CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Interior Ministry warned supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi on Saturday for a second time to abandon their protest camps as a senior U.S. diplomat met with officials on both sides of the country's political divide.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns extended his visit to Cairo by one day so he could meet military leader Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi and the country's prime minister on Sunday, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official said. A member of the pro-Morsi delegation that met Saturday with Burns said the four delegates also would meet again with the U.S. diplomat on Sunday for more talks.
At the core of talks is the political future of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies following the July 3 coup that ousted Morsi, the country's first freely elected president. The military coup, which followed several days of mass protests by millions of Egyptians demanding his ouster, also led to the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament and the suspension of an Islamist-drafted constitution.
The Brotherhood says it is looking for concessions before beginning talks with their rivals. Such measures could include releasing detained Brotherhood leaders, unfreezing the group's assets, lifting a ban on its television stations and reigning in the use of force against its protesters.
Tarek el-Malt, who met with Burns and is a member of the Brotherhood-allied Wasat Party, said the delegation insisted that any initiatives for a way out of the crisis must center on the 2012 constitution being restored.
"Morsi would return to power in all cases," he told The Associated Press. "Whether he spends his full term in office or delegates his power to a national Cabinet is up for discussion."
However, Burns and others have signaled that the West has moved on from Morsi's presidency. Washington and others are foremost seeking stability in the Arab world's most populous nation, and have called for the Brotherhood's participation in the transition as a way to achieve national reconciliation.
The trip by Burns, his second to Cairo since the coup, comes amid heighted fears of more bloodshed after more than 80 Morsi supporters were killed in clashes with police a week ago. More than 280 people have been killed nationwide in political violence since Morsi's removal.
America's No. 2 diplomat also held talks Saturday with interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour and Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, as did the European Union's special envoy, Bernardino Leon.
Nevine Malak, who attended the same meeting with Burns as el-Malt as part of a delegation representing those against the coup, said the session was mainly for "listening." She said the group, which includes two members of the Brotherhood's political wing, would meet Burns again on Sunday.
"Any solution or any initiative must include the return of the (suspended) constitution," she told the AP. "We don't ignore the fact that there were masses that took to the streets, but we don't ignore either that what happened was a coup against legitimacy."
Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy also met Burns and said Egyptian officials have made clear to their Western counterparts "there is no moving back." Fahmy also said the transitional roadmap adopted by the country's military-backed interim leaders is open to the Brotherhood for participation.
"There have been contacts between different figures, be they in government directly or indirectly, and those among the Brotherhood's leaders," Fahmy told journalists. He declined to describe those discussions as "negotiations."
Fahmy, who served as Cairo's ambassador to Washington under autocrat Hosni Mubarak, also said that key to the U.S. is "their interests in the region."
"I think they do that by assessing who's in power, who's not in power ... and how to deal with that situation given what their interests are," he said.
While Egyptian authorities say the political sphere is open to Morsi's allies, they are simultaneously outlining plans to break up the two main sit-ins where thousands of protesters still rally daily for Morsi's return to power. Authorities plan to set up a cordon around the sites while offering "safe passage" to those willing to leave.
In televised remarks Saturday, Interior Ministry spokesman Hany Abdel-Latif urged Morsi's supporters to end their protests, saying it would help the Brotherhood's return to Egypt's political process. He repeated the offer from the ministry, which is in charge of police, to give a safe exit to those who abandon the sit-ins.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri condemned Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in a message for having "tried its best to satisfy America and the secularists." He said that democracy is allowed only for those who agree to "be a slave for the West's ideology, action, policy and economy." The message's authenticity could not be independently confirmed but was posted on a militant website late Friday commonly used by al-Qaida.
___
Associated Press writer Mariam Rizk contributed to this report.
The coal industry has traditionally opposed regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency. That conflict heightened recently after President Obama?s speech on the nation?s energy future, calling for stricter regulations on carbon emissions. This ?War on Coal,? as it was identified by political leaders in Washington, was immediately criticized by lawmakers across West Virginia leading them to a sit down with newly appointed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
Source: slashdot.org --- Friday, August 02, 2013 holy_calamity writes "MIT Technology Review reports that APT1, the China-based hacking group said to steal data from U.S. companies, has been caught taking over a decoy water plant control system. The honeypot mimicked the remote access control panels and physical control system of a U.S. municipal water plant. The decoy was one of 12 set up in 8 countries around the world, which together attracted more than 70 attacks, 10 of which completely compromised the control system. China and Russia were the leading sources of the attacks. The researcher behind the study says his results provide the first clear evidence that people actively seek to exploit the many security problems of industrial systems." Read more of this story at Slashdot. ...
