Daughter of Gaddafi's ex-spy chief says jailed father very sick

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/daughter-gaddafis-ex-spy-chief-says-jailed-father-135428870.html

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Iran hikes domestic airfares by up to 70 percent

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iranian local airlines have increased their airfares by up to 70 percent amid Western sanctions on the oil and banking system, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The report quotes Hamid Reza Pahlevani, head of the country's aviation organization, as saying it authorized airlines to increase the airfares to compensate for the high price of aircraft fuel by Iran's state-owned fuel company.

The hike is the biggest increase in local airfares since the early 1990s. Iranian airliners in recent years had occasionally raised the fares by lower amounts, such as 20 to 30 percent.

In May, Iran doubled price of fuel for Iranian airlines, which are mostly state-owned.

The move is seen as part of the country's plan to cut fuel and food subsidies, which began in late 2010 amid sanctions on oil and the banking system by the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

In the past, the airlines received their imported needs based on the U.S. dollar trading at around 12,260 Iranian rials. In recent weeks, government has been organizing their imported needs based on a new calculation, almost double the previous one.

Since the banking and oil embargo in July by the European Union, the rial has fallen drastically in value against foreign currencies.

The slide has accelerated over the past month. Iranian politicians blame the drop on the sanctions but also on alleged mismanagement by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Tuesday, the rial traded at 31,000 to the dollar. The rate was about 11,000 in mid-2011. In early October, it jumped to more than 36,000 rials from around 27,000 just a week.

Meanwhile, the semi-official Mehr news agency said some 20 lawmakers have proposed a bill obliging Tehran to temporarily reduce its oil exports to the countries that observe sanctions against Iran by 33 percent.

Lawmaker Masoud Mir Kazemi and the head of parliament's energy committee supported the bill, saying "we are able to use oil as a response to the sanctions."

The bill is expected to be discussed next week.

Many countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, India and Turkey have decreased oil import from Iran after the EU-imposed oil embargo on the country.

The West suspects Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities are aimed at peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-hikes-domestic-airfares-70-percent-192150048--finance.html

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For the Forensic Technology - Computers and Technology

Forensic technology means scientific evidence has been used in criminal proceedings in a wide range. These scientific findings of the physical collection and analysis occurs. Principles to be used as evidence or determine civil or criminal proceedings in this type of technology has focused a lot of new aspects.

One of the technical areas that promise a lot of digital software. Criminals and terrorists have the ability to carry out a variety of electronic devices to use their own crimes. A digital component of the increase in crimes of the security that is required to have equipment for crime. Digital is reformatted or partitioned case, a computer forensic data recovery software is capable of

Others are software programs that:

? A program to erase a hard drive clean
? Log in to find spyware hidden partitions, plus some large fast hard drives and more.
? to analyze disk images ?flat? in the image can be compressed
Check all parts of a hard drive, and turn around or even hide ? ?supervisor?
? blocking a new writing program protects your computer information more effectively in previous programs

Image analysis of forensic science that interprets the contents of the image. Many companies reduce costs and accelerate research occurred efficient appliances. Compare features photos, content analysis, photogrammetry (using photography to make the measurements) to make and is designed for image authentication. With a variety of techniques, mega data and video aspect ratios PIXIL error, pictures and animations are used to extract information. This is true even if one tries to present evidence for one hour.

One of the new tools of scientific research and evaluation of evidence is primarily a series of multimedia legal issues, there are video forensics. The objective of this technique, a judge and jury, the evidence to determine civil or criminal case, the decision to produce an accurate picture. In addition to this new technology to improve video images grainy photographs, refined, and the development of a person or an object in an application of video image processing, in addition to converting the digital video in some form for forensic analysis. The work in this type of law enforcement, security, surveillance and even for military operations is important in solving cases.

Data recovery is a process used for lawful purposes, in order to retrieve data from computers. Aware that most people are much more difficult to erase all information from a computer. Objective data recovery is to go your missing or deleted. Mined data collection, analysis, and then the process is using protection. Successful completion of these measures, data loss is to provide the court with a computer expert. This technology is available to provide the court as evidence in civil or criminal proceedings.

Explains the forensic evidence that can be used in court, then it should be required to science and technology to meet the supply that evidence. The chain of custody in the courtroom will be kept in mind that a criminal investigation, the creation of well-studied the facts and evidence to occur legally. The lower part of the study area within the existing firewall forensics, database and mobile device forensics is forensics.

