Monday, July 15, 2013
Politics News Headlines - Yahoo! News
Hungary aims to close IMF office, repay loan early
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) ? Hungary said Monday it was considering paying back its bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund early as well as closing the organization's office in Budapest.
National Bank of Hungary President Gyorgy Matolcsy said in a letter addressed to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde that, while they appreciated "the valuable support" the Washington-based group gave the country, the stand-by credit program "is almost complete." As such, Matolcsy said, it was no longer necessary for the IMF to keep an office in Hungary.
The IMF said that since the current IMF representative in Hungary was due to leave soon anyway, it would comply with Hungary's request.
"As Ms. Iryna Ivaschenko's posting as Resident Representative in Hungary was due to end in late August and the IMF's presence in member countries is at the invitation of country authorities, the IMF will not seek to replace her," the IMF said in a statement. "The IMF looks forward to continued cooperation with Hungary in the context of regular bilateral consultations as with other member countries."
Hungary still has $2.125 billion to pay the IMF from its original credit line of $25.5 billion. The last installment is due in early 2014, close to the country's national elections.
The country was given the credit line from the IMF and other creditors in 2008, during a Socialist-led government, after markets shunned its bond bond auctions ? making it difficult for Hungary to repay its loans ? while its currency and stock market plunged. But Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government chose not to renew the deal in 2010 to avoid closer IMF scrutiny of its economic policies.
In late 2011, however, Matolcsy, then the economy minister, said Hungary would again seek a "precautionary" deal with the IMF at a time when the forint, the Hungarian currency, had weakened sharply, bond sales were unsuccessful and the country's debt rating was about to be downgraded to below investment grade ? or junk ? by the main ratings agencies.
But the new IMF loan never materialized and Hungary's announcement ? and the months of negotiations with the Fund that followed ? were considered by analysts as part of a delaying tactic to gain time until the international financial situation stabilized and the country's bonds again became attractive to investors.
In February, Hungary sold $3.25 billion in foreign-currency bonds to investors, returning to the international debt market for the first time in nearly two years.
In his letter to Lagarde, Matolcsy outlined some of the successes achieved by the government, including of cutting of the state budget deficit to below 3 percent of its gross domestic product, as a result of "bold fiscal consolidation measures" and structural reforms.
Some of the "bold" measures have included the nationalization of some $14 billion in assets previously managed by private pension funds, windfall taxes on banks and other companies, taxes on all financial transactions and telephone calls, a flat income tax rate of 16 percent, forcing gas and electricity companies to cut utility prices for households and, at 27 percent, the EU's highest VAT rate.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hungary-aims-close-imf-office-repay-loan-early-123404737.html
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Saturday, July 6, 2013
HBT: Jeter ready to begin rehab stint
After numerous setbacks in his recovery from a broken ankle Derek Jeter has been cleared to begin a minor-league rehab assignment.
Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com reports that Jeter will play tomorrow at Triple-A and is scheduled to log at least five innings defensively at shortstop in his first game action since last October.
In his absence Yankees shortstops have hit just .205 with two homers in 85 games for the third-worst OPS from the position in all of baseball, with Eduardo Nunez, Jayson Nix, and now Luis Cruz serving as the primary starter.
Barring more setbacks a return shortly after the All-Star break seems likely.
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Monday, July 1, 2013
Vitamin C helps control gene activity in stem cells
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tNHOMVcfRPfccoV0LQs3OlgCkRXno0WoAXMFl3KktKn2V5riZAStSpWd5HtYeGvcZ56UqcmQH1hPKApWSwr3OYAeIEI3-K33jqAFIWX3w=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 1-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Jeffrey Norris
jeff.norris@ucsf.edu
415-502-6397
University of California - San Francisco
UCSF-led research finding relevant to cancer, in vitro fertilization
Vitamin C affects whether genes are switched on or off inside mouse stem cells, and may thereby play a previously unknown and fundamental role in helping to guide normal development in mice, humans and other animals, a scientific team led by UC San Francisco researchers has discovered.
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse.
