handbags blog,handbags weblog,handbags news

Mosses once grew and insects crawled in what are now barren valleys in Antarctica, according to scientists who have recovered remains of life from that frozen continent. Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia — cold but able to support life, researchers report.

Geoscientist Adam Lewis of North Dakota State University was studying the ice cover of the continent when he and co-workers came across the remains of moss on a valley floor.

“We knew we shouldn’t expect to see something like that,” Lewis said in a telephone interview.

The moss was essentially freeze dried, he said. Unlike fossils, where minerals replace soft materials, the moss tissues were still there, he said.

“The really cool thing is that all the details are still there,” even though the plant has been dead for 14 million years. “These are actually the plant tissues themselves.”

Lewis’ findings are reported in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While some mosses have been found near the coast of Antarctica, as well as insects living on sea birds, this site is well inland.

Further study uncovered remains of tiny crustaceans known as ostracodes, small midges and beetles, and pollen from southern beech trees and pink plants.

“The existence of wet-based glaciers, proglacial lakes, tundra vegetation and insect remains all indicate that the climate of the western Olympus range … was warmer and wetter that that of today” about 14 million years ago, the researchers report.

It’s important to know that because it adds to the understanding of the Earth’s climate system, Lewis explained.

For 50 million years the Earth has been cooling, he said. “As it cools it crosses thresholds. This is one, when Antarctica became permanently frozen and locked up.”

“You have to understand where these thresholds are,” he added, “Because, if human beings are unfortunate enough to push climate over one of these thresholds, it could be a total catastrophe.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Clear skies, golden sunshine and the cool autumn weather. The Paralympic Games could not have got a better welcome.

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Sir Philip Craven agrees. “Isn’t the weather fantastic?” he said Tuesday.

“We had incredible weather in Torino and brilliant weather in Athens, where the temperature was around 25-26 C. We are just moving into (excellent) weather in Beijing,” the 58-year-old Briton said.

The 2006 Winter Paralympics was held in Torino, Italy, and the 2004 summer version, in Athens. This time, the Paralympics is being held by the Beijing Olympics organizing committee (BOCOG) to present “Two Games with Equal Splendor”.

Craven has been involved in the preparations of the Beijing Olympics as well as the Paralympics since 2002.

The IPC chief, who uses a wheelchair, has worked to make venues in Beijing and the two co-host cities of Qingdao and Hong Kong as accessible as possible for Paralympians and spectators both.

But making the Great Wall and the Forbidden City accessible to the physically challenged was a more urgent task for him.

“It’s symbolic China is serious about the Paralympics and about all people,” he said.

“It’s a great feeling to be there on the Great Wall, just as the saying goes, ‘you are not a hero unless you climb the Great Wall’.”

Craven praised the facilities in Beijing but hoped that more would be done for the physically challenged after the Paralympics. “The level of accessibility (in Beijing) is absolutely fantastic and it’s a first class job.”

Six years is not enough to change everything, he said, still a “lot of work has been done”.

More, however, needs to be done to educate the public and the media to change their perception about the physically challenged, he said. After all, in a developing country like China most of the people have never heard of the Paralympics or seen the disabled play much sport, he said.

People have to enjoy the Paralympics just like they enjoy the Olympics, he said. The IPC has been trying to help “Paralympians achieve excellence and inspire and excite the world”, and make the Paralympics as competitive and exciting as any other sporting event.

About 4,000 athletes from 148 countries and regions will compete in 20 events at the Beijing Paralympics.

The very high competitive level of the Paralympians is surprising, Craven said. “For example, the fastest male runner takes about 2 hours, 5 minutes to complete the marathon, while a wheelchair runner takes less than 1 hour, 30 min - which means he is 40 percent faster.”

“Once you watch the competition you will be amazed and inspired and excited.”

To his delight, there will be over 1.6 million spectators at the Beijing Paralympics. The attendance in Sydney was 1.2 million and in Athens, 850,000.

The world economy will slow sharply this year and next, with the United States likely sliding into recession reflecting mounting damage from the most dangerous financial jolt in more than a half-century.

The International Monetary Fund, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the global economy and predicted the United States - the epicenter of the financial meltdown - will continue to lose traction.

“The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s,” the IMF said in its report.

