'Jackass' star calls his new truTV show 'an exercise in people leaving their dignity and well-being at the door.'
By Cory Midgarden
Steve-O
Photo: MTV News
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698135/steve-o-killer-karaoke.jhtml
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NEW ORLEANS ? Two BP rig supervisors and a former BP executive pleaded not guilty Wednesday to criminal charges stemming from the deadly Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and the company?s response to the massive 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, along with former BP vice-president of exploration for the Gulf David Rainey, remained free on bond following their arraignments in federal court.
Kaluza and Vidrine are charged with manslaughter in the deaths of 11 rig workers. They are accused of disregarding abnormally high pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout of BP?s Macondo well.
Rainey was charged separately with concealing information from Congress about the amount of oil that was leaking from the well. Millions of gallons of crude oil spewed from BP?s well for months.
Kaluza professed his innocence on his way into court, making his first public comments since the April 2010 explosion that killed his co-workers.
?I think about the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon every day,? Kaluza told reporters. ?But I did not cause this tragedy. I am innocent and I put my trust, reputation and future in the hands of the judge and the jury.?
Kaluza and Vidrine?s lawyers both accused the Justice Department of using their clients as scapegoats. They noted that other government investigations have spread out the blame for the disaster and concluded it was the product of a complex series of mistakes, made both onshore and on the rig.
?Bob and Don did their jobs,? said Shaun Clarke, one of Kaluza?s attorneys. ?They did them correctly and they did them in accordance with their training.?
Robert Habans, one of Vidrine?s lawyers, said his client diligently followed instructions he received from engineers and others onshore.
?He?s not the architect or the engineer. He didn?t design the well, and he didn?t make the critical decisions in this case,? Habans said.
The case against Kaluza and Vidrine centres on their roles in supervising ?negative testing,? which is designed to assess whether a cement barrier is effectively preventing oil or gas from flowing up the well. The indictment says they had ?multiple indications? from the negative testing that the well wasn?t secure. Yet they allegedly failed to alert onshore engineers about the problems during the testing, accepted a ?nonsensical explanation? for abnormal pressure readings and eventually decided to stop investigating.
Habans, however, said court records related to civil litigation over the spill indicate Vidrine did discuss the test results with an onshore engineer less than an hour before the blast. A Justice Department attorney questioned a BP expert about the phone conversation between Vidrine and the engineer, Mark Hafle.
?It?s almost inconceivable to me that the government in the indictment makes a contrary allegation,? Habans said.
But the indictment appears to fault Kaluza and Vidrine for failing to phone engineers on shore earlier that day while the tests were being performed.
Lawyers for Rainey declined to comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment.
A trial for Kaluza and Vidrine is scheduled to start on Feb. 4, while Rainey has a Jan. 28 trial date. Both dates could be postponed given the complexity of the cases.
BP announced earlier this month that it will plead guilty to manslaughter, obstruction of Congress and other charges and pay a record $4.5 billion in penalties to resolve a Justice Department probe of the disaster.
Attorneys for BP and the Justice Department are scheduled to meet Dec. 11 with a federal judge to discuss a date for the company to plead guilty.
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by Transocean Ltd. but operated on behalf of BP, was drilling in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, when it was rocked by an explosion. The bodies of 11 workers were never recovered.
Source: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/11/28/3-bp-employees-arraigned-on-gulf-oil-spill-charges/
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Source: http://www.jobsinworld.com/jobs-search.php?Jobs-Accountant-United-Arab-Emirates&jid=4037013
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr on Monday to underscore U.S. hopes that Egypt's political crisis can be resolved in a democratic manner, the State Department said.
Clinton reiterated U.S. concerns about Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decision to assume sweeping powers and checked in on the progress of discussions between Mursi and senior judges on the way forward, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news briefing.
"The secretary underscored the importance of settling these disputes in a democratic manner, so we look forward to seeing the outcome of that (discussion)," Nuland said.
"We want to see the constitutional process move forward in a way that does not overly concentrate power in one set of hands," Nuland said.
She said Clinton also used the phone call to follow up on Gaza, where Egypt brokered a truce after a week of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.
(Reporting By Andrew Quinn; Editing by Bill Trott)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-egypts-foreign-minister-discuss-political-crisis-gaza-182916305.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House could finally have its chance to close the books on its Benghazi public relations disaster, as key Republicans signal they might not stand in the way of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to become the next secretary of state.
"I think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told "Fox News Sunday." ''But she's not the problem. The problem is the president of the United States," who, McCain said, misled the public on terrorist involvement.
Rice is widely seen as President Barack Obama's top pick to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as the nation's top diplomat. But Rice's reputation took a serious hit this fall when she relied on unclassified talking points provided by the intelligence community that portrayed the attack in Benghazi, Libya, as a spontaneous assault by a mob angered by an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube.
Intelligence officials quickly amended their assessment to conclude the attack hadn't been related to other film protests across the Middle East. But that revised narrative was slow to reach the public, prompting Republicans to allege a White House cover-up ahead of the Nov. 6 election.
0The attack killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer specialist and two former Navy SEALs who were working as contract security guards.
McCain's remarks were in contrast to his previous stance that Rice wasn't qualified to replace Clinton, who is expected to step down soon, and that he would do "whatever is necessary" to block Rice's possible nomination.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain's close friend and colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told ABC's "This Week" he still suspects the White House intentionally glossed over obvious terrorist links in the attack to keep voters from questioning Obama's handling of national security.
But instead of repeating his prior assertion that he was "dead set" against a Rice promotion, Graham suggested he looked forward to hearing her out. If Rice were nominated, "there will be a lot of questions asked of her about this event and others," said Graham, R-S.C.
The subtle shift in GOP tenor on Rice could be the result of internal grumblings on how far to take party opposition. Democrats picked up extra Senate seats in the election to maintain their narrow majority, making it that much harder for the remaining 45 Republicans to block the president's nominees.
One senior GOP Senate aide said Sunday that Republicans hadn't united against Rice and were not convinced she was worth going after.
