Posts Tagged ‘New York’
Written by admin on 30 January 2010
New York, Jan 30 (DPA) US stocks fell Friday, capping the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst month in nearly a year, despite government figures showing the economy grew at its fastest pace in six years last quarter.
The markets did begin the day higher after the Commerce Department said gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009, beating economists’ forecast of a 4.7-percent gain.
The growth in fourth-quarter economic output signals a stronger-than-expected recovery from the deepest US recession in decades and is more than double the 2.2-percent growth of the previous quarter.
But investors focused on depressing news from the technology sector. Microsoft shares fell after the company’s chief financial officer said the economic recovery had yet to boost demand for software. Apple shares also declined more than two percent despite its unveiling of the iPad tablet computer this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 53.13 points, or 0.52 percent, closing at 10,073.87. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 10.66 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 1,073.87. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 31.65 points, or 1.45 percent, to 2,147.35.
The Dow fell 1.04 per cent on the week and plunged 3.46 percent during the first month of 2010. The S&P 500 dropped 1.64 percent this week and 3.7 percent in January. The Nasdaq plummeted 2.63 percent in the last five days and tumbled 5.37 percent over the month.
The US currency climbed against the euro to 72.13 euro cents from 71.58 euro cents Thursday. But the dollar gained against the Japanese currency to 90.29 yen from 89.91 yen a day earlier.
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Written by admin on 30 January 2010
New York, Jan 30 – A senior UN official urged a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based strategy to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia, noting that the continued spread of the scourge points to the limits of a solely sea-based approach, WAM news agency reported.
In recent years, pirates operating from Somalia have been hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and holding their crews and cargo for ransom, according to the UN.
Charles Petrie, the UN’s deputy special representative for Somalia, Friday told a meeting of the Contact Group on piracy off the coast of Somalia that improved coordination between the international maritime community and military forces in the region, among other elements, has contributed to a decline in the rate of successful pirate attacks and raised the cost of pirate operations.
‘And yet piracy continues to expand further out to sea, at times more than 1,000 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia,’ he said at the meeting in UN headquarters.
Petrie added that the rising costs of these attacks are met by ever more innovative financing mechanisms, including the establishment of stock exchanges which allow local investors to earn returns on their investment in piracy operations.
Meanwhile, the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia Friday formally adopted a mode of cooperation between China and the Western naval coalition patrolling the Gulf of Aden, Carl Salicath, its Chairperson was quoted by UN Department of Public Information (DPI) as saying.
‘This cooperation is open for any nation that patrols these waters in order to prevent piracy,’ Salicath said at a press conference at the UN headquarters. Some countries escorted their own ships in convoys, as China had done before the agreement. ‘This will make the patrolling more efficient,’ added Salicath.
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Written by admin on 29 January 2010
New York, Jan 29 – Our memories are strengthened during periods of rest while we are awake, say researchers.
‘Taking a coffee break after class can actually help you retain that information you just learned,’ explained Lila Davachi, assistant psychology professor at New York University (NYU) in whose lab the study was conducted.
‘Your brain wants you to tune out other tasks so you can tune in to what you just learned,’ she added.
The study, led by Arielle Tambini, doctoral candidate in NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science, focused on memory consolidation — the period when a memory is stabilized after it is initially created, or encoded.
To determine if memory consolidation occurred during periods of awake rest, the researchers imaged the hippocampus, a brain structure known to play a significant role in memory and cortical regions during periods of awake rest.
Previous studies have demonstrated regions of the brain more active during periods of rest, but their function at these times had been unclear.
The NYU experiment tested subjects’ associative memory by showing them pairs of images containing a human face and an object (e.g., a beach ball) or a human face and a scene (e.g., a beach) followed by periods of awake rest.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to gauge activity in the hippocampus and cortical regions during the task and during the ensuing rest period.
The experiment yielded two noteworthy results. First, the researchers found that during rest after the study experience (after the visuals were shown), there was a significant correlation between brain activity in the subjects’ hippocampus and cortical regions that were active during the initial encoding of each stimulus pair.
Second, when examining each subject individually, it was found that subjects who had greater resting correlations between the hippocampus and cortex, also exhibited better performance on a subsequent associative memory test, said the NYU study.