The IMF now projects that the global economy, which grew by a hardy 5 percent last year, will lose considerable speed, slowing to 3.9 percent this year. It is forecast to weaken even more - to just 3 percent - next year, marking the worst showing since 2002. In the past, the IMF has called global growth of 3 percent or less the equivalent to a global recession.

The IMF’s projection was made before the Federal Reserve and six other major central banks from around the world slashed interest rates Wednesday in an attempt to prevent a financial crisis from becoming a global economic meltdown.

The Fed reduced its key rate from 2 percent to 1.5 percent. In Europe, which also has been hard hit by the financial crisis, the Bank of England cut its rate by half a point to 4.5 percent, while the European Central Bank sliced its rate to 3.75 percent.

Also taking part were the central banks of China, Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Bank of Japan said it strongly supported the actions.

The financial crisis, which erupted in the United States in August 2007 and has quickly spread around the globe, entered a tumultuous new phase last month, badly shaking confidence in global financial institutions and markets, the IMF said. It has triggered a cascading series of bankruptcies, forced mergers and radical government interventions - such as the United States’ unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout - to stem the fallout.

The new projections come before a gathering of the world’s top economic powers on Friday and the weekend meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. The jarring financial crisis is likely to figure prominently in those discussions.

In the United States, the economy, which grew by 2 percent last year, is projected to slow to 1.6 percent this year. Growth would screech to a virtual halt in 2009, barely budging at just 0.1 percent. That would mark the worst showing since 1991, when the country was pulling out of a recession.

“With a recession now looking increasingly likely, the key questions are, how deep will the downturn be, when will a recovery get under way and how strong will it be?” the IMF asked. Much will hinge on how effective the United States’ steps to stabilize financial markets and get credit flowing more freely again turn out to be. Another important factor is whether these and other actions turn around US consumers, whose retrenchment is hurting the economy.

The IMF - and many private economists - believe the US economy will probably contract in the final three months of this year and the first three months of next year, meeting a classic definition of a recession. The economy’s last recession was in 2001.

The government’s bailout package is aimed at thawing lending by buying bad mortgage-related debt from troubled financial institutions. The idea is that the banks’ books would then be cleaner, putting them in a better position to lend and get the economy moving.

The IMF said this effort should help to stabilize markets but even so “the process of balance-sheet repair will be long and arduous.” Credit availability is likely to remain constrained throughout 2009, the IMF said.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned in a speech Tuesday that the economy’s outlook for this year has darkened and the pain could last for some time. His remarks were seen as heralding the rate cut Tuesday.

Looking at other countries, Germany’s growth will slow to 1.8 percent this year, down from 2.5 percent last year. France’s growth will weaken to just 0.8 percent, compared with 2.2 percent in 2007. Britain’s economy will see growth taper to 1 percent, down from 3 percent last year. Canada’s growth will tail off to 0.7 percent this year, from 2.7 percent last year.

In Japan, growth will cool to just 0.7 percent, from 2.1 percent last year.

China and India will see growth clock in this year at a robust 9.7 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. Even if those projections prove correct, they would still mark downgrades from their blistering performances last year. Russia’s economy should grow by a brisk 7 percent this year, down from 8.1 percent last year.

Inflation around the world remains high, driven up by surging energy and food prices through much of this year.

It will be tricky for Bernanke and his counterparts in other countries to navigate weak growth and inflation pressures, the IMF said.

“The immediate policy challenge is to stabilize financial conditions, while nursing economies through a period of slow activity and keeping inflation under control,” it said.

India demanded Pakistan hand over 20 of its most wanted fugitives as a sign of good faith, while both sides Tuesday tried to cool tensions over the Mumbai attacks before a visit by Washington’s top diplomat.

India’s foreign minister said military action was not being considered and his Pakistani counterpart offered a joint probe to find the militants responsible for a three-day rampage that killed 183 in India’s financial capital.

Indian accusations that Pakistan had again let militants stage attacks from its soil have stirred longstanding tensions and threatened to reverse improving ties between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Yesterday, India renewed its years-old demand for fugitives it believes are hiding in Pakistan, via a protest note given to Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik in New Delhi on Monday, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.

