Silence, ringing of bells to honor Newtown shooting victims

NEWTOWN, Conn./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many Americans will remember the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre with a moment of silence on Friday, just before a powerful U.S. gun rights lobbying group plunges into the national debate over gun control.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy called for residents of his state to observe the moment at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT) to mark a week since a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where he shot to death 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

Malloy's fellow governors in Maine, Illinois, Michigan and several other states called on residents to follow suit with a moment of silence and to ring bells to remember the dead. The National Cathedral in Washington plans to ring its bell 28 times as part of an interfaith memorial.

"We have the moral obligation to stand for and with the victims of gun violence and to work to end it," said Reverend Gary Hall, dean of Washington National Cathedral, who called on Americans to pray "that we may have courage to act, so that the murderous violence done on Friday may never be repeated."

The company that operates the Nasdaq stock exchange said its operations would observe a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m., although market will open trading at that time as usual.

The observances will be held not long before the National Rifle Association, the largest U.S. gun rights group and one with powerful ties to Washington politicians, begins a media campaign to become part of the gun control debate prompted by the stunning slaughter of 20 children, all 6 or 7 years old.

Laws restricting gun ownership are controversial in the United States, a nation with a strong culture of individual gun ownership. Hundreds of millions of weapons are in private hands.

About 11,100 Americans died in gun-related killings in 2011, not including suicides, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The NRA remained quiet for four days after the Newtown slaughter, citing "common decency." It released a short statement on Tuesday saying it was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

The group scheduled a news conference for 10:45 a.m. (1545 GMT) on Friday in Washington. NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre planned to appear on the NBC television talk show "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Some U.S. lawmakers called for swift passage of an assault weapons ban.

Vice President Joe Biden convened a new White House task force on Thursday charged by President Barack Obama with finding ways to quell violence.

"We have to have a comprehensive way in which to respond to the mass murder of our children that we saw in Connecticut," Biden told the group, which included Attorney General Eric Holder, Thomas Nee, president of the National Association of Police Organizations, and other officials.

The gunman, Adam Lanza, used a military-style assault rifle and police said he carried hundreds of bullets in high-capacity magazines, as well as two handguns. The weapons were legally purchased and registered to his mother, Nancy, his first victim.

By Thursday, funeral services had been held for more than half of the 27 people Lanza killed last week.

Newtown school officials said that Friday would be a shortened day for students heading into the Christmas break.

Reflecting a heightened state of alert at schools across the United States, a school district near Boise, Idaho, canceled planned assemblies at a number of its 50 schools after receiving a rash of threats that suggested "something bad" would happen on Friday, Meridian school spokesman Eric Exline said.

"The event last Friday in Connecticut has unnerved people in a lot of ways," he said.

The New Milford school district, near Newtown, canceled Friday classes "on the advice of the New Milford Police Department" but did not offer any further explanation.

In Florida, a 13-year-old student was arrested on Thursday after he allegedly posted a Facebook message threatening to "bring a gun to school tomorrow and shoot everyone," said the St. Lucie County Sheriff's office on Florida's east coast.

Police said the teen did not have any weapons and posed no threat to local schools. He was charged with making a written threat and is being held at a local Juvenile Detention Center.

(Reporting by Edith Honan and Patrica Zengerle; Writing by Jim Loney; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.

Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave “pending further action.”

An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited “leadership and management” deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and “real confusion” in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.

“The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs,” Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell’s decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.

PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON

The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton’s four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.

“We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks,” retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.

The panel’s chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton’s office.

“We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where – if you like – the rubber hits the road,” Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.

The panel’s report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.

Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.

Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.

Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.

Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.

“It was very thorough,” said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: “It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels.” Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.

Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.

“The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad,” Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.

The report concluded that there was no such protest.

Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama’s top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Best Practice Institute Introduces New Social Network that Promises ‘Future of 360′

A new social network, skillrater.com launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

West Palm Beach, Fla. (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Skillrater.com, an online social network that launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

“This is the future of 360-degree assessment and social learning,” said the network’s creator, Louis Carter, CEO of Best Practice Institute.

“Get rated. Get better. Get noticed,” says Skillrater.com’s website, which describes the new social network as “the world’s first rating, networking and feedback tool on a social platform.”

Executives, employees and entrepreneurs who have already been friended, linked and tweeted can now get feedback and rating on their skill sets and work at Skillrater.com. Individuals may join the Skillrater social network at no cost; corporations may purchase a premium or enterprise membership to use Skillrater as an in-house platform for feedback, talent management and social networking.

The Next Thing in 360 Assessment and Corporate Social Networking

“I want to bring a revolution to 360 so that organizations become more open and transparent, and driven by the desire for employees to request feedback on their competencies/skills and activities they execute on a daily basis” said Carter, BPI’s founder and a social-organizational psychologist.

The world of work is becoming more open and transparent. “A new IBM study of 1709 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide reveals that CEOs are changing the nature of work by adding a powerful dose of openness, transparency and employee empowerment to the command-and-control ethos that has characterized the modern corporation for more than a century.”

