China leader's persona forged by harsh early life

BEIJING (AP) ? China's new leader spent much of his youth living in a dug-out cave.

Xi Jinping's seven years in the remote northern community of Liangjiahe meant toiling alongside villagers by day and sleeping on bricks by night, in stark contrast to his pampered early years in Beijing. He was born into the communist elite, but after his father fell out of favor with Mao Zedong ? and before his later rehabilitation ?the Xi was sent to a rural hinterland at age 15 to learn peasant virtues.

The Liangjiahe years are among the scant details known about Xi's life and personality partly because he himself chronicled them as a formative experience. They are part of the vague picture of a man who has drawn little attention during much of his political career but became party chief Thursday and will lead an increasingly assertive China for the next decade.

What is clear is that Xi has excelled at quietly rising through the ranks by making the most of two facets: He has an elite, educated background with links to communist China's founding fathers that are a crucial advantage in the country's politics, and at the same time he has successfully cultivated a common-man mystique that helps him appeal to a broad constituency. He even gave up a promising Beijing post in his late 20s to return to the countryside.

He did not at first come willingly, however, to Liangjiahe, a tiny community of cave dwellings dug into arid hills and fronted by dried mud walls with wooden lattice entryways. He tried to escape and was detained. Villagers remember a tall bookworm who eventually earned their respect.

"He was always very sincere and worked hard alongside us. He was also a big reader of really thick books," said Shi Chunyang, then a friend of Xi and now a local official.

It is in the nature of China's politics that relatively little is known about Xi's policy leanings. He is not associated with any bold reforms. Aspiring officials get promoted by encouraging economic growth, tamping down social unrest and toeing the line set by Beijing, not through charismatic displays of initiative.

Xi's resume in provincial posts suggest he is open to private industry and some administrative reforms as long as they don't jeopardize the Communist Party's monopoly on power. Though he likes Hollywood flicks about World War II and has a daughter at Harvard University ? under an assumed name ? he has signaled he may be a staunch Chinese nationalist.

Tall, heavyset and married to a popular folk singer in the military, Xi is at ease in groups, in contrast to China's typically stiff and aloof leaders, such as President Hu Jintao, whom Xi is in the process of succeeding.

A Xi administration is expected to pursue a more forceful foreign policy based on Beijing's belief that its chief rival, Washington, is in decline and that China's rise to global pre-eminence is within reach.

"Xi was chosen in part because he has the large, assertive, confident personality to lead in that kind of strategy," said Andrew Nathan, an expert on Chinese politics at New York's Columbia University.

Xi will confront daunting challenges. After two decades of fast-paced growth and social change, the economy is flagging and China is under strain. A polarizing gap has left a few wealthy and many struggling and resentful. Rampant corruption is corroding already low reserves of public trust in officialdom.

Beyond home, China is locked in sharp elbowing over territory with Japan and Southeast Asian neighbors. At the same time, Beijing feels hemmed in by the U.S., which is shoring up ties with countries on China's edge. President Barack Obama this weekend will begin a Southeast Asia tour that includes the first-ever visits to Myanmar and Cambodia by a sitting U.S. president.

As son of one-time Vice Premier Xi Zhongxun, the younger Xi spent the 1950s in a world of comfortable homes, chauffeur-driven cars and the best schools when most Chinese were desperately poor.

But the elder Xi fell afoul of the increasingly paranoid communist chief, and Mao demoted him in 1962. The son was dispatched to rural Shaanxi province in 1969 as part of Mao's campaign to toughen up educated urban youth during the chaotic Cultural Revolution. When caught returning to Beijing, he was sent to a labor camp for six months. Back in Liangjiahe, he helped build irrigation ditches.

"Knives are sharpened on the stone. People are refined through hardship," Xi said in a rare 2001 interview with a Chinese magazine. "Whenever I later encountered trouble, I'd just think of how hard it had been to get things done back then and nothing would then seem difficult."

Local Communist Party officials and police in Liangjiahe followed reporters on a visit and asked them to leave, showing how the party wants to control information about Xi's past. But they did allow brief interviews, including with Shi, described by villagers as Xi's former "iron buddy."

