Ballisticent

Division 10 Specialties

In the United States, "bathroom" commonly means "a room containing a lavatory". In other countries this is usually called the "toilet" or alternatively "water closet" (WC), lavatory or "loo". The word "bathroom" is also used in the U.S. for a public toilet (the more formal U.S. term being "restroom").

Nearly all of the hundreds of houses excavated had their own bathing rooms. Generally located on the ground floor, the bath was made of brick, sometimes with a surrounding curb to sit on. The water drained away through a hole in the floor, down chutes or pottery pipes in the walls, into the municipal drainage system. Even the fastidious Egyptians rarely had special bathrooms.

TEHRAN, Iran – After months of denials, Iran acknowledged Saturday that at least three people detained in the country's postelection turmoil were beaten to death by their jailers.
The surprise announcement by the hard-line judiciary confirmed one of the opposition's most devastating and embarrassing claims against authorities and the elite Revolutionary Guard forces that led the crackdown after June's disputed presidential vote.
There was no immediate public reaction from the opposition, but some activists asserted that authorities under pressure over abuse claims were merely seeking to punish low ranking staff while shielding senior level officials who the opposition says are most to blame.
Still, the statement offered some rare vindication for the government's critics, who had rejected earlier explanations from the police and the judiciary that the detainees' deaths were caused by illnesses like meningitis, not physical mistreatment.
"The coroner's office has rejected that meningitis was the cause of the deaths and has confirmed the existence of signs of repeated beatings on the bodies and has declared that the wounds inflicted were the cause of the deaths," the judiciary statement said, according to the Web site of Iran's state TV.
The judiciary also said it has charged 12 officials at Kahrizak prison — three of them with murder, but it did not identify them. The prison, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Tehran, was at the center of the opposition's claims that prisoners were tortured and raped in custody.
Anger over the abuse claims, which emerged in August, extended far beyond the reformist camp, with influential conservative figures in the clerical hierarchy condemning the mistreatment of detainees.
The outrage forced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to order the immediate closure of the Kahrizak facility.
The opposition says at least 72 protesters were killed in the postelection crackdown, but the government puts the number of confirmed dead at 30.
Authorities initially tried to repel the abuse claims by accusing the opposition of running a campaign of lies against the ruling system. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had even accused Iran's enemies of being involved in the crimes, a claim the opposition rejected as ridiculous.
Iran's police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said in August that protesters were beaten by their jailers at Kahrizak, but he maintained at the time that the deaths were not caused by the abuse.
The opposition's criticism was implicitly aimed at the country's most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard, which operates with some autonomy from the ruling clerics and led the harsh crackdown and detention of protesters in the tense weeks after the election.
The unrest broke out after pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed he was robbed of the presidency through massive fraud in the vote.
Pressure around the abuse claims accelerated in early August.
One of the other pro-reform candidates defeated in the election, Mahdi Karroubi, said then that he had received reports from former military commanders and other senior officials that some detainees, male and female, were raped in custody to the point of physical and mental injury.
It also emerged that one of the detainees who had died in custody was the son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a top aide to conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei. That was a central factor in raising anger among government supporters.
His son, Mohsen Rouhalamini, was arrested during a July 9 protest and taken two weeks later to a hospital where he died within hours.
Saturday's judiciary announcement named him as one of the three people it had found to be victims of abuse. The other two were identified as Amir Javadi and Mohammad Kamrani.

Further adding to the outcry, prosecutors said this month that a doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters died of poisoning from a delivery salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication.

Their findings fueled opposition suspicions that he was killed because of what he knew.

The 26-year-old doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, had testified to a parliamentary committee, reportedly telling them that one of the protesters he treated was the younger Rouhalamini and that he died from severe torture. He said he was also forced by security officials to list the cause of death as meningitis, according to opposition Web sites.

Pourandarjani died on Nov. 10 in mysterious circumstances, and authorities initially gave conflicting explanations, saying he was in a car accident, had a heart attack or committed suicide. Forensic tests later showed that the doctor died of "poisoning by drugs" that matched doses of propranolol found in a salad that was delivered to him, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said early this month.

The government's rivals did not immediately respond directly to the judiciary's statement Saturday.

One prominent reformist voice, former President Mohammad Khatami, told an audience of academics in western Iran on Saturday that the use of force against protesters demonstrates the government has little regard for human rights.

"A majority of the people are dissatisfied with the way the country is being administered," his Web site quoted him as saying.

He added that "a considerable portion of society" has objections over the official election results.

"These must be heard. They (people) must be convinced that the elections were really fair. Such convincing can't be achieved through jail, crackdowns and restrictions," Khatami said.

Iran's judiciary has also had a central role in authorities' efforts to silence the opposition. Since August, it has brought to trial more than 100 protesters, activists and pro-reform opposition leaders, accusing them of fueling the protests and being part of a plot to overthrow the government.