Employees using skillrater engage in conversations and threaded discussions around improving their activities at work. Instead of hiding feedback from employees, employees may receive immediate correction of negatively reinforcing workplace habits directly from their bosses, peers, and customers. Employees may continue the feedback process in a threaded discussion to receive deeper advice and help from executive coaches or other members of the team. Repeating this process will show measurable changes in behavior and actions over time for your organization, as well as show patterns for the changes that need to me made on an individual, team, and organization level. The employee requests feedback of others directly, so that a culture of accountability and feedback is encouraged. Instead of “big brother/sister” HR forcing feedback of competencies and workplace performance, employees take ownership for creating their own culture of transparency so they may show their progress toward growth.

One study found that as many as 90 percent of all Fortune 500 companies use 360-degree feedback with their employees. In a 360 assessment, feedback is sought from all directions of an employee’s circle: overseers, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even external sources, such as customers and suppliers.

Skillrater brings several innovations to the 360-degree process to make the technique easier to use and to increase the tool’s beneficial results. Features include:

“Skillrater is a great tool. Leaders and managers are going to fall in love with it,” said the world’s leading executive coach and bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith. “There is no better way for organizational leaders to track talent data. Skillrater gives you a simple way to request receive feedback on what you are doing, while building an in-house social network to discuss the feedback. The ability to customize Skillrater around the desired competencies of your organization is brilliant.”"

Focus on Leadership Development in Globally Dispersed Workforces

Most importantly, Carter said, Skillrater provides a social network through which members can springboard from quantitative ratings to qualitative discussions that make the feedback truly transformative. This is especially beneficial for dispersed workforces where consistent face-to-face communication is costly to accomplish.”

“Our goal is to create a social network within an organization that is focused on helping employees improve their skills and improve performance,” Carter said. “Skillrater is not primarily about promotion and pay decisions, it’s about leadership development and positive behavioral change throughout a national or global workforce.”

Studies have shown 360-degree feedback is an effective way to help workers identify their strengths and weaknesses, including blind spots in which they need further development. Skillrater’s convenient online platform, along with the addition of a social networking dimension, makes Skillrater a powerful leadership development for dispersed or collective learning environments.

After corporate clients learn their way around all the bells and whistles of Skillrater’s multi-rater feedback tool, Carter said, they will move on to appreciate the richness of the in-house social network, creating a dispersed learning environment in which ongoing leadership development and action learning is cultivated within domestic or global workforces.

Skillrater Benefits for Individual Users

Individuals may join Skillrater.com for free and choose up to five skills upon which to be rated. Top executives, mid-level rising stars and lower-level workers with an eye on advancement may all use Skillrater to request feedback and map their own course of development. Requesting a Skillrater rating is an excellent way for an individual to confirm satisfaction with a completed project or identify additional steps needed to achieve satisfaction. Using Skillrater, a worker can demonstrate to higher-ups one’s desire to perform well and also document tangible improvement.

An individual who has acquired several ratings on one’s Skillrater profile and has made those ratings public may catch the attention of employers on the search for talent. Skillrater will become a go-to destination for talent recruitment. Other social networks provide an individual’s name, personal background and employment history, but Skillrater provides rubber-meets-the-road details of how an individual has been evaluated by co-workers, clients and customers on actual projects.

Skillrater Benefits for Corporate Users

Companies may purchase an enterprise membership, giving executives an unparalleled tool for talent management and leadership development. Enterprise membership enables companies to enroll 1,000 users and place them in 20 groups or divisions.

For senior talent management executives, Skillrater provides a remarkable way to track the job performance, skill sets and leadership development of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of employees spread out across a national or global workforce. For years, connecting the right employees with the right tasks has been the elusive aim of talent management. With Skillrater, when a particular skill set is needed for a particular task, a manager can search on those specific skills, and then read fresh feedback on recent projects, including not only numerical ratings but subsequent comments and discussion. That is rich, valuable talent data, which Skillrater puts at executives’ fingertips.

Managers from different divisions may customize their own groups to have specific skills or competencies that are important for success on-the-job. Users can select these group skills when requesting ratings to get targeted feedback that meets the need of the department head or head of leadership development. The ability to customize skills is critical to an organization’s success, making this a key feature of Skillrater’s enterprise membership level.

VPs of leadership development have the ability to set up action learning groups with specific action items. Group members work together online to achieve goals and get ratings on the skills that will make them most successful on the action learning project. Changes in behavior and actual project results may be tracked over time, proving the ROI of the leadership development program.

How Does Skillrater Work?

Joining Skillrater is easy and painless. An individual can create a Skillrater profile in a few moments or import one’s profile and skill set from LinkedIn.

A Skillrater member may request a rating from anybody on anything. It really is that simple. The user simply clicks the “Request Rating” button, specifies the task or activity for which one seeks a rating and the specific skills on which feedback is desired.

Then the member sends off the rating requests. If the desired rater is already a Skillrater.com member, requesting a rating is just one additional click. If not, the user enters the desired rater’s email address, and a message is sent requesting the rating and providing the necessary link.

After feedback has been received, Skillrater notifies the user. Results include a spider chart, an easy-to-understand graphical interpretation of how the feedback lines up with one’s self-assessment. Users continue to share advice and further clarification via a discussion thread to continue the social learning and coaching experience online.

ABOUT BEST PRACTICE INSTITUTE

Best Practice Institute is an award-winning leadership development center, think tank, peer network, research institute and online learning portal with more than 10,000 corporate and individual members around the world. Corporate members include Walmart, Bank of America, Pfizer, Hilton Hotels Worldwide, Scripps and many more of the world’s top corporations. BPI is based in West Palm Beach, FL, and is on the web at http://www.bestpracticeinstitute.org. BPI is ranked as one of the top ten “Best in Leadership Development” by Leadership Excellence Magazine.