Shi stood across from the now-abandoned, one-room home where Xi lived with a local family, and recalled the day Xi departed at age 22. "No one wanted to see him go," Shi said.

Rejected for Communist Party membership nine times due to his father's political problems, Xi finally gained entry in 1974 and then attended the elite Tsinghua University.

He would later return to Liangjiahe only once, in 1992, when he gave an alarm clock to each household, Shi said.

Xi went on to earn a chemistry degree, by which time Mao had died and his father had been restored to office. Xi next secured a plum position as secretary to Defense Minister Geng Biao, one of his father's old comrades.

But Xi took the unusual step three years later of jumping to a lowly post in rural Hebei province, because he wanted to "struggle, work hard, and really take on something big," Xi told Elite Youth magazine's now-deceased editor Yang Xiaohuai.

Xi landed in the rural town of Zhengding, where people traveled by horse cart.

While there, he made the most of state broadcaster China Central Television's plans to film an adaptation of the classical Chinese novel "Dream of Red Mansions." Hoping to create a tourist attraction, Xi built a full-scale reproduction of the sprawling estate at the heart of the tale.

"You could tell Xi was thinking ahead. By doing this, he created lots of jobs and lots of revenue for Zhengding back when there was very little here," said Liang Qiang, a senior caretaker at the film set, which still draws tourists.

Xi biked around town dressed like an army cook and insisted he be introduced only as county party secretary without reference to his family links, former colleague Wang Youhui recalled.

"He always paid for his food. He didn't want any special treatment," state media quoted Wang as saying years later.

Xi's elite background plugged him into to a web of personal connections that were especially important early in his career, ensuring support from Beijing for local projects. As party leader, Xi should easily command the respect of officials and the military, in part because of deference to his father's status.

At the same time, Xi's years in the provinces protect him from accusations of pure nepotism and lend him credibility as someone who understands the struggles of working Chinese and private businessmen who are creating the bulk of new jobs.

With help from his father, Xi jumped in 1985 to a vice mayorship in the port of Xiamen, then at the forefront of economic reforms. Over the next 17 years, he built a reputation for attracting investment and eschewing the banqueting expected of Chinese officials. He hung a banner saying "Get it done" in a provincial office lobby.

He later took the top position in neighboring Zhejiang province, a hotbed of private industry, a lively civil society, non-communist candidates for local assemblies and a thriving underground church movement. Xi was seen as allowing minor local administrative reforms, while not initiating any of them.

"He's not going to do anything to weaken party control, but at the least you can say he's concerned with the lives of farmers and ordinary people," said Li Baiguang, a human rights lawyer in Zhejiang at the time.

Xi tried to dramatically reverse the government's poor reputation for accountability by clearing a backlog of citizen complaints in a one-day blitz in the city of Quzhou. He set up 15 temporary offices to address complaints over land seizures, job benefits and other issues, drawing 300 petitioners and resolving 70 cases.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson once called him a "guy who really knows how to get over the goal line."

After a brief spell in charge of Shanghai, Xi was brought to Beijing and handed the high-profile task of overseeing the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has also managed relations with the former British colony of Hong Kong.

Some evidence of a strong nationalist streak emerged recently when he lectured U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on China's claim to East China Sea islands held by Japan.

"China's neighbors, including the U.S., should be prepared to see a Chinese government under Xi being more assertive than that under Hu," said Steve Tsang, director of the China Police Research Institute at Britain's University of Nottingham.

Xi's career has been lent a touch of glamour by his wife, folk singer Peng Liyuan, who for much of their marriage was far better known than he was. Although Xi isn't known to have visited his daughter at Harvard, Xi Mingze's American education adds to Xi's unusually rich exposure to the U.S., having made up to half a dozen trips to the country.

Xi, who likes the Hollywood film "Saving Private Ryan," showed a human side during an official visit to the U.S. earlier this year. He took in a Los Angeles Lakers game and stopped in Iowa to visit families who hosted him during a study tour there in 1985. Asked by California schoolchildren about his hobbies, Xi listed reading, swimming, and watching sports, but said to laughter that finding more personal time was "mission impossible."