Ministry of Community, Sport and
Cultural Development
?
?
Amateur combat sports become legal
?
VICTORIA
The B.C. government has introduced new regulations that give clarity and
confidence to the combat sport sector to allow amateur events to go forward,
Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Coralee Oakes announced
today.
?
Regulation
of amateur combat sport events was required due to recent changes to the
Criminal Code of Canada that have
had a number
of effects:
?
????????
Requires provinces to designate
amateur combat sport events as either needing or not needing regulation. The B.C.
government now will be regulating mixed martial arts, kickboxing, pankration
and Muay Thai events. These sports events now will need permission from the B.C.
Athletic Commissioner (BCAC).
????????
Allows provincial governments to
exempt amateur combat sports from regulation if they are on the International
Olympic or Paralympic Committee lists. The B.C. government is exempting these
sports (boxing, wrestling, tae kwon do and judo) at this time.
????????
Allows provincial governments to
exempt non-Olympic and non-Paralympic combat sports from oversight. The B.C.
government will not require event regulation for the sports of wushu, karate,
kung fu, grappling and jiu jitsu.
?
While
sanctioning processes are still being developed, the BCAC expects that no
amateur event will be negatively affected by the changes to the Criminal Code.
?
?
Quote:
?
Coralee
Oakes, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development
?
Judging from the volume
of correspondence we received from the sector, I know how passionate
organizations are about promoting amateur combat sport. I want to thank them
for their patience while government took the time needed to make the right
decision on regulations.
?
?
?
Learn
more:
?
BC
Athletic Commissioner: http://www.cscd.gov.bc.ca/bcathleticcommission/
?
?
Contact:
?
Communications
Ministry
of Community, Sport and Cultural Development
250
387-4089
?
?
Connect
with the Province of B.C. at: www.gov.bc.ca/connect
Two baseball players with the Asheville Tourists are in trouble with the law.
Michael Mason and Jesse Meaux, both 23, are accused of rape.
Officials said Mason and Meaux were arrested and are each being held on $100,000 bond. Both are due in court Friday.
Mason and Meaux are relief pitchers.
Investigators said a woman told them the rape happened Saturday at the players' apartment on Ascot Point Circle.
Both of the players were suspended from the team pending the outcome of the investigation.? They have been removed from the roster on the team's website,
The Asheville Tourists are affiliated with the Colorado Rockies.
Earlybird Venture Capital has closed its fourth early stage fund at $200 million (?150 million).
Best known for providing capital to startups like Auctionata (which was started by an eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) PowerSeller) and EyeEm (which recently secured $6 million), Earlybird Venture Capital is one of the most successful venture capital partnerships in Europe.
The company's total capital under management now stands at $800 million (?650 million).
"People used to think that innovation would be a victim of recession in Europe," Jason Whitmire, a partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, told Benzinga. "'Oh, what's gonna happen is, people are gonna run to all the established corporations and not startup companies.' The reverse has been happening. There's been an explosion of startups."
Related: What Every Entrepreneur Wants to Hear From an Angel
More and more European graduates are losing interest in the idea of working for big conglomerates like Siemens (NYSE: SI) and Daimler (OTC: DDAIF). Instead of joining an established firm, they are starting their own businesses and looking for employment at new companies that are bringing innovation to various industries.
Whitmire said that there are several reasons for this, including:
?
It is much cheaper to start a company today than it was 10 years ago.
Entrepreneurs now have immediate access to two billion Internet users.
The ecosystem has evolved and can provide new businesses with the first $200k, $400k, $600k.
In the past, entrepreneurs were forced to raise a few million dollars early on. That is no longer necessary.
?
Whitmire said that 80 percent of the entrepreneurs that Earlybird invests in are what he refers to as "repeat entrepreneurs."
"They've already been part of a management team that has exited, typically a startup company," he said. "These people are cycling their wealth and knowhow back into the ecosystem, and that's resulting in companies that are scaling much more quickly because these people typically know how to build companies more robustly."
That's not to say that Earlybird won't invest in passionate newcomers. On the contrary, Whitmire said that the firm has discovered several "very capable entrepreneurs" with big visions and deep product knowhow "that have not gone through the startup lifecycle to exit."
For those individuals, Whitmire said that Earlybird provides a lot of strategic coaching.
"No matter what, there are going to be great ups in the company and big downs in the company," he said. "As an investor you have to weather that and find ways to mitigate the bigger risks. For example, cash flow -- looking at their burn rate, just to make sure these guys don't run out of runway before we can raise a new round."
Inevitably, some companies will not make it past the startup realm. They may barely acquire customers, let alone turn a profit. That's just a part of the industry.
