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Caitlin Stier, video intern
What if your skin could resist a speeding bullet? Now a new futuristic tissue designed by artist Jalila Essa?di, which reinforces human skin cells with spider silk, can stop a whizzing projectile without being pierced. Although its threads may look fragile, a spider-silk weave is four times stronger than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests.
In the first clip, the bioengineered skin cushions a bullet fired at half speed. But its resistance has its limits: when shot at a full speed of 329 m/s, the bullet pierces the material and travels through it. The same tests were also performed with piglet skin, human skin and human skin fused with regular silkworm silk, which were all penetrated by bullets of both speeds.
An international team worked together to create the new material. First, transgenic goats and silkworms equipped to produce spider-silk proteins spun out the raw material at the synthetic biology lab at Utah State University. The cocoons were then shipped to South Korea, where they were reeled into thread, before being woven into fabric in Germany. The modified silk was then wedged between bioengineered skin cells developed by biochemist Abdoelwaheb El Ghalbzouri at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. After five weeks of incubation, the hybrid skin was ready for target practice.
In addition to exploring the material artistically, Essa?di is also looking into practical uses, such as skin transplants. Spider silk is already being developed by other teams for high-tech applications, which range from artificial corneas to brain implants.
For more about spider silk spin-offs, check out our full-length feature: "Stretching spider silk to its high-tech limits". Or you might also like to find out about the science behind a lavish golden spider-silk cape, currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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LONDON (Reuters) ? Police said on Saturday they were searching the London offices of Rupert Murdoch's News International and had arrested four people, including a policeman, in an investigation into suspected payments to police officers for information.
The probe is linked to a continuing investigation into phone hacking at the now-closed News of the World tabloid, published by News International, the British arm of Murdoch's News Corp media empire.
Saturday's operation was the result of information passed to police by News Corp's Management and Standards Committee, set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, London's Metropolitan Police said.
One of those being questioned on suspicion of corruption was a 29-year-old police officer serving with the Met Police's Territorial Policing Command, who was arrested at the central London police station where he worked.
The others, all arrested at their homes, were a 48-year-old man from north London and two men from Essex, east of the capital, aged 48 and 56.
Searches at News International's offices in Wapping, east London, and at the arrested men's homes, were expected to continue until the afternoon, police said.
The operation takes to 12 the number of arrests in a probe into allegations journalists paid police in return for information, known as Operation Elveden, one of three criminal investigations into the news-gathering practices of the News of the World.
Last week, News International settled a string of legal claims after it admitted that people working for the tabloid had hacked in to the private phones of celebrities and others to generate stories.
The phone hacking scandal drew attention to the level of political influence held by editors and executives at News International, and other newspapers in Britain.
It embarrassed British politicians for their close ties with newspaper executives and also the police, who repeatedly failed to investigate allegations of illegal phone hacking.
News International had no immediate comment on Saturday's police operation, a spokeswoman for the media group said.
(Additional reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
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LIMA (Reuters) ? Fire swept through a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts and alcoholics in Peru on Saturday, killing 26 patients who were locked in to stop them from fleeing during treatment, local media and witnesses said.
Several survivors said the blaze was started by two patients who wanted to break out of the private "Christ is Love" center in the capital Lima.
"Some inmates wanted to escape and they set fire to some cloths and started throwing them at the manager's office, and then it caught fire inside," said patient Wilmer Garcia.
Most of the victims were thought to have died from smoke inhalation.
Lima Mayor Susana Villaran said the center lacked a municipal licence and that "drastic action" was needed to prevent similar incidents in the Andean country.
"This is a great tragedy," she told local radio. "Families hand over relatives who are suffering drug and alcohol addiction so they can be rehabilitated and often they're desperate. These places must be supervised by the Health Ministry and municipal authorities."
Firefighters and prosecutors have opened investigations into the cause of the fire.
(Reporting by Patricia Velez and Helen Popper; Editing by Xavier Briand)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/wl_nm/us_peru_fire
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Hundreds of mourners gathered at a Los Angeles-area church on Saturday to remember rhythm-and-blues singer Etta James, saying she overcame great personal and professional hurdles to sing "the times that she lived."
During a two-hour service that featured performances by pop stars Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera, the Rev. Al Sharpton eulogized James as a woman who rose from a tough childhood and poured her pain into her music.
Aguilera performed a version of "At Last," James' show-stopping hit and best-known song.
James died at 73 at a Riverside, California, hospital on January 20 from complications of leukemia, prompting numerous tributes from artists and musicians who were influenced by her work, including Mariah Carey and Aretha Franklin.
"People need to understand that when they hear the music Etta James sang, she sang the times that she lived," Sharpton told friends and family at Greater Bethany Church City of Refuge church in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena.
"She put our pain and our dreams and our love and our need for one another in her vocal chords, but the difference between her and other artists is somehow you felt she meant what she was saying."
James, who was born to a teenage single mother, won wide acclaim and three Grammys, but saw numerous ups-and-downs in her career and personal life. She struggled with obesity and heroin addiction, ran a hot-check scheme and had troubled relationships with men.
But, Sharpton said, James should be remembered for blazing a trail for the entertainers who followed her.
"Etta was the one that brought class ... generations behind will try but never quite have the strut and swagger and talent of Etta James," he said.
"At last you (Etta) can get the gratitude of the savior now. Go on home Etta. Get your reward now ... you beat them Etta. You won Etta. Get your reward Etta. At last. At last. At last."
James won her first Grammy in 1995 for her album, "Mystery Lady: The Songs of Billie Holiday." She also won Grammys in 2003 and 2005, and a lifetime achievement award in 2003 from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Grammys.
James is survived by her husband, Artis Mills, two sons Donto and Sametto who played in James' backing band, and four grandchildren.
(Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by David Bailey)
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This is an image made available on Thursday Jan. 26, 2012 by Interpol of Jean-Claude Mas, when he was arrested in Costa Rica on a drink driving offence in 2010 . Mas, who ran the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, was detained at his residence in the Mediterranean coastal town of Six Fours Les Plages shortly before dawn, Thursday a police official said. A police search of the residence was under way, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is officially in the hands of judicial investigators. (AP Photo/ Interpol)
This is an image made available on Thursday Jan. 26, 2012 by Interpol of Jean-Claude Mas, when he was arrested in Costa Rica on a drink driving offence in 2010 . Mas, who ran the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, was detained at his residence in the Mediterranean coastal town of Six Fours Les Plages shortly before dawn, Thursday a police official said. A police search of the residence was under way, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is officially in the hands of judicial investigators. (AP Photo/ Interpol)
MARSEILLE, France (AP) ? French authorities have filed preliminary charges against the former head of a now-defunct company accused of supplying potentially faulty breast implants affecting thousands of women.
A judge in the southeastern city of Marseille placed Jean-Claude Mas, the founder and former chief of Poly Implant Prothese, under investigation for "involuntary injury," defense lawyer Yves Haddad said Friday.
Mas was released on euro100,000 ($130,000) bail after being arrested Thursday, and ordered by an investigating judge to stay in France and not meet with any other former PIP executives, Haddad said.
The suspect PIP implants have been removed from the marketplace in several countries in and beyond Europe amid fears that they could rupture and leak silicone into the body.
The preliminary charges mean investigating magistrates have strong reason to believe a crime was committed but give them more time to probe to decide whether to recommend it go to trial.
Mas, 72, was arrested at his residence in a Mediterranean coastal resort town as part of a judicial investigation into manslaughter and involuntary injury. PIP's former No. 2, Claude Couty, was also detained.
Police investigators searched the Mas residence and held him for questioning for seven hours before he was transferred to appear before investigating judge Annaick Le Goff at the Marseille courthouse.
Mas did not speak to reporters after being released on bail.
"Mr. Mas was finally able to express himself before the judge. He is relieved to have been able to do so," Haddad said. "The magistrate judged that for now there's no reason to charge him for manslaughter because for the moment, there's no sign of evidence of this crime."
"Calm must return to this case," he added.
On the sole charge of involuntary injury, Mas risks up to one year in prison if convicted. That isn't sufficient to allow Le Goff to order him held in custody before trial.
The arrests ended weeks of speculation about whether investigators would be able to assemble enough evidence to detain Mas ? whose location was known to authorities ? or any other possible suspects on legal grounds.
Mas had run PIP until the company was closed in March 2010.
France's Health Safety Agency has said the suspect implants ? just one type of implants made by PIP ? appear to be more rupture-prone than other types. Investigators say PIP sought to save money by using industrial silicone, whose potential health risks are not yet clear.
PIP's website said the company had exported to more than 60 countries and was one of the world's leading implant makers. The silicone-gel implants in question are not sold in the United States.
According to estimates by national authorities, more than 42,000 women in Britain received the implants, more than 30,000 in France, 9,000 in Australia and 4,000 in Italy. Nearly 25,000 of the implants were sold in Brazil.
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In April 2010, we asked Well readers to share their stories of cancer survival. Over the following weeks and months, more than 1,150 people submitted their photos and stories, creating an inspiring collage of the life that is possible after cancer.
Now we?ve updated the feature to make it easier to learn more about the lives of those who have been touched by cancer. You can search for stories on a particular type of cancer. Just type a word like ?brain? or ?prostate? or ?breast? into the search box. Or if you?d like to learn more about people in your area, you can search by location. Type ?Austin? in the search box, and you?ll find nine stories; type ?Seattle? and you?ll find 30.
?I feel that I am playing the hand that I was dealt and playing it quite well, with the complete intention of winning,? writes Seana Smith of Burbank, Calif., who submitted a photo of her bald head painted in pink and purple.
?My Four Letter Word,? writes Paula K., of Chicago, displaying a stone painted with the word ?Hope.?
Jeff Peters, pictured in Paris, keeps it simple. ?Less talk, more action,? he writes.
Once you?ve explored the site, you?ll find it?s easy to join the Picture Your Life community. Just click on the link to submit your own story and photo.
Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/a-picture-collage-of-life-after-cancer/
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18:19 AEDT Fri Jan 27 2012
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no painIs 'disaster tourism' bad? '); thisElem.before(twitElem); new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: 'search', search: 'ripsteve isad', id: 'twtr-search-widget', interval: 10000, title: '', subject: '', width: 310, height: 300, theme: { shell: { background: '#000203', color: '#ffffff' }, tweets: { background: '#ffffff', color: '#444444', links: '#1986b5' } }, features: { scrollbar: false, loop: true, live: true, hashtags: true, timestamp: true, avatars: true, toptweets: true, behavior: 'default' } }).render().start(); } A Health Services Union executive being investigated over financial matters by Fair Work Australia says she won't fully abide by a gag order issued by her colleagues.
The HSU's national office is facing a probe by the workplace watchdog over allegations credit cards were misused by executives, including its former national secretary and now federal Labor MP Craig Thomson.
Current national secretary Kathy Jackson has been outspoken in the media about problems in the union between 2002 and 2007 when Mr Thomson was in charge.
On Tuesday, the HSU's national executive held a special teleconference to pass a resolution banning executive members from commenting on the investigation "without the express approval of either the majority of the national officers or by specific resolution of the national executive".
Anyone breaching the motion would be subject to "disciplinary action".
Ms Jackson said in a statement on Friday the motion was invalid and beyond the power of the executive, and she reserved her right to challenge it in the courts.
She said she had legal advice that the motion could not bind her in her capacity as a member or executive president of the NSW-registered HSUEast, so she would continue to speak in that capacity rather than as a national executive member.
But Ms Jackson said she intended to continue making comments relating to the FWA investigation, as well as the NSW and Victorian police probes into the union.
She said the motion had been sprung on her without notice.
Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8409963/health-union-official-defies-gag-order
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DAVOS, Switzerland ? Swiss drug maker Novartis AG reported a 47 percent drop in its fourth-quarter net profit Wednesday, citing a slate of exceptional costs from the ending of clinical trials to manufacturing problems and layoffs.
The Basel-based company said its net profit reached $1.21 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $2.32 billion in the same period in 2010. Sales rose four percent to $14.78 billion in the Oct.-Dec. period.
"We experienced some disappointments in the fourth quarter, with Tekturna/Rasilez and with the need to improve our quality standards at some manufacturing sites," Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez said in a statement.
Novartis recently halted a clinical trial into wider uses of the hypertension drug Tekturna, which is known as Rasilez outside the United States, after it was found to cause increased complications in patients already taking other common hypertension drugs.
The company said it took an exceptional charge of $900 million in the fourth quarter as a result of the trial ending.
Two other experimental drugs were also dropped, leading to one-off charges of $160 million in the fourth quarter.
Manufacturing problems led the company to recall several over-the-counter drugs from the U.S. market earlier this month. The company closed the Lincoln, Nebraska, facility where the products were manufactured and took a charge of $115 million for the temporary production halt.
Novartis said it would also book charges of $288 million for over 2,000 job cuts announced last year. Many of those were in the United States, where the company expects to see a sharp dip in sales with the expiry of another hypertension drug, Diovan.
"I am quite bullish on the future growth prospects for the company once we get Diovan out of the base," said Jimenez.
In a conference call, Jimenez told reporters that he didn't expect any further job cuts in 2012 "unless conditions change."
The results were in line with analyst expectations, but shares fell 2.5 percent to 50.70 Swiss francs ($54.58) on the Zurich exchange as traders focused on the company's cautious outlook for 2012.
"We consider the current results to be very strong, but the outlook particularly for 2012 will likely disappoint investors," Zuercher Kantonalbank said in an analyst note.
Novartis received 19 regulatory approvals worldwide in 2011, including 15 for new drugs.
Jimenez said his company supported a European medicines agency investigation into its multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya, following the death of one patient.
Gilenya contributed $494 million to sales results last year.
"We are confident that Gilenya will continue to be a growth driver," said Jimenez.
For the full year 2011, Novartis reported a net profit of $9.25 billion, down seven percent from $9.97 billion the previous year.
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(Reuters) ? Republican candidate Newt Gingrich attacks President Barack Obama as a "radical" and "community organizer," but as a Tulane University graduate student in 1968, he helped lead an anti-censorship protest in defense of sexually explicit photographs.
While Republican foe Mitt Romney steered clear of the college campus tumult that year by doing Mormon missionary work in France, Gingrich warned Tulane's president of an impending "clash of wills" over the university administrator's decision to ban publication of explicit photographs in "Sophia," a literary supplement for the student newspaper "The Tulane Hullabaloo."
The episode illustrates some of the same pugnaciousness that Gingrich now displays as a candidate for the Republican nomination.
It also underscores a sharp evolution in his views on civil protest, an issue that has played out during the campaign because of the growing strength of the Occupy Wall Street movement. During a forum last November, Gingrich suggested that participants in the Wall Street protests, "Go get a job, right after you take a bath."
And Gingrich has repeatedly made comparisons between Obama and Saul Alinsky, a forebear of 1960s campus activism and a powerful community organizer in Chicago in the 1960s -- the city where the president began his career in public service after graduating from Columbia University in the 1980s.
During the Tulane demonstrations, Gingrich emerged as a leader of one of the student protest factions. His politics, according to fellow students on the New Orleans campus, were those of a liberal Republican.
"In a sense, Gingrich has been very consistent. He utilizes free speech more than almost any other American," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, who said he found the candidate's student activism "very amusing."
Sabato puts those days in the same category as Obama's community organizing in Chicago.
"We should be less interested in where the candidates have been many years ago, and more concerned about where they are now," he added. "However, it would be interesting to hear how Newt (like Obama) got from there to here. Does he still think his actions at Tulane were correct?"
A spokesman for Gingrich's presidential campaign did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Accounts published by the Hullabaloo, retrieved from university archives, describe the standoff over two artistic images the literary magazine sought to publish.
HUMAN BODY PARTS
One photo showed a Baton Rouge sculptor posing beside what was described as a "mechanized box" carrying "symbolic descriptions" of human body parts, including sex organs. The second image showed a naked sculptor posing with a statue that depicted what Hullabaloo described as "male and female figures with enlarged sexual organs."
A proposed caption described one photograph as "an ironical statement on the fad for nudism."
Tulane authorities at the time, including President Herbert Longenecker, banned publication, argued that the images "are considered to be obscene" and could expose the university to "criminal prosecution."
Demonstrations erupted, including a picket of Longenecker's residence. Within days, the movement split into factions. Gingrich's group called itself Mobilization of Responsible Tulane Students, otherwise known as MORTS.
The same day that MORTS announced its formation, student picket lines spread to the New Orleans offices of Merrill Lynch, a local bank, a department store and a local TV station.
On March 11, 1968, MORTS leaders, including Gingrich, met with Longenecker and other college officials. Typewritten minutes held in college archives show that Gingrich was one of the more outspoken leaders at the meeting, employing the kind of bombastic rhetoric that has been a trademark of his national political career.
"It is now a question of power and if the student body wants to demonstrate until May - we are down to a clash of wills," Gingrich told Longenecker, according to the minutes, which were obtained by Reuters.
As the meeting concluded, Gingrich warned: "There will be increasing attempts of the student body ... to test the guide-lines and test the administration. As long as the student body is aroused it will meet."
Eventually, the protests waned and the university held firm on the photograph ban. Some members of Gingrich's protest group later went on to form the Tulane Liberation Front, which occupied a student center and demanded that the swimming pool be opened to the general public.
Though college campuses were hotbeds for political dissent into the 1970s, Gingrich's student activism waned. University records show that by the summer of 1969, his protest days were behind him. He had persuaded Tulane to allow him to teach a non-credit course in futurology called "When You are 49; The Year 2000."