Former U.S. ambassador to Beijing Jon Huntsman said Xi is a man "who is quite different from Hu Jintao" in that Xi appears at ease.

"He's someone who you can connect with," Huntsman said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-leaders-persona-forged-harsh-early-life-125346493.html

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France suggests arming Syrian rebels

In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 photo, a Syrian rebel fighter aims at Syrian government forces during skirmishes in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras)

In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 photo, a Syrian rebel fighter aims at Syrian government forces during skirmishes in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras)

In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 photo, smoke rises after a Syrian mortar shell landed in a neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria.(AP Photo/Narciso Contreras).

This Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 photo, shows destroyed buildings where Syrian army snipers are positioned, as seen through a hole in a wall in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras)

In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 photo, a Syrian resident gets emergency medical attention as he arrives to a hospital after he was injured by a mortar attack in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras)

(AP) ? France's foreign minister raised the prospect Thursday of sending "defensive weapons" to Syrian rebels, saying his country will ask the European Union to consider lifting its arms embargo on the Middle East nation.

The civil war in Syria, which began as an uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, has killed more than 36,000 Syrians since March 2011, according to anti-Assad activists. The fighting and floods of refugees seeking safety have also spilled over into several of Syria's neighbors, including Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the EU's arms embargo is preventing Syrian rebels from fully defending themselves.

"We must not militarize the conflict ... but it's obviously unacceptable that there are liberated zones and they're bombed" by Assad's regime, Fabius said in an interview with RTL radio. "We have to find a good balance."

"The question of defensive arms will be raised," he said, without providing details about such arms. "This cannot be done without coordination between Europeans."

The topic of Syria is sure to be on the agenda at the EU foreign ministers meeting Monday in Brussels.

Among Western nations, France has been at the forefront of the struggle, and on Tuesday quickly recognized a new opposition coalition formed Sunday as the Syrian people's sole representative. It was the first Western nation to do so.

France has already been funneling aid, some through cloak and dagger means, to Syrian rebels, but expects to turn that over to the new coalition.

Russia, meanwhile, still opposes assistance to the Syrian opposition.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich, speaking at a briefing Thursday, said foreign help to those fighting Assad's government would represent a "gross violation" of basic principles of international law. He cited a 1970 U.N. document saying that no country should help or finance military action aimed at the violent overthrow of a foreign government.

The Russian comments came before those from Fabius, who did not mention that Russia has consistently vetoed Security Council resolutions trying to step up the pressure against the Assad regime.

In Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recognized the broad-based Syrian National Coalition on Thursday, according to the Anadolu news agency.

The president of the new opposition coalition, the 52-year-old preacher-turned activist Mouaz al-Khatib, is to visit Paris and meet with President Francois Hollande on Saturday.

A French diplomatic official said Thursday that France sees quick recognition as a primary way to assure success for the opposition.

"There won't be many other occasions like this," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and asked not to be named. "We have a collective responsibility, to the Syrians and ourselves, to make this live."

President Barack Obama is holding back full recognition, saying Wednesday that the U.S. isn't considering sending weapons to the opposition because of concerns the arms might end up in the hands of extremists.

Israeli tanks struck a Syrian artillery launcher Monday after a stray mortar shell flew into Israel-held territory, the first direct clash between the neighbors since the Syrian uprising began. The confrontation fueled new fears that the Syrian civil war could drag Israel into the violence, with grave consequences for the region.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-11-15-Syria/id-0c94e943d32b4c1cab1e58fc0c1e8434

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Want to see lemurs? Head to North Carolina

If you want to see lemurs, there are two places in the world you may want to visit. The first is Madagascar, the island nation where these unique primates evolved and the only place on Earth they're found living native.

The second, oddly enough, is western North Carolina.

That's fortunate for me, because while Madagascar is a bit outside my travel budget, North Carolina is but a domestic flight away. In fact, I grew up only a half-day's drive from Durham, N.C., home to the Duke University Lemur Center, a primate research mecca where lemurs roam free on acres of fenced-in woods. The Lemur Center is dedicated to conservation (lemurs are the most endangered mammals on the planet, with 91 percent of species threatened with extinction) and behavioral research (the adorable little primates are humans' very distant relatives, and their brains take us deep into our own evolutionary history).