Louis Carter is the founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute. Carter is a social-organizational psychologist, concept innovator, entrepreneur and a highly regarded authority on learning, talent, leadership development and change. He is the author or co-author of 11 books and a regular contributor to Fast Company, Chief Learning Officer, Talent Management, and Training Magazine.

For More Information or to schedule an interview, please contact Louis Carter: 800-718-4274; lou(at)bestpracticeinstitute.org

Louis Carter
Best Practice Institute
800-718-4274
Email Information

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China’s airing of ‘V for Vendetta’ stuns viewers

BEIJING (AP) — Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves. Soon the Internet was crackling with quotes of “V for Vendetta‘s” famous line: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

The airing of the movie Friday night on China Central Television stunned viewers and raised hopes that China is loosening censorship.

“V for Vendetta” never appeared in Chinese theaters, but it is unclear whether it was ever banned. An article on the Communist Party’s People’s Daily website says it was previously prohibited from broadcast, but the spokesman for the agency that approves movies said he was not aware of any ban.

Some commentators and bloggers think the broadcast could be CCTV producers pushing the envelope of censorship, or another sign that the ruling Communist Party‘s newly installed leader, Xi Jinping, is serious about reform.

“Oh God, CCTV unexpectedly put out ‘V for Vendetta.’ I had always believed that film was banned in China!” media commentator Shen Chen wrote on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, where he has over 350,000 followers.

Zhang Ming, a supervisor at a real estate company, asked on Weibo: “For the first time CCTV-6 aired ‘V for Vendetta,’ what to think, is the reform being deepened?”

The 2005 movie, based on a comic book, is set in an imagined future Britain with a fascist government. The protagonist wears a mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century English rebel who tried to blow up Parliament. The mask has become a revolutionary symbol for young protesters in mostly Western countries, and it also has a cult-like status in China as pirated DVDs are widely available. Some people have used the image of the mask as their profile pictures on Chinese social media sites.

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia wrote on Twitter, which is not accessible to most Chinese because of government Internet controls: “This great film couldn’t be any more appropriate for our current situation. Dictators, prisons, secret police, media control, riots, getting rid of ‘heretics’ … fear, evasion, challenging lies, overcoming fear, resistance, overthrowing tyranny … China’s dictators and its citizens also have this relationship.”

China’s authoritarian government strictly controls print media, television and radio. Censors also monitor social media sites including Weibo. Programs have to be approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, but people with knowledge of the industry say CCTV, the only company with a nationwide broadcast license, is entitled to make its own censorship decisions when showing a foreign movie.

“It is already broadcast. It is no big deal,” said a woman who answered the phone at movie channel CCTV-6. “We also didn’t anticipate such a big reaction.”

The woman, who only gave her surname, Yang, said she would pass on questions to her supervisor, which weren’t answered.

The spokesman for the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said he had noticed the online reaction to the broadcast. “I’ve not heard of any ban on this movie,” Wu Baoan said Thursday.

The film is available on video-on-demand platforms in China, where movie content also needs to be approved by authorities.

A political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who used to work for CCTV said the film might have approval, or it could have been CCTV’s own decision to broadcast it.

“Every media outlet knows there is a ceiling above their head,” said Liu Shanying. “Sometimes we will work under the ceiling and avoid touching it. But sometimes we have a few brave ones who want to reach that ceiling and even express their discontent over the censor system.

“It is very possible that CCTV decided by itself” to broadcast the film, Liu said. If so, he added, it would have been “due to a gut feeling that China’s film censorship will be loosened or reformed.”

“V for Vendetta” was released in the United States in 2005 and around the world in 2006. China has a yearly quota on the numbers of foreign movies that can be imported on a revenue share basis, making it tough to get distribution approval. Other movies that failed to reach Chinese screens in 2006 include “Brokeback Mountain” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Chinese moviegoers that year were able to see “Mission: Impossible III” with Tom Cruise and “The Painted Veil,” which was filmed in China and set in a Chinese village.

Warner Brothers, which produced and distributed “V for Vendetta,” declined to comment.

China doesn’t have a classification system, so all movies shown at its cinemas are open to adults and children of any age. A filmmaker and Beijing Film Academy professor, Xie Fei, published an open letter on Sina Weibo on Saturday calling for authorities to replace the movie censorship system that dates from the 1950s with a ratings system.

The airing of “V for Vendetta” raised some hopes about possible changes under Xi, who was publicly named China’s new leader last month. He has already announced a trimmed-down style of leadership, calling on officials to reduce waste and unnecessary meetings and pomp. His reforms are aimed at pleasing a public long frustrated by local corruption.

State media say they have reduced reports on officials’ trips as part of this drive. The official Xinhua News Agency warned this week that media outlets should “learn to play professionally in today’s information age as an increasingly picky audience is constantly” putting them under scrutiny.

An American business consultant and author with high-level Chinese contacts said there is no less commitment to one-party rule in China, so any media reforms will only go so far.

“You can’t have a totally free media as we would have in the West and still maintain the integrity of a one-party system,” said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who wrote the book “How China’s Leaders Think.” He said he thinks restrictions are being eased, “but it has to be limited.”