(Reporting By Mark Hosenball in Washington; additional reporting by Kathy Finn in New Orleans; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Philip Barbara)
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NEW YORK ? The race for the best original song Oscar is a slim one with two songs up for the honor, a first for the Academy Awards.
Sergio Mendes' "Real In Rio" from the animated adventure "Rio" will compete with Bret McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets," despite having songs from a bevy of all-star musicians like Elton John, Mary J. Blige, will.i.am and Pink in contention for nomination.
Charles Bernstein, the former chairman of the Academy Awards' music branch, says he "personally was surprised" that only two songs are up for the honor.
In the past, the number of nominees for best original song has ranged from three to 14. Only up to five songs are eligible for nomination.
"I personally felt that there may have been more than two that I personally would have championed," he said in an interview after the Oscars nominations were announced Tuesday. "But it is a majority vote situation."
Blige, who co-wrote a song for the Deep South drama "The Help," said in a tweet Tuesday that she was sad, and felt like the Academy "is being mean" for only nominating two songs for the award.
This year, 39 songs were eligible for nomination for best original song, including tracks from Brad Paisley, Robbie Williams, The National, Zooey Deschanel, Zac Brown, Chris Cornell and others.
Members of the music branch can rank songs using 10, 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7, 6.5 or 6, and a song must have at least an average score of 8.25 to be nominated. If only one song gets that score, it and the song receiving the next highest score will be the two nominees.
Since two songs were nominated, it could mean that voters were unimpressed with this year's contenders.
"Each person is voting on a subjective impression ... so you'd have to go into the head of each individual voter to kind of know what it was that made them feel that any given song was or wasn't award-worthy," Bernstein said.
Bernstein also stressed that the songs "have to be written for the picture, and the judgment of its quality has a great deal to do with how it functions in the movie as well as how well written it is."
Bernstein, who did vote in the category, wouldn't say how many people voted this year, but did say that the rules for each Academy Award are carefully observed each year. He says the music branch will most likely take a closer look at the requirements for best original song after this year's results.
"It's very likely because there were two this year that the rules committee will probably take another look at it next year and make sure it wants to continue the same rules," he said.
Madonna's "Masterpiece," which won the Golden Globe for best original song and is from her directorial effort "W.E.," was not eligible for an Academy Award because "the song does not occur either in the body of the film, or as the first song at the end of the film," Bernstein said.
Mendes, who shares his nomination with Siedah Garrett and Carlinhos Brown, says "Rio" director Carlos Saldanha delivered the good news to him.
"I don't know much about the voting process really. I'm not an expert in that, but I'm so happy about me being nominated," Mendes said Tuesday afternoon. "I don't really know the criteria, but I can only think about celebrating."
Winners of the 84th annual Academy Awards will be announced Feb. 26 in a ceremony that will air live on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
____
Online:
http://oscar.go.com/
____
Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/musicmesfin
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Germany?s socialist Left party is calling an expert hearing on ?legalizing cannabis through the introduction of cannabis clubs? in the German parliament on Wednesday. The idea has met widespread rejection.
The proposal was put together by Frank Tempel, former director of an anti-drug group that worked with police in the eastern German state of Thuringia.
Tempel, who is now the Left party?s advisor on drug policy, believes there needs to be a sea-change in the state?s attitude to drugs. ?A cannabis ban is the legal model that has the least acceptance,? he said.
He estimates that between 3.5 and 4 million Germans consume cannabis, and that the ban has no influence on the decision to take the drug. The German Cannabis Association (DHV) says there are around 100,000 cannabis-related criminal cases every year.
Tempel believes that the ban actually encourages drug abuse, because it curtails public education. He says the state should prioritize prevention, youth protection and controlling the drug market over criminalization, which is why young people would not be allowed in the proposed cannabis clubs.
The Left party proposal also suggests that local health ministries and public order offices would be able to cooperate with the clubs.
The response from Germany?s conservative coalition government has been predictably negative.
?A cannabis club could be understood as an encouragement to drug consumption by young people,? said Karin Maag, parliamentarian for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus, drug policy spokesman for the junior coalition partner the Free Democratic Party (FDP), bluntly dismissed the idea as ?well-meaning intoxication socialism.?
The centre-left opposition Social Democrats (SPD) also came out against the idea, but said that cannabis laws needed to be unified nationwide. At the moment, each German state has a different legal limit ? of between 6 and 15 grams ? for personal use.
SPD spokeswoman Angelika Graf called for more a single legal possession limit for the whole country.
But the Left party?s scheme has met no major support. Even the Green party, which favours a limited legalization of cannabis, spoke out against the idea of opening cannabis clubs.
In the face of this broadside, Tempel has revised his goals, saying simply, ?The main thing is to move the whole issue forward in society.?
DPA/The Local/bk
Source: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120125-40315.html
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By msnbc.com staff and news services
A Washington state senator on Monday joined those lawmakers who support gay marriage, ensuring enough votes to pass a bill out of the state Senate.
"I have very strong Christian beliefs, and personally I have always said when I accepted the Lord, I became more tolerant of others," Democratic Sen. Margaret Haugen said in a statement posted on her website. "I stopped judging people and try to live by the Golden Rule. This is part of my decision. I do not believe it is my role to judge others, regardless of my personal beliefs."
The state House already has enough support, and Gov. Chris Gregoire has endorsed the plan.
Still, it's?expected that opponents of gay marriage will oppose the measure on a statewide ballot.
Haugen's announcement came moments before the?state Legislature held its first public hearing on the issue.
STORY: King5.com's coverage of the legislation
If ultimately approved, Washington would join New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia in approving gay marriage.
?
