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China has been angered by previous meetings between the Dalai Lama (left) and Barack Obama. US President Barack Obama will meet exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Friday, US officials say. China has urged the US to cancel the meeting, saying it will "seriously impair China-US relations". China describes the Dalai Lama as a separatist, while the spiritual leader says he only advocates greater autonomy for Tibet, not independence. Officials say the US does not support Tibetan independence but is concerned about human rights in China. The two men last met in 2011, in talks that

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends mammography screening every two years for women between the ages of 50 and 75. Anyone under 50 should talk to her doctor to assess her individual risk. Both organizations have indicated that they will be reviewing their guidelines this year, taking into account any research that has been published in recent years. The best approach to mammography screening is probably somewhere in the middle, says Brawley, a practicing oncologist

The debate over annual mammogram screenings continues this week, as follow-up data from a long-term study come under fire. Researchers with the Canadian National Breast Screening Study conducted a 25-year follow-up with their participants and concluded that "annual mammography in women aged 40 to 59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available." (Adjuvant therapy is treatment given after surgery; this can include chemotherapy, radiation or hormone treatments, according to the National Cancer Institute.) The results were published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal. But several professional associations and experts have questioned the study authors' conclusions. Results from this study have been reported periodically over the last two decades. The screening data were originally collected in six Canadian provinces between 1980 and 1985. Close to 90,000 women ...

Sid Caesar, whose clever, anarchic comedy on such programs as "Your Show of Shows" & "Caesar's Hour" helped define the 1950s "Golden Age of Television," has died. He was 91yrs. A friend of the family, actor Rudy De Luca, did not know the exact cause of death, but said Caesar had respiratory problems & other health problems for several years. Caesar became famous for "Your Show of Shows," which went on the air in 1950. It lasted 4yrs & was followed by "Caesar's Hour," which combined sketches, musical revues & situation comedy. Both shows featured writers who became famous in their own right, including Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen & Larry Gelbart. Woody Allen also contributed to Caesar's comedy as a writer for 1 of his specials. Brooks visited Caesar last night to say goodbye. Share your memories of Caesar

Three hours later, she still had miles to go. So, too, did the rest of her family who were stuck in traffic across the region. "My daughter was stranded trying to get from her gymnastics class in Apex. My ex-husband is trying to get her and he got trapped," she said by telephone, referring to a Raleigh suburb. "My husband is in Charlotte and says things are bad. All the gas stations are shutting down, and I had trouble trying to gas up." 'Our own trucks are stuck' There are snowplows on the roads but "unfortunately some of our own trucks are

Get off the roads, and stay off. That was the message in Georgia and the Carolinas as a snow and ice storm swept through Wednesday, bringing some of the Southeast's most populous cities to a standstill. The warnings came as freezing rain brought heavy ice accumulations from Atlanta to Charlotte. Across a large swath of the South, hundreds of thousands of people were without power and thousands of flights were canceled. Calling ice the biggest enemy, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency. School districts canceled classes and government offices were shuttered in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the traffic paralysis caused by a storm last month. Up to three-quarters of an inch of ice was expected to accumulate in Atlanta and up to 10 inches of snow and sleet were expected in Raleigh and Charlotte, making travel treacherous. Also in the storm's path were Virginia and Washington, with much of the Northeast to

Living in this multiracial, multicultural world requires a sharper critical eye, says photographer Annu Palakunnathu Matthew. Her project, “An Indian from India,” places attention much more on its onlookers than its photographic subjects, whisking us away from preconceived generalizations and facile truths about minorities. Born in England, raised in India and now an art professor at the University of Rhode Island, Matthew has been widely acclaimed for her discreet blend of activism and experimentation in works such as “Bollywood Satirized” and “Open Wound.” The same thread continues in “An Indian from India,” where Matthew uses Photoshop to manipulate portraits of Native Americans that were taken in the 19thcentury and early 20thcentury by ethno- photographers such as Edward S. Curtis. Her process includes photographing herself mimicking the pose of a Native American, extracting it and pasting it onto the original photo. “I use Photoshop, but

In one of the biggest such recalls ever, Graco has agreed to recall 3.7 million child car seats manufactured in recent years -- even as it officially contests a government request to recall nearly 1.8 million more -- over a buckling issue. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Tuesday that Graco is voluntarily recalling 11 of 18 model seats that the government agency had asked it to recall. "NHTSA's investigation will remain open pending its evaluation of the Graco recall and until the agency's consideration of the review of the 7 remaining sea models is completed," the department said. The 3.7 million seats alone makes this recall the fourth biggest ever for car seats, according to the federal agency. If all the seats the NHTSA was asking to Graco to recall are added in, it would be the biggest. In a statement, Graco said the