The new leadership has to tread carefully, Kuhn said, because in the age of the Internet, talk about reforms won’t be forgotten.

“High expectations, if they are not fulfilled, will create a worse situation,” he said.

___

AP researchers Flora Ji and Henry Hou contributed to this report.

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The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012

Many more than 10 events took place during 2012 that reveal how science and technology play integral roles in our lives. As a broad topic, climate change took center stage, offering many possible choices, including efforts to combat it head-on with a rogue geoengineering experiment meant to suck carbon dioxide out of the air as well as efforts to develop clean energy, such as the creation of microbes that convert seaweed into ethanol.The Internet and other communications technology still creates challenges for policymakers, companies and individuals. Among the most notable controversies was the one centered on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which led to a blackout protest by some well-trafficked sites, such as Wikipedia.And research in basic science continues to assault conventional thinking, such as the reported discovery of ovarian stem cells. If confirmed, the finding would overturn the long-held notion that women are not born with all the eggs they will ever have.Alas, cultural norms and conventions dictate that we stick to 10 items; channeling Spinal Tap and dialing it up to 11 would hardly help. Feel free to discuss your own picks in the comments section below.» Begin the Countdown of the Top 10 Science Stories of 2012

Image: Felix Baumgartner taking the plunge courtesy of Red Bull StratosDaredevils Reach New Highs and LowsScience and technology reached new heights and depths in 2012, thanks to human daredevils willing to risk life and limb to explore both the Earth’s stratosphere and its deepest undersea trench. The success of both feats hinged not only on the cutting-edge gear that protected the men from either thin air or crushing pressure, but also on clever thinking to reach their destinations.On October 14 Austrian Felix Baumgartner broke the 50-year-old mark for highest-ever skydive after leaping from a balloon nearly 39 kilometers above Earth’s surface, traveling at supersonic speeds before landing in southeastern New Mexico. During his 20-minute descent Baumgartner’s top speed reached 1,342.8 kilometers per hour, making him the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, which is 1,236 kilometers per hour at sea level. Baumgartner’s mission also set the record for highest-ever manned balloon flight.Baumgartner’s full-pressure suit included a control mechanism designed to adjust pressure at different altitudes, protecting him from symptoms of decompression sickness during his rapid descent. The balloon that took Baumgartner to the apex of his journey was made of a polyethylene film, only 0.02 millimeter thick, that could enclose a voume of nearly 850,000 cubic meters. Baumgartner’s equipment included main and emergency parachutes, along with a drogue stabilization chute to help him recover from an uncontrollable spin. The main and reserve chutes were designed to open at speeds of up to 280 kilometers per hour.At the other extreme, filmmaker James Cameron in March became the first solo aquanaut to reach the deepest recess of the Mariana Trench, touching down at the Challenger Deep site about 11 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Cameron, who directed the first two Terminator movies as well as Titanic and Avatar, piloted his DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible on the seven-hour round-trip, spending about three hours at the deepest spot on the planet’s crust to collect samples for marine biological, microbiological, astrobiological, marine geologic and geophysical research.The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER included several features designed to aid Cameron on his expedition, including a sphere-shaped pressurized cockpit that collected moisture from Cameron’s exhaled breath and sweat into a plastic bag. Cameron could have consumed this concoction if he had run low on drinking water. About 70 percent of the CHALLENGER’s volume was taken up by syntactic foam made from millions of hollow glass microspheres suspended in an epoxy resin, making the vessel’s skin low in density but extremely strong. —Larry GreenemeierMore:
» Daredevil Makes Record-Breaking Supersonic Jump
» Cameron Completes Titanic Solo Journey to the Ocean Floor

Image: MathieuViennet/iStockphoto Starvation Diet Fails to Boost LongevityWhen making New Year’s resolutions to diet and stay fit, remember: what you eat may be more important than how much you eat.Scientists have found that a significant reduction in caloric intake does not extend primates’ life spans. Rather, genetics and healthy eating appear to be elements with higher impact, according to a report published in Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)Scientists funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) looked at the diets of rhesus monkeys over a 25-year period, feeding an experimental group 30 percent less than control animals. Whereas previous studies have indicated that other animals—including rats and roundworms—seem to age more slowly when consuming fewer calories, the monkeys were unaffected.The Nature study refutes an earlier body of work by the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC), which found that rhesus monkeys did, indeed, benefit from a calorie-restricted diet. The previous findings likely resulted from a less healthy menu, however. WNPRC monkeys were given food containing 28.5 percent sucrose compared with 3.9 percent sucrose at the NIA. Consuming less unhealthy food could have been enough to alter results.Although observational evidence indicates that reducing calories lengthens lives, the true implications for humans remain uncertain. The recipe for a longer life likely depends on a combination of factors, rather than hinging on how much you put on your plate. —Mollie Bloudoff-IndelicatoMore:
» Calorie Restriction Fails to Lengthen Life Span in Primates
» Why Do Some People Live to 100? An Instant Egghead Video