Source: http://www.vblite.org/for-the-forensic-technology-what-is-it.html

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Twitter sees new record during Euro 2012 final

Spain's Fernando Torres holds his son Leo after an award ceremony as Spain won the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, early Monday, July 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Spain's Fernando Torres holds his son Leo after an award ceremony as Spain won the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, early Monday, July 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? Twitter says its users fired off more than 15,000 tweets per second when Spain scored its fourth goal in Sunday's European Championship final, setting a sports-related record on the social networking site.

The surge in tweets came just weeks before the Olympic Games in London are expected to spur more record-setting activity on social networking sites ? from tweets to postings of photos and other user-generated material.

Twitter said it registered a total of 16.5 million tweets worldwide during the soccer match Sunday in Kiev, where Spain defeated Italy 4-0. It said total global traffic on its platform peaked at 15,358 tweets per second as Spain scored its fourth goal, a record for a sporting event.

"Commentators, fans and athletes around the world supported their teams in song, in face paint and in tweets" throughout the Euro 2012, Twitter said in a blog.

As fans increasingly use social media to connect during major sports competitions, new "tweet per second" records are constantly being set.

Twitter registered a peak of 12,233 tweets per second during the final three minutes of the Super Bowl in February.

An earlier record was set during the final match of the 2011 Women's World Cup, a match in Germany that saw 7,196 tweets per second, including 13 from President Barack Obama. In that game, Japan's team defeated the U.S. on penalty kicks following a 2-2 draw.

Among those who tweeted Sunday was Pele, the retired Brazilian star. He congratulated Spain and said he was looking forward to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-07-02-Euro%202012-Twitter%20Record/id-45faae9048cb49898924037a048d51ab

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Spain wins again, beating Italy 4-0 at Euro 2012

Spain's David Silva scores a goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Spain's David Silva scores a goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Spain's Jordi Alba celebrates their second goal with teammates during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final against Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Spain head coach Vicente del Bosque, left, kicks the ball as Italy's Federico Balzaretti tries to take a throw-in during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon reacts after Spain's David Silva, left, scored the opening goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon make a save in front of Spain's Cesc Fabregas during the Euro 2012 soccer championship final between Spain and Italy in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, July 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) ? The defense was impenetrable. The offense was unstoppable. Simply put, it was another Spanish party on the international stage.

Spain won its third straight major soccer title Sunday, routing Italy 4-0 in the European Championship final and making it look all too easy.

David Silva and Jordi Alba scored first-half goals, and substitutes Fernando Torres and Juan Mata added two more in the final minutes as the Spanish passing game worked its magic against the Italians at the Olympic Stadium.

Silva headed in a high shot in the 14th minute off a pass from Cesc Fabregas. And Alba added another in the 41st, picking up a beautiful through ball from Xavi Hernandez and shooting past Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

Torres, who came on for Fabregas in the 75th minute, added the third goal with an easy finish and Mata really put the game away in the 88th, knocking in a pass from Torres.

"They were a great rival, but we took control of the game as time went by," Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said.

Spain won the Euro 2008 title four years ago in Vienna and followed that up with the World Cup title in Johannesburg two years ago.

"They had made history before, and I could now," said Alba, who has played only nine matches for Spain. "I don't believe it but little by little it is sinking in."

Torres also scored the lone goal in the 1-0 win over Germany in 2008, making him the first man to score in two European Championship finals.

Not only has Spain won every knockout game since losing to France in the second round of the 2006 World Cup, but goalkeeper Iker Casillas hasn't allowed a goal in that 10-game span. The last player to beat him is such an important match was Zinedine Zidane, and he retired after that tournament.

Sunday's win was a record 100th for Casillas in international soccer.

Spain was the favorite heading into the match, but also seemed primed for a loss after being held to a 1-1 draw by the Italians in their opening Group C match. Spain, which has been experimenting with a lineup that excludes a recognized striker, needed a penalty shootout to reach the final after a 0-0 tie with Portugal in the semifinals.

The controversial lineup, which Del Bosque again employed on Sunday, is akin to playing in the Super Bowl without a running back. Sure, you can still score touchdowns, but you give up on the chance for a game-breaking play.

Spain did just fine without the strikers, but they did even better when Torres came on. Although he has struggled both for Spain and Chelsea recently ? and was relegated to the bench for four of the six games at Euro 2012 ? Torres came on Sunday and made a difference.

