2011年12月18日星期日

Gimme your Bagel using an Organically grown Schmear


Of many of the sayings which will one thinks of though noshing at a sizzling pastrami with rye, Moncler Spaccio "local, inches "organic" and additionally "artisanal" are in all probability not even including. Although an innovative variety of delicatessens is usually indicating that your most up to date part of Jewish-style deli dinner is in addition a earliest: old fashioned foodstuff, constructed in the past.

Instead for obtaining your stock offerings on large by meal processors, Goose Jakke those delis will be producing individuals on modest amounts. During Portland, Ore., Kenny Zuke's Delicatessen bakes organically grown rye loaf of bread, buds together with steams briskets right from burgers procured by in 100 mls to build pastrami, together with products undomesticated city trout intended for lox. Distance Ending Delicatessen during Brooklyn, which will open 2009, has made by hand Montreal bagelssmaller, sweeter together with denser ın comparison to the light behemoths which will typically masquerade seeing that bagels lately.

The plan is certainly taking at globally: Trend-conscious restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow made it simpler for receptive Kutsher's Tribeca for Manhattan on Late (this food list involves outrageous halibut gefilte striper) as well as San Francisco's Clever Daughter's, Moncler Jackets which includes a stand up along at the Ferry Plaza Maqui berry farmers Advertise, is going to receptive from a eating venue house with beginning 2012. London's Deli Western world A person, which unfortunately showed during later part of the August, would make unique sodium meats (that could be British isles intended for corned ground beef) along with grinds cut hardworking liver in-house. Distinct from alternative blotches, it's professional kosher.

These deli lovers happen to be driving sweeping transform to the old-fashioned meal world. Nonetheless usually do not advise them which usually. Says Ken Gordon with Kenny Zuke's: "What were going through is without a doubt what exactly delis 50 to help a century before i did so. inches

Knish wtih Been smokers Animal products Gravy located at Caplansky's Delicatessen

Caplansky's Delicatessen concerns self-made. Any dishes happen to be curable and even steamed in-house, Canada Goose Trillium This french language french-fried potatoes can be hand-cut in addition to knishes are fashioned having use your electronic cigarette pastry filled with house-smoked various meats. "We produce pizza utilizing 70% place place in addition to 30% been smokers animal meat, inches reported master Zane Caplansky. "It's possibly not what sort of cheese pizza might quality. inch Even so it is certainly fabulous. Signature Nosh: Typically the pickled language sub, fresser-sized (Yiddish for the purpose of "eater, inches which will usually means a giant meal). Its 12 oz with pickled, boiled not to mention chopped gound beef language about mild rye, delivered through mustard. 356 Secondary education E., caplanskys. com

2011年12月11日星期日

Stumbling blocks about Handed down IRAs

If you will wanted a good reminder with exactly how byzantine the laws really are which usually rul learned IRA mud the benefit regarding planning yourself meant for attaining this accountthe INTEREST RATES merely surpassed a person a particular.

In any unanticipated go, Canada Jakker this office a short while ago bought an adolescent who seem to learned the girl's dads type of pension credit account choice to be able to undo-options the lump-sum submitter from the woman mommy together with move money to a particular learned IRA.

The so-called private-letter judgment was first strange: All the Irs infrequently will allow for tax-deferred pensionable means this person comes with grew up honing together with removed in the form of group amount that will afterward be placed in a great learned person golden age profile.

To make it a point, Canada Goose Jacket a new private-letter lording it over employs just to that taxpayers so, who request the idea. It offers couple of particulars, just like titles as well as bill levels, plus does not collection your precedent.

Still, Moncler Outlet all the judgment will serve as being a reminder to help mothers and fathers who definitely have stashed much of their particular personal savings through pension accountsand your adults about kids just who inherit themthat they have to receive specific tips to ensure some of those young people take full advantage of the monetary gift.

If you will be a mom or dad of the infant so, who inherits this bill, Canada Goose Trillium Parka you must think of moving about your resources in the passed down IRA for that little one in lieu of simply just pulling out the income along with shelling out a significant great deal belonging to the gift of money on levy straight up, suggests Bill Schmidt, a strong estate-planning lawyer in Schmidt Federico around Boston ma.

Parentsespecially individuals who are solitary, divorced as well as remarriedmight really want to begin some "see-through" faith to safeguard any handed down IRA's resources in addition to take care of twelve-monthly distributions, suggests Bobbi Bierhals, a person from McDermott Will certainly Emery around Chicago, il. Along with youngsters, the application mostly is a good idea to hold back to generate those people distributions on offer at an old age group, and then to allow trustee have tried them to support afford that daughter or son's upbringing.

Even if you can not expect to have virtually anyone inside your family unit to make sure you tamper using your strategies, inheriting a strong IRA is noticeably more difficult as opposed to you could possibly imagine. Locations methods to take care of them gradually.