Derek Jeter, who led the Yankees to five World Series titles during his first 19 seasons, announced Wednesday that he will retire at the end of the 2014 major league baseball season. "I could not be more sure. I know it in my heart. The 2014 season will be my last year playing professional baseball," the Yankees captain and shortstop said in a note posted on his Facebook page. Jeter, who is 10th on the all-time hits leader list with 3.316 hits, missed most of the 2013 season because of ankle injury. "I know they say that when you dream you eventually wake up. Well, for some reason, I've never had to wake up. Not just because of my time as a New York Yankee but also because I am living my dream every single day," wrote Jeter, who was a 13-time all-star and the face of America's most famous baseball franchise. USA Today baseball columnist Bob Nightengale said on

The lights go out. You know the drill: Call the utility company. Wait for their trucks. Maybe complain about how long it takes. Outages suck, but you might be surprised to learn how much energy it takes to restore energy during the middle of an ice storm like the one the South is currently enduring. In Georgia, where the greatest number of outages have been reported and are growing, not only are utility trucks on the streets, but a whole cadre of behind-the-scenes players are coordinating housing, food and other logistics for thousands of out-of-state workers who arrived to help restore power. The help from other states is essential to restoring power. "But where are they going to sleep, what food are they going to eat?" asks Steve Lewis, logistics director at Georgia Power. That is the challenge that he and a team at the utility company have to solve on the fly. Georgia Power provides energy to about 2.4 million customers, many of whom awoke to find their streets looking li...

Sinkholes are swallowing Corvettes now. Last year it was houses in Florida, and on Wednesday nature gobbled up some of the coolest and fastest cars to come off the assembly line. Eight valuable 'vettes at Bowling Green, Kentucky's National Corvette Museum fell victim to a 40-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep sinkhole that opened up in the facility's yellow Sky Dome wing. The museum unofficially estimates it caused millions of dollars in damage. Motion detectors alerted security that something was amiss shortly after 5:30 a.m., said museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli. An employee who first walked into the room "has been in shock all day," she said. "When you go in there, it's unreal," said Frassinelli. "The hole is so big, it makes the Corvettes look like little Matchbox cars." The news triggered a collective worldwide gasp from the Corvette Nation. "I was shocked," said

When the cause of fish mortality is a bacterial disease (Annex 30), any successful therapy requires the identification of the pathogen. Administering drugs without knowing the etiological agent may result in a total failure in the treatment and in the selection of drug resistant strains. Most fish farmers are not trained to diagnose bacterial diseases. However, a fish pathologist is not often at hand, nor it is always possible to send samples to a certified diagnostic laboratory in a reasonably short time. In these cases, the advantage of being able to carry out a rapid initial screening of disease possibilities should convince the farmer of the necessity to acquire some basic knowledge and tools to perform an initial analysis by himself. This section provides a minimal basic knowledge to observe the main bacterial diseases in farmed seabass and gilthead seabream. It should be pointed out that this section does not intend to replace the experience of a professional fish pathologis...

Morphoanatomic performance The estimation of the larval rearing performance derived from morphoanatomic criteria refers to the development conformity and/or the chronology of development of specific organs. The assessment of such criteria will therefore be dependent on the existence of standards which accurately: describe the normal or abnormal aspect of the specific organs, fix the period when the observation can or should be done, indicate how it has to be done. Then, the choice of the criteria depends on the importance of its consequences on the rearing performance (frequency of appearance, effects on growth, on survival, etc.). For seabass and gilthead seabream larvae, morphoanatomic quality principally refers to anomalies affecting urinary bladder, swim bladder and skeleton. Urinary calculosis Urinary calculi can be observed in the urethra or urinary bladder. They have the aspect of greyish or yellowish little stones. The colour may sometimes be reddish during th...

The rearing system Weaning takes place in a dedicated section of the hatchery where the metamorphosed fish (about 45 days old) will grow until a size of 2-3 grams. At this stage they are named fingerlings or juveniles, and must have assumed the adult aspect. The layout of the weaning sector recalls that of an enlarged larval sector equipped with a number of larger round or rectangular tanks. Their capacity is typically between ten and twenty-five m 3 since a larger size become more difficult to handle due to the many operations of grading and thinning out of the fish population. Because fish biomass becomes important at this stage as it can reach up to 20 kg/m 3 , the weaning stage represents a true intensive rearing system. This is also conceptually far from the larval rearing stage. It can also be considered an intermediate step between the culture of small delicate post-larvae and the much stronger juveniles. Where environmental conditions are favourable, i.e. in particular ...