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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A group of protesters is surrounded by riot police during a anti World Economic Forum, WEF, demonstration in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2012. The WEF takes place from Jan. 25 to 28 in Davos, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Keystone, Peter Klaunzer)
A group of protesters is surrounded by riot police during a anti World Economic Forum, WEF, demonstration in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2012. The WEF takes place from Jan. 25 to 28 in Davos, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Keystone, Peter Klaunzer)
A group of protesters is surrounded by riot police during a anti World Economic Forum, WEF, demonstration in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2012. The WEF takes place from Jan. 25 to 28 in Davos, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Keystone, Peter Klaunzer)
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) ? An igloo protest camp sprouting up amid $500-a-night hotels and security cordons at the Swiss resort of Davos seems to serve a warning to the world's rich and powerful gathering here: Beware, or you might be sleeping in the snow next year, too.
In many countries, prospects for prosperity are increasingly fragile. Trust in presidents and CEOs, and the systems they represent, is drying up. Uncertainty lurks for the eurozone, and for Afghanistan, Syria and North Korea as well.
And now the Occupy movement has come to the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of 2,600 decision-makers from nearly 100 countries and hundreds of companies that starts Wednesday.
VIPs in Davos are usually sheltered from critics so that they can solve financial problems in cosseted peace. This year, the global question-the-establishment wave has brought in a small band of protesters, with an igloo-and-yurt camp and anti-capitalist entreaties ready to greet the big bosses of business and world politics as they arrive.
Even the weather seemed to be working in the protesters' favor.
"In the last 42 years, I've never seen so much snow in Davos," forum founder Klaus Schwab tweeted Sunday. "Perfect snow to build igloos!" members of the Occupy Davos movement tweeted back.
With the list of global economic problems to solve so daunting this year, many Davos participants may prefer the more measurable and lucrative work of confidential corporate deals, a Davos hallmark. Politicians from the U.S. and other countries will be seeking investment in their districts, investors will be hunting out promising young entrepreneurs, and everyone will be looking for the year's next big gadget.
"The reality of Davos is that it can achieve things and it does achieve things every year. And that is business deals," said French political analyst Dominique Moisi.
Chief executives from China will garner attention, but Europe will be the damaged star of this year's forum. That's a painful irony for organizers who have worked for years to expand its reach beyond the Europeans and Americans who built its reputation.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel formally launches the meeting with a keynote speech Wednesday that may chart her course for Europe's debt crisis in the coming months.
The list of Davos participants is heftier than ever in its four-decade history, with nearly 40 heads of state and 18 of the world's central bankers. They're joined by business leaders, scientists, thinkers, pioneers for human rights and others for the invitation-only week of brainstorming that aims to set the global agenda for the year to come.
"It's the perfect barometer of the temperature of the world," Moisi said.
Four years after the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing financial meltdown, growth remains anemic in the rich world. Many in Europe and the U.S. ? especially those without work ? feel betrayed by solutions that they feel favored the very bankers and financial players blamed for the crisis. In rich and developing economies, income inequalities are on the rise.
The Occupy protesters are bringing a mix of grievances, inspired by protests that started around Wall Street last year and spread to cities around the world.
Their numbers may be limited here because of Davos' remote location, high in the Swiss Alps in a heavily guarded valley. Those who do make the journey face the painstaking work of carving blocks of snow and fitting them into an igloo, a job that takes four people about five hours to complete.
"We'll make small actions in the village, we're going to disturb things a little bit," said organizer David Roth, a Swiss leftist politician camped out for the week.
One of their banners reflected the disillusionment in developed democracies: "If voting could change anything it would be illegal."
Forum organizers warned earlier this month that financial troubles of the past few years are fueling resentment that could spark protectionism, nationalism and social unrest.
That's a particularly potent message for three world powers facing elections this year ? the U.S., Russia and France ? as well as for the Arab world after its string of uprisings.
Everyone will be looking for what organizers are calling "new models."
The overarching question for many government leaders will be how to restore growth despite rising debts and sinking market confidence.
Business leaders will hold private panels on how to employ more young people, restore faith in leadership, make cleaner energy more economically appealing, and profit from new technology.
Public figures expected include British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli President Shimon Peres, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.
The forum runs through Sunday.
___
Angela Charlton reported from Paris.
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NEW ORLEANS ? Jury selection is under way in the trial of a retired New Orleans police sergeant charged with helping cover up deadly shootings of unarmed residents on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
The trial starting Monday for Gerard Dugue is expected to last two weeks.
Dugue allegedly submitted a false report to make it appear police were justified in shooting six people, killing two less than a week after the 2005 storm.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt ordered separate trials for Dugue and five other current or former officers who were convicted in August of civil rights violations stemming from the shootings.
Dugue isn't charged in the shooting. He didn't get involved in the case until several weeks later, when the department assigned him to help another sergeant investigate.
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BEIJING ? A hugely popular Chinese Lunar New Year variety show has a special guest star playing the ukulele: American billionaire Warren Buffett.
Buffett is shown wearing a dark sweat shirt and singing the folk song "I've Been Working On The Railroad" in the video posted on state broadcaster CCTV's "Spring Festival Gala" website Sunday.
There are no details on the website about where the 45-second clip was shot, but Buffett appears to be sitting in a small room with an elaborate model railroad set up in the background.
The video's simplicity contrasts with other performances posted on the website of the gala, which is usually a flashy extravaganza that draws 800 million viewers.
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Debora MacKenzie, contributor
Computer artwork of the bird flu virus (Image: PASIEKA/SPL/Getty)
The world's top flu virologists have vowed to stop working on any experiments that could lead to the H5N1 bird flu virus becoming more transmissible ? at least, for the next 60 days. It's a good gesture, but whether 60 days is enough to really deal with the Pandora's box they have opened is another matter.
As we reported in September, two labs ? in the Netherlands and the US ? finally breached the genetic barrier that stopped H5N1 bird flu from spreading easily through the air between mammals ? in this case, ferrets, who get flu a lot like we do.