Think so that you can liquidate. Leo Casper, an avowed open public accountant throughout Moorestown, In. L., encounters regarding his householders' person of legal age young children to exhibit these the amount far more important a great passed down IRA may just be from departing the idea whole and additionally getting total withdrawals, rather then liquidating the idea plus compensating property taxes immediately.

If you actually inherit the $100, 000 IRA during grow older forty five, "it may easily develop straight into some, three, a few moments the exact amount which was grew up honing, inch he or she affirms. By comparison, deciding on the money may possibly make one by means of just a $60, 000 gift of money following income taxes.

Move, plus retitle, a accounts appropriately. Should you inherit a strong IRA because of everybody aside from any wife or husband, you won’t spin them finished inside your personal IRA. Preferably, it's important to retitle that IRA so it's transparent the master passed on and you simply might possibly be the named beneficiary. Mr. Casper indicates making use of this formatting: "Robert Jones, Dead (day involving passing), IRA F/B/O (with regard to benefit for) Bill Jones, Inheritor. "

If you will be transferring a profile to some unique IRA custodian, you should perform a one on one "trustee so that you can trustee" pass. In case the take a look at is created through to you personally, and you simply are generally any one besides typically the outlasting lover, your INTEREST RATES definitely will contemplate it an important "total distribution" susceptible to taxation, proficiently closing your IRA.

Meet a deadlines. In case the IRA proprietor drops dead just after 85, if needed withdrawals start off, along with couldn't but still go on a alienation for your month, the actual heir needs to do consequently by way of 12. thirty-one of your very same twelve months, Mr. Casper suggests. Individuals that forget all the deadline day are usually susceptible to some sort of 50% charges for the sum that ought to are generally removed.

The final target time for carrying the very first mandatory alienation through the grew up honing bill will be December. thirty-one of your time following a 365 days in the user's loss of life.

Do the ideal mathematics. Which has an passed down IRA, you've got the opportunity to disperse distributions upon your wellbeing expectancya major edge for those who have generations quit to have. Like this, the majority of the actual bill might rise on appeal even though fees usually are deferred.

But you may not know that how you have got to estimate the particular minimum amount IRA revulsion sum varies belonging to the means investors determine essential distributions the ones own personal debts, suggests The author Starkman, an avowed open public accountant throughout Smyrna.

First, lookup your health span available through IRS . GOV Being published 590 in world wide web. interest rates. gov. Per year, take away annually from a initially life span figure out the quantity of for you to pull away. Virtually all IRA custodians might figure out the idea regarding youbut people must ensure they're undertaking the correct mathematics to have passed down profile.

Take a look at the actual rule. When you will enjoy your own 1099 variety, that stories distributions you will get, make perfectly sure that it offers "Code several, inch Mr. Starkman saysthe computer code employed to demonstrate to that must be an important the distribution due to loss of life.

Prevent your individual clone from the assignee shape. Mr. Starkman almost have missed a due date for any to start with requested submitting right after inheriting his or her mom's IRA. The rationale: Them only took that IRA custodian greater month to obtain the records exhibiting he'd also been referred to as the particular named beneficiary.

Find out the actual Roth regulations. Certainly, there are actually absolutely no essential the bare minimum distributions for the purpose of keepers about Roth IRAs. And yet heirs to help you these sort of records are crucial each year to be able to distance themself a nominal amount volume given by INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE and / or spend a new 50% fees, Mr. Starkman suggests.

Still, there's what's promising: Absolutely no levy arrives for some of those recommended withdrawals.

.

2011年12月1日星期四

A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead

The moment she saw him,Canada goose Judy Cox knew her son was dead. It was an October morning in 2008, and she had just stepped out the door to run an errand when she found him lying faceup in the driveway, ghost white, covered in purple splotches. He wasn’t breathing, and when she couldn’t revive him, she ran screaming into the house where her husband, Wayne, was still asleep. “Chris is dead,” she cried. “Call 911!”
Wayne jumped out of bed and raced down to the driveway,Canada goose jakke where he knelt over his son’s limp frame and tried frantically to elicit a breath or a heartbeat. As he pumped Chris’s chest and scooped out the vomit that had collected in his mouth, Judy ran to the kitchen and steadied herself long enough to call for an ambulance.

Chris was 26. He had not been well. An A.T.V. accident the previous August left him with debilitating back pain that physical therapy did nothing to alleviate. His doctor had recently prescribed Oxycontin. His parents learned later that he had taken too much.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Chris’s heart had been still for at least 15 minutes. It took the paramedics another 15 to get it pumping again; even then,Canadian jakke doctors had little hope he would survive. Brain cells begin dying off just five minutes after blood stops delivering oxygen. After 30 minutes, there is likely to be more dead tissue than living.

Nonetheless, the emergency-room staff members at the local hospital did their best. They hooked Chris up to a tangle of tubes and machines and injected him with drugs to stabilize his heart rate. Wayne and Judy watched helplessly from the hallway. After four hours,Goose jakke a doctor finally summoned them to a secluded corridor.