“We have in our demarche (diplomatic protest) asked for the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitive of Indian law,” he said yesterday, adding about 20 people were on the list.

Officials said the list included Dawood Ibrahim, a Mumbai underworld leader, and Maulana Masood Azhar, a Pakistani Muslim cleric freed from jail in India in exchange for passengers on a hijacked plane.

New Delhi’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Malik had been told that “Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India”.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in India today to try to lower tensions in the region following the attacks in Mumbai.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, speaking in a televized address, said Pakistan wanted good relations with India and that now was not the time for a “blame game, taunts (and) finger-pointing”.

“The government of Pakistan has offered a joint investigating mechanism and a joint commission to India. We are ready to jointly go into the depth of this issue and we are ready to compose a team that could help you,” Qureshi said.

Qureshi made no mention of the fugitive list, but Information Minister Sherry Rehman told reporters: “We have to look at it formally once we get it and we will frame a response.”

Ibrahim, India’s most wanted man, is reported to be living in Pakistan. Security experts say the underworld boss has militant ties, and India wants him for bomb attacks in Mumbai in 1993 that killed at least 250 people.

Newspaper reports have said his henchmen in the city may also have provided support in the latest strike.

(Source: China Daily/Agencies)

NEW DELHI, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) — India External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee Tuesday denied that India is considering military action against Pakistan at this stage, reported Indo Asian News Service.

But Mukherjee confirmed that India was waiting for Islamabad to act strongly against armed militants based in its territory responsible for terror attacks in the country. Full story

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) — Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Tuesday that his country had offered full cooperation to India on the Mumbai attacks probe and proposed a joint anti-terrorism mechanism.

The entire world is engulfed by the menace of terrorism and Pakistan and India are also its victims, said Qureshi in a statement issued after his meeting with 36 foreign diplomats and gave a detailed briefing about Pakistan’s stance in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks. Full story

MUMBAI, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) — India’s longest terror nightmare that lasted for almost 59 hours ended Saturday as commandos from the National Security Guard (NSG), the Indian Army and the Indian Navy eliminated three militants who had taken over the iconic Taj Mahal hotel.

“Finally, we have been able to win the battle and do the job (assigned to us),” NSG head J.K. Dutt told reporters. Full story

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) — Pakistan will stand by India in the difficult times after the Mumbai terrorist attacks and would like to offer India full cooperation in the probe of the incident, the foreign office said in a statement on Saturday.

Addressing a news conference here, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that the Pakistani government was unanimous in condemnation of the barbaric acts of terrorism and offered condolences to the government of India and the bereaved families.

Thailand’s Public Health Ministry on Friday listed 14 provinces as at risk from a re-appearance of the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

“The cool weather provides a good environment for it,” the website by The Nation newspaper quoted deputy permanent secretary Dr. Paijit Warachit as saying.

The 14 provinces include Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Chai Nat, Prachinburi, Nakhon Nay, Suphanburi,Kanchanaburi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chaiyaphum, Khon Kaen and NongbuaLamphu.

Paichit said he had instructed health officers known as “Mr. Bird Flu” across the country to monitor for the avian flu and infection in humans, especially in provinces where the virus appeared frequently, the website reported.

Kyle Busch has had plenty of highlights in his short NASCAR career: setting a record as the youngest winner in series history, giving Toyota its first victory and returning Joe Gibbs Racing’s flagship car to prominence.

None of it compared to winning at home.

Busch notched the biggest win of his young career Sunday by driving from the back of the field to win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his hometown track.

Although there are far more hallowed tracks in NASCAR, this 1.5-mile oval in the desert was where “The Wild Thing” most wanted to win. He proved that with an elaborate victory celebration that ended with him on his knees, kissing the finish line.

“I tell you what, this is pretty cool,” Busch said. “I didn’t know exactly what it would mean, but coming to the checkered flag, there were knots in my stomach. It’s bigger than winning the Daytona 500. I said it wasn’t going to be, but it is.”

Busch struggled in his first visit to Vegas, wrecking 11 laps into his Cup debut race and finishing 41st.

He bounced back to compete for the wins the next to seasons, but settled for second- and third-place finishes to then-teammate Jimmie Johnson. His best chance might have been last year, when he returned home leading the points for the first time in his career and won the pole. But he struggled with the handling on his JGR Toyota, and wound up 11th.

