GADDAFI'S SON BLAMES BROTHER 'S SPEECH FOR TALKS COLLAPSE.

Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi has blamed his high-profile brother for the collapse of talks with Libya's new rulers, CNN television reported late on Sunday.

Saadi Gaddafi told CNN in a telephone interview that an "aggressive" speech broadcast by his brother, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a few days ago had led to the breakdown in negotiations, paving the way for an attack.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED : STRAUSS-KAHN

FORMER International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned home to France yesterday for the first time since a New York hotel maid accused him of attempted rape, unleashing an international scandal that dashed his chances for the French presidency.

Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife, Anne Sinclair, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and passed rapidly through the terminal before being whisked away in a waiting car. They were smiling but made no statement to journalists.

Mission accomplished. He has been removed from the IMF and will not seek presidency of France .

U S TO SUE BANKS OVER MORTGAGES

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits will argue that banks failed to perform due diligence and missed evidence that borrowers’ incomes were inflated or falsified.

Bank of America Corporation

Citigroup Inc

Goldman Sachs Group Inc

JPMorgan Chase & Company

Deutsche Bank AG

American International Group Inc

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (Freddie Mac)

UBS AG

Federal National Mortgage Association Fannie Mae

The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.

The suits stem from subpoenas the finance agency issued to banks a year ago. If the case is not filed Friday, they said, it will come Tuesday, shortly before a deadline expires for the housing agency to file claims.

FDA ALERT ON AVASTIN

The latest cases of blindness follow an alert from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday that repackaged injections of the Avastin, also known as bevacizumab, had caused eye serious eye infections in 12 Miami-area patients.

Avastin is a cancer drug, but is commonly used to treat the wet form of age-related macular degeneration and other eye diseases because it costs only about $50 an injection, compared with some $2,000 for Roche's Lucentis, which is approved for treatment of eye diseases.

The company has argued for years the process of dividing up doses creates the risk of contamination.

The tainted Florida injections were traced to a single pharmacy located in Hollywood, Florida. The pharmacy repackaged the Avastin from sterile injectable 100 mg/4 ml, single-use, preservative-free vials into individual 1 ml single-use syringes.

The pharmacy then distributed the Avastin to multiple eye clinics.

In the Los Angeles cases, no contaminant has yet been identified, the Times reported.

In its alert on Tuesday, the FDA did not tell doctors to avoid using Avastin, only to be careful about contamination.

"Health care professionals should ensure that drug products are obtained from appropriate, reliable sources and properly administered," it said.

THE WHITE HOUSE IS PLAYING GAMES

Why are they scheduling a speech before congress at the same time as a GOP debate has been scheduled

WHY IS POLITICO SO NASTY ?

Politico has gone to a new low by calling Governor Rick Perry dumb. This country does not need this negativity right now.

AMAZON REFUSES TO PAY TAXES IN CALIFORNIA

Amazon refuses to pay its share, issues threats
From its base in Seattle, Amazon is threatening the livelihoods of 10,000 California affiliates if legislators proceed with efforts to force Amazon to collect sales taxes from its customers, something it should have been doing for years.

Amazon affiliates place Amazon ads on their websites in exchange for payments when visitors click on the ads. With its threat, Amazon proposes to further damage California by removing a revenue source from this state's businesses.

Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president for global public policy, issued the warning in a letter last week to the California Board of Equalization. The world's largest online retailer has made similar threats in other states that have challenged its refusal to collect sales taxes.

Amazon's business model is based on evading sales taxes in states that charge them, California included. By refusing to collect sales taxes from its customers, Amazon undercuts California retailers, particularly booksellers, who abide by the law and collect sales taxes.

Responsible lawmakers have grown impatient with Amazon's obstinacy, especially now as they face the ugly prospect of erasing a $26.6 billion deficit by slashing funding for services to infirm elderly people, California's public colleges, state parks and much more.

Uncollected sales taxes from online sales in California could exceed $300 million a year.