Chris was in a coma, the doctor said, and in all likelihood had suffered severe, irreversible brain damage. He was breathing only with the help of a ventilator and would probably have a series of heart attacks in the night.

“First they asked us to let them pull the plug,” Judy recalled one recent afternoon, as we sat in the living room of the Coxes’ house in a Memphis suburb. “Then they tried getting us to sign a do-not-resuscitate order.” Without one, the doctor explained, hospital staff would be forced to revive Chris each time he started slipping away, which could mean cracking his ribs and shocking him with electricity. Even if they managed to keep his body alive, what was left of his brain would surely die in the days ahead.

Wayne and Judy refused to sign. “This is not some dog we’re talking about putting down,” Wayne shouted. “This is our son.” Chris still lived with his parents. He was a good kid, a joker, but bashful, especially around girls. He liked playing basketball and fishing in the pond near his house. He was planning to take over the family repo business when Wayne retired in a few years. Before the A.T.V. accident, he’d never given them much trouble at all. He deserved every chance the hospital could give him.

The heart attacks never came. Four days later, Chris woke up.

It was not the awakening of Hollywood movies in which the patient comes to, just as he was, speaking full sentences and completely mobile. Three years later, Chris still cannot talk. Although he breathes on his own, his lungs battle a steady barrage of infections; a feeding tube provides all his sustenance, and his muscles have contracted into short, twisted knots. He can move only the slightest bit — his fingers and eyelids twitch, but his arms and legs remain mostly immobile — and his neck is not quite strong enough to hold up his head, which leans against a crescent-shaped support around his wheelchair headrest.

Still, Wayne and Judy say that his cognition is improving. On good days, they say, he can respond to basic commands — blink his eyes for yes, wiggle his finger for no, give a thumbs up when asked. Doctors agree that Chris has progressed beyond a vegetative state, to a hazy realm known as minimal consciousness. What that means — what it says about his experience of the world around him or his prospects for further recovery — is something they are still trying to figure out.

2011年11月10日星期四

Two views of daily violence emerge in Syria

REPORTING FROM BEIRUT -- Syrian opposition groups on Thursday blamed security forces for at least 30 more deaths,Belstaff outlet including 15 in the besieged region of Homs — where the government reported that “life is normal” and children are enjoying the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.

Wildly contradictory accounts from the opposition and Syrian authorities are part of the daily routine in a conflict now entering its eighth month,Belstaff with no end in sight.

Both sides routinely cite death figures that cannot be independently verified because the government has restricted journalists and others from entering Syria.

The United Nations has blamed a "brutal" crackdown by the government of President Bashar Assad for the deaths of more than 3,500 people since protests erupted in March.Belstaff coat Opposition activists accuse security forces of indiscriminately firing at civilians.The government says "terrorists" have killed more than 1,000 security officers.

Among the victims Thursday was a baby in Homs who died of severe bleeding in his colon “after security refused to allow blood to be delivered to a hospital,” according to the Local Coordination Committees,Belstaff jacket an opposition group.

Five people were killed in Hama, north of Homs, and nine in the northwestern province of Idlib, the opposition said.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency also reported more deaths, though it blamed them on “terrorists.”

In Moallaqa village in Idlib province, the news agency reported, two brothers, ages 8 and 10, were killed “after explosives hidden by a terrorist armed group in an abandoned house” blew up.

“Even innocent children could not escape the heinous crimes of the terrorists,” the boys’ uncle, Mohammad Olwan, was quoted as saying by the news agency.

According to opposition groups, security forces have laid siege to their strongholds in Homs during the last 10 days, cutting basic services and leaving scores dead. The opposition has declared Homs a “humanitarian disaster area” and called for international help.

But the government news agency said in a news release Thursday that it had interviewed Homs’ bakery director, its water chief and the head of the “Cleanness Department.”  All came back with the same news: Everything is working well, “contrary to what some provocative channels broadcast.”

Pan-Arab satellite channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have reported extensively — the Syrian government says untruthfully — on the Syrian unrest.

By all accounts, Homs needed a lot of work. Municipal  officials were making repairs to communications infrastructure damaged in “acts of sabotage at the hands of terrorist groups,” the official news agency reported. And maintenance men were out removing “the debris and roadblocks set up by the armed groups in some streets.”

The opposition has described two Homs neighborhoods, Bab Amr and Bab al Siba, as having weathered days of siege and shelling by government forces.

But residents of the two districts interviewed by the official news agency “stressed that life is normal, shops are open, all basic needs are available and the children are enjoying their Eid holiday.”