H5N1 hasn't done that in nature, which is what stops it from going pandemic in mammals like us. Frighteningly, the virus was just as deadly in ferrets after it became easy to catch. Now, H5N1 kills around half the humans who catch it. If H5N1 stayed that lethal and became as easy to catch as ordinary flu ? as the ferret virus did ? civilisation might not survive the resulting pandemic.
The journals and the research and biosafety community in the US are now debating how to publish that research, which details to withhold about what made the virus transmissible (just in case a bioterrorist is interested), and paradoxically, how to make those details available to virologists who must now look for the mutations in H5N1 in the wild. Virologists must also, as Ron Fouchier of the Dutch lab noted yesterday, ensure that they don't inadvertently create H5N1 viruses with those mutations in low-containment labs. He checked, and apparently someone had a virus with four of the five mutations required. Eek.
So virologists have pledged to stop for a bit while they decide, I hope, who will do what and with what safety precautions. Sixty days doesn't seem very long for that. Certainly not long enough to bring all the scientists who might do this work into an organisation where peer pressure and careful deliberation will establish norms and guidelines that will, with luck, prevent anyone from releasing a killer.
Previous efforts at corralling researchers for the greater good have taken more than just two months. In 1973 US researchers started to worry that their experiments putting novel combinations of DNA into living bacteria might inadvertently create a monster. In July 1974, Paul Berg of Stanford University ? who went on to win a Nobel in 1980 ? called on the world's scientists to observe a moratorium on all such work until they could discuss what safety guidelines were needed.
There was "widespread consternation" but "the moratorium was universally observed", Berg later recalled. After eight months, DNA scientists met at the seaside town of Asilomar, California, and set up restrictions on handling recombinant organisms that formed the basis for modern biotechnology. Over the next few months, work on recombinant DNA gradually resumed.
Gregory Petsko of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, has observed that it was easy, then, to get everyone doing the work into a room. Today, I'm sure it was quite a feat just getting all the top flu researchers to agree on the moratorium and its wording. If all the people on today's statement were in a plane crash, top-of-the-line flu research would largely shut down for a bit.
But the second string labs would pick it up. That's why it's important that the big cats are calling time out.
Of course, it is also important that they do eventually resume the work. As they say, "more research is needed to determine how influenza viruses in nature become human pandemic threats, so that they can be contained".
But as Petsko also notes, Asilomar worked because the scientists themselves drew up the safety guidelines for the work that followed ? and those evolved as the science progressed. That is what we need now. It will take longer than 60 days to arrange a real Asilomar for the world's virologists.
In 60 days maybe you can reassure the public ? and that seems to be what this is about. In today's statement the researchers "recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks".
Explain. They need to do way more than explain, frankly. This smacks to me of scientists feeling that all is well, and they must simply take time to explain to uninformed people, who may otherwise cause a fuss, why they should not be worried.
That's not good enough. They need to convince people ? including those who are concerned with overseeing biosafety ? that they really are taking the best measures they can to reduce the risk while taking the research forward as needed. They need to set up a global consulting mechanism for the world's flu virologists to ensure that the rules are understood, applied and refined. They need an organisational structure that can reach scientific consensus on risks and remedies, and then take that consensus to the governments that enforce safety rules and prepare for pandemics ? perhaps a structure similar to what the climate scientists have organised.
But a statement like this, and a moratorium ? even if it's only a fraction of an Asilomar moment ? is a good start.
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Singer Etta James passed away Jan. 20 after a long battle with leukemia. See more celebs who have left their legacy behind them.
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2012) ? A team of researchers at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures has developed a technique for using stem cells to deliver therapy that specifically targets the genetic abnormality found in Huntington's disease, a hereditary brain disorder that causes progressive uncontrolled movements, dementia and death.
The findings, now available online in the journal Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, suggest a promising approach that might block the disease from advancing.
"For the first time, we have been able to successfully deliver inhibitory RNA sequences from stem cells directly into neurons, significantly decreasing the synthesis of the abnormal huntingtin protein," said Jan A. Nolta, principal investigator of the study and director of the UC Davis stem cell program and the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures. "Our team has made a breakthrough that gives families affected by this disease hope that genetic therapy may one day become a reality."
Huntington's disease can be managed with medications, but currently there are no treatments for the physical, mental and behavioral decline of its victims. Nolta and other experts think the best chance to halt the disease's progression will be to reduce or eliminate the mutant huntingtin (htt) protein found in the neurons of those with the disease. RNA interference (RNAi) technology has been shown to be highly effective at reducing htt protein levels and reversing disease symptoms in mouse models.
"Our challenge with RNA interference technology is to figure out how to deliver it into the human brain in a sustained, safe and effective manner," said Nolta, whose lab recently received funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to develop an RNAi delivery system for Huntington's disease. "We're exploring how to use human stem cells to create RNAi production factories within the brain."
Huntington's disease affects more than a quarter of a million Americans. The disorder can be passed down through families even if only one parent has the abnormal huntingtin gene. The disease is caused by a mutation in the gene, which is composed of an abnormally repeating building block of DNA that appears on the fourth chromosome. While the building block pattern normally repeats up to 28 times on the chromosome, too many repeats cause an abnormal form of protein -- known as the huntingtin protein -- to be made. The huntingtin protein accumulates in the brain, causing the disease's devastating progression. Individuals usually develop symptoms in middle age if there are more than 35 repeats. A more rare form of the disease occurs in youth when the abnormal DNA pattern repeats many more times.
The UC Davis research team showed for the first time that inhibitory RNA sequences can be transferred directly from donor cells into target cells to greatly reduce unwanted protein synthesis from the mutant gene. To transfer the inhibitory RNA sequences into their targets, Nolta's team genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which were derived from the bone marrow of unaffected human donors. Over the past two decades, Nolta and her colleagues have shown MSCs to be safe and effective vehicles to deliver enzymes and proteins to other cells. She said finding that MSCs can also transfer RNA molecules directly from cell to cell, in amounts sufficient to reduce levels of a mutant protein by over 50 percent in the target cells, is a discovery that has never been reported before and offers great promise for a variety of disorders.