As Amazon's hometown paper, the Seattle Times, opined last week: "Amazon is a giant. It has helped drive hundreds, and maybe thousands, of bookstores out of business. The Internet retail industry already has a cost-of-real-estate advantage over free-standing stores. It should not have a tax advantage as well. …

"We have said it before and will say it again: Amazon will have to pay. Someone will twist this company's arm. Maybe it will be California, maybe it will be Texas, maybe it will be all the states and maybe it will be the federal government. It will happen, and Amazon will survive it."

Other retail companies such as Sears that have an online presence and meet their obligation to collect sales taxes have been quick to try to lure Amazon's affiliates. Good for them.

Amazon has been a stunning success. It has offered consumers convenience and low prices. Its profits have soared in no small part because of the lucrative California market.

But it is squandering its goodwill. Californians who pay college tuition, have a kid in public schools, use a park, appreciate having cops on the beat, or have a family member with a disability ought to think twice about patronizing a company that is steadfast in its refusal to meet this basic obligation.

YOUTH IN NURSING HOMES

MISSING EX-FBI AGENT MAY BE PRISONER IN SW ASIA

If true, steps should be made to secure his release.

DR. KEITH BLACK : FAMOUS BRAIN SURGEON

People from all over the world has sought him because of excessive cell phone use . Thought to cause tumors or brain cancer

1,643 CHINESE NATIONALS EVACUATED FROM LIBYA

GRAND HARBOUR, Malta, Feb 27, 2011
The second cruiseship chartered by the Chinese Embassy in Malta to evacuate Chinese nationals from Libya docked at Malta's Grand Harbour in Valletta, early morning on Monday.

A diplomatic source from the Chinese embassy in Malta told Xinhua that the ship carried 1,643 Chinese nationals from the Libyan port city Misurata.

The Chinese ambassador to Malta, Zhang Keyuan, visited some of the evacuees.

The first cruise ship the Chinese embassy in Malta chartered for the evacuation operation arrived in Malta on Saturday with 2,235 Chinese nationals, who are mainly employees of two Chinese construction companies in Libya.

The third ship the embassy chartered is scheduled to reach Malta on Monday afternoon, with nearly 1,000 evacuated Chinese nationals.

A group of 48 Chinese students also arrived in Malta from Tripoli on Monday, with the help of the Chinese embassy in the Libyan capital city.

They said the situation in Tripoli was relatively calm in the week before they were ordered to evacuate on Saturday.

A total of 22 employees of Chinese IT company Huawei were also taken from Libya to Malta on a ship, with assistance offered by an organization which calls itself International SOS.

RICE NOODLES IN FOOD SCARE IN CHINA

Rice noodles made with rotten grain and potentially carcinogenic additives are being sold in south China in the country's latest food safety scare, state media has reported.

Up to 50 factories in south China's Dongguan city near Hong Kong are producing about 500,000 kilograms of tainted rice noodles a day using stale and mouldy grain, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The cost-conscious producers were bleaching the rotting rice and using additives including sulphur dioxide and other substances that could cause cancer to stretch half a kilogram of grain into 1.3 kilograms of noodles, it said.

In Dongguan, a random inspection of 35 rice noodle factories in early December revealed that only five of them were making products that were up to standard, the report said

WILL CHINA REPLACE THE UNITED STATES ?

China does not want to "replace" the United States from its dominant role in the world, and the world should not fear China's rise, the country's top diplomat wrote in an essay.

State Councilor Dai Bingguo said that China would not engage in an arms race, as the country's resources were better spent on development and ensuring its people had enough to eat.

"The notion that China wants to replace the United States and dominate the world is a myth," Dai wrote in the essay carried on the Foreign Ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Monday.

"Politically, we ... respect the social systems and development path of the different peoples of the world," he added.

"Economically, we wholeheartedly want to continue to develop," Dai wrote. "Militarily, we are not engaged in an arms race."

China's growing military clout and rising defense spending have raised concern in Asia, especially in Japan and Taiwan, as well as in Washington. China says its military expenditure is purely for defensive purposes.

Dai said the world had no reason to fear China.

"The international community should welcome and not fear China's peaceful development, help it and not hinder it, support it and not hold it back," he wrote.

But the world also needed to "understand and respect China's reasonable interests and concerns."

Such issues included China's territorial integrity and foreign arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its own, Dai said.