"There's a definite sense within the caucus that you have to be conservative about where you put your firepower," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly on internal GOP deliberations. "The question is whether the caucus is prepared to filibuster her, and I'm not sure we were."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-may-chance-end-benghazi-pr-disaster-082741024--politics.html
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A fire engulfed a garment factory outside Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, trapping many workers and killing at least 112 people in the building without emergency exits.
Authorities said the fire started on the ground floor late Saturday and spread upward, cutting off staircases and preventing workers' escape. Some survivors were rescued from the eight-story building's roof.
Thousands of onlookers and anxious relatives gathered at the burned-out factory Sunday awaiting word on relatives who worked there.
Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories, many without proper safety measures. The country annually earns about $20 billion from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.
Here are photos of the fire and its aftermath:
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-scenes-bangladesh-factory-fire-194541247.html
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Bella Swan, James Bond and Abe Lincoln have combined to lift Hollywood to record Thanksgiving revenue at the box office.
Kristen Stewart's finale as Bella in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 2" was No. 1 again with $64 million during the five-day holiday stretch that began Wednesday, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Daniel Craig's Bond adventure "Skyfall" came in at No. 2 with $51 million, while Daniel Day-Lewis and Steven Spielberg's Civil War saga "Lincoln" finished third with $34.1 million.
According to box-office tracker Hollywood.com, the three films paced Hollywood to an all-time Thanksgiving week best of about $290 million from Wednesday to Sunday.
That tops the previous record of $273 million over Thanksgiving in 2009, when "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" led the weekend.
This Thanksgiving also was a huge 25 percent jump from a year ago, when domestic revenues were a weak $232 million as some big holiday releases fizzled.
With a strong December lineup ahead, Hollywood has resumed its record revenue pace for the year after a brief box-office lull in late summer and early fall.
Domestic revenues for 2012 are at $9.75 billion, putting Hollywood potentially on track for its first $11 billion year, which would beat the 2009 record of $10.6 billion, said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
"We're barreling toward a record-breaking box-office year," Dergarabedian said. "It's built on the back of just a lot of really strong movies that have come out over the past few weekends. It bodes very well for the rest of the holidays."
The "Twilight" finale, "Skyfall" and "Lincoln" finished in the same top-three rankings for the second-straight weekend as new releases were unable to dislodge the holdovers.
Released by Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment banner, "Breaking Dawn ? Part 2," pulled in $43.1 million from Friday to Sunday, raising its domestic total to $227 million. The movie added $97.4 million overseas to bring its international total to $350.8 million and its worldwide take to $577.7 million.
Sony's "Skyfall" also topped $200 million domestically, ringing up $36 million for the three-day weekend to put its U.S. total at $221.7 million. With $41.3 million more overseas, "Skyfall" raised its international revenues to $568.4 million and its worldwide sales to $790.1 million.
"Lincoln," a DreamWorks film distributed by Disney, took in $25 million over the weekend to lift its domestic revenue to $62.2 million.
Leading the newcomers was Paramount and DreamWorks Animation's tale "Rise of the Guardians" at No. 4 with $24 million for the weekend and $32.6 million since opening Wednesday.
Based on William Joyce's "Guardians of Childhood" books, "Rise of the Guardians" gathers Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and other mythical beings as a team of heroes battling an evil overlord.
Close behind at No. 5 was director Ang Lee's shipwreck saga "Life of Pi" at No. 5 with $22 million over the weekend. The 20th Century Fox release has taken in $30.2 million domestically since its Wednesday debut and added $17.5 million in four Asian markets.
"Life of Pi" was adapted from Yann Martel's best-selling novel about an Indian youth adrift on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Many fans considered the introspective novel impossible to film, but Lee has charmed audiences and critics with an inspiring survival story told through dazzling 3-D images.
The weekend's other new wide release, a remake of the 1980s U.S.-invasion tale "Red Dawn," opened at No. 7 with $14.6 million, raising its total to $22 million since debuting Wednesday.
"Red Dawn" sat on the shelf for three years while studio backer MGM went through bankruptcy, with distributor FilmDistrict eventually picking it up for domestic release. The movie's cast includes Chris Hemsworth ("Thor") and Josh Hutcherson ("The Hunger Games") in a story of young guerrillas battling North Korean invaders.
In limited release, Fox Searchlight's "Hitchcock" opened solidly with about $300,000 in 17 theaters. The movie stars Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock in a behind-the-scenes story of the making of "Psycho."
The weekend's overall strength came from a broad range of films that clicked with various audiences, from action and family fare to thoughtful drama.
"This is a marketplace that has something for everyone," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox. "You have something deeper like 'Life of Pi,' yet you have a very successful sequel in 'Twilight' at the same time. Adult bio-drama, if you will, in 'Lincoln,' and you have Bond. That's the secret to a very successful and balanced marketplace."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 2," $43.1 million ($97.4 million international).
2. "Skyfall," $36 million ($41.3 million international).
3. "Lincoln," $25 million.
4. "Rise of the Guardians," $24 million ($10 million international).
5. "Life of Pi," $22 million ($17.5 million international)
6. "Wreck-It Ralph," $16.8 million ($2.1 million international).
7. "Red Dawn," $14.6 million.
8. "Flight," $8.6 million ($723,000 international).
9. "Silver Linings Playbook," $4.6 million ($1.6 million international).
10. "Argo," $3.9 million ($6 million international).
___
Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:
1. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 2," $97.4 million.
2. "Skyfall," $41.3 million.
3. "Life of Pi," $17.5 million.
4. "Rise of the Guardians," $10 million.
5. "Argo," $6 million.
6. "Hotel Transylvania," $5.5 million.
7. "A Werewolf Boy," $4.2 million.
8 (tie). "Don't Cry, Mommy," $3.6 million.
8 (tie). "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo," $3.6 million.
10. "Wreck-It Ralph," $2.1 million.
___
Online:
http://www.hollywood.com
http://www.rentrak.com
___
Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/twilight-bond-lincoln-lead-record-weekend-164713039--finance.html
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Nov 23, 2012, 12:45pm
Central San Joaquin Valley recreational opportunities and announcements. Submit items and search for events using planitfresno.com. All numbers in 559 area code unless otherwise noted.
