Nations try to oust Syria from UNESCO rights panel (AP)

PARIS ? Several countries are trying to push Syria off a UNESCO committee that deals with human rights, a panel it quietly joined despite its deadly crackdown on Arab Spring protesters.

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, and others said Wednesday that a growing group of countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany and Qatar, want to unseat Syria from the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations.

The committee deals with multiple issues but has a strong human rights component.

The NGO said the countries want the issue on the agenda of an Executive Board meeting, from Feb. 27 to March 10, of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

With more than 5,000 Syrians killed in protests, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has condemned Syria for human rights abuses.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_eu/unesco_syria

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Mark Shuttleworth Unveils New Head-Up Display for Ubuntu 12.04

Every time I write about Ubuntu and its (not-so) new Unity interface, I see lots and lots of comments decrying it as useless, an abomination, the worst thing to ever happen to computers, etc. Personally, I'm not so flummoxed by it, but there's no denying that Unity has been a divisive addition to Canonical's flagship Linux distribution. The choice to move application menus up to the global bar at the top of the screen has been frustrating to many, and a lot of power users find Unity too mouse-intensive. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's Self-Appointed Benevloent Dictator For Life, yesterday unveiled the next step in the Unity evolution: the Head-Up Display. According to Shuttleworth, their testing revealed that "users spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, navigating the menus of their applications, either to learn about the capabilities of the app, or to take a specific action." The goal of the new Head-Up display is to -- eventually -- replace menus altogether. Instead of clicking through menus, users type the command they require in a search box.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/zskt7K1JnQY/

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Clashes spread in Tibetan region in China (AP)

BEIJING ? Deadly clashes between ethnic Tibetans and Chinese security forces have spread to a second area in southwestern China, the government and an overseas activist group said Wednesday.

The group Free Tibet said two Tibetans were killed and several more were wounded Tuesday when security forces opened fire on a crowd of protesters in Seda county in politically sensitive Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province. It quoted local sources as saying the area was under a curfew.

According to the Chinese government's version of events, a "mob" of people charged a police station in Seda and injured 14 officers, forcing police to open fire on them.

The official Xinhua News Agency said police killed one rioter, injured another and arrested 13.

The violence comes as some 30 Tibetans who were wounded Monday when Chinese police fired into a crowd of protesters were sheltering in a monastery in neighboring Luhuo county, a Tibetan monk said. Military forces have surrounded the building, said the monk, who would not give his name out of fear of government retaliation.

The Draggo monastery could no longer be reached by phone Wednesday.

The counties have been tense for some time, and at least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest in the past year. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Many Tibetans resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule and the large-scale migration of China's ethnic Han majority to the Himalayan region. While China claims Tibet has been under its rule for centuries, many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for most of that time.

"Chinese forces are responding with lethal force to Tibetans' ever-growing calls for freedom," Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement Wednesday.

A man who answered the telephone at the Seda county government office would not confirm or deny the group's account of Tuesday's violence. He would not give his name.

Later Wednesday, phone lines for Seda police and government offices were constantly busy while calls to many other numbers in the county could not be connected.

Xinhua cited a police officer as saying the mob gathered Tuesday afternoon to storm the Chengguan Police Station and that they attacked police with gasoline bottles, knives and stones.

"They also opened fire at us, injuring 14 police officers," the report quoted the officer as saying.

Chinese authorities have similarly blamed Monday's unrest in Luhuo on a "mob" and said that overseas advocacy groups are twisting the truth about what happened in order to undermine the government. The government says order has been restored there after one Tibetan died and four others were injured. It said five police were wounded.

The International Campaign for Tibet says three were killed on Monday, including the brother of a religious leader in a local monastery.

Independent confirmation of the clashes is difficult due to a heavy security presence and lack of access to outsiders.

The United States, which will host Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping at the White House next month, has expressed grave concern at the reported violence.

U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Maria Otero urged Beijing to address "counterproductive policies" in Tibetan areas that have created tensions and threatened Tibetans' religious, cultural and linguistic identity.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington has always been clear with China about its concerns for the human rights of Tibetans and others. She said the U.S. would be "just as clear" when Xi visits next month.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

____

Gillian Wong can be reached on http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tibet

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New iOS Hack Lets You Natively Tweet By Talking To Siri

There's no shortage of novel things you can strongarm Siri into doing for you these days, but sometimes it's the little things that get me excited. While not as innately flashy as being able to start a car, a new (and currently nameless) tweak from developer InfectionFX does something that Siri should have been able to do from the beginning: tweet for you.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/sLv4EDWu8kc/

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Hollywood embraces hopeful tales with Oscar nominations (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? A group of movies offering personal redemption and hope swept up Oscar nominations on Tuesday, led by Martin Scorsese's colorful "Hugo" with 11 and silent-era romance "The Artist" with 10, including a best film nod for both.

They were joined in the key category for the world's top movie honors by baseball film "Moneyball" and Steven Spielberg's World War One drama "War Horse," about a boy looking for his horse amid deadly conflict, which each had six nominations.

Drama "The Descendants," starring George Clooney as a man dealing with a troubled family who eventually finds an answer to his problems, also landed in the best film category.

"It's a small movie and a simple movie. There's no cynicism or sarcasm. It's about hope and how people have to adapt to a changing world," "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius told Reuters about his film telling of a silent film-era actor whose Hollywood star falls until he finds love.

"Hugo" producer Graham King said that while much has been written about Scorsese creating an homage to the birth of movies, the film has many layers including the story of "a boy who is trying to find his family and find his way home."

"Descendants" producer Jim Burke added fuel to the hopeful fire by telling Reuters: "It's not uncommon for a family to have its ups and downs and it seems to me, despite the tragic nature of some occurrences, they engaged (the father) with his family and brought them closer."