BROODSTOCK MANAGEMENT Establishing the broodstock To work properly and with adequate safety margins, any hatchery should secure a reliable and sufficient supply of good quality fish eggs. With this aim in mind, most Mediterranean hatcheries have established their own broodstock units, where breeders of different age groups of the species involved are kept under long term stocking conditions. However, timing, amount and quality of the eggs produced by these units do not always fit hatchery requirements, resulting sometimes in poor final outputs in terms of viable fry. The importance of a properly dimensioned and managed broodstock unit is now fully acknowledged and its relatively high running costs are fully justified. In the management of a fish broodstock unit the main issues to be considered refer essentially to: stock dimensioning; stock collection; adaptation to captivity and long-term stocking conditions; sexual maturation and spawning according to the produc...

Fertilized seabass and gilthead seabream eggs float in water with 35 to 37 ppt salinity. With lower salinity egg buoyancy decreases and a strong aeration is advisable to prevent their sinking to the bottom, which would pose a big risk in terms of physical stress and bacteriological contamination. Because egg quality represents a crucial factor for hatchery success and for production of fry of good quality, any stress to fertilised eggs should be avoided, such as: physical shock during egg collection, transport, disinfection, weighing and incubation; thermal and salinity shocks. It is recommended to maintain in the incubation tanks the same environmental conditions at which eggs have been exposed during spawning. The same precaution should be adopted when packing eggs for sale. Before dealing in detail with egg management and larval rearing of seabass and gilthead seabream, the following paragraphs give a brief description of the development stages from egg to ...

SEABREAM GILTHEAD The gilthead seabream Sparus aurata (Linnaeus, 1758) is a perciform fish, belonging to the family Sparidae and to the genus Sparus. LOCAL NAMES Albanian koceja, spalc Arabic denis (Egypt), ourata, warka (Tunisia), zerika (Morocco) English sea bream, gilthead seabream French dorade, daurade German goldbrasse Greek tsipoúra Italian orata Portuguese dourada, doirada Spanish dorada Turkish çipura Fig. 6 Adult specimen of gilthead seabream Family Description Family Sparidae Percoid fish with body oblong...

Introduction The early life stages of seabass and gilthead seabream are zooplankton-feeders, i.e. they prey on small free living planktonic animals. As no artificial larval diet can at present totally fulfil their nutritional requirements, their successful rearing still depends on an adequate supply of high quality live feeds, usually in the form of rotifers (fed on unicellular algae) and brine shrimp (Artemia spp). This chapter describes the equipment and operation to mass produce these organisms, whose biology has been presented in Part 2. The design of the hatchery sections for production of live feed is described in the Design and Engineering part of this manual. The technology for phytoplankton and zooplankton mass production has become very reliable and the production of live feeds is part of the standard working procedures in Mediterranean hatcheries. The efficiency of this part of the hatchery mainly depends on the implementation of standard procedures by well trained st...

1. B-e with us in the circle of our love, E-ven if by chance you are alone. O-ur greetings we have hope your heart vwill move, U-niting our good wishes with your own. R-emember there are those who think of you, V-ested in the will to be a friend. A-s distant hills give depth to what we view, L-et these words some grace to your day lend. E-ach life is lived behind a sheltering veil, N-ot lifted but for love. Yet when we will, T-here is a wind that shifts the rampart frail, I-nvading with sweet scent the spirit still. N-ow may we all enjoy this fragrance fine, E-ach each others secret Valentine. 2. if you were my valentine I’d treasure every day the arms that open to me and the tender words you say I can’t imagine dreaming of another soul so sweet for, if your were my valentine my life would be complete…

1. B-e with us in the circle of our love, E-ven if by chance you are alone. O-ur greetings we have hope your heart vwill move, U-niting our good wishes with your own. R-emember there are those who think of you, V-ested in the will to be a friend. A-s distant hills give depth to what we view, L-et these words some grace to your day lend. E-ach life is lived behind a sheltering veil, N-ot lifted but for love. Yet when we will, T-here is a wind that shifts the rampart frail, I-nvading with sweet scent the spirit still. N-ow may we all enjoy this fragrance fine, E-ach each others secret Valentine. 2. if you were my valentine I’d treasure every day the arms that open to me and the tender words you say I can’t imagine dreaming of another soul so sweet for, if your were my valentine my life would be complete…