MADRID (AFP) –
Real Madrid sent out a message of intent to all-conquering champions Barcelona with a 6-0 demolition of Real Zaragoza on Saturday.

While Barcelona were away in Abu Dhabi winning the Club World Cup, their sixth trophy this year, Real closed the gap at the top of La Liga to just two points after tearing apart sorry Zaragoza.

It was always going to be a tough challenge for Zaragoza's caretaker coach Jose Gay who took charge this week and it quickly turned into a nightmare with Gonzalo Higuain scoring after just three minutes.

A double for Rafael Van der Vaart then followed and Higuain volleyed in a delightful shot still before half time.

Cristiano Ronaldo, returning after a one-match ban, teased the Zaragoza defence before adding the fifth and substitute Karim Benzema wrapped up the scoring with 20 minutes to go against the side which has conceded most goals in the Spanish top flight.

"The aim at the start was for the team to be solid in defence and then score as many goals as we could in attack and so we can be very happy at the way it has worked out," said the Real coach Manuel Pellegrini.

"We can ask for more and for the team to be more consistent. Against Zaragoza we played an impressive 90 minutes and we need to be like that more often although in recent matches we have shown we are going in the right direction."

Meanwhile, Gay feels his main job now is to help the Zaragoza players rediscover their confidence.

"It was obvious that the mood among them was very low and so the worst that could have happened was to concede a goal right at the start," said Gay whose team remain in the relegation zone.

"After that we were not able to bounce back but while the players are disappointed our league starts after the winter break on the third (of January).

"My position at the moment is only short term but I have to look ahead and to raise the players' morale as the team is a lot better than it is showing."

Sevilla's disappointing home form cost them further points as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat by Getafe.

A brace from Roberto Soldado led the visitors to victory and it means that Sevilla have now failed to win in three attempts at the Sanchez Pizjuan.

Soldado slipped the ball through the keeper's legs to give Getafe the lead after 12 minutes and then later capitalised on a defensive mix-up to score into an empty net.

Substitute Alvaro Negredo reduced the deficit at the start of the second half and despite Sevilla battling hard in the final stages for an equaliser, Getafe hung on.

"We cannot afford to lose so many points at home and we need to become more solid in defence. We lost our concentration too often and we made it too easy for Getafe," said Sevilla coach Manolo Jimenez whose side are nine points behind Barcelona.

Athletic Bilbao had a comfortable 2-0 win over Osasuna thanks to early goals from Fran Yeste and Fernando Llorente.

A below strength Osasuna side were a goal down after just a minute when Yeste knocked the ball home from close range after being set up by Llorente.

Osasuna offered little in response and it was Llorente himself who added a second after 12 minutes with a clinical drive from the edge of the area.

Athletic took their foot off the pedal in the second half and eased to a victory which puts them up to sixth place in the table.

The human embryonic heart begins beating around 21 days after conception, or five weeks after the last normal menstrual period (LMP), which is the date normally used to date pregnancy. It is unknown how blood in the human embryo circulates for the first 21 days in the absence of a functioning heart. The human heart begins beating at a rate near the mother’s, about 75-80 beats per minute (BPM).

In the human body, the heart is usually situated in the middle of the thorax with the largest part of the heart slightly offset to the left (although sometimes it is on the right, see dextrocardia), underneath the sternum. The heart is usually felt to be on the left side because the left heart (left ventricle) is stronger (it pumps to all body parts). The left lung is smaller than the right lung because the heart occupies more of the left hemithorax. The heart is fed by the coronary circulation and enclosed by a sac known as the pericardium and is surrounded by the lungs. The pericardium comprises two parts: the fibrous pericardium, made of dense fibrous connective tissue; and a double membrane structure (parietal and visceral pericardium) containing a serous fluid to reduce friction during heart contractions. The heart is located in the mediastinum, the central sub-division of the thoracic cavity. The mediastinum also contains other structures, such as the esophagus and trachea, and is flanked on either side by the right and left pulmonary cavities, which house the lungs.

EKG Machines

Creators Syndicate –
Mia's story is good holiday fare. That must have been what the Washington Post editors were thinking when they put her smiling face on the front page. Whether they considered the deeper implications is not so clear, as we shall see.

Mia Fleming is a 20-year-old college student who was adopted as an infant. This year, she set out to find not her birthparents, but the two teenagers who found her on a Fairfax, Va., townhouse's front steps.

Emily Yanich and Chris Astle were both 15 in 1989. They acknowledge that on the afternoon in question, they "may" have walked to the 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes. When they returned to their neighborhood, they heard a baby crying. "I looked around and noticed that there weren't any moms out there pushing their kids around in a stroller," Astle recalled. The two teens followed the cries and found a bundle on the landing of a townhouse "where it didn't seem anyone was at home." They found the dark-eyed baby girl wrapped in orange towels, her umbilical cord still attached.

