for members, with Lockhart laying out the process for impeaching a state official and the standard for such action ? material covered in a string of emails sent to lawmakers.

The Legislature?s general counsel, John Fellows, will be on hand to help answer questions raised by legislators about the procedure.

After reviewing that initial groundwork, the 61 Republican House members are expected to have a broad and frank dialogue about where they go next.

The caucus is expected to be open ? as is typically the case in the House ? and likely will be crowded with reporters, photographers and spectators, but House Republicans could close the meeting with a majority vote.

"We pretty well understand what the issues are in front of us. I want to hear from the counsel ? and from lawyers in our body about a path forward. What are the options from a legal standpoint?" said Rep. Stephen Handy, R-Layton. "I think it?s too soon to rush toward impeachment, but I would like to see if there?s a way we can get additional information."

To this point, Handy said, all the legislators have to go on are a slew of media reports. He said he and other lawmakers he has talked to are searching for a path short of impeachment.

"We?re looking for a middle road," he said, "to find a way to gain more information without really having to pull the trigger on [impeachment] at this point."

Handy expects strong opinions to be expressed on both sides, but he doesn?t anticipate the House caucus taking a position on how to proceed.

Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, argues that it would be better for the House to go slow and wait for the various investigations to wrap up.

Next Page >

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56477321-78/swallow-utah-impeachment-state.html.csp

iTunes Alfred Morris weight watchers fandango google play Christmas Story after christmas sales

California Set to Lift Restrictions on Egg Donation

Human eggs (pictured) used in research could fetch thousands of dollars, if California loosens a law regulating their procurement. Image: Flickr/Kuranosuke Oishi

• 

  Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

  Read More??

California is set to pass a bill that would allow payments over and above 'direct expenses' to be made to women who donate eggs for research. The bill promises to increase the supply of eggs to scientists studying reproduction, but will not eliminate restrictions on research supported by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in San Francisco, a major funder of stem-cell research in the state.?

After passing in the California State Assembly on 2 May, the bill is likely to be subject to a vote in the state senate as early as Thursday, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, which represents fertility clinics and researchers, and pushed for the bill. "We expect this bill to pass and the governor to sign it," says Sean Tipton, the society's public-affairs director.

The bill (Assembly Bill 926) would overturn a 2006 California law that prohibits payments for research eggs for anything besides "direct expenses" such as travel. The bill instead allows compensation for "time, discomfort, and inconvenience" ? a standard commonly used in human studies.

In practical terms, the bill would bump up payments from hundreds to thousands of dollars. In Oregon ? which, like most states, does not have regulations governing egg donation ? women recently received US$3,000?7,000 each for eggs used in a study that created stem-cell lines from cloned human embryos.

The pay boost will help researchers to compete with fertility clinics for eggs, says Dieter Egli, a researcher at the New York Stem Cell Foundation. In Massachusetts, where a law similar to that of California's makes it difficult to recruit egg donors, Egli was involved in a study that several years ago spent $100,000 in advertising to find a single egg donor.

Coercion concerns
Ironically, the restrictive Massachusetts and California laws have their origins in efforts to promote human embryonic stem-cell research. In 2004, California enacted Proposition 71, a referendum which established CIRM and also mandated that women donating eggs to CIRM researchers be compensated only for direct expenses, in keeping with the policy of the US National Academy of Sciences. A separate 2006 law extended that restriction to all research in California. The new bill repeals only this broader law ? leaving CIRM-funded researchers without a secure source of healthy eggs.

The reasoning behind the law remains relevant today, says Diane Tober, the associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California. Her center is opposed to the bill, she says, because of concerns about donor coercion. "What situations are women going to put themselves in to pay the bills?" she asks. There are also health risks: the procedure, which involves weeks of painful hormone injections, can in rare cases cause massive enlargement of the ovaries and fluid build-up in the abdomen, which can lead to kidney failure. Little is known about the long-term effects of donation.

Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, notes that the new bill mandates oversight by institutional review boards (IRBs), which routinely consider whether compensation constitutes ?undue inducement? to the point at which participants ignore risks.

But Hyun takes exception to a loophole in the new bill that applies to eggs left over from donors who are compensated for providing eggs to infertile women. According to Hyun, it is a largely unregulated transaction that can fetch more than $10,000 per collection. Under current law, these leftover eggs cannot be used for research. The proposed bill would allow researchers to use them, but also instructs IRBs to ignore how much women were paid for such eggs, provided certain conditions are met, such as the donor deciding she does not need the eggs herself. "The threat of undue financial inducement is one of the key ethical issues in egg donation for stem-cell and other biomedical research," explains Hyun, "This bill requires the IRB to disregard this. That's pretty strong language."

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=california-set-to-lift-restrictions-on-egg-donation

Kick Ass Torrents jamarcus russell Sloane Stephens Beyonce Lip Sync citizens bank Hansel and Gretel LGBT

Evernote Web Clipper's new Gmail function saves copies of emails and attachments

Keeping your Gmail account organized isn't that hard when you can tag and star emails. Evernote Web Clipper's new function, however, promises easier access to missives you deem particularly important. Once the Chrome extension is installed, it saves any message you want along with its attachments in just one click. One note, though: you'll need a premium account to search through any attached documents. Note that the Gmail clip will look like a garbled mess (especially if it's a lengthy thread) on Web Clipper's preview screen, but on the Evernote app or web portal it will appear nicely formatted. If you think this new function can help you wrangle an increasingly unruly Gmail account, hit the source link below for more info or look for the extension on the Chrome Web Store.

Filed under: Misc, Internet

Comments

Via: The Verge

Source: Evernote

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/19/evernote-web-clipper-gmail/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

World Ending 2012 gossip girl Ink Master Jenni Rivera Funeral aspergers Richard Engel Daniel Inouye