1. B-e with us in the circle of our love, E-ven if by chance you are alone. O-ur greetings we have hope your heart vwill move, U-niting our good wishes with your own. R-emember there are those who think of you, V-ested in the will to be a friend. A-s distant hills give depth to what we view, L-et these words some grace to your day lend. E-ach life is lived behind a sheltering veil, N-ot lifted but for love. Yet when we will, T-here is a wind that shifts the rampart frail, I-nvading with sweet scent the spirit still. N-ow may we all enjoy this fragrance fine, E-ach each others secret Valentine. 2. if you were my valentine I’d treasure every day the arms that open to me and the tender words you say I can’t imagine dreaming of another soul so sweet for, if your were my valentine my life would be complete… 3. On Valentine’s Day, the day of affection, My thoughts naturally turn in your direction. I think of many things, big & small That you’ve given to me & given your all. You s...

1. I fear I won’t know what to say And strike you as a fool, Or you’ll be glad to get away, Polite not to be cruel. Easier to dream than act, To hope than to find out, So fearful of the force of fact I wait in fear-filled doubt. 2. But now the day of love has come, And I must cross its line, And so I ask you through this poem To be my Valentine. 3. In the balance sheet of our life Our children will be our true assets and liabilities!! If they are boys, they will be our sundry debtors, If they are girls, they will be our sundry creditors, But if we have a boy and a girl,

Its the Month Of LOVE, Here are the 10 Valentine Messages For Your Pleasure! Choose the One You Like. 1. May you find that special someone On this Valentine’s Day For I send my heart and love to you From very far away Let light shine upon you On your beautiful face And let a smile show That no one can erase You are my Special Valentine And to the world it will be known Regardless of your outcome Today you will not be alone Smile little or smile big Just as long as you are mine So don’t show me a frown Because I am your Valentine Happy Valentine’s Day 2. Be my valentine, in the east or west, you know I love you best, so give up the all rest, and be my valentine, no matter what the season, it’s you I should be pleasing, I love you is the reason, be my valentine. 3. Valentine’s Day is for expressing affection; Fond thoughts are coming your way; We’ve always had a special connection, So Happy Valentine’s Day! You’re in my thoughts and in my heart Wherever I may go; On Valentine’s Day I’...

New York City police have found up to 70 bags of suspected heroin inside actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's home a day after his death, US media report. The Oscar-winning star, 46, was found dead at his Greenwich Village home on Sunday with a syringe in his arm. A post-mortem examination is expected to be carried out on Monday. Police suspect Hoffman died of an overdose. The lights along theatre marquees on New York's Broadway were to be dimmed on Wednesday in honour of Hoffman. The actor earned three Tony award nominations for his work in New York theatre.

Police in Naples have detained Camorra clan boss Mariano Riccio, aged 23 and described as one of the 100 most wanted men in Italy. He is facing a 16-year jail sentence for drug trafficking and is seen by investigators as a key figure in a war for control of the mafia drug trade. Riccio was seized outside the city and police said he did not resist arrest. Separately, 29 suspected Camorra members have been arrested in Rome in connection with fraud and extortion. They have been linked to the Zaza clan in the western Fuorigrotta area of Naples. The Camorra is a formidable mafia network based in the Naples area, which is believed to have extended its influence to Rome and as far north as Florence. Mario Riccio, believed by police to head another clan called the Amato-Pagato, has been on the run since 2011. He was reportedly arrested at a house north of Naples,

*. About 0.1% of ER admissions to University Hospital Bern come about as a result of sex *. Between 2000 and 2011 the hospital recorded 445 such cases *. Of these, 308 cases (69%) were male *. Most of the patients (78%) were younger than 40 *. A total of 276 (62%) had a possible infection *. Fifty-five cases (12.4%) were neurological, including headache, amnesia and bleeding between the brain and skull *. Two patients had cardiovascular emergencies and no penile fractures were recorded Source: "Sexual activity-related emergency department admissions: eleven years of experience at a Swiss university hospital", Journal of Emergency Medicine "I must tell you it is no myth," wrote one woman who asked to remain anonymous. "It happened to my late husband and myself one night. He literally could not withdraw i.e. was 'stuck'. I attributed it to the intensity of the vaginal muscle response during orgasm." Another correspondent, who asked to be referred t...