The discovery might eventually lead to the use of vitamin C to improve results of in vitro fertilization, in which early embryos now are typically grown without the vitamin, and also to treat cancer, in which tumor cells abnormally engage or release these brakes on gene activation, the researchers concluded in a study published June 30, 2013 in the journal Nature.
In the near term, stem-cell scientists may begin incorporating vitamin C more systematically into their procedures for growing the most healthy and useful stem cells, according to UCSF stem-cell scientist Miguel Ramalho-Santos, PhD, who led the study. In fact, the unanticipated discovery emerged from an effort to compare different formulations of the growth medium, a kind of nutrient broth used to grow mouse embryonic stem cells in the lab.
Rather than building on any previous body of scientific work, the identification of the link between vitamin C and the activation of genes that should be turned on in early development was serendipitous, Ramalho-Santos said. We bumped into this result, he said.
Working in Ramalho-Santos lab, graduate student Kathryn Blaschke and postdoctoral fellow Kevin Ebata, PhD, were comparing different commercial growth media for mouse stem cells. The researchers began exploring how certain ingredients altered gene activity within the stem cells. Eventually they discovered that adding vitamin C led to increased activity of key enzymes that release the brakes that can prevent activation of an array of genes.
The brakes on gene activation that vitamin C helps release are molecules called methyl groups. These methyl groups are added to DNA at specific points along the genome to prevent specific genes from getting turned on.
During the development of multicellular organisms, humans among them, different patterns of methylation arise in different cells as methyl groups are biochemically attached to DNA at specific points along the genome during successive cell divisions. Normally this gradual methylation, a key part of the developmental program, is not reversible.
But after fertilization and during early development, a class of enzymes called Tet acts on a wide array of the methyl groups on the DNA to remove these brakes, so that genes can be activated as needed.
The UCSF researchers demonstrated that Tet enzymes require vitamin C for optimal activity as they act to remove the methyl groups from the DNA and to stimulate gene activity that more faithfully mimics in cultured stem cells what occurs at early stages of development in the mouse embryo.
Potential roles for vitamin C in the clinic including in embryo culture media used during in vitro fertilization, which currently do not contain vitamin C, and in cancers driven by aberrant DNA methylation deserve exploration, Ramalho-Santos, said.
In addition, scientists previously have found that many adult tissues also have stem cells, which can generate a variety of cell types found within a specific tissue. This raises the possibility that vitamin C might help maintain healthy stem cell populations in the adult, according to Ramalho-Santos.
Although we did not in this paper address the function of Vitamin C in adult tissues, given the roles that Tet enzymes are now known to play in adult tissues, we anticipate that Vitamin C might also regulate Tet function in the adult, Ramalho-Santos said. This remains to be determined.
Vitamin C already has become a popular supplement in recent decades, and potential health benefits of vitamin C supplementation continue to be investigated in clinical trials. It has been more than 80 years since vitamin C was first recognized as vital to prevent scurvy, a now rare connective-tissue disease caused by the failure of another enzyme that also relies on vitamin C.
The function of vitamin C as an antioxidant to prevent chemical damage is the likely reason why some commercial suppliers of growth media have included it in their products, Ramalho-Santos said, but other antioxidant molecules cannot replace Vitamin C in the enhancement of the activity of Tet enzymes.
Despite its importance, humans, unlike most animals and plants, cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C and must obtain it through their diet. The mouse makes vitamin C, but that fact does not diminish the expectation that the new findings will also apply to human development, according to Ramalho-Santos. Only adult liver cells in the mouse make vitamin C, he said.
Ramalho-Santos now aims to explore the newly discovered phenomenon in the living mouse. The next step is to study vitamin C and gene expression in vivo, he said.
###
The UCSF group led a team effort that included researchers from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, California. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Follow UCSF
UCSF.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | Twitter.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
[ | 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.
Public release date: 1-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Jeffrey Norris
jeff.norris@ucsf.edu
415-502-6397
University of California - San Francisco
UCSF-led research finding relevant to cancer, in vitro fertilization
Vitamin C affects whether genes are switched on or off inside mouse stem cells, and may thereby play a previously unknown and fundamental role in helping to guide normal development in mice, humans and other animals, a scientific team led by UC San Francisco researchers has discovered.