2011年11月7日星期一

Bringing Up Baby in the Digital Age

Last year, the Internet security firm AVG reported that 92% of American children have an online footprint before the ripe old age of 2 years old. Their digital presence often begins with their first image — a sonogram — being posted online. Each subsequent shot, from birth to birthday party, is shared on social networks. In fact, 7% are born with a pre-established email address, and a further 5% have a social network profile. On the one hand, this means that you are no longer forced to politely page through proud parents’ photo albums. But what does such visibility from such a young age do to both the kids and their parents?Tods Handbag

In order to seek answers to this question, I decided to spend at least 48 hours in the homes of 10 different families. First on my list was Peter, a 10-year-old, who lived with his mother, father and younger sister in a small suburb on the outskirts of Charlotte, N.C. These young parents were so delighted with the prospect of their first child, that they had uploaded the image from Peter’s first sonogram on their own website.Belstaff Jacket

(MORE: Monkey See, Monkey Buy: Peer Pressure and Your Purchases)

As Peter was showing me around his bedroom, I noticed some small black lines drawn on the back of his bedroom door. They were kind of like the old tallying system — four small vertical lines, crossed by one horizontal. Peter was obviously keeping a record of something. I was curious but not quite prepared for his answer. He patiently explained that each line represented an occasion where he’d been allowed out of the house on his own over the past year. There were only seven lines, and it appeared that the most recent outing was already two months old.Belstaff Blouson

As I dug deeper, I realized that Peter’s parents were not afraid of him running away. Nor were they afraid of him falling outside and hurting himself. Rather, having lost all sense of privacy and sure that every move of Peter’s could be tracked, their primary fear was abduction. And as a result of their concern about the dangers of the outside world, they’d focused on making the world inside their home as entertaining as possible. Peter had free access to his computer and every kind of game — there was a Gameboy, a Wii, an NDS as well as a library full of DVDs. This was not a world exclusive to a boy and his toys; Peter was welcome to have friends over to play as often as he wished.Belstaff

(MORE: Do We Really Need to Protect Our Children From The Internet?)

Two days later I moved on, joining Michael and his family in Louisville, Ky. The story was somewhat similar but, in this case, the invasion of privacy — and the attendant dangers — had moved indoors. Michael had built a Lego castle in the corner of his bedroom, and he was happy to guide me through the design. As he pointed to the perimeter, he explained, “Here’s the first wall protecting me and my family.” He went on, talking me through the second wall, the third wall and finally the fourth. At the very center of this walled bastion was a small bedroom. “This is where I live,” he casually stated. Cameras, microphones and a few guards were positioned around the room. I was a somewhat taken aback when I noticed there was no inside handles on his door. In other words, he could only leave his room if someone opened the door from the outside. One of his direct contacts with the outside world could possibly be via the email address his parents had set up for him before he was born, or his Facebook account, which is extremely active.

Over the next month, as I visited home after home, I realized how dramatically different life had become since I was a 10-year-old. I grew up on the suburban streets of Denmark, mingling with all the other neighborhood children. It’s hard to imagine what courage it took for my parents to allow me, as an 8-year-old, to walk to school alone. What were they thinking when I turned 15 and they let me borrow their boat to go ocean sailing with my two best friends?

But in a strange twist to this tale, if my parents had been asked to share images of me that would give shape to something called my digital footprint — pictures of me in the womb or taking my first steps or smiling my first smile — I’m pretty sure they’d have rolled their eyes and thought, “Is this person mad?” Fast-forwarding to 2011, I am pretty certain that parents of today would be equally aghast if their neighbor’s child was allowed to walk to school or sail the seas alone. They would undoubtedly roll their eyes and possibly say to one another, “Are they mad?” But I’m not entirely sure which family would be right.

2011年10月26日星期三

Large dinosaurs migrated huge distances, say scientists

The largest dinosaurs to walk the Earth may have embarked on seasonal migrations that covered hundreds of kilometres when local watering holes dried up and food became scarce.

Evidence that giant sauropods set off on epic journeys came to light when scientists examined fossilised teeth recovered from the remains of beasts unearthed in Wyoming and Utah in the US.

The analysis of 32 teeth belonging to two species of Camarasaurus, among the most common sauropods found in North America, suggests the creatures migrated during hot, dry summers, from their usual habitats on flood plains in search of food and water in surrounding uplands.

Some return journeys required the dinosaurs to cover distances of around 300 kilometres (190 miles) in each direction. The long-necked herbivores measured 20 metres from nose to tail in adulthood and weighed around 18 tonnes.

The arduous treks pushed the lumbering animals to their limit, and some appear to have died soon after returning to their lowland homes, before the rainy season brought fresh water to parched soils and vegetation flourished once more.

Understanding the ranges and seasonal movements of the animals will help scientists piece together the role of migrations on Jurassic ecology and any bearing this had on the evolution of gigantism among dinosaurs.

"The question of how sauropods got to be so big is one that is still being actively studied. There's evidence that some of the reason is that they didn't have the dental morphology to chew their food, so in order to get enough energy their guts got bigger, and they did more processing in their stomachs," said Henry Fricke, head of geology at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, who led the study which is published in Nature.