Visiting a lemur haven
The Duke Lemur Center sits at the end of a winding, forested road. It's surrounded by the kind of southern deciduous forests I used to play in as a kid ? which made it all the weirder to stand in one and watch a herd of wide-eyed ring-tail lemurs materialize from the underbrush.

The Lemur Center is open for tours (see their website lemur.duke.edu for details), and I was there with a group of science writers, all equally excited about seeing lemurs up close. [ See photos from the Duke Lemur Center ]

Many of the center's more than 200 lemurs roam outside as long as the temperature doesn't dip below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 degrees Celsius). To achieve this privilege, the lemurs must learn to come when they're called ? keepers bring them in with the sound of a shaking tambourine or container of food. This ensures all the lemurs will be safe in case of a weather emergency, and the staff can always find them for medical checkups. New mama lemurs are even trained to hand their babies over to staff for weigh-ins.

High fences surround the outdoor enclosures, and the trees are cut back far enough to prevent any lemur leaps. In the Center's history, just a handful of lemurs have escaped; the last occurred in 2010, when two 6-year-old ring-tailed lemurs followed their evolutionary urge to strike out for new territory. Both were safely apprehended 36 hours later in a school library.

I'd hoped to walk out in the free-range lemur enclosures, but I hadn't realized how fearless the lemurs would be. They trotted up to our group like cats at the sound of a can opener when our guide shook a box of lemur chow, and happily scrounged for food right at our feet. Human tourists aren't allowed to touch the lemurs ? they will bite in self-defense ? but the lemurs know no such boundaries. As I squatted on the ground to snap a picture, one leapt by my ear like a spring-loaded Tigger. Another nuzzled up to our tour guide's ankles so freely that she nearly stumbled over him.

Perhaps the most amusing lemurs to watch were the sifakas. These brown-and-white lemurs are most comfortable in the trees. On the ground, the expert climbers move awkwardly. In fact, they get around by standing up on their back legs and galloping sideways. [ Gallery: Amazing Lemur Species ]

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Learning about lemurs
But back inside the Lemur Center is where the real action happens. In a series of low-slung buildings lined with enclosures, researchers plumb the cognitive depths of the lemur brain to uncover their sensory abilities.

Lemurs are big on smells (they themselves smell rather sharp and unpleasant), and Duke scientists are learning how they use scent to mark territory, attract mates and identify one another. Each lemur has its own unique perfume, like a fingerprint. This scent carries a dizzying array of information, researchers have found, from sex and fertility to species and age. Male lemurs have a cartilage spur on their wrists they use to dig grooves into trees, depositing their scent in a motion that looks like someone twisting a pepper grinder.

Not to anthropomorphize too much, but lemurs seem to love scent experiments. When Duke University anthropology doctoral student Katie Grogan demonstrated one experiment by spreading scent on wooden dowels, the ring-tailed lemur in the cage next to her reached his hands through the bars greedily, grasping for the dowel before it was even ready.

Elsewhere in the Center, researchers try to find out how well lemurs understand the world. For example, are they capable of understanding what other individuals can and can't see? As it turns out, when given a choice between snatching food from a person who is looking at them or from someone whose back is turned, ring-tailed lemurs will go for the person with the turned back 90 percent of the time.

Unfortunately, the ring-tailed lemur recruited to demonstrate this experiment to us was more interested in a favorite lemur pastime than in science: stink fighting. Lemurs stink fight by spreading their scent from their glands on their tails and then waving their tails at their opponents ? in this case, the human experimenters, who seemed less than intimidated.

As our group headed back to our bus to bid the Lemur Center goodbye, however, the primates had one more treat for us. A chorus of alarm calls rose up, including an otherworldly bark from the black-and-white ruffed lemur, whose cries carry half a mile (0.8 kilometers). It sounded like something out of "Jurassic Park" and seemed a fitting end to a trip into the world of these transplanted primates.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas ? or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49830039/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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The Functions Of A General Contractor North Dakota Corporation

Thanks to the oil field, the inhabitants of North Dakota has surely been rising. A substantial feat, primarily whenever you think about that North Dakota has lived through times of population decline over the last hundred years, it appears to get doing incredibly nicely currently.