"Not only is finding new treatments for Huntington's disease a worthwhile pursuit on its own, but the lessons we are learning are applicable to developing new therapies for other genetic disorders that involve excessive protein development and the need to reduce it," said Nolta, who recently received a Transformative Research Grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how mesenchymal stem cells can transfer microRNA and other factors into the cells of damaged tissues, and how that process can be harnessed to treat injuries and disease. "We have high hopes that these techniques may also be utilized in the fight against some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) as well as Parkinson's and other conditions."
The article, "Examination of mesenchymal stem cell-mediated RNAi transfer to Huntington's disease affected neuronal cells for reduction of huntingtin," was co-authored by Scott D. Olson, now with Texas Medical Center in Houston. Other authors were Amal Kambal, now at Washington University in St. Louis; and Kari Pollock, Gaela-Marie Mitchell, Heather Stewart, Stefanos Kalomoiris, Whitney Cary, Catherine Nacey and Karen Pepper, with the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures. Funding for the research was provided by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Team KJ.
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120119163253.htm
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FILE - A Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 photo from files showing actor Jude Law as he poses for photographers at the European Premiere of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, at a central London cinema. Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company on Thursday agreed to pay damages to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid phone-hacking, including actor Jude Law, soccer player Ashley Cole and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. In the 15 settlements whose financial terms were made public, amounts generally ran into the tens of thousands of pounds (dollars) _ although Law received 130,000 pounds (about $200,000/156,000 euro) to settle claims against the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid and its sister paper, The Sun. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
FILE - A Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 photo from files showing actor Jude Law as he poses for photographers at the European Premiere of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, at a central London cinema. Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company on Thursday agreed to pay damages to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid phone-hacking, including actor Jude Law, soccer player Ashley Cole and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. In the 15 settlements whose financial terms were made public, amounts generally ran into the tens of thousands of pounds (dollars) _ although Law received 130,000 pounds (about $200,000/156,000 euro) to settle claims against the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid and its sister paper, The Sun. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi arrive at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)
LONDON (AP) ? Rupert Murdoch's media empire apologized and agreed to cash payouts Thursday to 37 people ? including a movie star, a soccer player, a top British politician and the son of a serial killer ? who were harassed and phone-hacked by his tabloid press.
The four ? Jude Law, Ashley Cole, John Prescott and Chris Shipman ? were among three dozen victims who received financial damages from Murdoch's British newspaper company for illegal eavesdropping and other intrusions, including email snooping.
Lawyers for the claimants said the settlements vindicated their accusation that senior Murdoch executives had long known about the scale of illegal phone hacking and had tried to cover it up.
News International, the parent company of Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, said it did not admit that senior staff knew of the wrongdoing and tried to cover it up ? but it said that "for the purpose of reaching these settlements only, News Group Newspapers agreed that the damages to be paid to claimants should be assessed as if this was the case."
Financial details of 15 of the payouts, totaling more than 640,000 pounds (about $1 million), were made public at a court hearing Thursday. The amounts generally ran into the tens of thousands of pounds ? although Law received 130,000 pounds (about $200,000), plus legal costs, to settle claims against the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid and its sister tabloid, The Sun.
Law was one of 60 people who have sued News Group Newspapers, claiming their mobile phone voicemails were hacked. Others whose settlements were announced Thursday at London's High Court included former government ministers Chris Bryant and Tessa Jowell, rugby player Gavin Henson, Princess Diana's former lover James Hewitt, singer Dannii Minogue and Sara Payne, the mother of a murdered girl.
It was the largest group of settlements announced yet in the long-running hacking scandal, which has shaken Murdoch's global empire, spurred the resignations of several of his top executives and reverberated through Britain's political, police and media elite.
Law, the star of "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," said he was "truly appalled" at the scale of surveillance and privacy invasion that his case had exposed.
"No aspect of my private life was safe from intrusion by News Group Newspapers, including the lives of my children and the people who work for me," he said in a statement. "It was not just that my phone messages were listened to. News Group also paid people to watch me and my house for days at a time and to follow me and those close to me, both in this country and abroad."
News Group Newspapers admitted that 16 articles about Law published in the News of the World between 2003 and 2006 had been obtained by phone hacking, and that the actor had also been placed under "repeated and sustained physical surveillance." The company also admitted that articles in The Sun had misused Law's private information ? although it didn't go as far as to admit hacking by that paper.
Law said Murdoch's tabloids had been "prepared to do anything to sell their newspapers and to make money, irrespective of the impact it had on people's lives."
"I changed my phones, I had my house swept for bugs but still the information kept being published," Law said. "I started to become distrustful of people close to me."
The slew of settlements is one consequence of the revelations of phone-hacking and other illegal tactics at the News of the World, where journalists routinely intercepted voicemails of those in the public eye in a relentless search for scoops.
Murdoch closed the 168-year-old paper in July amid a wave of public revulsion over its hacking of the voicemails of missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. More than a dozen ex-Murdoch employees have been arrested by police investigating phone hacking and bribery.
British politicians and police have also been ensnared in the scandal, which exposed the cozy relationship between senior officers, top lawmakers and Murdoch newspaper executives. A government-commissioned inquiry set up in the wake of the scandal is currently investigating the ethics of Britain's media and its links to police and politicians.
Law's ex-wife and actress Sadie Frost received 50,000 pounds (about $77,000) in damages for phone hacking and deceit by the News of the World. Bryant received 30,000 pounds (about $46,000), while Prescott ? a prominent member of the Labour Party who was Britain's former deputy prime minister ? accepted 40,000 pounds (about $62,000).
After each statement, News Group lawyer Michael Silverleaf stood to express the news company's "sincere apologies" for the damage and distress its illegal activity had caused.
Many of the statements ended with victims saying they felt vindicated after years in which Murdoch's company denied phone hacking had been widespread at the News of the World. The company had initially vowed to fight the claims in court.