Image of Endeavour on Manchester Blvd. in Los Angeles by ATOMIC Hot Links/FlickrBold, Private Efforts Step into Roles Vacated by NASASpace shuttle Endeavour’s trip down West Manchester Boulevard past Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood, Calif., in October was probably not quite what Pres. John F. Kennedy had in mind as “the other things” to accomplish during his famous moon speech made 50 years ago. The space plane was towed for the final leg of its journey to its final resting place at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, reminding us that NASA really has retired its shuttle program and that there isn’t much for astronauts to do these days in space.Endeavour’s brethren had already found their permanent homes: Atlantis will remain at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Discovery now lives at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. And the Enterprise prototype now sits proudly atop the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan after making spectacular tours around New York City’s airspace and later enduring a beating from Superstorm Sandy.Dreams of human spaceflight found other outlets this year: California-based SpaceX became the first private company to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The company’s Dragon capsule is slated to carry humans to orbit by 2015, onboard a reusable rocket also designed and built by SpaceX. Other contenders in the busy and risky private human spaceflight arena include ATK, Blue Origins, DreamChaser and Stratolaunch.The commercialization of spaceflight could extend to smaller scales, too: talks are underway to allow government-built instruments to hitch rides onboard private satellites.
 
Meanwhile if a trip “to the moon, Alice” sounds quite appealing these days, sign up for Golden Spike’s recent offer—a flight to the moon. It’s only $ 750 million. The fee includes return trip to Earth, however, so true escapists will have to wait for Bigelow Aerospace’s private space hotels or a trip to colonize Mars. —Robin LloydMore:
» A Tribute to All 135 of NASA’s Space Shuttle Missions [Video]
» SpaceX Dragon Capsule Arrives at Space Station with Precious Cargo

Image courtesy of CDC/Taronna MainesPandemic Avian Flu Genes Made Public
 A lab-made virus that could spread global death is the stuff of science-fiction thrillers. But this year researchers published the ingredients for just such a contagion—a culmination of widespread debate about whether the recipe should be made public or locked away.For decades scientists have warned of a potential repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic, which claimed tens of millions of lives. The avian (H5N1) influenza virus drew the most attention. A decade ago, it killed tens of millions of birds, and any person who contracted the virus faced grim odds—the mortality rate is about 60 percent. Fortunately, the H5N1 virus did not spread in the air and thus could not infect humans easily, and outbreaks remained confined to small areas.In 2011 two research groups independently discovered the genetic mutations necessary to make the H5N1 virus airborne and therefore more easily transmissible. They showed that ferrets infected with the mutant strains could transmit the virus to healthy ferrets caged nearby.Concerns that bioterrorists could use the data to weaponize the virus led government officials, scientists and journal editors to hold off publishing the mutation information. Proponents argued that the data would help epidemiologists know what to watch out for if H5N1 mutated in the wild and better enable them to prepare countermeasures. That argument, plus the fact that many scientists had already obtained access to the information, led the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to green-light the publications of the papers. The first appeared in the June 21 issue of Nature. —Philip YamMore:
» Contagion: Controversy Erupts over Man-Made Pandemic Avian Flu Virus
» Controversial Bird-Flu Research Published: How Worried Should We Be?

Image of Arctic sea ice at its 2012 minimum courtesy of NASARecord Meltdown of Arctic Sea IceOn September 16, 2012, the extent of ice covering the Arctic Ocean reached an all-time low of 3.4 million square kilometers (since satellite records began in 1979). The minimum ice cover each summer had begun to shrink annually in 2000 and declined much more rapidly each year beginning in 2007.Whereas happy shipping moguls marveled at how less ice might allow them to send freighters across the Arctic, scientists began to demonstrate and speak out about several serious effects. First, the dramatic disappearance of summer sea ice, which was not predicted by many climate models, exposes darker ocean water that absorbs more heat, thereby melting even more ice—setting up a feedback loop that may be increasing the rate of global warming.Second, scientists maintained that the lack of ice caused the weird weather experienced in the U.S. Northeast and Europe during the past three winters. In essence, the lack of ice allows the jet stream to either dip farther south or remain farther north than usual during winter, and to get stuck in those positions for long periods, causing many consecutive days of extreme cold or exceptional warmth on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.Some scientists ventured to say that the loss of sea ice helped Hurricane Sandy “turn left” from the Atlantic Ocean into New Jersey and New York City. Such a shift in direction had never been recorded before. A “blocking high pressure system” in the North Atlantic—a likely result of the lack of ice—prevented Sandy from heading northeast out to sea, as hurricanes would typically do. —Mark FischettiMore:
» Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low
» Extreme Weather Explained
» Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?