But as good as the play was up front for Spain, it was the steady hands of Casillas at the back that likely preserved the victory.

Casillas made a point-blank save on a shot from Antonio Di Natale at the start of the second half, and twice tipped crosses out of danger just before the Italians could get their heads to the ball.

With every save, and of course with every goal, the huge group of Spain supporters cheered and screamed. The red-shirted fans dominated one corner of the stadium, filling up more than six sections of the Olympic Stadium. On the opposite side, the blue-clad Italians were far outnumbered, with dozens of empty yellow seats poking through the mass of supporters.

The political aspect of the game involved several heads of state. Italian Premier Mario Monti, along with other EU leaders, had said they would not travel to Ukraine for the tournament because of the politically tainted jailing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. But that didn't stop him from attending the final in Kiev.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also attended the match, and got to watch as his players celebrated with confetti and fireworks when they lifted yet another major trophy.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-07-01-SOC-Euro-2012-Final/id-2bf9913de94e41559cbff521598be5e6

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U.S. Task Force's Recommendations Stoke Debate over Calcium and Vitamin D Supplements

News | Health

A task force found insufficient evidence to recommend supplements to healthy people to prevent broken bones or cancer, but this could overlook several categories of people

By Melinda Wenner Moyer ?| July 2, 2012?|

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Ragesoss

If you are healthy, living at home, and take calcium and vitamin D supplements to prevent broken bones or cancer, you may want to reconsider, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). The group's new draft recommendations, published online on June 12, add more fervor to the ongoing debate about the benefits and risks associated with these popular supplements.

The USPSTF based its recommendations on a meta-analysis of 136 clinical trials, observational studies and a systematic review evaluating the effects of supplementation on fracture and cancer risk. It concluded that postmenopausal women should not take supplements containing less than 400 international units (IU) of vitamin D and 1,000 milligrams of calcium, noting that there is not enough evidence to evaluate the effects of taking more than those amounts. There was also insufficient data for the task force to determine whether or not healthy younger women and men of any age should take the supplements.

There's no question that "vitamin D and calcium are essential nutrients for a healthy diet," says task force member Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at the University of California, San Francisco. The heart, muscles and nerves cannot work properly without the minerals, and deficiency can also cause bone loss, osteoporosis and tooth damage. Vitamin D is crucial in part because it helps the body to absorb calcium from food. In May the USPSTF recommended that people over 65 take vitamin D supplements if they have an increased risk of falls, for instance because of mobility problems or a history of falling.

But for healthy people the benefits are less clear-cut, Bibbins-Domingo says. Part of the problem is that trials involving vitamin D and calcium are inconsistent?they test different doses for varying lengths of time in diverse populations, which "makes it extra tricky when you try to put them all together and come up with a final analysis," says Erin LeBlanc, an endocrinologist at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. Earlier this week LeBlanc and her colleagues published a study online in the Journal of Women?s Health suggesting that women over 65 with higher blood vitamin D levels gain less weight over time than women with lower amounts.

Despite the difficulty of making firm conclusions about the data, some experts find the USPSTF recommendations, which are open for public comment until July 10, misleading and potentially dangerous. "I think they went too far," says Susan Ott, a bone specialist at the University of Washington School of Medicine. For one thing, "they ignored a lot of people who are getting really no calcium in their ordinary diet."

Indeed, the recommendations only apply to healthy people who are not deficient in either nutrient. (The task force did not evaluate the benefits of supplementation in people with osteoporosis, but the National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends that people with the bone disease consume at least 1,200 milligrams of calcium and 800 to 1,000 IUs of vitamin D daily through food or supplements.) Although the Institute of Medicine maintains that most Americans get enough vitamin D from food and sunlight, the organization notes that nearly 75 percent of American women between the ages of 31 and 50 do not get the recommended 1,000 milligrams of calcium from their food every day, and that a similar percentage of women older than 50 fail to consume their recommended 1,200 milligrams. (To eat 1,000 milligrams without supplementing, a person would have to eat 16 cups of cooked broccoli or drink three and a third glasses of skim milk daily.) "There are a lot of people out there who are only getting half of what we recommend," Ott says, and the USPSTF recommendations do not apply to them.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=cbcc7b6574e978b14696d012d2579e6f

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Prepaid tuition plans flawed but still popular

CHICAGO (AP) ? Prepaid college tuition plans are no longer the surefire solution to runaway tuition costs they once seemed.