"Migration could come into the story of gigantism as a feedback process. Once they started to get big, it would be easier for them to migrate and get more food more consistently, which would help them to grow even more," he added. Moving long distances gets more energetically efficient the bigger strides a creature can take, so it would be highly inefficient for a mouse, for example, but much more efficient for a large dinosaur.

Fricke's team attempted to reconstruct camarasaur migrations by measuring oxygen isotopes (variants of particular elements that have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus) in their teeth. The work relied on the fact that ratios of two oxygen isotopes differ markedly in the waters of streams and lakes, depending on local environmental conditions, such as how high and arid the landscape was at the time.

The dinosaurs kept an unwitting record of these oxygen isotopes as they roamed the land, because the oxygen in the water they drank became incorporated into successive layers of enamel as their teeth developed.

Most of the teeth, from remains collected at Thermopolis in Wyoming and Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, were worn and retained only a month or two of enamel growth, but others were in far better condition with up to four or five months of enamel still intact.

The scientists analysed oxygen isotopes in the dinosaurs' teeth and compared them with ancient soil samples from their lowland habitats and bordering uplands. From this, they pieced together the dinosaurs' movements over several months of their lives, concluding that the beasts made seasonal migrations to the uplands. Studies of one tooth suggest the dinosaur left its lowland habitat to find food and water in the highlands and returned home within five to six months.

"What was up in the highlands food-wise we don't know, the land is weathered away, but the conditions may not have been as hot and dry, and it may even have rained more continuously at the higher elevations," Fricke said.

"This is a neat example of how we can bring geochemical methods to bear on an issue, how we can learn something about dinosaur behaviour that we can't learn from looking at the morphology of the fossils themselves," he added.

2011年10月23日星期日

Tunisians flock to voting stations for first taste of democracy in 50 years

At 7am, at the front of a long queue outside a polling station near the Tunis casbah, Samira, 50, impatiently waited for the doors to open on Tunisia's first-ever free elections. A shop assistant, she had been camped there since 5.45am in order to be the first voter. She hadn't slept a wink. "How could I sleep? It's the first time I've ever voted in my life," she said, rubbing her eyes. "What's one night when we've waited decades for freedom? This ballot box is what we took to the streets for."

Nine months after a people's revolution ousted the despot Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired uprisings across the region, Tunisia held the first vote of the Arab spring. The country of 10 million is being watched by the Arab world as a kind of laboratory for the transition from dictatorship to democracy. If these elections succeed in ushering in a credible new political class after 50 years of a one-party state, it could boost the democratic hopes of neighbours such as post-Gaddafi Libya, and Egypt, where there is profound uncertainty despite elections in November that should end military rule.

One common complaint among Tunisians has been that they never felt able to celebrate their revolution. Ben Ali's departure was followed by weeks of curfews, uncertainty and pockets of violence stoked by remnants of the old regime. Then people again took to the streets and occupied the casbah in protest at what was to become a succession of weak, discredited and ineffective transition governments featuring faces from the old regime. Ben Ali has sought refuge in Saudi Arabia, but his state apparatus remains in place; torture and police brutality continues, the justice system is craven and compromised, corruption is rife, and unemployment – a main cause of the revolution – is rising.

"At last, there's an overwhelming sense of joy and relief today," said Mehdi Lassoued, a worker from a tyre company, wrapped in the Tunisian flag. "I feel we're finally moving on, that we can finish this revolution, vote for a legitimate government." A Tunis university professor, Ghofrane Ben Miled, said: "There's so much expectation and excitement on the street. I didn't sleep, I was wired. It felt like the nights during the revolution, but calmer. I'm 42 and I've never voted before."

Cars hung with flags beeped through the streets; hundreds queued in the sun, making hats for each other out of newspapers. Asked who the winner would be, most said: "We all are."

During 23 years under Ben Ali's notorious secret police, elections were a farce and few turned out to vote. Those who did were often, in fact, dead. Ben Ali would win by unlikely scores, such as the 99.91% he announced in 1994.

The people's uprising that began in December with the self-immolation of a poor vegetable seller in the desolate rural town of Sidi Bizoud was not led by any party, ideology or religion. So the election is the first test of a new political landscape. There are now more than 110 parties, and scores of independents. Tunisians will appoint a 217-seat assembly with the role of rewriting the constitution in preparation for parliamentary elections in at least one year's time.

A complex proportional representation system means that no one political party will dominate the assembly. But the Islamist party, An-Nahda, outlawed and brutally repressed under the regime, is expected to win an important share of the vote. The party has campaigned as a moderate, pro-democracy force, vowing to respect the diversity of Tunisia, one of the most educated countries in the region, with a strong secular tradition and the most advanced women's rights in the Arab world. The party likens itself to Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) – liberal and conservative. Secular critics say An-Nadha is an unknown quantity and fear that once elected, hardliners could seek to enforce a more fundamentalist Islam on Tunisia's civil society.

