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Monday, April 22, 2013

Israeli airlines strike over "Open Skies" plan

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israel's three airlines went on strike Sunday over a proposed "Open Skies" deal with the European Union that union workers say jeopardizes their jobs and could even cause the local airline industry to collapse.

EL AL, Arkia and Israir stopped their outbound flights from Israel early Sunday morning. The strike does not affect flights by international carriers.

A spokeswoman for EL AL, Israel's national carrier, said of 22 flights planned for Sunday, 14 were brought forward before the strike began and eight were canceled. She said the strike affected hundreds of passengers. Travelers were given the option to transfer to other flights or get their money back, she said. She requested anonymity in line with company policy.

Travelers with Israir on domestic flights to Eilat were provided with buses.

The agreement would reduce restrictions on European carriers for using Israeli airspace, increasing competition. It would expand the number of flights between Israel and European countries and allow Israel to become a layover hub. Now it is a final stop.

The Israeli Cabinet was set to vote on the deal later in the day. Hundreds of union workers were heading to Jerusalem to protest outside the Cabinet meeting, Israeli media reported, despite unseasonably rainy weather.

Critics say that Israel's small fleet along with its high security costs would hinder it from competing with larger international airlines.

Ofer Eini, head of the powerful Histadrut labor union, told Israel Radio that he favors open skies, but the deal needs to be amended to secure local jobs. He said the deal could cause local airlines to collapse and warned that thousands of jobs are at risk.

He said the debate should be postponed by a month to improve the proposal's terms and make sure jobs are safe. He indicated that the strike could be broadened if the deal is approved Sunday.

Transport Minister Yisrael Katz told Israel Radio that he expected the proposal to be approved. He said the deal would benefit the economy by increasing tourism and reducing ticket prices.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-airlines-strike-over-open-skies-plan-061124835--finance.html

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Fully integrate your iPhone into your car with the Volkswagen iBeetle

Volkswagen recently introduced the iBeetle at the?2013 Shanghai Auto Show. ?The new models of the Beetle and Beetle Cabriolet?will be the first “of the Volkswagen Group in which the iPhone will become an integrative component.” ?The car’s dock holds the iPhone 5 as seen in the image, and you can access all your normal iPhone [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/04/22/fully-integrate-your-iphone-into-your-car-with-the-volkswagen-ibeetle/

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Sherpa, Google's One Today, and More

Google has some exciting things on the horizon for Android. Its foray helping with charity transparence is already in beta, and the GoogleGlass companion app is finally here, even if most people still aren't ready to drop $1,000 bucks for the hardware. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/T_q9I-eL46Q/sherpa-googles-one-today-and-more

april 30

Kerry pushes Turkey-Israel rapprochement

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, left, shows U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the skyline of Istanbul before the start of a meeting on Sunday, April 21, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey. Kerry is wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul with talks aimed at improving ties between Turkey and Israel and pushing ahead with Mideast peace efforts. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu point toward the Bosporus before a working lunch in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, April 21, 2013. Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts. President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Abbas and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.(AP Photo/Hakan Goktepe, Pool)

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, third from left, meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, third from right, on Sunday, April 21, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey. Kerry is wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul with talks aimed at improving ties between Turkey and Israel and pushing ahead with Mideast peace efforts. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas leaves a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, April 21, 2013. Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts. President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Abbas and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.(AP Photo)

ISTANBUL (AP) ? Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts.

President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

On a trip to Israel last month, Obama secured a pledge from Turkish and Israeli leaders to normalize ties that broke down after a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American. However, the rapprochement has been slow, sparking concerns that Turkey may be backsliding on its commitment.

U.S. officials say they are hopeful that a meeting this week of Israeli and Turkish diplomats to discuss Israeli compensation for victims of the flotilla raid will jumpstart the process of restoring full diplomatic relations and exchanging ambassadors between the two countries that Washington sees as key strategic partners in the volatile Middle East.

Kerry said at a news conference that he had a "prolonged and constructive" discussion with Davutoglu, about "the importance of completing the task with respect to the renewal of relations between Turkey and Israel."

Kerry said he believes that Davutoglu and Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan "are deeply committed to fulfilling all of the obligations of that understanding. I think they are committed to doing so."

Erdogan is due to visit Obama at the White House on May 16 and U.S. officials are keen to see substantive process by then.

However, Erdogan's plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip sometime in May after his trip to Washington have raised concerns. The State Department has said such a journey would be unhelpful. Both Israel and Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the West Bank, are opposed.

With Abbas, Kerry was talking about ways to improve the Palestinians' living conditions as a confidence-building measure to improve the atmosphere for a resumption in stalled peace talks with Israel.

Kerry has said he fears there is only a two- or three-year window of opportunity to reach a deal on a two-state solution that would end the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wants to move as quickly as possible. He has met with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times already to that end since becoming secretary of state.