Image of activists in front of the Supreme Court on the first day of “Obamacare” hearings on March 26, 2012, by OlegAlbinsky/iStockphoto“Obamacare” (Mostly) Upheld by Supreme CourtThe sweeping health care reforms passed in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) represented the largest systemic changes to the U.S. national health care system in nearly a half century. Intact, the law would extend access to affordable health care to 32 million otherwise uninsured Americans, helping more people obtain consistent and preventive care. Encouraging health care information technologies and integrated systems, such as electronic health records, will likely reduce medical errors and provide reams of new data for medical research. Additionally, the law contains provisions to boost comparative- and cost-effectiveness research (via the newly established Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute). Such research could lead to medical and public health advances that will help the largest number of people. In addition to improving health in the U.S., all of these changes should help reign in runaway health care costs, which topped $ 2.6 trillion in 2010 and are projected to keep climbing.But all of that hard-won reform was up for major revision—or full repeal—as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the case in March 2012. The Court’s decision, announced on June 28, upheld most of the ACA.The only provision that the Court undercut was the mandatory expansion of state-run Medicaid programs. Under the original ACA, Medicaid eligibility was to be expanded to include 16 million more people nationwide who would otherwise have trouble paying for health insurance. The federal government would foot the whole bill for states until 2016, then gradually step back to paying 90 percent in 2022 and beyond. So far at least nine states have said they will forgo the expansion, citing a reluctance to spend more of their own pinched pennies.With Pres. Barack Obama’s reelection in November, the law looks likely to continue rolling out the rest of its provisions through 2020. Starting in 2014, for example, insurers will no longer be allowed to make coverage or rate decisions based on a person’s preexisting conditions; state or federally controlled insurance exchanges will have to be operational; and Medicare eligibility expansions—in participating states—will take effect.—Katherine HarmonMore:
» Health Care Reform on Trial: What’s at Stake in the Supreme Court Arguments
» Health Act Intact: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care
» Could Medicaid Benefits Get Pushed off the Fiscal Cliff?

Image: Kalawin/iStockphotoPublication of the ENCODE Encyclopedia: A Milestone in Genome Research
 Twelve years after the publication of the human genome sequence, a large consortium published the next step: the ENCODE Project: ENCyclopedia of DNA Elements. Whereas the genome project provided the sequence of all the nucleotides in the human DNA (how all the A’s, C’s, T’s and G’s are put in order), ENCODE goes a step further and catalogues which of those sequences can be transcribed into RNA and in which types of cells.Just as biologists understood that the Human Genome Project is a useful tool (albeit not the “holy grail” or “blueprint of life” as touted in some media), so too did they welcome ENCODE as another useful research tool. The laboratory techniques developed by the Human Genome Project have enabled scientists to sequence—ever more inexpensively—the complete genomes of many individual humans as well as many other species. In the same vein, scientists expect that ENCODE is just a beginning, enabling them to perform the same kind of work on numerous individuals as well as on numerous species. The knowledge gained will help answer important questions about evolution, ecology, conservation, physiology, development and medicine.Unfortunately, much of the discussion surrounding the publication of ENCODE failed to focus on the usefulness of the catalogue and the techniques that built it. Instead, much of the debate centered on the failure to understand that transcription does not necessarily imply meaningful biological function. Cells are messy biological entities, with lots of gunk and goo floating around, so mistakes happen all the time. Many DNA sequences get translated into RNA, only to have the cell degrade that RNA. Much, perhaps most, of the DNA in our genomes—despite being occasionally transcribed, and thus recorded in ENCODE—is still functionless “junk DNA.” That is actually not surprising; it is in fact expected from evolutionary theory. Thanks to ENCODE, though, we should eventually learn which sequences are the junk and which are the gems of cell activity. —Bora ZivkovicMore:
» “Junk DNA” Holds Clues to Many Diseases
» Junk DNA, Junky PR

Image illustration by Don FoleyNASA’s Curiosity Rover Lands on MarsIn 2012 Mars received a new six-wheeled visitor. NASA’s Curiosity rover—the biggest, most sophisticated explorer of its kind— landed safely on the Red Planet in August. The successful touchdown capped an elaborate landing sequence that had been dubbed “ seven minutes of terror” and made mini-celebrities out of mission engineers (notably flight director Bobak Ferdowsi, aka the “Mohawk guy”).Curiosity’s roughly two-year mission on Mars has only just begun—the rover is still trying out some of its instruments for the first time. But already the rover has found evidence of an ancient riverbed and has detected tantalizing but unconfirmed hints of Martian carbon (the stuff of life on Earth) in the soil. Soon Curiosity will begin to explore Mount Sharp, a towering stack of sedimentary layers that should provide clues to the conditions that prevailed on ancient Mars, when water flowed more freely. —John Matson

More:
» In-Depth Report: NASA’s Curiosity Rover Touches Down on Mars

Image of particle decay tracks left by purported Higgs courtesy of ATLAS Experiment/CERNThe Higgs Boson Is DetectedThis year the best Fourth of July fireworks took place in Europe. On that warm summer’s day, in a conference room not far from the shores of Lake Geneva, physicists representing two experiments at the Large Hadron Collider celebrated the news four decades in the making: The Higgs boson had been found.The next day’s front-page headline of The New York Times read “Physicists Find Elusive Particle Seen as Key to Universe,” but the Higgs discovery is about much more than enhancing our understanding of the subatomic world. The Higgs represents the final chapter in the story of 21st-century particle physics. It completes the Standard Model, the theoretical description of all the known particles and forces (and by some metrics the most successful theory in the history of science). From here, hopes are that scientists at the LHC will make discoveries that illuminate the universe beyond the Standard Model, providing fireworks for years to come. —Michael MoyerMore:
» In-Depth Report: The Higgs Boson at Last?
» Why Do Physicists Care So Much about Finding the Higgs Boson?