"These are young, volatile industries," said Whitmire. "The technology just doesn't work, sometimes the market comes too late, sometimes the founders themselves disintegrate.
"There's all these different pieces that can lead to that cataclysmic event. I think the most important thing is to try and see it on the horizon -- to already try and steer around it. Usually it's something that happens quarter after quarter. In measuring the metric you can start seeing this."
Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at 248-636-1322 or louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ
(c) 2013 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers have discovered how an experimental drug is capable of completely eradicating human lymphoma in mice after just five doses. The study sets the stage for testing the drug in clinical trials of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, itself the seventh most frequently diagnosed cancer in the US.
Nike's impact on both pop culture and the shoe industry is unrivaled. It's consistently one of the most popular brands in the world and has an insane sneakerhead following. But of all the hundreds of shoes released since the 1970s, what are its most iconic designs?
[unable to retrieve full-text content]By activating a subset of brain cells in mice, researchers changed the way the animals remembered a particular setting. To determine if they could alter the way a mouse remembered a setting by activating neurons associated with it, researchers attempted to change whether or not a mouse was afraid of a particular cage. Their experiements implicated neurons in the brain's dentate gyrus as being responsible for inducing the animal's false memory of their cage.
A roadblock to personalized cancer care?Public release date: 1-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nicole Fawcett nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Experts call for more support for tumor biomarker tests; fixing a vicious cycle will lead to tests that better predict treatment success
ANN ARBOR, Mich. There's a major roadblock to creating personalized cancer care.
Doctors need a way to target treatments to patients most likely to benefit and avoid treating those who will not. Tumor biomarker tests can help do this.
The problem, according to a new commentary paper, is that, unlike drugs or other therapies, cancer biomarker tests are undervalued by doctors and patients. The authors say that inconsistent regulatory rules, inadequate payment and underfunded tumor biomarker research has left us in a vicious cycle that prevents development and testing of reliable biomarker tests that could be used to personalize clinical care of patients with cancer.
"Right now biomarkers are not valued nearly to the extent that we see with therapeutics. But if a tumor biomarker test is being used to decide whether a patient should receive a certain treatment, then it is as critical for patient care as a therapeutic agent. A bad test is as dangerous as a bad drug," says Daniel F. Hayes, M.D., clinical director of the breast oncology program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Hayes led a blue-ribbon panel of experts from universities, corporations, insurance and advocacy organizations to outline the issues in a commentary published today in Science Translational Medicine.
Tumor biomarker tests look at the genetic or molecular make-up of a tumor to determine whether the cancer is likely to progress, and if so, if it is likely to respond to treatment. If the test is good, it can help doctors decide when a patient can safely skip further therapy, or it can be used to direct which drug might be most likely to help. The result: "personalized medicine," which means patients get treatments that benefit them specifically and they avoid treatments including their costs and side effects that are not likely to make a difference for them.
The regulatory process, the research funding, the reimbursement, even the standards for journal publications for tumor biomarker tests are all meager compared to the robust support for drug development, the authors say.
This creates a vicious cycle in which researchers and drug companies don't invest in tumor biomarker research, tests are not fully evaluated in clinical trials, and tests with uncertain value in terms of predicting the success of treatment are published. This in turn means that few of these tests are included in evidence-based care guidelines, leaving health care professionals unsure of whether or how to use the test, and third-party payers unsure of how much to pay for them.
The authors outline five recommendations and suggest that all five must be addressed to break the vicious cycle:
Reform regulatory review of tumor biomarker tests
Increase reimbursement for tumor biomarker tests that are proven to help determine which therapies will or are working
Increase investment for tumor biomarker research so it's comparable to new drug research
Increase the rigor for peer review of tumor biomarker publications
Include only proven biomarker tests in evidence-based care guidelines
"These recommendations are not about creating more regulation; they are about creating an even playing field that allows tumor biomarker tests to be developed and proven clinically relevant. We want to stimulate innovation yet hold investigators and clinicians to the highest scientific standards as we now do for therapeutics," Hayes says. "We need to change the way we value tumor biomarkers in this country."
###
Additional authors: Jeff Allen, Friends of Cancer Research; Carolyn Compton, Critical Path Institute; Gary Gustavsen, Health Advances; Debra G.B. Leonard, University of Vermont College of Medicine; Robert McCormack, Veridex; Lee Newcomer, United Health Care; Kristin Potheir, Health Advances; David Ransohoff, University of North Carolina School of Medicine; Richard L. Schilsky, American Society of Clinical Oncology; Ellen Sigal, Friends of Cancer Research; Sheila E. Taube, ST-Consulting; Sean R. Tunis, Center for Medical Technology Policy
Disclosure: Hayes is a consultant for Oncimmune LLC, Inbiomotion, and Biomarker Strategies and has received research funding from Novartis, Veridex (Johnson & Johnson), and Janssen R&D, LLC (Johnson & Johnson). He is a co-inventor on a patent for a method for predicting progression-free and overall survival in metastatic breast cancer patients using circulating tumor cells; and has applied for patents for a test for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and for circulating tumor cell capturing techniques and devices.