ADP 14-U Tournament: Friday-Sunday. Figarden Loop Park, $400. Also accepting new players, 5-8 p.m. Grades 8-11. 4265 N. Figarden Drive, 549-4487, adpbaseball.com.
Bullard Cal Ripken Spring Sign-Ups: Dec. 1, 8 and 15. Ages 4-12 and 7-8th grade prep. Starr Elementary cafeteria or bullardcalripken.org, 289-8630.
Central Valley Baseball Coaches Clinic: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Dec. 1, featuring ex-Fresno State coach Bob Bennett, UCLA?s John Savage, Long Beach State?s Troy Buckley and others. Reedley College Dining Hall. $100. Jason Murrietta (714) 943-1565 or Josh Labandeira 901-8912.
Lil Riders Sign-Ups: 6-7 p.m. today. Ages 7-15 for boys and girls, East Fresno Boys & Girls Club, 266-7605, bgclubfc.org, $25.
Youth Basketball: 7 p.m. Jan. 5. Six-week program for boys and girls ages 3-6. Ted C. Wills Community Center. 621-7529, parksonline.fresno.gov, $50.
Junior Basketball: 7 p.m. Jan. 12. Eight-week program for boys and girls ages 7-9 and 10-12. Holmes Neighborhood Center. 621-7529, parksonline.fresno.gov, $50.
Bullard Little Knights League: 8 Jan. 19-Feb. 23. Boys and girls grades K-8. Bullard High. 213-2533, bullardbasketball.com, $75.
Youth camp: Cream of the Crop Youth All-Star, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday at Computech Middle School. Ages 7-13, Mighty Mites/Pee Wee/Juniors. $30. Registration info at ccyafootball.com or (888) 407-2611.
Junior Golf Tournament: 1 p.m. Dec. 2. Ages 6-17, 9 holes. Riverbend Golf Club, Madera. 269-6369, cvjrgolf.com.
Start Smart Golf: Jan. 19, 10 a.m. at Orchid Park, 12:30 p.m. at Selma Layne. Parent participation program for children ages 5-7. 621-7529, parksonline.fresno.gov, $50.
Girls team seeks players, coaches: Register by Jan. 12. Six weeks, plus playoffs. Hoover High cafeteria. 621-7529, parksonline.fresno.gov, $50.
Central California Lacrosse Club: 9:30 a.m.-noon Saturdays. Men?s club seeks players. San Gabriel Park, Clovis. 388-4428, fresnolacrosse@gmail.com.
West Clovis Judo Club seeks members: 7-9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Kastner Intermediate. 434-3459, jtakedachukajudo.org.
Clovis Judo: 7-8:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. Alta Sierra Intermediate. 299-3739.
Japan Ways Traditional Karate: Mondays-Saturdays. Beginner, intermediate and advanced. 432-7817, japanways.com.
Karazenpo Karate: 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays. 225-2199, karazenpofresno.org. $25 monthly, $10 additional family member.
Oakhurst Pentaque Club: 9 a.m. Saturday. Oakhurst Elementary. 683-6540. Free. oakhurstpetanque.org.
Clovis Rugby Club: 5:30-7:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. Bicentennial Park, Clovis. 322-9160.
Dart tournaments: 7:30 p.m. second Saturday each month. Classic Billiards, Clovis. 765-9540. $15.
Fresno Petanque Club: Game days 1 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. Sundays and 5 p.m. Tuesdays. Cary Park, 4750 N. Fresno St. Beginners welcome. 431-5944, fresnopetanque@gmail.com.
Fresno Scuba Club: 6:30 p.m. first Wednesday each month, Marie Callender?s, 1781 E. Shaw Ave., centralvalleyscubafrogs.com.
Pickleball: All ages, skills. 834-2688.
Tulare County Trap Club/Shooting: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. Trap, wobble trap, skeet. 772-2334.
Fresno Turkey Trot 5K run, 2-mile walk: 8 a.m. today, Woodward Park, 433-6750, fresnoturkeytrot.eventbrite.com, $20-$35.
Jingle Bell Run, Toys for Tots: 9 p.m. Dec. 15. Christmas Tree Lane, 322-9371, fresnojinglebellrun.com, $30, $20 Children.
Madera Destroyers fast-pitch tryouts: Available through Jan. 26. Ages 8-15. Also seeking coaches. 363-6035, leaguelineup.com/maderadestroyers12u.
Fresno Force tryouts 12-U-Rodriguez team: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Dec. 1-2. Keith Tice Memorial Park, fresnoforce.com.
Fresno Blaze Club: Seeking players and coaches. Ages 12-18. Bullard High school, 970-0935, fresnoblaze.com.
Start Smart Tennis: 5:30 p.m. March 5. Parent participation program for children ages 5-7. Orchid Park. 621-7529, parksonline.fresno.gov, $50.
The Fresno Bee
Source: http://clovisindependent.com/2012/11/23/valley-sports-and-recreation-calendar-3/
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Nintendo?s Wii U is a capable little game console?with a nifty touchscreen-equipped GamePad controller, but one thing it?s not is profitable off the bat. Traditionally, most console hardware is sold at a loss at launch because of high-cost components that provide cutting-edge graphics and processing power. To put it into perspective, it took five years for Microsoft?s (MSFT) Xbox business to become profitable and four years for Sony?s (SNE) PlayStation 3?to get out of the red. Nintendo?s modus operandi has always been to make a profit on every console it sells, so it was shocking to hear the Wii U would be sold at a loss. But Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime?recently sat down with?MercuryNews and set the record straight, explaining that the Wii U isn?t losing much money per unit sold.?
According to Fils-Aime, ?as soon as we get the consumer to buy one piece of software, then that entire transaction becomes profit positive.? Fils-Aime didn?t comment on whether or not the $349.99 Deluxe Set that includes a copy of?Nintendo Land is immediately profitable, or if the extra charging cradles, dock, and extra storage would offset the Wii U?s profitability.
iFixit?s recent Wii U teardown supports Fils-Aime?s claims by revealing the console uses a larger optical drive over a slim one and a bigger processor die to keep manufacturing costs down.