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse.
The discovery might eventually lead to the use of vitamin C to improve results of in vitro fertilization, in which early embryos now are typically grown without the vitamin, and also to treat cancer, in which tumor cells abnormally engage or release these brakes on gene activation, the researchers concluded in a study published June 30, 2013 in the journal Nature.
In the near term, stem-cell scientists may begin incorporating vitamin C more systematically into their procedures for growing the most healthy and useful stem cells, according to UCSF stem-cell scientist Miguel Ramalho-Santos, PhD, who led the study. In fact, the unanticipated discovery emerged from an effort to compare different formulations of the growth medium, a kind of nutrient broth used to grow mouse embryonic stem cells in the lab.
Rather than building on any previous body of scientific work, the identification of the link between vitamin C and the activation of genes that should be turned on in early development was serendipitous, Ramalho-Santos said. We bumped into this result, he said.
Working in Ramalho-Santos lab, graduate student Kathryn Blaschke and postdoctoral fellow Kevin Ebata, PhD, were comparing different commercial growth media for mouse stem cells. The researchers began exploring how certain ingredients altered gene activity within the stem cells. Eventually they discovered that adding vitamin C led to increased activity of key enzymes that release the brakes that can prevent activation of an array of genes.
The brakes on gene activation that vitamin C helps release are molecules called methyl groups. These methyl groups are added to DNA at specific points along the genome to prevent specific genes from getting turned on.
During the development of multicellular organisms, humans among them, different patterns of methylation arise in different cells as methyl groups are biochemically attached to DNA at specific points along the genome during successive cell divisions. Normally this gradual methylation, a key part of the developmental program, is not reversible.
But after fertilization and during early development, a class of enzymes called Tet acts on a wide array of the methyl groups on the DNA to remove these brakes, so that genes can be activated as needed.
The UCSF researchers demonstrated that Tet enzymes require vitamin C for optimal activity as they act to remove the methyl groups from the DNA and to stimulate gene activity that more faithfully mimics in cultured stem cells what occurs at early stages of development in the mouse embryo.
Potential roles for vitamin C in the clinic including in embryo culture media used during in vitro fertilization, which currently do not contain vitamin C, and in cancers driven by aberrant DNA methylation deserve exploration, Ramalho-Santos, said.
In addition, scientists previously have found that many adult tissues also have stem cells, which can generate a variety of cell types found within a specific tissue. This raises the possibility that vitamin C might help maintain healthy stem cell populations in the adult, according to Ramalho-Santos.
Although we did not in this paper address the function of Vitamin C in adult tissues, given the roles that Tet enzymes are now known to play in adult tissues, we anticipate that Vitamin C might also regulate Tet function in the adult, Ramalho-Santos said. This remains to be determined.
Vitamin C already has become a popular supplement in recent decades, and potential health benefits of vitamin C supplementation continue to be investigated in clinical trials. It has been more than 80 years since vitamin C was first recognized as vital to prevent scurvy, a now rare connective-tissue disease caused by the failure of another enzyme that also relies on vitamin C.
The function of vitamin C as an antioxidant to prevent chemical damage is the likely reason why some commercial suppliers of growth media have included it in their products, Ramalho-Santos said, but other antioxidant molecules cannot replace Vitamin C in the enhancement of the activity of Tet enzymes.
Despite its importance, humans, unlike most animals and plants, cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C and must obtain it through their diet. The mouse makes vitamin C, but that fact does not diminish the expectation that the new findings will also apply to human development, according to Ramalho-Santos. Only adult liver cells in the mouse make vitamin C, he said.
Ramalho-Santos now aims to explore the newly discovered phenomenon in the living mouse. The next step is to study vitamin C and gene expression in vivo, he said.
###
The UCSF group led a team effort that included researchers from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, California. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Follow UCSF
UCSF.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | Twitter.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
[ | 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.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/uoc--vch070113.php
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Asia summit hopes for resumption of NKorea talks
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) ? Southeast Asia's top diplomats have not abandoned hope that this week's annual Asian security summit will provide a chance for North Korea and its neighbors to discuss restarting long-dormant disarmament talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, according to a joint statement released Sunday.