Th expansion while in the North Dakota???s oil industry has developed the need to have for oil field services. With any population boom, it also implies the want for your building of houses, structures, together with other community or non-public amenities. An experienced general contractor North Dakota company can take care of every one of these wants.

In lots of scenarios, for example for municipal building work, the town will formulate their plans to quite a few general contractor North Dakota corporations. Then it???s up to the providers to develop the ideal bid though at the same time presenting the most beneficial services. The builders approximate how much cash the venture would require and just how extensive it might require. They provide the city their very best bid (selling price) and wait around to view if their estimate is approved or not.

A general contractor North Dakota business can set any structure or house structure into motion despite the size, shape, or supplies. They will work along with you to uncover that which you want and want your facility to seem like. Not just are you gonna be involved in the planning procedure, but may continue to be concerned all the way through the venture to make sure the general contractor North Dakota company follows your system in depth.

Based on the amount of knowledge the North Dakota general contractor has obtained through the years, they can take care of pretty much any project from commercial constructions to oil field services like man camps, tank and rig installation. A great general contractor North Dakota organization can accommodate your needs.

Together with their customer being a top priority for general contractor North Dakota businesses, security is additionally in the greatest relevance. The truth is, any enterprise is essential to become checked out frequently and authorized by OSHA.

MBA construction Co. general contractors in North Dakota provides unique services of general contracting projects ranging from industrial to commercial projects. We have the expertise to meet and exceed your expectations. Visit us at http://www.mbaconstruction.net/northdakota

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Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/miscellaneous/219849-article.html

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Best Buy aims to avoid Black Friday inventory meltdown

13 hrs.

During the 2011 holiday buying season, Best Buy offered many online Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but it failed to stock the inventory required to fill all the orders. The company?made things much worse by failing to notify its customers until just a week before Christmas.

"What happened last year will not happen again," Best Buy management?said in a statement to HD Guru, blaming the debacle on "unprecedented traffic rates and some system limitations."

How will Best Buy avoid disappointing hordes of TV-buying consumer this season? New policies put in effect for this holiday season include strict?back-order?limits and quicker order?status?notification. If Best?Buy can?t fill your Black Friday order, you should hear about it no later than Dec. 7.

A Best Buy spokesperson provided HD Guru with?statements on the new policies:?

Back-order reduction

We have limited the number of backorders allowed to ensure they can be filled within 14 days.

Back-order management

We?ve added a series of alerts and reports so we can to proactively identify and resolve potential backorders.?We will automatically cancel backorders that are not fulfilled within 14 days or as communicated to the customers.

System enhancements

In addition to the updated backorder process, we?ve made changes to the customer experience which flags sold out items more quickly on BestBuy.com.?We?ve increased our systems inventory checks, which improve the accuracy of our inventory status at any given time.

Fulfillment capacity

We have doubled the size of our distribution centers and have added staff to speed up the fulfillment of our online orders.?In addition, with our in-store pickup capability, we consider our more than 1000 stores additional fulfillment centers.

Customer communications

We?ll communicate better and more often with our Best Buy.com customers, via email and messaging on our site.?We have revamped our customer service process to ensure that customers know the status of their order, including when they can expect to receive it. We?ve also made changes to the customer experience which flags sold out items more quickly on Best Buy.com.

Guarantee?

HD Guru asked the Best Buy spokesperson if they will be offering a fulfillment guarantee to its online customers that receive an order confirmation. In a word, no. Here is there response verbatim, basically a reprise of the policies mentioned above:

Once a product is ordered online we provide an expected delivery date. We've increased our systems inventory checks, which improve the accuracy of our inventory status at any given time so we are confident that we have product to fulfill an order.

In the case of backordered products, we have limited the number of backorders allowed to ensure that product can be filled within 14 days. We will automatically cancel backorders that are not fulfilled within 14 days or as communicated to the customers.