China will also be "actively involved" in global issues relating to the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Sudan's Darfur, and "a responsible participant in the international system," Dai said.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have pressed China to bring its old ally North Korea to heel following renewed tension on the Korean peninsula, though Beijing has refrained from doing so, calling instead for multilateral talks.

SAVE $1000 THIS YEAR

3 Steps That Will Save You $1000 This Year

Do you have a secret money stash? You need and deserve one — so start now.



I'm pretty sure you have $3 in your wallet — or a jeans pocket, or your glove compartment, or balled up between the couch cushions. Here's what I want you to do with it: Get rid of will-I-wind-up-a-bag-lady anxiety forever. Many women I speak to say they're terrified of not having enough money put aside to take care of themselves when they're old. And they have reason to be worried: Twice as many women as men are poor in old age, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and females have 40 percent less saved in retirement accounts than male officemates. Plus, women in the United States live an average of five years longer than men. You're nowhere near old age, but it's time to save some money for you and you alone. With my plan, you won't even miss it.

STEP 1 : Starting January 1, put aside $3 a day (weekends too!) for the entire year. You can slip three bucks into an envelope every night, schedule a weekly automatic transfer of $21 to a savings account, or move one big chunk all at once. But don't stop there — save $5 a day or more if you can, and definitely continue contributing to a 401(k) plan at work if you have one.

STEP 2 : Fast-forward a year. What do you do with the $1,095 you've saved? Invest in the stock market through mutual funds by opening a Roth individual retirement account, or IRA, that allows your money to grow tax-free. I prefer Vanguard's STAR Fund or Schwab's Total Stock Market Index Fund: You can start with $1,000, and both charge low fees. The market will fluctuate, but many experts agree that these funds could give you a higher return rate than a bank savings account over a 20-year period.

STEP 3 : Don't touch! If you're 35 and follow this plan until you hit 70, you'll have $129,342, if you earned an average six-percent annual return. It's not a fortune, but it'll give you a priceless sense of security about your future.

ARE AMERICANS LIVING ON A RESERVATION ??

Does this American Indian have a point ?

LIBERAL SMEAR MACHINE BACKFIRES

Everyone is trying to guess who this mass murderer is. They are blaming it on the Conservative Tea Partiers.

4700 EGG FARMS SHUT DOWN IN GERMANY

.BERLIN: Regional authorities in Germany have ordered the closure of 4709 farms because of a dioxin scare, the Agriculture Ministry says.

The BBC reported that officials said the dioxin levels did not pose a risk to humans and the closures were only a precaution.

However, dioxin, a byproduct of burning rubbish and industrial activities, can cause miscarriages, cancer and other health problems in humans.

Most of the farms involved were pig properties in Lower Saxony, in the country's north-west, the ministry said.

Until the farms had been checked and found clear of contamination, they would not be allowed to make any deliveries.

It was in Lower Saxony that 2500 out of the 3000 tonnes of contaminated fatty acids at the centre of the alert were delivered in November and December, where they were used as animal fodder.

The firm Harles und Jentzsch, in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, is alleged to have supplied up to 3000 tonnes of contaminated fatty acids, meant only for industrial use, to about 25 animal feed makers.

DEA TO HIRE EBONICS TRANSLATORS

DEA wants to hire Ebonics translators

NEW: Linguistic Society says Ebonics a valid dialect
Ebonics is "a language form we have a need for," DEA says
Ebonics became controversial with a 1996 school board proposal
The DEA is seeking translators in 114 languages
Wanted by the Drug Enforcement Administration: Ebonics translators.

It might sound like a punch line, as "Ebonics" -- the common name for what linguists call African-American English -- has long been the butt of jokes, as well as the subject of controversy.

But the agency is serious about needing nine people to translate conversations picked up on wiretaps during investigations, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Tuesday. A solicitation was sent to contractors as part of a request to companies to provide hundreds of translators in 114 languages.

"DEA's position is, it's a language form we have a need for," Sanders said. "I think it's a language form that DEA recognizes a need to have someone versed in to conduct investigations."