Joining those films in the race for best movie was civil rights drama "The Help," Woody Allen's whimsical "Midnight in Paris," Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" and 9/11 movie "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close."

The number of bright films in the race follows a trend at box offices that helped push triumphant tale "The King's Speech" to last year's best film Oscar winner during hard economic times. And they contrast with recent best picture winners, crime thriller "The Departed," dark drama "No Country for Old Men," and war tale "The Hurt Locker."

The Oscars are given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and this year's winners will be named at a gala ceremony in Hollywood on February 26.

NINE NOMINEES; ONE WINNER

With so many nominees - nine - among best picture contenders, clues in the race come from the best director category because in the Oscar's 83 previous years there has been a strong correlation between the best director and best film winners.

Joining Hazanavicius in that category are "The Descendants" maker Alexander Payne, Scorsese with "Hugo," Allen for "Midnight in Paris" and Malick with "Tree of Life." Shut out was Tate Taylor, director of widely touted "The Help."

Although it had 11 nominations, the nods for "Hugo" came largely from categories such as art direction and costume design, whereas "The Artist" landed in top groups including best actor for Frenchman Jean Dujardin and supporting actress for Berenice Bejo. Actors make up the largest voting branch of the Academy.

Among actresses, Meryl Streep playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" will compete against Glenn Close in a gender-bending role in "Albert Nobbs," Viola Davis for "The Help," Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn."

Tuesday's nomination marked the 17th for Streep and extended her reign as Oscar's most-nominated actress. She faces stiff competition from Williams in her turn as Marilyn Monroe. Earlier this month, Streep won the Golden Globe for best actress in drama and Williams was named top actress in a comedy or musical.

CLOONEY VS. PITT

The title of best actor sets up an intriguing match between friends Clooney and Brad Pitt. Pitt turned in a magical performance as baseball executive who finds success using statistics to build a winning team in "Moneyball."

But the pair of Hollywood A-listers face-off against Dujardin, as well as Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and Demian Bichir in "A Better Life."

It was Oldman's first nomination, and speaking to Reuters from Berlin, he said he was "thrilled and shocked" at the nod.

In other key awards, Berenice Bejo will be joined in the best supporting actress race by Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer, both in "The Help," Janet McTeer for "Albert Nobbs" and Melissa McCarthy for comedy "Bridesmaids."

"We've been working so hard for six months, and to finally get a nomination was like, 'wow,' It was worth it," Bejo told Reuters about her and her movie's nominations.

Best supporting actor nominees were Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn," Jonah Hill for "Moneyball" and veterans Nick Nolte in "Warrior," Christopher Plummer for "Beginners" and Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close."

Foreign language film nominees were Belgian movie "Bullhead," Canada's "Monsieur Lazhar," Iranian film "A Separation," "Footnote" from Israel and Poland's "In Darkness."

"Rango" will compete for best animated movie against "Kung Fu Panda 2," "Puss in Boots," "A Cat in Paris," and "Chico & Rita."

Finally, Sony Pictures Entertainment had the most nods, 21, of any studio, but producer King with "Hugo," studio Fox Searchlight with "Descendants" and Harvey Weinstein and his Weinstein Co. ("The Artist," "Iron Lady" and "Marilyn"), may be the biggest winners because typically nominations lure fans to box offices and all of those movies are in theaters, now.

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

(This story corrects to Tuesday in the first paragraph.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/media_nm/us_oscars_nominations

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Education campaigner wants to expel climate denial

Read more: "US education advocates tackle climate change sceptics"

Eugenie Scott has struggled to keep creationism out of the classroom ? now her organisation is taking on climate change deniers too

You have battled for decades against the teaching of creationism in science lessons in the US. Why are you now also tackling climate change denial?
We have been receiving more and more reports of teachers being pressured against teaching climate change, much as they are pressured against teaching evolution. Right now the evidence is anecdotal but we have heard enough to suggest that it is a problem.

What form does this pressure against teaching climate change take?
We have heard that students will get up and walk out of the class when teachers start talking about climate change, or that parents will complain. Teachers don't want to fight with parents, and it is easy for them to think that it's just too much trouble to teach about climate change. That short-changes the education of the kids.

Have there been legislative attempts to influence teaching about climate change?
We have seen attempts to pass legislation directing teachers to teach both sides of the issue as if the science were in question. Five or six years ago we began to notice that evolution and the origin of life, global warming, and stem cells and human cloning were being bundled together in proposed state legislation calling for teachers to teach all sides of the controversy. The good news is that people in these states have managed to get these bills bottled up and not passed, except for one state: Louisiana.

How will you help teachers combat pressure over the teaching of climate science?
Often teachers and administrators don't appreciate the very strong scientific consensus that exists. We will give teachers ammunition to help make the case to administrators that this is sound science that should not be compromised. We can provide teachers with support from local scientists who can back them up. Good science education does not call for the teaching of denialist arguments.

You already do this for the teaching of evolution. Does climate science pose any new challenges?
In the US we have constitutional provisions requiring you not to advocate religion in public schools. So if people try to "balance" the teaching of evolution with creationism we can say: "If you do bring that in, you will be sued and you will lose." We cannot make this argument with climate change; there is no constitutional protection against bad science. It's going to be tougher.

Are there any links between creationists and climate change deniers?
The tactics are very similar but the personnel, by and large, are different. There are many more organisations opposing climate science, it's much better funded and has better access to the popular media. The motivation against evolution is religious. The motivation against climate change is economic and political.

Profile

Eugenie Scott is executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) based in Oakland, California, which defends the teaching of evolution in schools. This week the NCSE launched an initiative to defend climate change education

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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