Reference:Science Translational Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 196, July 31, 2013
Resources:
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, http://www.mcancer.org
Clinical trials at U-M, http://www.mcancer.org/clinicaltrials
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A roadblock to personalized cancer care?Public release date: 1-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nicole Fawcett nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Experts call for more support for tumor biomarker tests; fixing a vicious cycle will lead to tests that better predict treatment success
ANN ARBOR, Mich. There's a major roadblock to creating personalized cancer care.
Doctors need a way to target treatments to patients most likely to benefit and avoid treating those who will not. Tumor biomarker tests can help do this.
The problem, according to a new commentary paper, is that, unlike drugs or other therapies, cancer biomarker tests are undervalued by doctors and patients. The authors say that inconsistent regulatory rules, inadequate payment and underfunded tumor biomarker research has left us in a vicious cycle that prevents development and testing of reliable biomarker tests that could be used to personalize clinical care of patients with cancer.
"Right now biomarkers are not valued nearly to the extent that we see with therapeutics. But if a tumor biomarker test is being used to decide whether a patient should receive a certain treatment, then it is as critical for patient care as a therapeutic agent. A bad test is as dangerous as a bad drug," says Daniel F. Hayes, M.D., clinical director of the breast oncology program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Hayes led a blue-ribbon panel of experts from universities, corporations, insurance and advocacy organizations to outline the issues in a commentary published today in Science Translational Medicine.
Tumor biomarker tests look at the genetic or molecular make-up of a tumor to determine whether the cancer is likely to progress, and if so, if it is likely to respond to treatment. If the test is good, it can help doctors decide when a patient can safely skip further therapy, or it can be used to direct which drug might be most likely to help. The result: "personalized medicine," which means patients get treatments that benefit them specifically and they avoid treatments including their costs and side effects that are not likely to make a difference for them.
The regulatory process, the research funding, the reimbursement, even the standards for journal publications for tumor biomarker tests are all meager compared to the robust support for drug development, the authors say.
This creates a vicious cycle in which researchers and drug companies don't invest in tumor biomarker research, tests are not fully evaluated in clinical trials, and tests with uncertain value in terms of predicting the success of treatment are published. This in turn means that few of these tests are included in evidence-based care guidelines, leaving health care professionals unsure of whether or how to use the test, and third-party payers unsure of how much to pay for them.
The authors outline five recommendations and suggest that all five must be addressed to break the vicious cycle:
Reform regulatory review of tumor biomarker tests
Increase reimbursement for tumor biomarker tests that are proven to help determine which therapies will or are working
Increase investment for tumor biomarker research so it's comparable to new drug research
Increase the rigor for peer review of tumor biomarker publications
Include only proven biomarker tests in evidence-based care guidelines
"These recommendations are not about creating more regulation; they are about creating an even playing field that allows tumor biomarker tests to be developed and proven clinically relevant. We want to stimulate innovation yet hold investigators and clinicians to the highest scientific standards as we now do for therapeutics," Hayes says. "We need to change the way we value tumor biomarkers in this country."
###
Additional authors: Jeff Allen, Friends of Cancer Research; Carolyn Compton, Critical Path Institute; Gary Gustavsen, Health Advances; Debra G.B. Leonard, University of Vermont College of Medicine; Robert McCormack, Veridex; Lee Newcomer, United Health Care; Kristin Potheir, Health Advances; David Ransohoff, University of North Carolina School of Medicine; Richard L. Schilsky, American Society of Clinical Oncology; Ellen Sigal, Friends of Cancer Research; Sheila E. Taube, ST-Consulting; Sean R. Tunis, Center for Medical Technology Policy
Disclosure: Hayes is a consultant for Oncimmune LLC, Inbiomotion, and Biomarker Strategies and has received research funding from Novartis, Veridex (Johnson & Johnson), and Janssen R&D, LLC (Johnson & Johnson). He is a co-inventor on a patent for a method for predicting progression-free and overall survival in metastatic breast cancer patients using circulating tumor cells; and has applied for patents for a test for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and for circulating tumor cell capturing techniques and devices.
Reference:Science Translational Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 196, July 31, 2013
Resources:
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, http://www.mcancer.org
Clinical trials at U-M, http://www.mcancer.org/clinicaltrials
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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