The translators, being hired in the agency's Southeast Region -- which includes Atlanta, Georgia; Washington; New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and the Caribbean -- would listen to wiretaps, translate what was said and be able to testify in court if necessary, he said.

"The concept is right and good," said Walt Wolfram, distinguished professor of English linguistics at North Carolina State University. "Why wouldn't you want experts who can help you understand what people are communicating?"

"On one level, it's no different than someone from the Outer Banks of North Carolina who speaks a distinct brogue," he said. "The problem is that even the term 'Ebonics' is so controversial and politicized that it becomes sort of a free-for-all."

And Ebonics is no longer spoken only by African-Americans, Sanders said, referring to it as "urban language" or "street language." He said he is aware of investigations in recent years in which it was spoken by African-Americans, Latinos and white people. "It crosses over geographic, racial and ethnic backgrounds," he said.

"[African-American English] is linguistic defiance being reinforced by hip-hop," said professor John Baugh, who leads the public relations committee of the Linguistic Society of America.

The DEA's recruiting "has it half right," Baugh said.

Although having translation help is a good law enforcement tool, Baugh said, the term "Ebonics" may be counterproductive because "the social positions of speakers have been the object of ridicule."

The Washington University professor also is concerned about racial profiling resulting from assumptions made from a speaker's dialect.

While the DEA wants to have the translators available, it may not need to call upon them, Sanders said. He did not know how much it would cost to have the translators available.

"I can't say it's spoken all the time, like Spanish and Vietnamese," Sanders said. "But there are people trying to use this to evade detection" while trafficking in drugs, he said.

Asked whether agency currently has agents who can translate Ebonics, Sanders said some who have worked on local police forces can help pick out words on wiretaps.

The term "Ebonics" -- a blend of "ebony" and "phonics" -- became known in 1996, when the Oakland, California, Unified School District proposed using it in teaching English. After the school board came under fire, it voted to alter the plan, which recognized Ebonics as a distinct language.

The revised plan removed reference to Ebonics as "genetically based" and as the "primary language" of students. The board also removed a part that some understood to indicate that African-American students would be taught in Ebonics, although the board denied such intentions.

"There is something of substance here," said Wolfram, who said he has studied African-American English for 40 years. "There are differences in terms of language and lexicon and so forth that are difficult to understand for most people. So it is an issue. What, of course, happens is, it gets politicized and trivialized by the very term 'Ebonics.'"

The Linguistic Society of America calls Ebonics a form of communication that deserves recognition and study.

"Characterizations of Ebonics as 'slang,' 'mutant,' 'lazy,' 'defective,' 'ungrammatical' or 'broken English' are incorrect and demeaning," a 1997 resolution said.

For Baugh, all languages or dialects are "fundamentally equal." Ebonics is a dialect spoken by slave descendants who live in many countries and don't speak just English, he said. Its early speakers were enslaved, isolated from other speakers of their language and denied access to formal education, Baugh said.

Wolfram -- who has authored more than 20 books on English dialects, including African-American English -- recalled the Black Panther trials during the 1970s, when there was debate over whether the saying, "Off the pigs," was a genuine threat to kill police officers or a more metaphorical saying.

Wolfram acknowledged Ebonics often presented as "nothing but bad language." But, he said, "However you view it ... why wouldn't you want to avail yourself of all the interpretive capability that you can get?"

African-American English is "a systematic language variety, with patterns of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and usage that extend far beyond slang," according to the website of the Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that says it aims to improve communication through better understanding of language and culture.

"Because it has a set of rules that is distinct from those of standard American English, characterizations of the variety as bad English are incorrect," the center said. "Speakers of AAE do not fail to speak standard American English, but succeed in speaking African American English."

U.S. English, a political advocacy group, supports the DEA's recruitment, said Tim Schultz, director of government relations.

"Having somebody to explain slang terms ... spoken by a particular community is an advantage if it allows them to understand a conversation," he said.

U.S. English's primary focus is making English the official language of the United States and backing laws that ensure immigrants learn English.

Language barriers that contribute to conflicts between nations can be a "serious issue," Wolfram noted. "It's the same point here."

He said the translators could help in investigations, as "the differences between dialect and code words can get pretty blurry at times."