After frantically knocking on the townhouse door without result, Astle and Yanich, holding the crying infant, tried to decide on the best course. The Post recounted their thinking: "Had someone forgotten the baby? Was she hungry? Should they go back to the 7-Eleven and get some food? Should they take her? Would they get in trouble?"

Shocked and uncertain, they took the baby to Yanich's stepfather, who called the police. In short order the emergency vehicles arrived and the baby (who was estimated to be 12 hours old) was whisked off to the hospital. Later that day, a nurse called to tell them that the child was healthy and was going to be just fine.

And she was. A couple who already had one adopted child eagerly embraced the opportunity to adopt her. This month, 20 years later, Mia Fleming managed to contact her two guardian angels through Facebook. Her message was tentative: "Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but if you are the Chris Astle I was looking for then I just want to thank you. You and Ms. Yanich found me on someone's doorstep when I was an infant. I don't really know what else to say, but thank you."

Fleming speaks for millions of adopted children. It's pretty basic. Everyone (excepting only the pathological) is grateful to have been given a chance at life. Fleming's simple gratitude contrasts with the fatuous nonsense often peddled in the media that adoption is always traumatic. It isn't. Yet even if it were, isn't it better to be alive? Yes, some adoptees struggle with questions of identity, but life is full of challenges. In other ways, adoptees are actually better off than the average American child. A Search Institute study found that 55 percent of adopted teenagers reported high self-esteem compared with 45 percent of others. This may be because adoptive families have lower-than-average rates of divorce, and/or because adopting couples want children very badly.

Fleming's birthmother abandoned her in a relatively safe place. The same could not be said of many infants found in public restrooms, train stations, and even dumpsters around the time she was born. In response, all 50 states (but not the District of Columbia) have now adopted safe haven or "Baby Moses" laws permitting women to relinquish newborns "no questions asked" within a few days of birth — a sad necessity.

Baby Moses has inspired one more entrant into the compassionate network of organizations hoping to help women with crisis pregnancies. In the past 35 years, thousands of such groups have sprouted around the country like wildflowers. But until now, none was specifically focused on Jewish women. The Bible (Exodus: Chapter I, verse 15) relates the story of Shifra and Puah, the midwives who refused Pharaoh's order to kill the male children of the Israelites. "But the midwives feared God, and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them." December marked the debut of "In Shifra's Arms" (Inshifrasarms.org), the first Jewish crisis pregnancy group (in whose founding I played a small role). Here, Jewish women struggling with life-and-death decisions will find support, information, and resources on alternatives to abortion.

Mia's story is heartwarming. But one cannot read it without thinking of something else — the millions who cannot give thanks. Each year, 1.2 million children in America are aborted. If they were placed for adoption, they'd presumably want to thank someone as well. The goal of In Shifra's Arms, like its sister organizations, is to ensure that more Mias get the chance to be grateful.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bundchen (jih-ZEHL' BUN'-chen) have welcomed a baby boy.
Brady announced the birth Wednesday, but did not reveal the boy's name. He called it "a wonderful experience in my life."
The child is Brady's second. He also has a 2-year-old son, Jack, with actress Bridget Moynahan. Bundchen is a mother for the first time.
Brady and Bundchen were married in February in Los Angeles in a small ceremony. In April, they held another wedding ceremony in Costa Rica for friends and family.
The birth was first reported by People.com.

ZURICH (Reuters) –
Roche Holding AG said on Wednesday three studies on its drugs used to treat early and advanced breast cancer showed good results.

The Swiss drugmaker, the world's largest maker of cancer drugs, was due to present the results in coming days at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Roche said it would present five-year follow-up data from two studies into the use of Herceptin in early breast cancer which sought to answer questions about the best way of giving patients the treatment.

It will also present a study into the use of Avastin as a second-line treatment of advanced breast cancer.

Finally, it is also presenting new data from a Phase II study into the use of trastuzumab-DM1 for very advanced breast cancer.

(Editing by David Holmes)