When An-Nahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, who recently returned from 22 years exile in London, arrived at his polling station to vote, followed by camera crews, he walked straight to the entrance. But he was jeered by crowds, who said: "The queue, the queue! Democracy starts there!" He swiftly took his place at the back, adding: "The people have a hunger for democracy."

The assembly will see An-Nahda sit with an array of secular, centrist parties, such as the centre-left Ettakatol which was in opposition under Ben Ali. Its founder, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, 70, a doctor and professor of medicine, was barred from running for president in 2009 but is tipped to seek a senior position in the new government. He faces opposition from the well-known lawyer Ahmed Néjib Chebbi, 67, of the rival PDP. A new party, the Congress for the Republic, led by the long-exiled human rights activist Moncef Marzouki, was also expected to gain seats.

Authorities predicted a high turnout, with early estimates of over 60%, and as high as 80% in some precincts. The count was due to begin at 7pm but full results would not be released until Monday. The coalition assembly will then face wrangling over who to appoint to top jobs or whether to focus on the vast task of producing a new democratic constitution, the foundations for a new state, while a government of technocrats keeps the country ticking over.

With unemployment officially at 19% but thought to be much higher and topping 40% for graduate women, the government will be under pressure to kickstart the economy and deal with the huge divide between Tunisia's tourist coast and the poor interior, where the self-immolation and uprising began.

In Ettadhamen, a poor, densely populated suburb of Tunis which rose up in the revolution and saw young men killed by Ben Ali's forces, hundreds of people were queueing to vote outside schools. "I've never seen anything like this," said Lameen Muhammed, a teacher. "Nine months ago you couldn't even talk about politics in the street for fear of the secret police. The stress was unbearable. Now, everyone's out debating and voting. It has been difficult, but we're leaning towards democracy. With this vote, the people will have spoken."

A 52-year-old builder voting for the first time said he would choose An-Nahda. "They have a history of struggle against the regime, they were treated brutally, their families suffered. I want them to improve security. There are a lot of problems here, alcohol is sold openly, and there are drugs sold on the street."

A stay-at-home mother, 44, in long robe and headscarf said she had voted for the centrist secular party Ettakatol because she liked what they said on TV.

Meanwhile, a student had chosen the CPR, "They're a new party, I trust them. I'm nearly 20 – I'm desperate to think I can hope for some kind of job."

Amid the optimism, there was a sense of vigilance. Many said that the people had staged the revolution and they would take to the streets again if they felt they were being cheated or let down. Najila Ahrissi, one of the many cleaning ladies who leave Ettadhamen each day to work in the homes of the rich for around £150 a month, had voted for a small secular party. She said: "In the old days, every election here was fixed. Let's just hope we can trust the politicians of tomorrow."

2011年10月18日星期二

Jennifer Metcalfe glitters in gold as she shows off her curves on the catwalk to open Liverpool Fashion Week

She's most well known for playing Mercedes Fisher in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.
But Jennifer Metcalfe could soon be going for a change of careers, judging by photographs of the brunette actress taking to the catwalk in Liverpool last night.
The 28-year-old actress looked confident and assured as she strutted her stuff down the runway in a plunging gold dress which highlighted her curves to open Liverpool Fashion Week.
Jennifer teamed the backless dress with a pair of long earrings, and tied her hair up into a high ponytail to show off her gown to its full potential.
The Hollyoaks star was watched from the front row by her proud boyfriend, Dancing On Ice professional Sylvain Longchambon, who debuted his new bearded look at the event.
Speaking recently about the prospect of opening Liverpool Fashion Week at the Hard Day’s Night Hotel in the city, Jennifer said: 'I’m looking forward to the whole night.

'I love fashion and to be able to get the opportunity to open Liverpool Fashion Week is an honour.'
Jennifer is just one of the stars who will be making an appearance at the week-long event, which takes place until October 22.
It will feature a staggering 40 catwalk shows, with clothes from brands including Frockstar, Fashion Pony, Paris G and Pastiche featured on the runway.

Liverpool Fashion Week director Amanda Moss said: 'We’re delighted to be working with names ranging from Karen Millen, Next, Evans and local giant Matalan to new local designers such as Paris G.
'Brilliant young designers in Liverpool understandably focus their resources on creating outstanding collections.
'We will use our styling and image making expertise to help promote and build their businesses and get their great work out there so style hungry men and women of the region can wear and support new talent.

2011年10月16日星期日

Pauline Quirke: The three warning signs I was eating myself to death

Emmerdale’S Pauline Quirke had turned a blind eye to her ever- expanding bulk for years – then one day she got on the scales.
And the horror of discovering she was almost 20 stone wasn’t the only thing to finally shock her into fighting the flab.

A series of health warnings made mum-of-two Pauline – who insists that being overweight never made her unhappy, unable to find love or unemployable – accept that she had to change.