It sounds like a scene from a trashy sex comedy. But stories of getting stuck during sex have been with us for centuries - and some of them might just be true. An emergency trip to hospital is never pleasant, but it's certainly not something you would want to happen after sex. "It's not the most romantic ending a couple can imagine," says

The Pacific island chain of Kiribati is one of the most densely settled places on Earth. The BBC's Julian Siddle investigates how the island is dealing with its overpopulation problem. Kiribati is perhaps best known as one of the countries most likely to disappear due to climate change. Most people who live on Kiribati's main island - South Tarawa - rely on the surrounding seas for their livelihoods. The ocean is also the greatest threat to their future survival: No land on this island sits more than 2m (6ft 6in) above sea level, so rising seas could prove devastating. We have contamination from housing, agriculture, from people holding pigs, the sanitation practices Peter Sinclair, Secretariat of the Pacific Community But that's not the only challenge facing this Pacific nation. Stretching over 3.5 million sq km (1.35 million sq mi) of the ocean, Kiribati consists of several islands spread across a territory of similar size to India, but most of the population is concentr...

*. With its roots in the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban movement came to the fore in 2007 unleashing a wave of violence *. Its leaders have traditionally been based in Pakistan's tribal areas but it is really a loose affiliation of militant groups, some based in areas like Punjab and even Karachi *. The various Taliban groups have different attitudes to talks with the government. Some analysts say this has led to divisions in the movement *. Collectively they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis and have also co-ordinated assaults on numerous security targets *. Two former TTP leaders, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakimullah Mehsud,

Pakistani Taliban negotiators have condemned the failure of government representatives to meet them in Islamabad, as preliminary peace efforts got off to a chaotic start. The government side said before talks began they wanted clarification from the team named by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The two sides had been due to start charting a "roadmap" for talks. The militants have been waging an insurgency inside Pakistan since 2007. Many observers were puzzled by the government side's approach. The Taliban swiftly made clear there were to be no additions to their team, and urged the government side to begin talks and see for themselves whether the team had a mandate. There is more scepticism than hope as the government and the Pakistani Taliban prepare to hold preliminary peace talks. There are three reasons for this. First is the reluctance of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to confront the Taliban militarily despite a public wave of anger against them. Second, few an...

Technology giant Microsoft has said Satya Nadella will succeed Steve Ballmeras its next chief executive. Mr Nadella is currently Microsoft's head of Cloud and Enterprise, which builds and runs the firm's computing platforms and developer tools. In August, Mr Ballmer said he would retire within 12 months. Leaders from a range of industries are rumoured to have been considered for the post. Microsoft also said founder Bill Gates would step down as chairman. Mr Gates will take up a new role as technology adviser and will also retain a seat on the board, Microsoft's lead independent director John Thompson is to take over from Mr Gates as the company's chairman. I couldn't be more honoured to have been chosen to lead the company Satya Nadella, Microsoft chief executive Mr Thompson led the search committee for Microsoft's new chief executive, and said last year that more than 100 possible candidates had been identified. 'Proven leader' Mr Nadella, 44, is Mi...

The globe is facing a "tidal wave" of cancer, and restrictions on alcohol and sugar need to be considered, say World Health Organization scientists. It predicts the number of cancer cases will reach 24 million a year by 2035, but half could be prevented. The WHO said there was now a "real need" to focus on cancer prevention by tackling smoking, obesity and drinking. The World Cancer Research Fund said there was an "alarming" level of naivety about diet's role in cancer. Fourteen million people a year are diagnosed with cancer, but that is predicted to increase to 19 million by 2025, 22 million by 2030 and 24 million by 2035. The developing world will bear the brunt of the extra cases. Chris Wild, the director of the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, told the BBC: "The global cancer burden is increasing and quite markedly, due predominately to the ageing of the populations and

Paris Saint-Germain coach Laurent Blanc is confident Yohan Cabaye will settle quickly after the midfielder made his debut on Friday. Second-half goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alex saw PSG to a 2-0 win over Bordeaux, lifting them six points clear atop Ligue 1. New signing Cabaye was introduced after 68 minutes and the former Newcastle man rattled the post with a header. Blanc believes Cabaye is smart enough to quickly adapt to PSG's style and always planned to bring him on during the second half. "We had planned to involve him 20 or 30 minutes. It also depended on the match," he said. "I'm not worried about it. He's smart, he knows how we want to play and he understands our philosophy. He will adapt to our system without much problem."