LUCASVILLE, Ohio – An Ohio killer was put to death in an efficient 10 minutes Tuesday in the first U.S. execution to use a single drug injection instead of the standard three-chemical combination that has come under legal attack because it can cause excruciating pain.
Kenneth Biros, 51, was pronounced dead shortly after one dose of sodium thiopental began flowing into his veins at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his final appeal two hours earlier.
Experts had predicted that sodium thiopental — used in many parts of the world to put pets down — would take longer to kill than the old method. But the 10 minutes it took Biros to die was about as long as it has taken other inmates in Ohio and elsewhere to succumb to the three-drug combination.
The mother, sister and brother of Biros' victim, Tami Engstrom, applauded as the warden announced the time of death.
"Rock on," Debi Heiss, Engstrom's sister, said a moment earlier as the curtains were drawn for the coroner to check on Biros. "That was too easy."
Ohio's switch to one drug was born of a botched execution attempt on another inmate in September, but critics of the three-drug method have long argued that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution because it can subject the condemned to extreme pain while leaving them immobile and unable to cry out.
The three-drug method consists of sodium thiopental, a common anesthetic, along with pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. The single-drug technique amounts to an overdose of the anesthetic — a method that injection experts and defense attorneys agreed would not cause pain.
Biros' executioners struggled for several minutes to find suitable veins, inserting needles repeatedly in both arms before completing the process on just his left arm. He winced once, and his attorney, John Parker, said he was concerned by all the needle sticks. But prison officials declared nothing amiss.
"There was no problem with anything in us carrying out the law of this state in this particular execution — none whatsoever," Ohio Prisons Director Terry Collins said. "The process worked as we said it would work."
After the chemical started flowing, Biros' chest heaved several times, and he moved his head twice over a span of about two minutes before he lay perfectly still.
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lethal injection in a case from Kentucky involving a three-drug method similar to the one used in Ohio and practically every other death penalty state. After a seven-month moratorium on the death penalty while the high court decided the case, executions resumed across the country.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said states would have to change from the three-drug process if an alternative method lessened the possibility of pain.
Deborah Denno, a law professor at New York's Fordham University and a lethal injection expert, said she is highly skeptical that Ohio's single experience Tuesday will change the landscape around the country. She noted that the Supreme Court questioned the one-drug method, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying it "has problems of its own."
All 36 death penalty states use lethal injection, and 35 rely on the three-drug method. Nebraska, which recently adopted injection over the electric chair, has proposed the three-drug method but hasn't yet adopted it.
Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia are among those that have said they will keep the three-drug method.
Sodium thiopental is a barbiturate often used to anesthetize surgical patients, induce medical comas or help desperately ill people commit suicide. It is also sometimes used to euthanize animals. It kills by suppressing breathing.
Ohio switched to sodium thiopental after a failed attempt to execute Romell Broom in September. Executioners tried for two hours to find a suitable vein, hitting bone and muscle in as many as 18 needle sticks. A hearing begins in federal court Wednesday on Broom's attempt to block the state from trying again.
After the botched attempt, the state consulted with an array of experts, including pharmacologists, pharmacists, coroners and an anesthesiologist, with two goals: to end a 5-year-old lawsuit claiming that Ohio's three-drug system is capable of causing severe pain, and to create a backup procedure if the first one didn't work.

That backup plan — also untested on U.S. inmates — allows a two-drug injection into muscle if a usable vein cannot be found. That did not become necessary in Biros' case.

Biros killed his 22-year-old victim in 1991 after offering to drive her home from a bar, then scattered her body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Before dying Tuesday, he apologized for his crime.