Image courtesy of NASASandy Devastates the U.S. Northeastern CoastLike a bad horror movie sequel, Hurricane Sandy churned up the U.S. east coast this fall, making landfall on the New Jersey shore just before Halloween and a little more than a year after Hurricane Irene took a similar path. Unlike Hurricane Irene, which devastated inland communities with torrential rains, Sandy’s wrath came in the form of hurricane-force winds and a storm surge exceeding four meters—enough to reshape the New Jersey and Long Island shorelines as well as inundate critical New York City infrastructure, such as subway tunnels and power stations, among other ill effects.Meteorologists dubbed Sandy a “frankenstorm” for its meteorologic mash-up of a hurricane moving up from the south, a winter storm moving in from the west and a ridge of high pressure forcing the systems to merge and move inland. Add in the fact that the tropical cyclone alone stretched more than 1,500 kilometers across and boasted the lowest pressure of any storm ever recorded north of North Carolina—943 millibars—and Sandy certainly merited the designation “superstorm.”Climate change seems to have intensified the event. A record summer sea ice melt in the Arctic likely helped create the weather conditions that forced Hurricane Sandy along its ill-fated track. The storm also gained “a little bit of extra kick from the slightly warmer than normal waters it will be tracking over,” noted James Franklin, the branch chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center.The disaster, which inflicted at least $ 50-billion worth of damage and claimed at least 250 lives, 131 in the U.S. alone, showed the vulnerability of our cities and coastal communities.  Sandy’s legacy demands new thinking as to how best to prepare for future punishing storms, likely to be even stronger in our ever-warmer world. —David BielloMore:
» In-Depth Report: Hurricane Sandy: An Unprecedented Disaster
» In-Depth Report: Extreme Weather and Climate Change
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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Newtown residents ready to step out of media glare

Hundreds of reporters from around the world converged on Newtown, Conn., after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary …NEWTOWN, Conn.-- Message to the media: It's time to go away.

That's what many residents here have been saying about the media since Monday, when funerals began for more than two dozen adults and children killed in last week's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"There are people who should be able to get to these funerals," Janice Butler of Newtown told Yahoo News on Wednesday, standing a few hundred yards from the entrance to the school where Friday's shootings took place. "But some of them can't because you all are here."

At the Newtown General Store, when a member of the media thanked a store employee for breakfast sandwich, she replied, smiling, "Thank you for leaving."

In the first days after the tragedy, most reporters here were respectful of the town's 27,000 residents, sharing in their shock and grief while trying to cover it. And most residents and shop owners seemed to understand that it was a major news story of deep interest to many readers and viewers.

Figs Restaurant here welcomed TV host Geraldo Rivera for two meals late Saturday afternoon. By Tuesday, though, the restaurant had stationed one of the cooks in the parking lot, barring media from parking there.

Also Saturday, a Newtown teacher offered use of his bathroom and WiFi to several reporters. And the back dining room of the Iron Bridge bar in Sandy Hook became an ABC News bureau on Sunday, where network staff watched President Barack Obama's speech at the interfaith vigil at Newtown High School.

But on Monday, the Newtown Bee posted a note on its Facebook page, imploring its colleagues and journalists in the media to leave families of the dead alone. "PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THE VICTIMS," the note said.

"We acknowledge it is your right to try and make contact," the paper added on Facebook, "But we beg you to do what is right and let them grieve and ready their funeral plans in peace."

Several local residents visited the page, adding their voices to the chorus of criticism.

"We want our town, our lives back," Dennis Brinkmann wrote. "You did your job, now leave us be."

"Journalists should be reporters not voyeurs," wrote another.

"We did turn to you when it was unfolding, because we needed to know what was going on, but now leave," Dorene Doran wrote. "We need to give these families time to themselves. Don't worry they will seek you out if they want to talk to you."

"As I drove down Main Street today I was upset at the number of cameras just aimed at the door to the funeral home," Gail Lovorn wrote, suggesting the community erect a screen to block the view. "The last thing these families need is to see their family and friends in these tender moments broadcast for the world to see."

On Tuesday night, a man walking up Church Hill Road carried a sign that read: "Dear Media, GTFO!"

There are signs that the media swarm is beginning to ease.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who arrived Saturday, left Newtown after his broadcast on Tuesday night. Most of the satellite trucks that lined the center of Sandy Hook, steps from a makeshift memorial and less than a half mile from Sandy Hook Elementary, were gone on Wednesday. The parking lot at Treadwell Park, where nearly close to 100 satellite trucks were parked on Saturday, sat empty, too.

The Starbucks next to Saint Rose of Lima Church on Church Hill Road served as a makeshift international media center since the funerals began. On Wednesday, it was filled with residents heading to services for 7-year-old victim Daniel Barden--no media in sight.

But not everyone in Newtown wants to see the media gone.

"Please, please don't leave," a Sandy Hook resident named Dennis told Connecticut Public Radio's Colin McEnroe on Wednesday. "Because I know that people on the outside are feeling the same thing that the people on the inside are feeling. And it's ... it's just helplessness. So the more information they can get--as long as it's correct information--it might help them a little bit. It might, you know?"

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Canada serial killer inquiry finds “systemic bias” by police

(Reuters) – Police made critical errors in pursuing Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton partly because of “systemic bias” against his victims, sex trade workers from a rough Vancouver neighborhood, according to the final report from a public inquiry released on Monday.

Commissioner Wally Oppal was asked by the British Columbia government to investigate, in effect, why Pickton was not caught sooner. Women disappeared from the Downtown Eastside neighborhood for more than a decade before the pig farmer’s 2002 arrest.

“The investigations of missing and murdered women were characterized by blatant police failures, and by public indifference,” Oppal said at a press conference in Vancouver that was frequently interrupted by protesters.