This year, he wouldn’t be denied.

Busch came prepared at the start of the weekend, beating big brother Kurt for the pole to put brothers on the front row for the first time since 2000. But an engine change in his Toyota meant he had to drop to the back of the field at the start of the race, and Busch had to power his way through the field over 285 laps.

In a brief address to the crowd before the start of the race, he promised to get to the front.

“I just said, `Hey, you know what? We’re going to the back so get ready for a show. Here it comes,’” he recalled. “Even if I got up to 20th and then backed it in, it was still going to be a show.”

Busch took the lead with 57 to go, then lost it during a late round of pit stops. Busch was third on a restart with 22 to go, then chased down Jeff Burton and leader Clint Bowyer to move out front again.

“Say goodnight, Gracie,” spotter Jeff Dickerson radioed as Busch moved out to a dominating lead.

But there were two more cautions, and Busch had to hold off the competition over two final restarts for his first victory of the season. It was his first win at Las Vegas in six career Cup Series starts, 13 total spanning NASCAR’s top three series.

“We just had to battle back,” Busch said. “We didn’t have the best car out there, but we had a car we kept on working on. I don’t know where I get credited for winning this thing, whether it’s from the back or from the pole. Either way, we conquered both of them.”

He celebrated with thick burnouts through the grass, then apparently blew his engine again. Enveloped in thick white plumes of smoke, he emerged from the clouds to make his trademark bow to the crowd.

He then collected the checkered flag from NASCAR, and kneeled to kiss the finish line on the track.

“I just had to kiss the ground this place was built on,” he said, recalling every phase of construction.

He was met in Victory Lane by his tearful mother, Gaye, and Kurt Busch, who gave him a hearty hug despite his disappointing 23rd-place finish.

“He said, `We watched this place be built and you were the first one to conquer it,’” Busch recalled. “And mom was right there, too. Her face was soaked.”

Kurt Busch remains winless at Las Vegas in nine career Cup starts. But forced to stay in Vegas another night because a winter storm had shut down all air traffic back to North Carolina, he was likely headed to the celebratory party on the Strip.

“We’re partying it up big,” Kyle Busch said. “The plane can’t go home tonight, so it’s going to be one heck of a party in Las Vegas.”

Bowyer finished second and Burton was third, bouncing back from a horrible run last week at California.

David Reutimann, one of the five Toyota drivers who had to change a motor this weekend, finished fourth and was followed by Bobby Labonte and Jeff Gordon, who missed pit road late in the race and blew his tire on the subsequent trip around the track.

Greg Biffle was seventh and Brian Vickers, another Toyota driver with an engine change, was eighth. Jamie McMurray and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top 10.

Jimmie Johnson, strong all afternoon, wrecked with six laps to go to finish 24th.

Carl Edwards’ motor blew with two laps to go while he was running fourth. He finished 17th.

Matt Kenseth, trying to become the first driver in NASCAR history to win the first three races of the season, lost his engine six laps into the race and finished last. In all, Roush Fenway Racing lost three of five motors.

Government and private security teams are in a rush to get tooled up for possible new attacks by a computer worm that threatens to carry on disruptive activities on April 1.

The Conficker worm, also known as Downadup or Kido, first appeared last November and is estimated to have infected millions of computers worldwide.

By exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the worm can infect users’ computers and spread to other computers across a network automatically, without human interaction.

Computer security experts believed that a new variant of Conficker, which surfaced this year, on April 1 could contact 500 of 50,000 randomly generated domain names to receive updated copies or other malicious commands.

A domain name is the address of a website that can help connect computers on the Internet. Previous Conficker variants were written to connect to 250 domain names.

In preparation for the threat of Conficker, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday released a tool that can detect whether a computer is infected by the worm.

The tool can be used by federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners as well as operators to scan their networks for the Conficker worm, the DHS said in a statement.

A team of researchers from the Honeynet Project, an international non-profit Internet security research organization, also announced on Monday that they have discovered a flaw in Conficker which makes it much easier for users to detect infected computers.

After finding the flaw last Friday, the researchers quickly developed a new scanning tool for detecting Conficker over the weekend and is making it publicly available ahead of the worm’s scheduled activation date.