The Wii U launched on November 18th in North America and is still sold-out virtually everywhere. Fils-Aime has promised there will be more shipments of Wii U consoles coming in time for Black Friday and remains confident Nintendo will sell 5.5 million consoles in the current fiscal year.
Source: http://bgr.com/2012/11/23/nintendo-wii-u-profit/
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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police fired tear gas at stone-throwing demonstrators and made dozens of arrests on Saturday as thousands demanded the overthrow of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in the biggest street protest yet against her 16-month-old government.
Protesters from the royalist Pitak Siam group, led by retired military general Boonlert Kaewprasit, repeatedly tried to breach police lines in the Thai capital and rammed a six-wheel truck into a security barrier but were held back.
They accused Yingluck's government of corruption, being a puppet of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother, and of disloyalty to Thailand's monarchy. Many were members of a yellow-shirt protest movement that helped trigger a coup by royalist generals in 2006 that toppled Thaksin.
"If I can't overthrow this government, I am prepared to die," Boonlert told supporters. He made a plea for "soldiers to come and protect us" shortly before ending the protest as torrential rain fell in early evening.
The clashes revived memories of a tumultuous 2008, when yellow-shirted protesters seized government offices, fought street battles with police, and occupied Bangkok's main airports for eight days. Amid that turbulence, two pro-Thaksin prime ministers were forced to resign by the courts.
Yingluck won a 2011 election by a landslide on support from the rural and urban poor. Her supporters, who wear red shirts at protests, held mass street rallies in 2010 against a military-backed Democrat-led government. Those demonstrations ended with a bloody army crackdown in which 91 people were killed.
"Our biggest concern is if Pitak Siam decides to escalate their rally or protesters move into key government buildings including parliament," said Piya Uthayo, a national police spokesman.
Pitak Siam, or Defend Siam ? an old name for Thailand -- taps many of the same supporters who backed the yellow shirts: the traditional Bangkok elite that includes generals, royal advisers, middle-class bureaucrats and old-money families.
Saturday's rally follows a visit to Thailand by U.S. President Barack Obama -- part of a three-country tour of Asia -- during which he praised Yingluck, calling her a "democratically-elected Prime Minister who is committed to democracy."
"CORRUPTED AND CRUEL GOVERNMENT"
Thaksin, a billionaire former telecoms tycoon, remains a divisive figure, revered by the rural poor and reviled by Bangkok's elite. He fled Thailand in 2008 and was convicted in absentia of abuse of power -- charges he says were politically motivated. He now lives in Dubai but remains influential.
The confrontation started in the morning when about 500 protesters tried to breach police barricades at Saphan Makawan Bridge and the Misakawan intersection to make their way to a large plaza where about 15,000 protesters gathered. They ignored police who told them to pass through a designated entry point.
At least 42 people were wounded, including seven police, according to the Erawan Medical Center which monitors Bangkok hospitals. Up to 132 protesters were arrested, police said. Knives and bullets were seized from some protesters, they added.
Authorities deployed 17,000 police at the rally site after the government invoked the Internal Security Act allowing police to detain protesters and carry out security checks and set up roadblocks.
The protest highlights tensions that have been simmering since Yingluck's Puea Thai party swept to victory in July 2011.
"The use of tear gas is a bad omen and conjures images of the 2008 anti-government protesters who forced their way into government house and parliament," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Protesters held signs with pictures of Yingluck including one bearing the caption "PM=Puppet Moron" as others waved yellow flags associated with the royal family.
"I'm telling Thaksin that if he wants to return to Thailand, he needs to bow before the king and serve his prison sentence," Boonlert told the demonstrators. "The world will see this corrupted and cruel government. The world can see the government under a puppet."
Thailand has seen a series of protests since 2006 with pro-Thaksin and anti-Thaksin groups taking turns to challenge various administrations' right to rule.
(Editing by Jason Szep and Sanjeev Miglani)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thai-police-fire-tear-gas-clash-hundreds-protesters-052421950.html
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@Gregers said ?Britain has never seen nor created art. Ever.? To which I offer this incomplete list of British artists (these are just a few painters): William Hogarth, William Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, William Blake, John Constable, Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Aubrey Beardsley, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, David Hockney? It?s fun to make sweeping generalizations, but they usually make the person who says them look ignorant. If you?re going to sum up Britain?s entire aesthetic output with Damien Hirst, then you?re a fool. And all Hirst really did was take American artists Warhol and Koons ideas of flagrant consumption and crass self-promotion one step further to it?s cynical self-destructive aesthetic conclusion
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“7th Heaven” Star Deborah Raffin Dead At 59 Of Leukemia
Deborah Raffin, a former model and actress, died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Wednesday after being diagnosed with blood cancer last year. Raffin appeared in the television series “7th Heaven” and the mini-series “Noble House” and also starred in several movies. Deborah was the daughter of 20th Century Fox contract player Trudy Marshall, ...
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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2012/11/7th-heaven-star-deborah-raffin-dead-at-59-of-leukemia/
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2012) ? Scientists have discovered an enzyme used in nature to make powerful chemicals from catnip to a cancer drug, vinblastine. The discovery opens up the prospect of producing these chemicals cheaply and efficiently.
They are produced naturally by some plants such as the medicinal Madagascar periwinkle, but faster-growing plants could be used to produce them. With synthetic biology, improvements could also be made to them.
The study, to be published in Nature on November 22, was led by scientists from the John Innes Centre, an institute on Norwich Research Park strategically funded by BBSRC.
"Thousands of chemicals are derived from the enzyme we have called iridoid synthase," says senior author Dr Sarah O'Connor from the JIC and the University of East Anglia.
"We can start to use it to come up with new-to-nature structures with biological activity of benefit to both medicine and agriculture."
Many aphids, often important agricultural pests, produce sex pheromone chemicals that are identical to or that closely resemble the iridoid synthase product. Strategic use of these iridoid chemicals could be used to disrupt the aphids' breeding cycle or to repel them from crops.