Pauline, 52, who has lost an incredible eight stone since January, says: “I don’t know how many wake-up calls you need. I had my fair share, I suppose. But there were three pretty major ones in the space of a year that gave me the kick I obviously needed.”

The first big shock for Pauline, who became a household name in hit BBC1 sitcom Birds of a Feather, was when doctors told her she needed a hip replacement. At the age of 49.

“That was the lowest point,” she admits.

“Needing an operation like that before you’re 50 just isn’t right, and it was really upsetting for me.

DAMAGES

“I saw the X-ray and my right hip was more or less worn away. It’s a no-brainer. It’s a weight bearing joint so, even though I have osteoarthritis which damages your joints anyway, I had to accept a big part of the problem was my size.”

So when she landed the part as the Dales’ art teacher Hazel Rhodes last summer, she decided to use being away from home to try to slim.

Pauline, who lives in Buckinghamshire with husband Steve, and her children Emily, 26, and 17-year-old Charlie, thought that being in Leeds five days a week would help.

But despite her good intentions, somehow she just got even bigger.
She says: “I went up to Yorkshire with the idea I’d use this time away from the family to get healthy.

“I wasn’t cooking for them, I was just looking after myself, so I thought it would be fine.

“But within a couple of weeks I was having bacon and sausage baps in the canteen. And I also happened to live above the best Indian in the country, in my place in Leeds, which didn’t help. So rather than getting better, I was just getting worse. I had no motivation.”

Then a family holiday brought Pauline fresh humiliation and her second big weight warning of the year.

“I wish I could make a funny story out of this one, but it was just horrible,” she begins with a sigh. “Me, Steve and the kids were flying out to Majorca.

“As I walked up the stairs to the plane I just got the fear. I thought of something I knew was going to go wrong and cursed myself for not thinking of it six months before, and doing something about it.

“Of course, I was right. I pulled and pulled at the seatbelt waiting to hear the click and it just wasn’t coming, so I had to ask the attendant for an extension.

“I felt like c**p, to have to do that in front of my husband and kids.”
But there was one more shock before Pauline finally embarked on her intensive Lighter Life Total diet regime. Just before Christmas, she slipped on ice and broke her arm.

“By this time of the year I wasn’t even thinking about my weight any more – and I certainly wasn’t trying to lose any,” she admits.

“But when I fell and broke my arm, it felt like another sign. It wasn’t connected directly to my weight but, let’s face it, if there’s nearly 20st falling on top of a bone you’ve more chance of breaking it than if you’re 12st.

“It was all this stuff combined and I knew it was getting worse.

“I wasn’t getting any smaller. I wasn’t even staying the same. In all honesty, I was getting bigger and bigger.”

Curious to discover just how big she was, Pauline got on the scales for the first time in years.

She says: “I was genuinely horrified to see I weighed 19st 6lb. I had no idea at all I’d gone that big.

“You don’t really notice when you’re fat – especially if you don’t check. And I didn’t check for years. You just go from one pair of black elasticated pants to the next. They don’t look great anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they’re one size up.

“I honestly can’t remember the last time I weighed myself before then. It must have been a long time ago because in my mind I was around the 17st mark.

“I’m not stupid. Of course I knew I was getting bigger – you know by the clothes you’re wearing. You just don’t really acknowledge it, you just buy the next size up. By the time I broke my arm I was in size 26 or 28 clothes. That was when I decided to do something drastic.

“It’s called ‘morbidly’ obese for a reason – because it’s associated with a bigger risk of dying.”

Since January 3, when Pauline started on the Lighter Life Total plan she has shed an amazing 8st and reached her target weight of 11st 7lb. She is now getting ready to reintroduce food into her diet.

“It wasn’t easy,” she says. “But as tough as it was at the beginning there was always something to keep me going.

“After six weeks I was in the Woolpack with the lovely Zoe Henry, who plays Rhona, and we were having a little chat in between takes. She said, ‘Pauline, you look really well, have you lost weight?’

“I hadn’t told anyone at work, I wanted to get a couple of weeks under my belt before people started asking me about it. So I acted sort of surprised and said, ‘Really, do I?’ Then of course I admitted it. I might have lost a stone and a half by then.

“That might not make a massive difference when you’re 19st 6lb, but it felt brilliant that somebody had noticed. Zoe was the first person and there’s always something like that to keep you going.

“Before I knew it, the weeks had turned into months and now I’m at my target. I’ve lost the 8st I wanted to lose, I feel brilliant and I’m not fussed on going any further.”

The extreme weight-loss programme includes no conventional food until you reach your goal weight. Followers live on four pre-prepared food packs a day, adding up to 600 calories. They can drink water, black coffee and leaf tea with sweeteners, but that’s it. So it’s no surprise Pauline’s body transformed so rapidly.

As happy as she is to have the size 12 figure she last had as a teenager, Pauline insists she never once felt depressed or insecure about being a larger lady.