"I'm being paroled to my father in heaven," Biros said. "I will now spend all of my holidays with my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka gave permission Tuesday to nearly 127,000 Tamil refugees to leave squalid and overrun government camps where they have been detained since the country's civil war ended six months ago, an official said.
Some 300,000 war refugees were forced into the camps after fleeing the war zone in the final months of the government's decades-long fight with the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended in May.
The ethnic-minority Tamils were held against their will, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers. The government maintained that the Tamils had to be screened for rebel ties and that land mines had to be removed from their villages before they could return.
Rights groups have called the detention an illegal form of collective punishment for the ethnic group.
More than half were released in recent months amid pressure from rights groups and foreign governments, and the remaining 127,000 could apply to leave starting Tuesday under a plan announced by the government last month.
After registering with camp officials, the refugees are free to leave, although those whose villages have yet to be cleared of mines will not be allowed to resettle, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. The camps will be closed completely by Jan. 31.
The registration process is quick: Nanayakkara said refugees need only inform camp officials where they intend to go and how long they want to stay.
Nanayakkara said nearly 7,200 people so far sought permission to leave, many of whom were headed to find family members after being separated for months by the fighting.
"I am very happy to go out and see the outside," said Mano Amma, 53, as she prepared to get onto a bus to visit her relatives in Vavuniya, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from her camp.
She had been confined to the camp since May. She and her husband and daughter are planning to stay with the relatives for 10 days and then come back.
Ganeshan Moorthi, 34, was walking along with his wife and infant child to see his mother in a nearby camp.
"I haven't seen my mother since April, this year. I am very happy to go out, specially to see my mother," he said.
Authorities say de-mining work has been stepped up so refugees can be sent to their home villages.
Sri Lanka pledged in September to the United Nations that all civilians would be sent home by the end of January.
The U.N. has welcomed the government's decision to close the camp, but has said it is waiting to find out how the registration process for departing detainees works.
Government troops routed the Tamil Tigers in May, ending their 25-year fight for an independent homeland for the country's minority Tamils. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed in the violence.
___
Associated Press writer Sanath Priyantha in Vavuniya contributed to this report.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – The Tiger Woods Foundation board met as it does every year at Sherwood Country Club. Merchandise was on sale just outside the clubhouse, with large photos of Woods hanging from brick walls.
Everything was in place at his year-end tournament — except for him.
Facing public scrutiny over a car crash that sent him to the hospital and raised questions, speculation and innuendo about how it happened, Woods withdrew from the Chevron World Challenge on Monday, citing injuries. His news conference for Tuesday afternoon was canceled.
The announcement was posted on his Web site as questions kept growing about Woods driving his SUV over a fire hydrant and into a tree at 2:25 a.m. Friday, questions that would have hounded him had he showed up at Sherwood.
Even as players in the 18-man field began to arrive — Graeme McDowell, a Ryder Cup player from Northern Ireland replaced Woods — it was clear Sherwood would be more quiet than ever, just like its host.
Asked to sum up the mood for the week, Padraig Harrington said, "I don't think anyone knows."
Harrington was on the golf course Monday morning when Woods announced he would not play. Having flown over from Ireland, he has not been keeping up with each development and wasn't sure how much it would affect the tournament except for the obvious.
That's one less player to beat.
"The more we play and compete with Tiger, the better," Harrington said, who did just that at two majors this year, and the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational when Woods rallied to beat him.
"But it's not going to take away from the winner enjoying his win," he said. "I think come Sunday afternoon on the back nine, the focus will be on the tournament. Up until that point, Tiger will be talked about, and he will be missed."
John Daly encouraged Woods to end the speculation.
"The thing that Tiger needs to look at is, whatever happened, just tell the truth," Daly said from the Australian Open.
Woods said on his Web site that injuries — he did not give details — prevented him from playing.
"I am extremely disappointed that I will not be at my tournament this week," Woods said. "I am certain it will be an outstanding event and I'm very sorry that I can't be there."
He didn't play last year while recovering from knee surgery, although he was at the course the entire week and handed the trophy to Vijay Singh, also missing this year after his own knee surgery.
Tournament officials said fans who bought advance tickets with the hope of seeing Woods could get refunds beginning next week. Those who keep their tickets will get a 20 percent discount when they buy them next year.
Woods sustained cuts and bruises from the crash outside his home in an exclusive, gated community near Orlando, Fla. He was treated at a hospital and released. He has not been seen in public since then.
By skipping the tournament, Woods will escape the TV cameras and a horde of media seeking more details about the smashup. The tournament was to be the last of the year for Woods anyway, and he did not say when or where he would make his return next year.

When healthy, he has made his season debut at Torrey Pines every year since 2006. The San Diego Invitational this year is scheduled the week of Jan. 25. That could mean Woods avoids the media for 10 weeks.

Woods released a statement Sunday saying the accident was his fault and asked that it remain "a private matter." But with the Florida Highway Patrol still investigating and the media in full pursuit, he might not get his way.

The reference to "false, unfounded and malicious rumors" in Sunday's statement may have involved a story published last week in the National Enquirer alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by The Associated Press.

Woods even faced questions from fans who left comments on his Web site. Most voiced support for him, but some said he should address the questions about his own actions and those of his wife, Elin Nordegren, before and after the accident.

Woods hasn't answered questions from Florida troopers, either, turning them down three days in a row when they came to his house, the last time Sunday afternoon, after Woods' attorney told the patrol he would not be speaking.

Four cars were parked in Woods' driveway Monday, but no lights appeared to be on inside. A new fire hydrant had already replaced the one that Woods plowed into. A dirt hole and an orange barricade remained in the old hydrant's place.

Linda Adams, Woods' neighbor, confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that someone in her home other than her husband, Jerome, called authorities.

The neighbor, who called 911 after Woods ran over the hydrant and hit a tree, said he was unconscious and laying outside his SUV. Woods' wife told Windermere police she used a golf club to smash the back windows to help him out.

The Associated Press called the Adams home Monday and asked to speak to the Adams' son Jarius, who's believed to have made the call. The woman who answered the telephone told a reporter to call back later in the day. When the AP called back Monday evening, attorney Bill Sharpe answered and said he was representing the family. He said there was no comment at this time, but said a statement might be made Tuesday.

VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) –
Consumer campaigns to protect threatened fish species have failed, researchers warned Tuesday in a report underscoring the need for alternative ways to save threatened marine species.

The report suggested that government and consumers make big wholesalers and retailers stop selling threatened fish species; that farmers and agricultural feed makers stop using fishmeal for cheap protein; that national subsidies for fishing industries be axed; and that international standards be set for "sustainable" seafood labels.

"Seafood supply from capture sheries is decreasing and ... marine fisheries are unsustainable," noted the report by researchers at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre here.

More than a third of fish caught worldwide is used to feed factory-farmed animals, they said. "Currently, 30 million tonnes of fish (36 percent of world fisheries catch) are ground up each year into fishmeal and oil, mostly to feed farmed fish, chicken and pigs."