The anticancer ingredient vinblastine sulphate is currently derived from the Madagascar periwinkle plant. The iridoid synthase is an essential step in the production of this compound. But vinblastine is produced in just very low levels and the drug has many side effects. The hope is to find a way to produce it more cheaply, easily and with a chemical structure that lessens side effects.
"We need to identify more enzymes to see the entire pathway used in nature to make this potent compound," said Dr O'Connor.
"But the enzyme we have discovered is also the basic scaffold for many other iridoid chemicals and we can start to experiment with building new chemical structures with biological activity."
The backbone of all iridoids consists of two fused rings and scientists have been trying to track down what makes this ring system. Experiments showed that iridoid synthase is the enzyme responsible.
Scientists already knew the enzyme preceding iridoid synthase and how the gene encoding it is expressed. The lead author, Dr Fernando Geu-Flores from JIC, therefore looked for enzymes that are encoded by genes expressed in a similar way and narrowed down their search to 20 enzymes.
Research published in the 1980s indicated that the missing enzyme is dependent on a particular compound called NADPH, which narrowed the search down to two enzymes.
O'Connor and her co-workers will also investigate whether the enzyme is important in a simple chemical reaction used by chemists for nearly 100 years. Scientists are trying to identify which enzymes catalyse a reaction called the Diels-Alder reaction, named after the Nobel prize-winning scientists who discovered it. A better understanding of how the iridoid synthase works could open up new ways to make pharmaceutical compounds using synthetic biology.
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By Virginia Heffernan
Just like table-setting and side-taking after divorces, every family does car fights in its own way. Your clan might have the silent seething kind, where passengers meanly don isolating headphones and turn up Ke$ha. Or maybe yours prefers a hissed quarrel?yes I KNOW the joint is on Jive Street because I GREW UP HERE?or the truly mutinous life-changer where someone demands to be let out on the highway shoulder.
Pricey kids? carseats with sanity-eroding ?restraint systems? may be involved. Gung-ho seniors who have nothing but blindspots. Beans in Corningware. Too much wind or too little, or heat, or Gangnam Style on Spotify. Someone has overpacked; someone can?t get cell service; someone backed the rented Dodge into a Porsche Cayenne.
?
But as sure as tryptophan stupefies and holidays eventually satisfy, a fight will erupt. Best to prepare. For that we need but one word, courtesy of our loyal robot driving companion?The Global Positioning System?composed and focused through wails and quips and rants.
That word is recalculating.
Given the place of honor awarded to navigation in family fights?and the various clich?s about who can?t ask for directions, who can?t fold a map and who gets lost in a rest-stop bathroom stall?the GPS, with its celestial wisdom, would seem to be an instrument of car peace. It is not. Like most technology, the GPS merely amplifies our humanness. What?s more, sooner or later, it becomes a player in the drama itself.
How else to explain the state-of-the-art hothead fights between a motorist and his GPS, when the device seems cruelly to have chosen the most trafficky route, and can?t?in spite of its composed and actressy voice? pronounce ?La Jolla,? ?Houston Street? or even ?route?? The GPS keeps its cool, usually, but yet the driver is sure she can hear unmistakable clenched teeth as it insists upon the superiority of its godlike view over the street-level myopia of mere mortals.
And the GPS turns the old he said-she said direction wrangling into a full-on threeway. Maybe he wants to trust the GPS and she?d rather freestyle, claiming superior intuition or a nicely legible Google Map. Maybe she doesn?t like the interface on this one; the Garmin is much better. Maybe he wants to set aside some time to decry Apple for trying to best Google with its own tyro Maps app?and in so doing mount a case against capitalism.
Hazardous personality defects surface like ice slicks during these multi-party direction squabbles. Does he really think a machine is out to confound him? Can she really not look up from her iPhone and just spot the exit with her two eyes? Why does he call a guy whom he cut off a jackass?
And finally: why do we have to do this together?!?!
That is the existential question the GPS is, for all its flaws, prepared to address.
It addresses the question by not addressing it.
By not asking why you are going back to the airport when you were just there this morning. By not asking why you still can?t find your way from Rip Road to Haskins when you have been going back and forth between them all weekend. By not asking why you can?t just use a regular map.
There are no whys in GPS land. We?re just here; we?re just doing this; and we?re doing it together. There is just a start point and an end point, and they keep changing. The end becomes the start, and vice-versa. On Apple and Google Maps, both of them, you can switch the departure and arrival points with a handy swap icon.
And if you spaz out and lose faith in the satellite map?the view from the stars, the GPS view?and you suddenly angrily cut off at an early exit, or space out in conversation and miss yours altogether, the GPS does not ask what caused you to make such an imbecilic mistake. No. It whirs for a split second and says: Recalculating.
It made a certain logistical suggestion of a route. You chose to follow, which it took in stride, taking it neither an indication of your passivity nor of your good sense. Then you chose to stray. There was nothing immoral in that, either. A line just didn?t match another line. It happens. And when trajectories don?t match?when you have one expectation and I have another?we?re still in it together; there?s nothing for it but to change. To adapt. To recalculate.
And the GPS does so. With zen-like equanimity. Recalculating. It might just be that easy. You didn?t do what I thought you?d do, what I hoped you?d do, what I longed for you to do. And I didn?t do what you thought, hoped and longed for me to do. It was impossible. We were human. Recalculating.
Presto: a new route. Nothing to forgive or resent; nothing to fear or control. Just a new route. Sure, you can hear smugness or impatience in the GPS ?recalculating? voice if you choose. But you can also hear the wisdom of the heavens, from which the wayfinding satellites gaze down at our tangled human streets. Happy Thanksgiving.
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From Hypebot:
Jason Spitz: Welcome Jack Conte.
Jack Conte: Hello there. Thank you for having me.
Jason Spitz: Hey, Jack. It?s a pleasure to have you? Jack is one half of Pomplamoose, a band you that you may know from their illustrious YouTube videos and ad soundtracks, but he?s also an independent musician in his own right? I want to take a second for Jack to tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. What?s your story?