More from HD Guru:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/best-buy-aims-avoid-black-friday-cyber-monday-inventory-meltdown-1C7049154

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US stocks fall in uneven trading; Home Depot soars

FILE - In this Sunday Nov. 11, 2012, file photo, supporters from the Independent Greeks party hold Greek flags as Presidential guards performs the changing of the guards ceremony outside the Greek parliament during an anti- austerity rally in central Athens. Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, as a deal to rescue the Greek economy now looks much less certain than it had just one day ago. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

FILE - In this Sunday Nov. 11, 2012, file photo, supporters from the Independent Greeks party hold Greek flags as Presidential guards performs the changing of the guards ceremony outside the Greek parliament during an anti- austerity rally in central Athens. Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, as a deal to rescue the Greek economy now looks much less certain than it had just one day ago. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

U.S. stocks closed lower after uneven trading Tuesday as fears about the "fiscal cliff" and Greece tipped major indexes between gains and losses. A surge in Home Depot's stock prevented a steeper drop for the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Dow closed down closed down 58.90 points, or 0.5 percent, at 12,756.18. It would have been lower without support from Home Depot, whose stock jumped 3.6 percent after the big-box retailer beat expectations for its fiscal third-quarter earnings. Home Depot is benefiting from the gradual housing recovery and rebuilding efforts after Superstorm Sandy. Home Depot rose $2.22 to $63.38.

Stocks had opened lower after European leaders postponed the latest aid package for Greece. The Dow turned positive in the first hour of trading and rose solidly through the morning, gaining as much as 83 points. Starting around 2 p.m., the average slid steadily into the red.

Other indexes also closed lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 5.50 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,374.53. The Nasdaq composite index fell 20.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,883.89.

Investors are trading against the backdrop of the "fiscal cliff," a set of U.S. government spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect automatically at the beginning of next year unless U.S. leaders reach a compromise before then.

Worries about the fiscal cliff pushed U.S. stocks to one of their worst weekly losses of the year last week after voters re-elected President Barack Obama and a deeply divided Congress. Obama met Tuesday with labor leaders and others who advocate higher taxes on the wealthy and want to protect health benefits for seniors and other government programs. Obama will meet with business leaders Wednesday.

"The longer we sit and do nothing" about the nation's fiscal issues, "the more this market is going to oscillate between positive 40 and negative 60, until we know what's going to happen next with all this uncertainty," said Craig Johnson, senior technical research strategist with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis.

Johnson expects the S&P 500 will reach 1,550 in the next six months as investors get over their lingering wooziness from the Great Recession and companies understand better how government policy on taxes, health care and spending will affect them.

European stocks had been lower but rose after trading opened in New York. Benchmark indexes in France, Britain and Germany closed modestly higher.

Traders in Europe are concerned because finance ministers postponed $40 billion in desperately needed aid for Greece. The news surprised investors. A day earlier, there was word that leaders had prepared a "positive" report on Greece, making it appear likely that the aid would be released.

"It's a little bit like Groundhog Day," said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, referring to the classic Bill Murray movie whose protagonist must relive the same day over and over. Until there is decisive news from Washington or Brussels, neither of which appears imminent, markets will remain vulnerable to short-term swings caused by headlines, Colas said.

The next major catalysts for a market move, Colas said, will be gauges of spending by consumers on Black Friday, the traditional shopping rush on the day after Thanksgiving.

Greece's neighbors decided to give the country two more years to meet its economic targets. They still disagree with the International Monetary Fund, another key lender, over how to manage the country's debt over the long term. Until lenders reach an accord, they can't release the billions that Greece needs to make upcoming payments.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said Greece should reduce its debt burden down to 120 percent of its economic output by 2020, the original target of 2020. But Jean-Claude Juncker, leader of the euro zone's finance ministers, said that the deadline would likely be changed to 2022. The lenders will meet again on Nov. 20.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slid to 1.59 percent from 1.64 percent late Friday as demand increased for ultra-safe investments. The U.S. bond market was closed on Monday in observance of the Veterans Day holiday.