"Decreasing the amount of fish used for the production of animal feed should be a top priority of the sustainable-seafood movement," said the report. "Pigs and chickens alone consume six and two times the amount of seafood as US and Japanese consumers."

"For pigs and chickens, we don't need to be feeding them fishmeal," co-author Jennifer Jacquet told AFP. "We should feed them what they were meant to eat."

The food industry uses fishmeal as a "cheap protein source" to achieve fast growth rates in food animals, she said, "but with the oceans as stressed as they are, that's not going to work for a long term plan."

Programs aimed at helping consumers choose sustainable fish are popular with consumers and businesses in western countries, and may raise awareness, noted the report.

But the programs have failed to reach their goals and are beset by "consumer confusion, lack of traceability and a lack of demonstrably improved conservation status for the fish that are meant to be protected," it said.

The report examined the impact of consumer guides to ocean-friendly seafood, and noted that one of the first such programs, wallet cards produced by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, had resulted in no overall change in the market and no decrease in fishing pressures on the at-risk species it targeted.

Because supermarkets sell 60 percent of seafood in Canada and 50 percent in the United States, said Jacquet, efforts should shift from consumer-choice programs to "targeting mega supermarket chains such as Walmart, Whole Foods and Loblaw through a combination of positive and negative publicity campaigns."

The report was published online Tuesday in the science journal Oryx: The International Journal of Conservation.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Democrats in the House of Representatives aim to pass job-creating legislation before the end of the year to ease double-digit unemployment levels that threaten the economic recovery, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday.

Top lawmakers are looking at a variety of options, including road construction, tax breaks and assistance to hard-pressed state governments, that could create jobs but also worsen budget deficits in the short term, Hoyer said.

"We're moving ahead at a pace that hopefully will allow us to do something in the next three weeks," the Maryland Democrat said at a news conference.

Democrats are under pressure to bring down the 10.2 percent unemployment level, the worst since 1983, before the November 2010 elections. Unemployment is expected to remain high into next year even as the economy picks up, a factor that economists say could threaten the tentative recovery.

President Barack Obama plans a December 3 forum on job creation with business leaders at the White House and a cross-country tour to highlight Democratic efforts to boost the economy.

Any jobs bill likely faces tougher prospects in the Senate, where Republicans have greater power to oppose legislation. The Senate's schedule for the remainder of the year is likely to be dominated by an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and spending bills needed to keep the government's lights on.

Economists say that a $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February has helped ease the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but Republicans have criticized it as an expensive boondoggle that has not created enough jobs.

Democrats also face mounting public concern over the federal budget deficit, which hit a record $1.4 trillion for the fiscal year ended September 30.

The jobs bill will likely worsen the deficit in the short term, Hoyer said, but would pay off in the long run as more people go back to work and the economy improves. He said it was too soon to estimate the bill's cost.

Since the stimulus bill was passed, Democrats have taken a few other steps to boost the economy, such as broadening tax credits for homebuyers and businesses. But they have been careful to avoid terming their efforts as a "second stimulus."

"I don't want it to be as broad as that. I want it targeted on jobs," Hoyer said.

Among the items under consideration:

* A transportation bill that could cost up to $500 billion

* A tax credit for businesses that create jobs

* Assistance to state governments, which otherwise would lay off teachers, police and other employees as they cope with plunging tax revenues and rising social spending

* Another extension of unemployment benefits, which otherwise could run out for millions of jobless workers

* Health insurance for the jobless.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

GREENSBORO, N.C. – BCS officials have selected Bill Hancock to become the first executive director of the postseason system.
BCS coordinator and Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford announced Hancock's promotion from administrator to his new position on Tuesday.
Hancock will replace the BCS coordinator. The coordinator position has rotated on a two-year basis between conference commissioners since the Bowl Championship Series was implemented in 1998.
Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford's two-year term as coordinator will end Jan. 7.
At that point Hancock, who has been working as an administrator and spokesman for the BCS since 2005, will assume most of the coordinator's duties.
Big East commissioner John Marinatto would have been the next in line to take over the role of BCS coordinator.

MOSCOW (Reuters) –
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rubbed shoulders with rappers and was hailed with "respect" in a television show Friday that could help boost his flagging ratings.

Putin, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jacket, went on stage to present awards to participants in "Battle for Respect," a hip-hop music contest run by Muz TV, a Russian rival to MTV.

"It would have been cool to record a joint track with Vladimir Putin because he is a legendary man and our idol," sang rapper Zhigan who won the contest. "Let's make so much noise in his honor that the whole world can hear."

A presenter told the audience of about 100 young rappers in a makeshift television studio in an abandoned Moscow factory building that he wanted "smiles to stay on your faces throughout the evening."

Despite hip-hop's violent image, Putin had a stern message for the rappers about healthy living.

"I do not think that 'top-rock' or 'down-rock' breakdance technique is compatible with alcohol or drugs," Putin told cheering hip-hoppers who responded with chants of "Respect, Vladimir Vladimirovich."