Sanders said DEA plans to continue seeking the translators.

"African-American English is an evolving dialect and in some ways is growing in stature," Baugh said.

HEARIN LOSS OF US ADOLESCENTS HAS SURGED

One in Five U.S. Adolescents Has Hearing Loss, Researchers Find
Hearing loss among U.S. adolescents has surged, probably because of the use of devices such as earbuds for listening to music, doctors say.

Researchers surveyed a sample of children ages 12 to 19 in 2005 and 2006 and found that 19.5 percent had some hearing loss, compared with 14.9 percent in a study covering the years 1988 to 1994, according to a report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Hearing loss of 25 decibels or more -- enough that the children were often aware of the deficit -- increased to 5.3 percent of the sample, from 3.5 percent in the earlier group.

Listening to loud sounds through earbuds -- the tiny electronic speakers that fit into ears, for use with personal music players -- is probably the main reason that more adolescents are losing some of their hearing, said William Slattery, director of clinical studies at the House Ear Institute, a Los Angeles medical practice, who wasn’t involved in today’s study.

“Once you have hearing loss, there’s a greater risk of that hearing loss progressing as you get older,” Slattery, a clinical professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said today in a telephone interview. “Here is a major study that demonstrates that teenagers are having hearing loss in a significant percent of children. It can happen and it does happen.”

Teens and parents need to be told that hearing loss from noise that occurs early in life isn’t reversible, he said.

Effect in School

Hearing loss may affect teenagers’ social development and education, said Gary Curhan, an author of the study, who is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“In an educational setting, even kids with slight hearing loss do not perform as well as those with normal hearing,” Curhan said in a telephone interview on Aug. 13. “It’s potentially preventable.”

Curhan said parents whose kids are doing poorly in school may want to get the children’s hearing tested because most people with a slight hearing loss don’t know a problem exists.

The researchers examined data from the 2005-2006 National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey and the one conducted from 1988 to 1994.

Boys at Risk

The study showed that males had a higher rate of hearing loss than females. The researchers also found that teens whose families were below the poverty line were more likely to have impaired hearing.

Among the signs of potential hearing loss are asking that things be repeated, having difficulty following directions, listening to the television at a loud volume, having problems with speech and language, and having trouble identifying sounds, said Denise Miller-Hansen, a pediatric audiologist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in Kansas City, Missouri, who wasn’t involved in today’s study.

“The key to prevention is education and getting it out there in the public domain so that people know about hearing loss and the possibility of hearing loss in children,” Miller- Hansen said today in a telephone interview. “We also need studies to look at causative factors for the hearing loss.”

Curhan said it’s unclear how loud and how long teens need to listen to personal music players such as Apple Inc.’s iPod for hearing loss to occur. Parents can set a volume limit on their children’s iPods and lock them with a code.

In December, Apple won a federal appeals court ruling upholding dismissal of a lawsuit that claimed the iPod and headsets sold with it are defective and the company doesn’t adequately warn about the possibility of hearing loss.

Today’s study was sponsored by the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary Foundation and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Development Funds.

SCAM TARGETS FACEBOOK USERS

Facebook members are being warned of a rogue "dislike" feature luring users into giving away personal information to scammers.

The social networking website said it was investigating examples of the scam which tricks members into giving away permission to access their profile pages.

The scam was launched amid calls for the introduction of an official dislike feature to accompany the "like" button already in place, according to IT security firm Sophos.

Graham Cluley, of Sophos, said: "Facebook users should think carefully before they click on an unknown link in a friend's status update as these scams are becoming increasingly common.

"Giving away personal information in a survey and allowing an application access to your profile is extremely risky and Facebook users need to wise up to this rather than just clicking on links that they see, just because they appear to be from a trusted source."

Two versions of the scam were reported to Facebook by Sophos.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the website disables malicious applications as soon as they are reported.

"We're always working to improve our systems and are building additional protections against this type of content," she said.

"As always, we encourage people not to click on suspicious links anywhere on the web, even if they've been sent or posted by friends.

"We also have a robust reporting system in place and encourage our users to report any content they suspect to be spam or have the potential to compromise a user's account through the 'flag' button underneath each post."