Jack Conte: Well, I finished college and thought about going to film school, and then in the middle of an interview for film school they said, ?So where do you see yourself five years from now?? And it was sort of this moment where I just felt like being really honest and so I just told them, ?Well, I see myself making music and writing soundtracks and coming out with records.? And they sort of looked at me completely perplexed.
And that?s kind of when I started being really honest with myself about what I love. It just seemed that music was an impossibility so I figured I?d just do my best at it. I started uploading music to MySpace and just trying to make it happen, and one day somebody sent me a video of a kid who was sort of okay at acoustic guitar and singing, not great by any means, but just decent, and he had like 250,000 hits on this video; and I sort of went back over to my MySpace page. I saw that I had, you know, like 3 plays or 4 plays, that?s what I?d usually get for the day, and I kind of realized then that YouTube was the new place people were looking for content.
So I started uploading all my stuff to YouTube and just converting all my efforts over to YouTube, and sure enough, it worked and things started taking off with my solo stuff and then Pomplamoose, and that sort of brings me here. A lot, a lot came from that. I mean, we didn?t have a label or a management or anything, and we started getting e-mails and requests to use our songs on television and in ads and in movies and TV shows, and it just came from uploading videos to YouTube. So I guess that?s the short version of how I got here.
Jason Spitz: That actually transitions nicely into Kyle?s first big topic. Kyle?
Can Your Band Save The Music Industry?
Kyle Bylin: Our topic for today is, ?Can your band save the music industry?? So between sort of 2009 and 2010, they?re arguably the biggest years for Pomplamoose, the sort of hip and sarcastic YouTube stars. And there were definitely people who asked questions like, ?Can Pomplamoose save the music industry? Is Pomplamoose the future of music??
These sort of questions, as hyperbolic as they may sound, are a great example of how artists who are successful on the Internet often get put on this pedestal and heralded as the next savior of the music business ? whether it?s Amanda Palmer or Radiohead, Corey Smith, or even Nine Inch Nails, among others ? they have all been put out there on these pedestals in recent years and used as the case study for making money in this sort of post-Apocalypse music industry?
Jack, as somebody who became branded by trade publications as an artist who figured out how to make it in music, what was it like to see your band Pomplamoose sort of rise and sort of become heralded as this success story?
Jack Conte: It was really exciting and really cool, and we were totally stoked about it. The funny thing is, you know, we lived in this place really without Internet. We couldn?t get Internet at our house. Neither Nataly nor I is especially good at social media, and a lot of people called us like a ?social media band? but, you know, we tweet and Facebook like once a week, if that.
I think pedestal is the right word. I mean, people were not rightfully sort of doing that to us, and the truth of the matter is, as hard as we worked and I think as good of an insight as it was to start switching content over to the YouTube, you know, that was really what we saw, right? What we saw was, ?Holy shit. YouTube is the place to be for musicians,? and I really felt like YouTube was going to blossom. I mean don?t forget, YouTube isn?t that old. It?s what, eight yeas old or something? So when we were doing this in 2008, it was maybe five years old, four years old, and there wasn?t a lot of high-quality content on YouTube.
Continue reading the rest of the story on Hypebot
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So, the LG Nexus 4 has a dormant LTE capability inside, and no it's not going to magically start working with LTE. Or is it? Kind of, is possibly the best way to describe what we're now starting to see. Seems some enterprising types up in Canada have been fiddling with things and amazingly have managed to kick LTE into gear on TELUS and Rogers by changing a setting in Android's testing menu (*#*#4636#*#* in the dialer app).
It all stems from an apparent compatibility with LTE band 4 on the 1700MHz and 2100MHz frequencies, due to the existing radio assembly supporting LTE on those bands. It looks like for some reason LG decided to leave a fully functional LTE radio on the N4, but disable it through a software setting. In Canada, LTE band 4 is supported by TELUS, Rogers and Bell. Outside of Canada, your HSPA+ Nexus 4 won't be able to pick up any LTE reception, unless you're in one of the very few markets AT&T has enabled LTE on band 4.
It's a neat trick, make no mistake, but before we all go running off to try and do this we should remember a few things. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean we'll be able to make good use of it for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's no use anywhere outside of Canada right now. Secondly, the Nexus 4 is not approved for use with LTE anywhere in the world at this moment in time, and as such it will likely be patched out in the future to avoid LG getting into hot water with the regulators. Remember, the Nexus 4 is marketed as a HSPA+ phone for a reason, and regulations have a part to play in that. Technically, it's unlawful to use LTE on these bands without regulatory approval, even if all it takes to enable it is a quick setting change. (It's also slightly baffling as to why LG would've left LTE radio software in a non-LTE phone -- presumably this is a hang-over from the Optimus G rather than something specifically designed for the N4.)
In any case, click on past the break for a walkthrough video of how it all came about.
Source: XDA Developers via Android Central Forums
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Love fashion? So do these four roommates in New York, struggling to launch their careers. Will they be able to pursue their dreams with all of the drama around them?
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SEO outsourcing can bring more profits for businesses and keep them in constant progress. SEO or search engine optimization is one of the most important elements of business success as it helps promote the face of any organization, its website and online marketing efforts. It directly influences the popularity or exposure of your organization among your target customers.?
As the meaning is clear from its name that getting inbound links to your website from other websites. This process is never ending process and requires time. Here are some rules involved such article marketing is one of the forms of link building and every effective link building method. People all around the world are always hungry for the new and fresh content and article lower their hunger greatly. Search engines think it as a natural way of boosting website ranking. The competent SEO companies ensure regular monitoring of search engine rankings and generate status report on behalf of their clients. Consistency is the foreword in the competitive world of the SEO companies. The ever-growing role of the SEO consultants in the SEO web-marketing sector has no limits today. Because of the evolution of the web media, the responsibility of reputation management of a website has come under the core functional part of the SEO strategists.
Professional SEO services employ proven SEO techniques as well as innovative methods to create SEO strategies that take into account changing search engine algorithms and user trends. These need to be evolved constantly and the SEO Company has SEO copywriters, other SEO experts, social media experts, bloggers, web designers, ecommerce experts and other professionals to maintain streamlined and constant performance of the SEO strategies. If you have business online, you can utilize seo agency Australia or Sydney seo to help its rank, search engine optimiser plays an important role in this project.??