The mostly state-sponsored plans were designed as a way to save for college by locking in at least a portion of future tuition at today's prices.

The premise remains sound: Pay now to minimize the shock of rising costs. After all, tuition has increased an average 7 percent annually since 1990 and shows no sign of slowing down.

But the battered finances of state governments have raised questions about whether some plans will live up to their promises.

Numerous states have shut down their plans or changed them as their deficits widened. Facing shortfalls, some have bumped up the prices by charging substantial premiums above the cost of current tuition. And several of the 11 open plans do not offer guarantees.

"It's a model that doesn't always work," says Joseph Hurley, a CPA and the founder of Savingforcollege.com.

College financing experts advise parents and students to carefully review the specifics of their state's plan and determine if it makes sense for them.

A closer look at some important points to consider about prepaid plans:

BASICS

A prepaid tuition plan allows families to buy future tuition units or credits at current prices. If you purchase shares worth one semester's tuition when your child is young, the shares should always be worth one semester's tuition regardless of how much rates increase. The credits can sometimes also be applied to room and board.

Most prepaid plans have residency requirements. Purchased credits can be applied toward a college in another state, but there's no assurance the full cost will be covered. If a student decides to attend a private or out-of-state college, the plans typically pay the average of in-state public college tuition, according to Mark Kantrowitz, founder of the financial aid site FinAid.org.

States invest families' money in the stock market and use their investment returns to pay for the tuition.

But some programs have run into trouble after investments lost money in the market downturn in 2008-09 and tuition rose faster than expected.

Alabama had to make compromises in its program this spring in order to keep it operating, and now pays less than full tuition. Prepaid plans in Kentucky, Illinois and South Carolina are less than 80 percent funded for future payouts, raising the risk of future changes.

AVAILABLE PLANS

There are 21 prepaid plans offered in 19 states. But 10 states have closed plans to new participants.

Among the 11 open plans, only Massachusetts, Mississippi and Washington guarantee theirs with the "full faith and credit of the state," according to the College Savings Plans Network. That means they will borrow if necessary to make up the difference if the plans run short of money.

Alaska, Florida, Maryland and Virginia also back their plans with differing guarantees. Open plans in Michigan, Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas are backed only by the funds' assets.

Just two prepaid plans are open to residents of any state: Massachusetts' U.Plan program and the Private College 529 Plan, sponsored by the Tuition Plan Consortium representing more than 270 private colleges and universities nationwide.

PROS

Advocates of prepaid tuition plans call them "peace of mind programs" and say they still offer that comfort.

"They're still very appealing in this environment with unknown amounts of tuition increases as well as investment volatility ahead of you," says Joan Marshall, executive director of College Savings Plans of Maryland. "A couple of states clearly have had problems, but it's unfair to lump them all in together."

Prepaid plans as a whole are 93 percent funded, up from 91 percent a year ago and that's more than adequate to assure future payouts, according to the College Savings Plans Network.

As to any fears of not getting your money back, Marshall says no one who has used a prepaid plan has received a lower amount than was paid in.

Kathy and Joe Halliday of Bel Air, Md., paid off their daughter's tuition through Maryland's prepaid plan by the time she was in middle school. That meant they didn't agonize when the stock market crumbled. The plan covered Leah's two years in community college and now will take care of her tuition at Johns Hopkins University.

"It was a great relief," Kathy says. "It was the best financial investment we ever made."

Mat Forrest and his wife Jillian of West Palm Beach, Fla., recently purchased a Florida prepaid college plan for their daughter Addison, who turns 2 in August. He acknowledges that the interest rate is small and they might well do better investing the money in a stock plan. But he likes the simplicity of being locked into a fixed monthly payment of $287.71 and knowing that should take care of Addison's college tuition.

"Any time you can lock in the cost 18 years before you need to pay it, that's probably a good thing," he says. "And I don't need to stress out over the markets."

CONS

Some experts who once recommended the plans for new investors no longer do. They cite the increased risk that states won't make good on their original commitments and the chance that parents will have to pay more to make up for shortfalls in state funds.

"Peace of mind may be a fiction," says Kantrowitz. "If you're investing now for the first time, the money may disappear by the time your child is ready for college."

While losing your money is unlikely, there's a real chance of seeing your investment stay flat or even decline in value if the state makes changes that dilute the plan.

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