“What we’ve found is pretty cool: Conficker actually changes what Windows looks like on the network, and this change can be detected remotely, anonymously, and very, very quickly,” Dan Kaminsky, one of the researchers, wrote on his blog.

“You can literally ask a server if it’s infected with Conficker, and it will tell you,” he added.

Meanwhile, in a move to calm the vast computer users, security experts are playing down the havoc that Conficker may cause.

The worm is going to change its operation a bit, but it is unlikely to cause anything visible on April 1, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of computer security company F-Secure, said in a posting on the company’s blog.

“Although we don’t think anything will happen on this particular date, Conficker is nothing to laugh about. The gang behind this is serious and we should not underestimate them,” he noted.

“The general public should not be alarmed, but should, as always, exercise caution and implement security best practices into their daily computing routines,” Vincent Weafer, an expert of computer security company Symantec, said in a statement.

“The best way to know if you are infected is to run a good antivirus product. One symptom that may indicate you are infected is finding that your computer is blocked from accessing the web sites of most security companies,” Symantec said in a list of frequently asked questions on its website.

According to instructions released by Microsoft, to better protect their computers from being infected by worms, users should keep firewall turned on and keep the operating system up-to-date with security updates, as well as using updated antivirus software from trusted sources.

The 18-year-old actress - who is dating ‘Will and Grace’ star Michael Angarano - said Pattinson was so “into” his character while filming the vampire movie he convinced himself he was in love with her.

She said: “Rob is very mysterious and very intense - and totally crazy. He proposed to me one day! Pattinson added: “I can’t believe I did that! That’s really getting into character. It’s pretty extreme.”

Most girls would kill to be in Stewart’s position, but she insists there is nothing “going on” between her and Pattinson, 22. Stewart said: “I’m sure he’s proposed to loads of girls before. He’s a complete jokester!”

Pattinson agrees: “My favourite chat-up line when I was younger was to go straight up to a girl and say, ‘Will you marry me? I don’t want to mess around’. These days, Pattinson is less outrageous, but claims he will never be as clean-cut as ‘High School Musical’ star Zac Efron.

He said: “I don’t think I could be the new Zac. I’ve met him and he’s really good at not offending anyone. He’s a really cool guy in reality. “He’ll never do anything that’ll be misconstrued. No one will ever say, ‘Oh that guy is an idiot.’ There’s nothing bad you can say about him, whereas I’m told I’m an idiot - frequently!”

Chinese students’ interest in overseas study tours have seen a marked decline this summer, as the spread of the H1N1 swine flu epidemic has made students reconsider their plans.

According to an official with the state-owned China International Travel Service, many students are turning to domestic summer camps as alternatives. Shanghai, Hong Kong and China’s northeastern provinces are reported to be the summer’s hot destinations.

“The cold market for overseas study tours has fueled a boom for domestic summer camps,” the official said.

Concerned about a wave of cancellations from worried parents and students, many travel companies have offered financial and health-related guarantees for students journeying abroad.

“Those who have registered for overseas tours before June 20, and are found to have contracted swine flu within three days of their return will be entitled to a compensation of a 100,000 yuan,” pledged the Nanhu International Travel Service Tuesday.

The move is seen as a last attempt to induce more students to journey abroad, which are lucrative programs for travel operators.

A top UN official has welcomed the release of two hostages in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the world body said Saturday in a statement.

The two Congolese men, who were kidnapped while working in the eastern province of South Kivu on the UN-supported Amani disarmament program, were released Friday in good health, it said.

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the DRC, Alan Doss appreciated the efforts of “all those who patiently and with great restraint participated or supported the negotiations leading to the release of these figures,” the statement noted.

Doss, who is also head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (MONUC), paid tribute to the military and civilian personnel of MONUC for “great coolness and professionalism that have characterized their behavior throughout this difficult period,” said the statement.

The special representative highlighted “the firmness with which the international community unequivocally condemns hostage-taking which can in no way be considered an expression of political views or legitimate claims.”

The two men, Georges Shanyungu and Clestin Bamwisho, were kidnapped last month on their way to the eastern city of Uvira along with a team of Congolese contributors to the UN Amani program.