Putin's approval ratings last month had the sharpest fall since he stepped down as Kremlin chief in May 2008. His rating fell 6 percentage points to 66 percent on October 24-25, according to leading pollster FOM. [ID:nL2370140]

Putin's aides responded with plans for a flurry of prime ministerial appearances, including a televised question-and-answer session with the Russian people this month.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied there was a link between the hip-hop appearance and the ratings fall.

"Putin has a high and stable rating which does not require any support," said Peskov. "The main goal of this event was to contribute to the promotion of a healthy lifestyle."

Putin, who stepped down as president last year, remains Russia's most popular and powerful politician. Most Russians believe he will run for President again in 2012.

Putin's carefully orchestrated image also include bare-chested photos on fishing trips in Siberia, appearances with rare animals such as Siberian tigers, leopards and beluga whales and encounters with fringe social groups like bikers.

"He communicates to all social groups. Hip-hop culture is very popular and youths from all corners of our country are fans of this culture," Peskov said.

(Writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Jon Hemming)

NEW YORK -- Inside the thick Goldman Sachs investment circular were the details of a secret, $2 billion deal channeled through a Caribbean tax haven.

The Sept. 26, 2006 , document offered sophisticated U.S. and European investors an opportunity to buy into a pool of supposedly high-grade bonds backed by residential, commercial and student loans. The transaction was registered through a shell company in the Cayman Islands .

Few of the potential investors knew it, but the ratings of many of the mortgage securities hid their true risks and, in some cases, Goldman's descriptions exaggerated their quality.

The Cayman offering -- one of perhaps dozens made through the British territory -- occurred as Goldman began to ditch the subprime mortgage business before the U.S. housing market collapsed under an avalanche of homeowner defaults.

In all, Goldman sold more than $57 billion in risky mortgage-backed securities during a 14-month period in 2006 and 2007, including nearly $39 billion issued from mortgages it purchased. Meanwhile, the firm peddled billions of dollars in complex deals, many of them tied to subprime mortgages, in the Caymans and other offshore locations.

Many of those securities later soured, but the sales allowed Goldman to become the only major U.S. investment bank to escape the brunt of the subprime meltdown.

One bond analyst who reviewed the 2006 Cayman deal dismissed it in a report to clients as "a not so cleverly disguised way for Goldman Sachs & Co. to unload its unwanted exposures to the subprime real estate market onto foreign investors."

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said that the firm "sold mortgage securities only to sophisticated investors" and disclosed "all the appropriate information available."

McClatchy also found at least two instances in which Goldman appeared to mislead investors. In one, the firm said that $65.3 million in securities were backed by safe "prime" mortgages when the same loans had been labeled a cut below prime in a U.S. offering. In the other, Goldman listed $10 million as "midprime" loans when the underlying mortgages had been made to subprime borrowers with shaky finances.

DuVally said that the descriptions were consistent with the standards set by Moody's , the bond-rating agency.

The secret Cayman Islands deals provide a window into one method that Goldman and other Wall Street firms used to draw European banks and other foreign financial institutions into investing hundreds of billions of dollars in securities tied to risky U.S. home loans.

Experts estimate that Wall Street investment banks sold 25 percent to 50 percent of these bonds and related securities overseas, resulting in massive losses in Europe and elsewhere when the market collapsed.

Last spring, the International Monetary Fund projected that global write-downs on "U.S.-originated assets" stemming from the subprime disaster could reach $2.7 trillion .

Underscoring the role of tax havens as a Wall Street marketing tool, a Treasury Department report found that as of June 30, 2008 , $164 billion in U.S. mortgage-backed securities were held in the Cayman Islands and $22 billion more were held in Luxembourg , another tax-friendly zone.

Gary Kopff , a securitization expert who analyzed unpublished industry data, said that Goldman packaged or marketed offshore deals worth at least $83 billion from 2002 to 2008. These deals, called collateralized debt obligations, amounted to a $1.3 trillion global market, and Goldman reaped as much as $1.66 billion for assembling and selling them.

Some of Goldman's subprime mortgage securities wound up in the hands of financially struggling Eastern European governments such as those in Romania , Bulgaria , Slovakia and Slovenia , said a Wall Street expert involved in trading those types of securities who declined to be identified because of the matter's sensitivity. This person said that one Slovakian bank's multimillion-dollar investment wound up worthless.

DuVally said the company could find no record of marketing the bonds in those countries, but that the securities may have gotten there through the resale market.

Subprime-backed mortgage securities that were sold at the crest of the housing market in 2006 and 2007 have shown the most precipitous drop in value, with default rates on the underlying mortgages exceeding 30 percent. For many cash-strapped borrowers, it was easy to walk away from soaring monthly payments when their mortgage balances exceeded the lower value of their homes.