Kerry was in Istanbul primarily to attend an international conference on Syria that began on Saturday afternoon and stretched into early Sunday morning as participants debated how best to boost aid to rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

At the conference, he announced that the Obama administration would double its non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition with an additional $123 million in supplies that could include for the first time armored vehicles, body armor, night vision goggles and other defensive military supplies.

"I can't tell you how quickly it will change things on the ground," Kerry said Sunday. "I can promise you that as soon as I return to Washington, I am going to press as hard as I can" to get it to the opposition within a matter of weeks.

"This has to happen quickly, it has to have an impact," he added.

The additional aid, which brings total non-lethal U.S. assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began more than two years ago, "underscores the United States' firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition's advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria," Kerry said.

The U.S. pledge was the only tangible, public offer of new international support at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the 11 main countries supporting the opposition and fell well short of what the opposition has been appealing for: weapons and direct military intervention to stop the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

The Syrian National Coalition is seeking drone strikes on sites from which the regime has fired missiles, the imposition of no-fly zones and protected humanitarian corridors to ensure the safety of civilians.

While pleased with the U.S. moves, the opposition appeared deeply disappointed, especially as it lost some ground in the latest clashes with Syrian troops backed by pro-government gunmen capturing at least one village in a strategic area near the Lebanese border.

"We appreciate the limited support given by the international community, but it is not sufficient," it said in a statement released at the end of the conference. "We call on the international community to be more forthcoming and unreserved to fulfill its responsibilities in extending support that is needed by the Syrian people."

With the exception of the United States, none of the participants offered new assistance, although European nations are considering changes to an arms embargo that would allow weapons transfers to the Syrian opposition. But European Union action is unlikely before the current embargo is set to expire in late May.

Obama has said he has no plans to send weapons or give lethal aid to the rebels, despite pressure from Congress, some administration advisers and the appeals from opposition.

There are no plans to change that policy, although U.S. officials say they are not opposed to other countries sending arms, as long as the recipients have been properly vetted.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-21-EU-Kerry/id-137a1365f0854359a65d7e221a43145a

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Commonplace causes may lead to deadly cath lab delay

By Andrew M. Seaman

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Delays that are outside a hospital's control often prevent doctors from unblocking a heart attack patient's arteries right away, according to a new study that also found the delayed patients are more likely to die in the hospital.

So-called non-system delays occurred in about 15 percent of U.S. heart attack cases between 2009 and 2011, researchers found. Causes for the delay in using balloon angioplasty to open coronary arteries ranged from problems obtaining consent to issues involving patients' other complex medical problems.

Of the patients who experienced non-system delays between the time they entered the hospital and when they underwent the artery-opening procedure, just over 15 percent died while in the hospital. That compared to about 3 percent of patients without a delay.

"We found non-system reasons in delay of door-to-balloon time are associated to significantly greater mortality, compared to patients without non-system delays," said Dr. Rajesh Swaminathan, the study's lead author from the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

During heart attacks caused by blocked arteries, doctors try to open the blockage using a thin wire with a balloon attached to the end. The ideal is to open the patients' arteries and restore blood flow to the heart within 90 minutes of a patient's arrival at the hospital.

Swaminathan said cardiologists believe "time is muscle," and that patients are worse off as more time elapses between the start of a heart attack and clearing the blockage.

In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, he and his colleagues write that most studies have focused on so-called system delays - such as operating rooms or doctors not being ready to start the procedure, but few have looked at these non-system delays.

For the new study, Swaminathan's team used a U.S. database of records on 82,678 heart attack patients who had angioplasty between January 2009 and July 2011.

Of those, 12,146 patients experienced non-system delays.

About 37 percent of them were in cardiac arrest and needed breathing tubes inserted before anything else could be done. About 27 percent had physical characteristics that made it difficult for health workers to access veins or break through blockages. Another 4 percent refused consent for doctors to operate and 31 percent had "other" reasons noted in their files.

Despite these obstacles, the researchers found that almost half the delayed patients had their blockages cleared within the recommended 90-minute threshold.

The shortest delays were caused by patients going into cardiac arrest and needing a breathing tube inserted. Yet, that reason for delay was associated with the highest mortality - about 30 percent of those patients died in the hospital.

That finding suggests delays aren't solely responsible for huge differences in mortality, according to Dr. Cindy Grines, of the Detroit Medical Center Cardiovascular Institute, who wrote in an editorial accompanying the new study.

"It is likely a marker for higher risk patients," she pointed out.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, co-chief of the University of California, Los Angeles Division of Cardiology, told Reuters Health that it's important to get blockages cleared as soon as possible, but the new study shows these other issues are also important.

"Time matters, but there is a lot that goes into outcome and some of those non-system reasons for delays raise the mortality risk," said Fonarow, who was not involved in the new research.