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LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron has hired an Australian political strategist to mastermind his party's re-election campaign and draw a line under months of policy reversals that have seen his Conservatives slump in popularity.
The party said on Sunday Cameron had appointed Lynton Crosby as an adviser for national polls due in 2015, days after the Conservatives crashed to a bruising defeat in a parliamentary by-election in a bellwether middle England seat.
Crosby was the mastermind of two winning campaigns for London Mayor Boris Johnson, securing the flamboyant former journalist - seen as a potential rival to Cameron - a second term in May against a national anti-Conservative trend.
"(Crosby) will bring a sense of direction, a sense of strategy," said prominent Conservative commentator Iain Dale. "This year has been a complete shambles for the Conservative party," he told BBC TV.
Cameron, who travels to a summit in Brussels this week in search of a real-terms cut in the European Union budget, has struggled to impose direction on his administration since an unpopular budget in March that left his ministers looking out of touch with voters.
He has stumbled over a series of policy u-turns and is under pressure from Conservative rebels who want Britain to dilute its relationship with the European Union.
His party, ruling in coalition with the smaller Liberal Democrats, trails opposition Labour in opinion polls and faces an uphill battle to reconnect with Britons whose incomes have been squeezed in a deficit-busting austerity program.
Crosby has a reputation for running campaigns focusing hard on populist issues such as immigration and crime, and steered former Australian prime minister John Howard to four successive election victories between 1996 and 2004.
He had less luck in Britain in 2005 with his national election campaign for Michael Howard, Cameron's predecessor as Conservative leader, which ended in defeat to Tony Blair's Labour.
Opponents speculated that Crosby's appointment signaled a shift to the right away from the center-ground that Cameron has cultivated to "detoxify" the Conservatives from an uncaring image gained under former leader Margaret Thatcher.
But a Conservative party source denied policy would change under Crosby's influence.
"He's a valuable addition to the team but the prime minister knows his own mind. It's not an end to any of David Cameron's ambitions for the Conservative party," the source said.
(Reporting by Tim Castle)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uks-cameron-hires-rivals-strategist-boost-poll-hopes-202505575.html
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Ohio school explores potential China campus
November 18, 2012 14:22 EST
CINCINNATI (AP) -- The University of Cincinnati has been in talks with Chinese officials about adding a medical school campus in that country.
College of Medicine Dean Tom Boat recently updated university trustees about the discussions. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports (http://cin.ci/Wbngq8 ) that tens of millions of dollars would be needed in donations to make the UC-branded campus a reality.
But supporters point to the potential for new growth and revenue in the world's largest nation by population. China is the leading source for international students for UC, with 962 Chinese students enrolled this year.
The university already has collaboration and project agreements in China.
Boat emphasized the plans are in very early stages.
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Original photo courtesy?Tarika Wickremeratne
Being small, thinking Big: Publishing for the International Market from the perspective of an independent small publisher concentrating on fiction)
Sri Lanka, like many countries of the Asia-pacific region, has long been an exotic destination for travelers in search of the unusual, and as can be expected, there are quite a few stories set in or about Sri Lanka.?? From the famous 14th century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, to the equally famous science fiction visionary Arthur C. Clarke, writers from many nations have passed through or taken up residence in Sri Lanka, weaving her indelibly into their writings. Although hugely popular, these tales were always from an outsider?s perspective, leaving the local reader vaguely dissatisfied at perceived factual discrepancies or inaccuracies and until recently there were very few Sri Lankan stories told with the authenticity or genuineness of a home-grown Sri Lankan voice. With a view to changing all of that, and giving the Sri Lankan reader a credible and well written story with all the subtleties, nuances and cultural complexities that only an insider could provide, nearly ten years ago, Ameena Hussein and I set up a publishing company to showcase excellence in Sri Lankan writing. We didn?t focus on stories that targeted an imagined international audience but concentrated instead on those stories that were primarily for a local readership. If it so happened that the story was capable of traveling, of appealing to a wider global audience, then so much the better ? but our primary market was and to a large extent still is Sri Lanka.
Although writing is a creative enterprise which can be as esoteric as it pleases, publishing is a commercial one that must appeal to the widest possible audience of average or general readers in order to survive. This is especially true when we speak about small scale or niche publishing. So, as soon as any of us small publishers have recognition and market share in our primary market, we all begin to look around to see how we can expand production, where else we can sell our books and who else might be interested in reading them. The most attractive book buying public, the widest range of genres, the best retail prices, the most famous authors, the most prestigious literary prizes, the swankest bookshops, the largest volumes in terms of sales ? all belong elsewhere, namely to the UK and US regions. Beyond any doubt, this is truly a covetable market and one that is fully worth penetrating. However, when we try to do so, we are confronted by the hard reality that not only is the publishing industry dominated in no uncertain terms by British and American Publishers, there are invisible trade barriers which keep other publishers and their books out.
Undeterred, we will look for ways to enter the fray. When we find a Distributor capable of placing our books prominently in global bookshops that suit our reading public, the Distributor will tell us that our production values must conform to those of the west. Printing, binding and packaging must be at least as good as those churned out by western presses; he will be concerned by anything that looks like a low quality or second rate product. Furthermore, he will tell us, we must have a sufficiently large advertising budget to ensure our books get noticed ? if not, they will just gather dust on the shelf. Fair enough we think, it?s their market ? and we have little choice but to sit with our printer to achieve the production standards of the arena we want to enter. That done, we will look at relatively inexpensive ways to promote our books. We all know that as soon as a novel is nominated for an international prize, its sales soar globally, catapulting the author to fame and making its publisher very happy. Hoping to capitalize on this, when our latest book comes out, we eagerly try to enter it for the Orange Prize, the Man Booker Award, the Costa (Whitbread) Award or the Pulitzer Prize only to find out that these prizes, though they may be open to writers from any country in the world, are strictly reserved for UK or US publishers! The number of prizes on the domestic market ? and this is particularly true of Sri Lanka, is disappointingly small and equally restrictive. However, today there are a few less prestigious international prizes floating out there, for which most publishers can submit work, and these are, definitely, all worth pursuing.