COMFORTABLE

“I don’t do self-doubt,” she says. “I never did. I never once felt down on myself when I was bigger. Why should I? It’s not like I wasn’t getting work. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a man who loved me.

“I’m very comfortable in my own skin, always have been.”

Does she regret not tackling her weight when she was younger?

“I don’t regret a thing,” she says. “It might have taken me 52 years, but I’ve done it. I’m not going to regret the fact I didn’t do it years ago. It doesn’t matter.

“Why focus on the negative? It was hard enough without beating myself up about wasting some years. I wasn’t ready then. But I wasn’t a pig either.

“People might assume that to get as fat as I did I sat there eating fried bread and doughnuts every day. But I didn’t. I was not a pig. What I did was have a little bit too much of everything all the time, over a 30-year period. And then when I was ready to stop, I did.

“Some people lose weight because they hate the way they look, other people do it to get into nice clothes.

“That wasn’t the motivation for me, I didn’t care about that stuff.

“For me, it was my health, and that’s why I was able to finally do it. I had to.”

2011年10月13日星期四

Barroso's eurozone crisis plan could stop bank dividends

Europe's biggest banks would be barred from paying out dividends and bonuses if they are forced to raise their capital reserves to withstand future shocks, under plans put forward by the European commission to resolve the debt crisis.

At the same time, banks are being softened up by Brussels to accept "haircuts", or losses, of 30%-50% on their holdings of Greek debt rather than the current 21%.

Senior commission officials are also examining ways to boost the size of the main bailout fund, the European financial stability facility (EFSF), closer to the €2 trillion (£1.75tn) demanded by the US and UK without being forced to get this increase ratified by all 17 eurozone countries again.

These are the three key elements of a "roadmap to stability and growth" put forward to MEPs on Wednesday by José Manuel Barroso, the commission's president, in the run-up to the emergency EU and eurozone summits on 23 October.

Barroso's aides likened the plan to a "grand bargain" even though it lacks a lot of fine detail, following a series of top-level conflicts both among EU officials and between Brussels, Berlin and Paris.

But his supporters insist Barroso has pre-empted German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who announced a "comprehensive plan" on Sunday and have since given no details. "They have not put a single word on paper because they don't agree," one said.

The EU has given itself little more than 10 days to come up with a viable, convincing scheme as the political crisis around Silvio Berlusconi deepens in Italy and the International Monetary Fund warns Cyprus it must take urgent action to shore up its economy.

Seeking to inject a sense of urgency "over the threat of systemic crisis now unfolding", Barroso is telling Germany that it has to accept that the EFSF needs to be leveraged up from its current €440bn and France that it will have to recapitalise its banks.

In Paris, budget minister Valérie Pécresse said France would use its own money, not that of the EFSF, if required.

The commission's plan for recapitalisation envisages some of Europe's 60- 70 biggest ("potentially systemic") banks being set a core ("tier one") capital ratio close to 9% after the European Banking Authority (EBA) completes its reassessment of stress tests carried out in July.

This equates to the "hard" capital ratio of 7% required by 2019 under the Basel III banking accord, but no final figure is being put on the ratio because this is being left to the EBA for political reasons.

The new tests, sources said, are examining the banks' exposure to the sovereign debt of some 30 countries, including the way this has deepened in the last three months.

Barroso said that banks without the required capital ratio would be prevented from paying out dividends and bonuses by national supervisors and would have to swiftly seek fresh capital.

The commission insists that banks should first act on their own account – by selling assets, turning to shareholders, changing debt into equity – before going to governments. Recourse to the EFSF would be a very last resort.

UK and Swiss banks, according to research by HSBC, would meet a 10% ratio requirement.

Barroso indicated that his plan would see the EFSF's permanent successor, the European stability mechanism, installed a year early, in mid-2012. This would come with conditions imposing haircut clauses on all eurozone bonds issued after that date, officials said.

Bondholders who agreed to take a voluntary 21% haircut on Greek debt in July's second bailout are now being warned they face losses closer to 50% under what Barroso called the second adjustment programme. Sources confirmed that a range of 30%-50% is being discussed, while Wolfgang Schaüble, Germany's finance minister, warned private creditors they would be asked to share the pain if Greece's "unsustainable" debt were cut.

George Papandreou, the Greek premier, said his country was "negotiating in every way to lighten this debt".

The Barroso plan sent stocks and the euro rising, with the FTSE finishing 46 points higher and the Dow Jones briefly moving back into positive territory for the year, but analysts' reactions were mixed.

"While greater capital strength will build confidence in the industry, the key question is the scale of investor appetite for providing capital to an industry where returns on equity appear to be heading south as a result of Basel III and other regulatory change," said Richard Barfield, a director at PwC.

Sony Kapoor, managing director at economic think tank Re-Define, welcomed the moratorium on bonuses and dividends and said: "Finally, the European Commission seems to have grasped all the aspects that a successful strategy to address the crisis would entail". But he also warned: "It may have left it too late."