Among stocks making big moves:

Microsoft plunged 3 percent after it announced the departure of Steven Sinofsky, who ran its Windows division. The unexpected move comes just weeks after Microsoft launched Windows 8, its first major overhaul in years of the operating system used on most of the world's computers. Microsoft fell 90 cents to $27.09.

Weatherford International dropped 15.9 percent after the oilfield services company reported revenue that was lower than analysts had been expecting. The company did not report full results because of accounting problems that have led it to revise its results from numerous periods. The stock fell $1.73 to $9.15.

Apparel chain operator TJX Cos., the parent of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, rose 2.7 percent after raising its full-year earnings forecast and reporting third-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts' expectations. The stock added $1.09 to $42.06.

___

Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports .

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-13-Wall%20Street/id-d0d655a81e4e4ed4a2bccde48b7c631a

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Mistrust of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood lingers

DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's Muslim Brotherhood finally swung behind a new opposition unity deal in Qatar, but some Syrians fear it will work in the new entity to replicate the influence it wields in the narrower Syrian National Council.

The SNC, dominated by the Qatar-backed Brotherhood, agreed under intense U.S. and Qatari pressure on Sunday to become a minority player in a wider body, the Syrian National Coalition.

The new body will try to win international recognition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and become the main address for political, humanitarian and military support for the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

One diplomat on the sidelines of the Doha talks said the Brotherhood, with affiliates in Egypt and Tunisia that have risen to power during the Arab uprisings of the past two years, had been the "swing block" that could make or break the deal.

Sensing the political wind - as an army of U.S. and other diplomats deployed in the Qatari hotels where the week of talks took place - the Brotherhood endorsed the new structure.

Opposition to the SNC being subsumed in the new coalition appeared to come largely from secular figures such as its new leader, Christian activist George Sabra.

"The Brotherhood will not monopolize power in the political arena and in managing the coming period," said Farouk Tayfour, a senior Brotherhood figure and deputy SNC leader.

"They will be a part of the overall Syrian framework of rebuilding our country and healing the wounds of Assad family rule."

DOMINATING THE SNC

As in Egypt in the first months after the fall of veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak last year, the Brotherhood tried to play down its influence on the SNC to avoid scaring Western backers.

But accusations emerged that it controlled the body through influence over independent Islamists and was funneling funds to favored groups inside Syria to build up its presence further.

With the SNC expected to take around two fifths of the 60 or so seats in the new National Coalition, the Brotherhood's influence is set on paper at least to diminish.

The coalition's first elected head is Mouaz Alkhatib, a popular Islamist preacher from Damascus.

Khatib, 50, has been a regular guest on Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel, used by the influential Gulf Arab state to promote Brotherhood-linked Islamists and help facilitate U.S. acceptance of the Islamist network.

Hassan Hassan, a Syrian commentator based in the United Arab Emirates, said he believed Khatib was a true independent, not under Brotherhood sway, but the jury was still out on whether the group would be able to dominate the new National Coalition.

"This is the million dollar question," he said. "When the United States presented this new plan, the Brotherhood knew it could not insist on the survival of the SNC, so they started to build a place for themselves in the coalition - and succeeded."

Many prominent figures resigned from the SNC in recent months complaining that Islamists were sidelining minorities and women. Another three left in Doha, including SNC founder Adib Shishakly, angered over the failure of women to make it onto the SNC's new general secretariat elected last week.

The Brotherhood, whose Syria branch was founded in 1936, says it is simply an effective organizer, and some opposition figures conceded that much of the grumbling reflects personal grudges from individuals lacking popularity.

"They said it was becoming a Brotherhood council. But honestly I think it was because they were not elected (to the secretariat)," one member said of last week's walk-outs.

JURY OUT ON 'COALITION'

Still, respected figures in the new coalition remained mistrustful of the Islamists, whatever their public utterances.

"Right now the Brotherhood is not becoming more open (to other groups). They've said in the past that they would be, but I haven't seen it yet," said leftist dissident Haitham al-Maleh. "They must be pushed to become more open."