"Today's court decision at long last brings clarity, apology and compensation for the years of hacking into my telephone messages by Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers," Prescott told his local newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail. "It follows years of aggressive denials and a cavalier approach to private information and the law."
In a statement, the claimants' lawyers said that "News Group has agreed to compensation being assessed on the basis that senior employees and directors ... knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence."
The claimants described feeling mistrust, fear and paranoia as phone messages went missing, journalists knew their movements in advance or private information appeared in the media.
Frost said the paper's activity had caused her and Law to suspect one another. Henson said he accused the family of his then-wife, singer Charlotte Church, of leaking stories to the press.
Other claimants included Guy Pelly, a friend of Prince William who was awarded 40,000 pounds (about $62,000), and Tom Rowland, a journalist who wrote for one of Murdoch's own newspapers, the Sunday Times. He received 25,000 pounds ($39,000) after News Group admitted hacking his phone.
In a handful of cases the company admitted hacking into emails, as well as telephone voice mails. Christopher Shipman, whose father, Dr. Harold Shipman, was a notorious serial killer thought to have murdered more than 200 of his patients, had emails containing sensitive legal and medical information intercepted by the News of the Word. He was awarded "substantial" undisclosed damages.
The settlements announced Thursday amount to more than half of the phone-hacking lawsuits facing Murdoch's company, but the number of victims is estimated to be in the hundreds.
Mark Lewis, a lawyer for many victims, said in an email that the fight against Murdoch's media empire wasn't over.
"Fewer than 1 percent of the people who were hacked have settled their cases," he said. "There are many more cases in the pipeline. ... This is too early to celebrate, we're not even at the end of the beginning."
Many victims had earlier settled with the company, including actress Sienna Miller ? whose on-again, off-again romance with Law generated widespread press interest ? and the parents of murdered teenager Dowler, who were awarded 2 million pounds (about $3.1 million) in compensation.
Ten further cases are due to go to court next month, though lawyers said more settlements are likely.
___
Raphael Satter contributed to this report.
___
Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless
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In this episode of Conversations with Slate, fashion legend and author Simon Doonan talks with Jacob Weisberg about how in America, politicians can never realize their true style potential. Doonan discusses why Mitt Romney has to try hard not to look like a handsome ?lounge lizard? and how fabulous it would be if Barack Obama could sport a cotton khaki suit with flat-front pants and aviators.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=9c31e47ca14238ae3b87dd2f70312f88
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Obama administration, still grappling with how to punish a nuclear-ambitious Iran, is focusing on making countries cut their purchases of Iranian oil, rather than allowing them to avoid sanctions simply by winning price cuts.
The White House intends to play it tough on implementing new Iran sanctions, and officials say they will not waive them on national-security grounds.
Since President Barack Obama signed the Iranian sanctions package late last year, the administration has been struggling with how to implement the rules in a way that will not drive oil prices higher and hurt the fragile economy in an election year.
The administration is mindful that Congress could seek new legislation to close loopholes on sanctions if lawmakers do not see broad cooperation on punishing Iran for what the United States says is a program to develop a nuclear-weapon capability. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
U.S. SEEING SIGNS COUNTRIES CURTAILING PURCHASES
The new U.S. law prohibits institutions from dealing with Iran's central bank, which acts as the clearinghouse for OPEC's second-largest oil exporter. That essentially would force countries and their institutions to choose between working with Iran and having access to the U.S. financial system.
However, the sanctions give Obama the authority to exempt countries and their institutions from sanctions if he determines that the country has "significantly reduced" its volume of crude oil purchases.
Now the administration is trying to define significant reduction, with senior officials from the Treasury and State Departments traveling to Japan and South Korea this week to discuss their ideas.
The administration has considered a number of options, including encouraging countries to impose import tariffs on Iranian oil in order to curtail Iran's revenues, sources familiar with the administration's thinking said.
U.S. officials also considered defining significant reduction in terms of a price cut in the total revenues paid to Iran, the sources said. That would have allowed countries to win exemptions from the sanctions if they negotiated lower prices for the oil.
Both approaches would have helped starve Iran of oil revenues while allowing it to continue selling to China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and other countries.
But the top priority for the White House is pushing countries to reduce the volume of oil they buy, even though a number of ways to determine whether a country has reduced its purchases have been considered, according to an Obama administration official.
"Treasury may have been thinking of price reductions internally at one stage, but that is not on the table anymore," said the administration official. "The administration is getting enough indications that countries will be reducing how much oil they eventually buy from Iran."
The law also gives Obama the power to waive sanctions if he determines it is in the national-security interest of the United States. Japan, South Korea and Turkey have said they could seek waivers.
So far the administration has been telling countries it will not be granting waivers. "You can ask for a waiver but you are not getting one. What we want is a reduction in purchases and in doing business with Iran," said the official.
PRICE REDUCTION DEBATE
When the U.S. Congress was debating the sanctions bill in December, the administration proposed a price mechanism that would allow countries to escape penalties if they cut how much they paid Iran for its oil by 5 percent.
But lawmakers saw the decrease as too slight and rejected the idea.
Now Congress is watching how the administration will implement the law. Congressional aides say that if lawmakers are unhappy with how the administration defines "significantly reduced", they will work on legislation directing the White House to adopt specific parameters.
"A broad interpretation would call into question the seriousness of the country's Iran policy," said an aide to Republican Senator Mark Kirk, one of the lawmakers who helped craft the Iranian measure.
Kirk is open to the idea of defining the reduction by requiring countries to reduce how much they pay Iran for oil by 18 percent per year, according to the aide.
A Treasury official said the administration was committed to using this law, in concert with other efforts, to reduce Iran's access to oil revenue, "both by working with our partners to significantly reduce their imports of Iranian crude and by impeding the Central Bank of Iran's ability to receive payment for whatever oil Iran is able to sell."
(Reporting By Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Dale Hudson)
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