Swaminathan told Reuters Health that although these delays are usually considered outside a hospital's control, there may be ways to improve on the numbers with changes to hospital systems.

For example, he said, there were a high number of Asians who delayed in giving their doctors consent to operate. That suggests there could be a language barrier that easy access to translators would help break down.

"There are some ways that we can provide system solutions to reducing the time (spent on non-system delays)," Swaminathan said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/12sBnNV and http://bit.ly/ZCdY8w, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, online April 2013.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/commonplace-causes-may-lead-deadly-cath-lab-delay-195555541.html

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Mansions and Fine Art Made Especially for Cats and Dogs - io9

Don't you think your pet deserves a better home? The most distinguished dogs don't sleep in houses, but in elegant dwellings. There are also TARDIS cat climbers and canine haciendas. Here are the coolest cat and dog homes on Earth.

Alabama Doghouse

(via Best Friend's Home)

Doctor Mew and the TARDIS Cat Fort

(via TARDIS Cat Fort)

Mexican Hacienda Dog House, only for $30,000

These custom-made haciendas include running water, lighting, air conditioning and heat.

(via Beyond The Crate)

Cool Pet House for rich pets

This house has an air-conditioning and heating system and humidifiers, and there is an option to include a Wifi webcam to check on your kitty or dog all day long.

(via Funky Pets)

Suitcase Bunk Bed

(via etsy)

Elite Pet Havens

Do you have $50,000-$200,000 for a custom designed ultra-luxe high-tech pet home? Choose one of these gorgeous havens.

(via Elite Pet Havens)

Wine Barrel Doghouses

(via Jacksonville Wine Guide and Cedar Stone Ranch)

Where doghouse meats fine art: Robert Griffin's Biedermeier House

(via Dogster)

The Cat Tunnel Sofa by Seungji Mun

(via Seungji Mun)

Atalaya cat bed

(via thecooldog)

Source: http://io9.com/mansions-and-fine-art-made-especially-for-cats-and-dogs-476412113

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NASCAR rallies after Boston bombings hit home

Driver Clint Bowyer waits for the start of practice for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Friday, April 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) ? The MIT police officer killed during the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was the brother of a machinist for Hendrick Motorsports, bringing the events of this past week closer to home for NASCAR teams already rallying around the tragedy.

Sean Collier, who began working for Massachusetts Institute of Technology about a year ago, was found shot to death late Thursday in his vehicle in Cambridge, Mass. Police have said Collier was responding to a report of a disturbance when he was shot about 10 miles west of Boston.

His brother, Andrew Collier, has been working for Charlotte, N.C.-based Hendrick Motorsports since 2008. He works in the engine shop and is not part of the team that travels to the track each week.

"My thoughts and prayers with the Collier family, and I certainly know it's the same thing with everyone at Hendrick Motorsports," five-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson said Friday at Kansas Speedway. "We're one big family and it's sad to see a teammate going through this."

NASCAR teams were already planning to honor victims of Monday's attacks, which left three dead and more than 180 wounded, during this weekend's races in Kansas.

Roush Fenway Racing plans to donate $100 for every lap the team leads to The One Fund Boston, which was set up to help people affected by the bombings. The team's three Sprint Cup cars will also carry "B-Strong" decals, done in Red Sox script, that have cropped up this week.

The race team is partially owned by Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox.

"When events occur such as what happened earlier this week in Boston, it is our nature to be overwhelmed with a variety of emotions," Jack Roush said in a statement. "To have to withstand an act of such senselessness and cowardice against innocent people is disheartening to us all. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families, as well as the entire city of Boston."

Carl Edwards, who drives for Roush, said he hasn't had a chance to put the events of Boston in perspective, but realizes how fortunate he is to be driving a car this weekend.

"I can't quite grasp what's going on, I guess the consequences of it, but any time you see that, for me personally, it makes you realize the world is a crazy place," Edwards said.

The three entries from Michael Waltrip Racing are showing their support by replicating the bib numbers worn by Boston Marathon runners on their cars. The change in font for the car numbers was approved by each of the team's sponsors.

"The news coming out of Boston this week was very personal to me," said Michael Waltrip, who ran the Boston Marathon in 2000. "I remember thinking about what a privilege it was to be able to participate and all the hard work it took to be there. When you can see those international flags flying in Copley Square, you know you are about to complete your journey.

"I know the joy those runners were feeling at that moment when their worlds changed."

Bowyer, who drives one of the Waltrip cars, said the bombings touched everybody in NASCAR, and that the replicating bib numbers was simply one way to show their respect for the victims.

"It's a tragedy and a shame that these things keep happening," Bowyer said. "Now that I hear about the Hendrick organization, it's sad. It's been a tough week for all of us."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-19-CAR-NASCAR-Kansas-Boston-/id-52714638d2734a8bbd0a8e6a82175928

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