So, what are the books that get noticed on a global scale? Apart from the Bible, the Qur?an, Quotations from Chairman Mao and a few other books in a similar vein for which no reliable sales data exists, the biggest number of best-sellers has been published in the Anglo-Saxon world and have predominantly been written in English. Topping the list of best sellers, having sold 200 million copies or more is A tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, followed by Tolkien?s Lord of the Rings, Agatha Christie?s Mystery Stories, CS Lewis?s Narnia Series and Dan Brown?s Da Vinci Code, all having sold between 50 and a 150 million copies! Does this then mean that readers in the English speaking world read the most, or do their authors just tell the most interesting stories? And, would writing in English provide a key to access this market? The evidence would suggest so, with a few exceptions, translated works which made it big: mainly Japanese writers like Haruki Murakami, Sachiko Kiyono and Eiji Yoshikawa whose home market propelled them to fame or with perceived fads as when the world discovered or re-discovered magic realism through Garcia Marquez who?s One Hundred Years of Solitude opened the door for writers like Isabel Allende (House of Spirits) and Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate) or even the current, enduring wave of Swedish crime fiction which kicked off with Stieg Larsson?s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and continues even today with writers like Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum and the husband and wife team Sjowall-Wahloo.
Would translations then work? Asian countries all have a rich and varied culture ? and traditions rooted in time which contemporary writers can draw on; we all have classics that are literary masterpieces that surely will have global appeal; we have contemporary local language writers who are witty and innovative, who have new styles of writing and appeal to a wide local audience. If however, we continue to look at the UK and US market, we realize that the readership in these countries is quite insular and seems totally content reading their own authors and their own stories. Less than ten percent of books sold in these markets constitute translations. Continental Europe on the other hand is more avid of exotic writing and therefore has a greater number of translated works on their shelves. Although collectively, it is a large market with a big book buying public, given Europe?s linguistic diversity, it is a fractured market that must be approached individually. Certainly, if we are willing to go through the trials of translation, it will prove a fruitful exercise. Saint Exup?ry who wrote in French, Umberto Eco who writes in Italian, the global phenomenon Paulo Coelho who writes in Portuguese, have all been read more in translation than in their original languages.
If putting physical books on a global bookshelf proves too daunting an exercise, or turns out to be a logistical nightmare, selling Rights to an overseas publisher provides a viable option as an entry point into a foreign market. Of course, this means that we relinquish our own claims and ambitions in that region and any supplementary efforts we expend in the way of promotion ? either building up the book or the author?s reputation, will benefit us only indirectly. The book will be marketed under the new publisher?s imprint and may fare better than in the home market, giving the author and the new publisher more recognition than the original publisher if the book gets nominated for a prize or becomes a best seller. Still, it remains an attractive option as it takes away the potentially tedious tasks of distribution, marketing and promotion. When it comes to selling Regional Rights or even translation Rights, we must remember that there are a limited number of buyers and that the biggest and best known isn?t always the easiest to access. Quite often, small is beautiful and it might be better to form an alliance with a publisher of a similar or slightly larger scale to your own. Personally, we have been lucky enough to experience some success in trading Rights, and we find that the most amount of interest in our books is expressed by Indian publishers ? our immediate neighbours!
This makes eminent sense, as, logically, countries geographically closest to us often share the same cultural values and norms, similar political structures and socio-economic outlook to our own. They would find the least amount of strangeness in our work and still be delighted by the window that opens up cultural variations. It is no surprise that Bollywood movies appeal more to South Asian citizens than any other, and even though these movies have made inroads all over the world, their biggest audience still remains their own region rather than the western world. If we shift our focus a little, the same strategy used by film producers can effectively be applied to books, simply by Asian publishers and booksellers joining hands to form strategic alliances with each other so that our books find themselves on a solid trading platform. Imagine the reach of locally famous authors like the Bangladeshi writer Humayun Ahmed or the Nepali author Narayan Wagle if their books were available throughout the region. A large number of writers of Asian origin like Kiran & Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Tahmima Anam and Aravinda Adigar already have global reputations. If we create a large enough reader base in Asia, it will only be a matter of time before these writers too will prefer to be published locally.
On our own list, we have published authors who previously preferred to find international publishers. By raising our collective standard, inevitably Asian readers will consume books published in the region ? not because they have little or no choice, but because they actively want to. The DSC prize for South Asian Literature with its huge USD 50,000 prize, open to any writer from any country and any publishing company with the only stipulation of a South Asian story has not only raised the literary ambition of the region, it has attracted world famous writers who are published by western presses like Amitav Ghosh and Rahul Bhattacharya who now find themselves on the 2013 long list of that prize. More prizes of this nature can only improve the quality of work emerging from our region.
Of course, new technology is a great equalizer and still a domain where a maverick publisher can go it alone. With your own website you can promote and sell your own books and maximize profits, even circumventing global internet booksellers like Amazon.com. The advent of e-books with their low production cost, zero storage and transmission cost will prove, at least for publishers, a massively attractive medium for book publishing and dissemination. The only foreseeable drawback in the immediate future is the purchasing power of the South Asian reader ? not because e-books are expensive, they can be as cheap as we please, but the cost of e-readers and personal credit facilities still puts it beyond the reach of the average man on the street.
So, to wrap up, the ideal Asian strategy to attack the international market might be a mixed approach. Attract good writers, produce a limited quantity of well crafted traditional books along with low cost e-books, either publish stories written in English or translate good stories into English or other international languages, promote excellence in literature through prestigious prizes and most importantly, form alliances with as many regional publishers and booksellers as possible in order to expand our regional base which could quite easily be seen as a mini international market.
###
Speech delivered by Sam Perera at the Publishing Forum of the Asia Pacific Publishers Association (APPA) Annual General Meeting held in Colombo on the 17th of Nov 2012 on the theme ?Publishing for the International Market?. The author is?Managing Partner, Perera-Hussein Publishing House.
Source: http://groundviews.org/2012/11/19/being-small-thinking-big-publishing-for-the-international-market/
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