Pickton was convicted of six murders, but prosecutors believe he killed many more – 20 other charges were stayed after he received the maximum possible sentence.

Oppal outlined a string of police errors, from failing to take proper reports when women went missing and communicate adequately with families, to ineffective coordination across jurisdictions. He called his more than 1,200-page report, which is based on eight months of hearings, “Forsaken”.

“After reviewing the evidence of the investigations, I have come to the conclusion that there was systemic bias by the police,” he said.

Oppal recommended that the provincial government establish a compensation fund for the children of the victims and consider creating a regional police force for Vancouver, instead of the patchwork of jurisdictions currently in place.

After Oppal’s announcement, B.C. Minister of Justice Shirley Bond wiped away tears as she spoke to victims’ families.

“I want you to know that, however inadequate these words sound, we are sorry for your loss,” she said. “We will work hard to prevent these circumstances from being repeated in our province.”

She announced the appointment of a former lieutenant governor, Steven Point, to serve as the report’s “champion”, guiding implementation. Bond said the government would immediately give new funding to WISH, a drop-in center for women who work in the Downtown Eastside’s sex trade.

POLICE RESPOND

The Vancouver Police Department said in a short statement that it is committed to learning from its mistakes and will study the report.

“We know that nothing can ever truly heal the wounds of grief and loss but if we can, we want to assure the families that the Vancouver Police Department deeply regrets anything we did that may have delayed the eventual solving of these murders,” it said.

Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, who commands the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said in a statement that his force will review the report.

Oppal said many individual police officers were diligent, and he commended several by name. But he said that as a system, the authorities failed because of bias against Pickton’s victims, many of whom were poor and addicted to drugs.

“Would the reaction of the police and the public have been any different if the missing women had come from Vancouver’s (more affluent) west side? The answer is obvious,” he said.

Aboriginal women were overrepresented among the victims, and Oppal repeatedly referred to the broader “marginalization” of aboriginal people in Canada.

“There has to be community responsibility for what has taken place,” he said, highlighting poverty and the conditions on the Downtown Eastside. “The social reality is that racism and gender bias are prevalent within Canadian society, and we must do something to eradicate those.”

Victims’ families and activists were on hand for Oppal’s press conference, and he stopped speaking several times as audience members shouted criticism, chanted and played drums.

The provincial government did not offer funding to a number of community organizations that said they needed support to participate in the lengthy and complex inquiry. In protest, other groups boycotted the process.

In November, several organizations, including the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, released their own report, criticizing the inquiry for, among other things, excluding too many aboriginal women, sex trade workers and drug users.

Bond, the justice minister, said she did not regret the decision not to fund those groups, but said she saw them participating in the future. “I think going forward this is room for us to include other voices.” (Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donating $500 million in stock to Silicon Valley charity

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a non-profit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, New Jersey, public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

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Tom Hooper, Mychael Danna join crowded slate of Palm Springs honorees

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Les Miserables” director Tom Hooper and “Life of Pi” composer Mychael Danna are the latest awards-season hopefuls to be added to the slate of honorees at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, PSIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.

The two will join a list of honorees that in recent days has expanded to include Helen Mirren, Richard Gere, Bradley Cooper and Sally Field. Other awards will go to Helen Hunt, Naomi Watts, Robert Zemeckis and the cast of “Argo.”

Hooper will receive the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, named in honor of the singer/producer/actor and Palm Springs mayor who launched the festival. Past recipients include Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, Baz Luhrmann and last year’s winner, “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius.

“Tom Hooper brilliantly transforms the classic stage musical ‘Les Misérables’ into a cinema marvel,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner in a press release announcing the awards. “By asking his amazing cast of actors to sing live on film, Hooper allows them to connect even further with their characters, resulting in emotional powerhouse performances that are enthralling audiences worldwide.”

Danna, who has won acclaim for his score to Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” will receive the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing, a PSIFF honor that in the past has gone to T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.

Danna previously wrote music for Lee’s films “The Ice Storm” and “Ride With the Devil.” “Mychael Danna is a pioneer in creating original compositions that are as dramatic and innovative as the films in which they are featured,” said Matzner in the release.

PSIFF’s Awards Gala will take place on Saturday, January 5, and the festival will run from January 3 through January 14.

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U.N. seeks $1.5 billion to address Syria crisis

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $ 1.5 billion to provide life-saving aid to Syrians suffering from a “dramatically deteriorating” humanitarian situation.

The twin appeals, $ 519.6 million for aid within Syria and $ 1 billion to meet the needs of up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five countries, comprise the “largest short-term humanitarian appeal ever”, the world body said in its statement.

“The magnitude of this humanitarian crisis is indisputable,” said Radhouane Nouicer, U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, who launched the appeals in Geneva.

Inside Syria, U.N. aid agencies aim to help 4 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, including an estimated 2 million displaced from their homes by the fighting between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels trying to topple him.

More than 525,000 Syrian refugees have already been registered and the latest estimate is that up to 1 million refugees in five countries, including Egypt for the first time, will need help in the first half of 2013, the U.N. refugee agency said.

“Unless these funds come quickly we will not be able to fully respond to the lifesaving needs of civilians who flee Syria every hour of the day – many in a truly desperate condition,” UNHCR regional envoy Panos Moumtzis said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams)

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