The foreign ministers of North Korea and five other nations involved in the now-stalled nuclear disarmament talks are gathering in Brunei for the Association of Southeast Asian Nation Regional Forum. The international standoff over North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons is expected to take center stage, along with other regional issues, including South China Sea territorial disputes.
In the last six months, North Korea has launched a long-range rocket and conducted an atomic test in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning the regime from nuclear and missile activity. Pyongyang calls the weapons buildup the core of its defense against U.S. aggression, and has vowed to push ahead in constructing the arsenal as long as it feels threatened by the U.S.
Top diplomats from the 10 ASEAN countries urged the six nations involved in past disarmament negotiations ? North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China ? to restart the talks. The disarmament-for-aid talks hosted by Beijing have been stalled since 2008.
"We emphasized the importance of dialogue aimed at promoting mutual understanding and confidence among all parties concerned with ensuring peace, security and stability on the Korean Peninsula," they said in a joint statement. "In this regard, we recommended that the (regional forum), where all six members to the six-party talks are also participants, could contribute to forging a conducive atmosphere for the resumption of the six-party talks."
Still, it's not clear whether North Korea will hold informal talks with the U.S. or South Korea on the sidelines of the forum. The governments in Seoul and Washington have said they have no immediate plans to meet privately with Pyongyang.
In recent weeks, North Korea has proposed restarting the talks that once provided crucial fuel and other aid in exchange for disarmament. But the U.S. and South Korea say North Korea first must demonstrate its sincerity on nuclear disarmament with concrete action.
The foreign ministers' statement also said ASEAN countries support peaceful efforts toward building a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and the early resumption of six-party talks.
North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun arrived in Brunei on Sunday morning.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterparts from South Korea and Japan were to hold a trilateral meeting on Monday, according to South Korean officials.
The ASEAN Regional Forum has previously provided a chance to use informal, sideline talks to break stalemates over the nuclear issue. In 2011, top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas met on the sidelines of the forum in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to work toward a resumption of the six-nation talks. The Koreas' foreign ministers held sideline talks in 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2007, and top diplomats from Pyongyang and Washington also met privately in 2004 and 2008.
Meanwhile, long-raging territorial rifts in the South China Sea remained a thorny issue in Brunei, with the Philippines calling China's recent deployment of naval and paramilitary ships in two disputed shoals as part of Beijing's "increasing militarization" of disputed areas that could threaten regional stability.
Chinese surveillance ships seized the Scarborough Shoal last year following a tense standoff with Philippine vessels. Then a few weeks ago, China deployed a frigate, surveillance ships and fishing boats to Second Thomas Shoal, which the Philippines says is part of its regular territory, in a move Filipino diplomats feared could be a prelude to a Chinese takeover of the area.
"This is a violation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea," Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told fellow diplomats, referring to a 2002 accord between China and ASEAN that discourages aggressive moves that can provoke armed confrontations in disputed waters.
Southeast Asian nations wanted to turn the 2002 accord into a stronger, legally binding "code of conduct" to prevent the territorial rifts from turning violent, but China has not stated when it would sit down with ASEAN nations to negotiate such a pact.
___
Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asia-summit-hopes-resumption-nkorea-talks-102459858.html
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Ad hoc 5: Man of Steel
Ad hoc is our media and miscellaneous podcast where we get a bunch of tech geeks together, put them in front of mics, hit record, and then chat with them about movies, TV shows, video games, comics and books, and other popular, nerdy things. In this episode, Guy English, Georgia, Dave Wiskus, and Rene Ritchie pretty much do to Man of Steel what the Man of Steel did to Metropolis in Chris Nolan, David Goyer, and Zack Snyder's reboot of the Superman franchise.
Panel
- Guy English of Kickingbear
- Dave Wiskus of Better Elevation
- Georgia of ZEN & TECH
- Rene Ritchie of iMore
Feedback
Yell at us via the Twitter accounts above. Loudly.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/1qfQsjjTi6s/story01.htm
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