The 2006 Cayman deal was part of a flurry of Goldman activity in the hidden, unregulated parts of the securities industry. Goldman's traders also made huge bets that those securities would lose value by buying insurance-like contracts, called credit-default swaps, with private parties. Beginning early in 2007, they bought swaps on a London -based exchange.

Every Goldman bet on the exchange's subprime index, which was run by the London -based financial services company Markit, was on a basket of bonds that included a bundle of its own subprime-related securities.

Germany's Deutsche Bank , the trustee holding mortgages for scores of Goldman's bond offerings, also lists more than 50 private Goldman deals on its Web site. Of those, 42 were backed by risky mortgages.

In marketing exotic deals that typically include subprime mortgage-backed securities, Goldman and other Wall Street firms have long used the Caymans as a gateway to European investors, said an official of a German bank, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly and declined to be identified.

The 2006 Cayman deal was outside the reach of U.S. tax laws and free of U.S. regulation. Goldman circulated the deal under the names of Cayman-based Altius III Funding Ltd. , and a sister firm registered in Delaware , both created for the sole purpose of facilitating the transaction.

The offering drew a scornful reaction from the bond analyst who warned investment clients to stay away. The analyst's report, a copy of which was obtained by McClatchy , described Goldman as "a single underwriter solely interested in pushing its dirty inventory onto unsuspecting and obviously gullible investors."

". ... In this case, it is a foregone conclusion that many relatively senior bondholders will suffer severe losses," said the analyst's report, which was made available on the condition of anonymity because the offering barred unauthorized disclosure.

McClatchy also learned of a second private Goldman deal, in which it sought in May 2007 via another Cayman company to sell $44.6 million in bonds related to subprime loans written by New Century Financial, a mortgage lender that weeks earlier had careened into bankruptcy after California regulators closed it.

For foreign banks, the lure was spelled AAA. Under both public and private deals, experts said, 80 percent or more of the bonds carried top grades from financial rating companies, assuring investors that the securities were among the safest plays in the financial world.

The triple-A rating was "the clincher," said an official of another German bank, who also wasn't authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

Few investors, however, knew that Goldman and other Wall Street dealers were paying the biggest U.S. financial ratings firms for grading the risky bonds.

Sylvain Raynes , a former analyst for Moody's Investors Service , the largest U.S. rating firm, likened the Wall Street firms' relationships with the rating agencies to hiring "a high-class escort service."

Typically, he said, an investment banker would meet with analysts for a ratings agency, describe a mortgage pool "and propose his dream result."

"The agency would call back after the meeting and intimate that they 'could get there' sight unseen," Raynes said. "Both parties understood what that meant, and the agency would be hired to rate the deal."

After bestowing untold numbers of triple-A ratings on subprime-backed bonds, Moody's and the second- and third-largest rating agencies, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, began to downgrade hundreds of pools of the securities in the summer of 2007, including the offshore deals known as collateralized debt obligations.

That set off a chain reaction that culminated in last year's Wall Street meltdown. Since then, both Moody's and S&P have downgraded slices of the Altius III deal several times.

U.S. pension funds that have lost money on subprime mortgage-backed bonds have filed suits accusing Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch of failing to inform them of the bonds' true risks. (Merrill is now part of Bank of America .)

Many European institutions that lost money on the securities, however, have fewer legal options.

Few of them are pointing fingers at Goldman or other U.S. investment banks. McClatchy contacted several European banks about their subprime losses and got similar responses when the banks were asked where they'd bought them.

Germany's IKB Deutsche Industriebank , whose 2007 near-collapse from subprime losses awakened Europe to the impending financial crisis, has written off about $19 billion (in current U.S. dollars) related to U.S. mortgages. A spokeswoman for the bank declined to say which investment banks sold it bonds.

Several of Germany's seven regional "landesbanks," or land banks, also took a pounding. With $7.2 billion in aid from the state of Bavaria, Munich -based Bayern LB, Germany's sixth-largest bank, has reserved $8.95 billion for losses in its asset-backed securities portfolio, which includes subprime loans. A Bayern spokesman declined to say who sold the bank the risky bonds.

Spokespeople for the Royal Bank of Scotland , which bought a Dutch subprime subsidiary and has reported tens of billions of dollars in losses, and the French bank Societe General, which lost more than $6 billion , also declined to identify any U.S. investment banks as the source of their problems.

"Are we angry against the U.S. banks?" a German bank official said, requesting anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity. "We looked at the triple A's like the other banks, and we bought this, yeah. It doesn't help much to be angry."

( Tish Wells contributed to this article.)

(This article is part of an occasional series on the problems in mortgage finance.)

COMING TOMORROW

Goldman Sachs was among the last Wall Street giants to enter the lucrative world of subprime mortgages. However, it didn't take long before the elite investment house was cutting deals with highflying firms, such as California's New Century Financial, whose lax standards would prove disastrous. Perhaps no lender was more emblematic of the subprime mortgage industry's spectacular rise and fall.

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