Secularists are suspicious of the Islamists' position on women and non-Muslims in an uprising marred by sectarianism.

Assad has drawn support from Christians, Druze, Shi'ites and his own minority Alawites, who fear what the Sunni majority under Islamist influence could have in store for them.

Al Qaeda fighters from Iraq and jihadists from other countries have piled into Syria to join the fight against a ruler they consider infidel because he is an Alawite.

Many Sunni preachers use anti-Alawite rhetoric, spurning the Muslim credentials of a sect distantly linked to Shi'ite Islam.

The Brotherhood clashed with Assad's father Hafez in 1982, when thousands were killed in a failed uprising. It then worked assiduously to build up grassroots influence through mosques and religious schools, despite being a banned organization.

Syria, which once prided itself as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism, has become religiously conservative.

The Brotherhood has distanced itself from jihadi groups and sectarianism on the ground in Syria, and opposition figures in Doha tried generally to play down Western fears of radicalism.

A rebel military commander dismissed concerns over the Al Nusra Front, a Salafi militia which has carried out suicide attacks, describing them merely as "organized Islamists".

Hassan said opponents remain concerned that, with Qatari support, the Brotherhood could still convince Western powers that it is as influential and powerful on the ground as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a premise he questioned.

"We all of a sudden have a revolution in Syria, and a lot of groups presented themselves as the one with great influence in society," he said. "But almost 70 percent of the country is outside the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood, if you consider religious minorities, the Kurds and the tribes."

(Additional reporting by Regan Doherty; Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mistrust-syrias-muslim-brotherhood-lingers-233825292.html

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Dedicated SEO Company In India To Get Best ... - Work On the Internet

Miscellaneous Written by Anonymous ??Monday, 12 November 2012 05:21 Search engine optimization is that the method of rising the visibility of an internet site in search engines victimization the natural or un-paid or organic or recursive search results. Programme promoting, another type of SEO target paid listings. The visits to a selected computing device directlydepend upon wherever that individual computing device is listed on the search results. The upper the search rank, the additional often a website seems within the search results list, the additional guests it'll receive from the search engine's users. SEO includes totally different types of search, together with image search, native search, video search, tutorial search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines that provides a internet presence to the web site.

SEO is additionally thought of to be a web promoting strategy, SEO considers however search engines work, what individuals rummage around for, what terms square measure typewritten into search engines and that search engines square measure utilized by their targeted audience. It???s vital to optimize the web site 1st and optimizing an internet site involves redaction its content and writing to extend its connection to specific keywords and to get rid of barriers to the compartmentalization activities of search engines. Increasing the quantity of back links, or arriving links will facilitate promote the positioning.
SEO might not be the correct strategy for each web site, and betting on the positioning operator's goals, different web promoting methods will influence be simpler. Different on-line promoting methods embrace paid search advertising referred to as Ad Text optimization or ATO. A prosperous web promoting campaign can drive organic traffic, by means that of optimization techniques and not paid advertising and additionally involve the employment of paid advertising on search engines and different pages. SEO can generate a come on investment. Search engines aren't bought organic search traffic since their algorithms keep ever-changing, and there aren't any guarantees of continuing referrals.
Optimization techniques square measure tuned to suit the dominant search engines within the target market. The search engines' market shares vary from market to plug, and then will the competition. Today, Google represents regarding seventy fifth of all searches and in markets outside the u. s., Google's share is commonly larger, and Google remains the dominant programme worldwide. USA has many SEO companies since this system is extremely common here and most businesses with on-line presence decide on SEO. In the INDIA, Google occupies virtually ninetieth market share. Programme optimization INDIA in undoubtedly on the increase as SEO is turning into additional common among all businesses with on-line presence.

At seolinkbullets.hpage.in you can get all SEO tactics information. Also here you can get the best Search Engine Optimization services in order to increase website traffic. For more details about how to get good back links and best seo company in India, visit us today.

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Last Updated on Monday, 12 November 2012 05:21

Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/miscellaneous/219818-article.html

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McAfee software founder 'person of interest' in murder case

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/belize-seeks-mcafee-software-founder-slay-case-214551919.html

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