Those whose brain correlations were weaker, had worse memory. In other words, the greater the activity in hippocampus and cortical regions, the stronger the memory.
‘Your brain is working for you when you’re resting, so rest is important for memory and cognitive function,’ Davachi observed. ‘This is something we don’t appreciate much, especially when today’s information technologies keep us working round-the-clock.’
The other co-author was Nicholas Ketz, researcher assistant in psychology, NYU.
These findings appeared in the latest issue of Neuron.
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Written by admin on 29 January 2010
New York, Jan 29 (DPA) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has publicly withdrawn support for holding the trial of 9/11 terrorist suspects in Lower Manhattan, giving in to pressure mostly from New Yorkers and Wall Street.
Bloomberg had toed the line with Washington since November when US Attorney General Eric Holder decided to try Al Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants in the city of their alleged crime.
They are charged with plotting the Sep 11, 2001 attacks against the World Trade Centre in Manhattan and Pentagon outside Washington. The attacks left 2,973 people dead, with the vast majority of deaths in New York.
‘It’s going to cost an awful lot of money and disturb an awful lot of people,’ Bloomberg said at a news conference Tuesday in Brooklyn. ‘My hope is that the attorney general and the president decide to change their mind.’
Until Tuesday, Bloomberg had been demanding that Washington pay for the legal cost estimated at $275 million for the first year alone if the trial were to be held in a federal district court in Lower Manhattan, just blocks from the former site of the World Trade Centre now known as ground zero.
Former mayor Rudolf Giuliani openly opposed the idea while local residents have expressed strong sensitivity against such a trial, with memories of the 9/11 attacks still raw. Wall Street executives have also opposed the trial.
A White House spokesman told reporters Thursday that President Barack Obama stands by Holder’s decision to try the five suspects in civilian courts.
‘He agrees with the attorney general’s opinion that … (Mohammed) and others can be litigated successfully and securely in the United States of America,’ deputy spokesman Bill Burton told reporters travelling with Obama for an appearance in Tampa, Florida.
‘Currently our federal jails hold hundreds of convicted terrorists, and the president’s opinion has not changed on that,’ he added.
Last week, some New York legislators suggested moving the trial to Governors Island, a former US Navy base in the New York harbour, or to a federal court in upstate New York.
Bloomberg’s remarks came after Republicans in US Congress had threatened to block US funding for the trial. Six US senators, including one Democrat, signed a letter this week urging Holder to rescind the decision to try the Al Qaeda suspects in New York City.
The signers included Republican John McCain, independent Joe Lieberman and Democrat Jim Webb, a staunch advocate for national security.
They wrote that such a venue would provide the terrorist suspects ‘one of the most visible platforms in the world to exalt their past acts and to rally others in support of further terrorism’, The New York Times quoted the letter as saying.
Bloomberg said a military base could be a better place than the city’s commercial and residential district.
The US Justice Department has not yet decided on a date for the trial and Mohammed and his co-defendants are still detained in the US Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Bringing some of the suspects to the US for trials is part of Obama’s decision to close the controversial detention facility in Guantanamo.
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Written by admin on 29 January 2010
New York, Jan 29 – Hollywood tough-guy Jean-Claude Van Damme is planning to step back into the ring for a new reality TV show.
The 49-year-old turned his back on fighting when he broke into movies in the 1980s but has agreed to a bout with Thai kickboxer Somluck Kamsing in the presence of camera crews that will record his every move leading up to the event, reports hollywood.com.
‘It’s kind of dangerous, but life is short,’ he said.
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Written by admin on 28 January 2010
New York, Jan 28 – General entertainment channel (GEC) Colors was launched in the US and will be distributed through DISH network as Aapka Colors.
The channel, launched Wednesday, aims to entertain the widespread South Asian community residing in US with its blend of entertainment through scripted series, reality shows, game shows and Bollywood films.
‘Over the last 18 months, Colors has risen to become the No.1 rated GEC in India. The launch of Aapka Colors in US is part of Viacom18′s aggressive growth plans to extend this successful franchise of our flagship brand outside India,’ said Haresh Chawla, group CEO Viacom18 and Network18.
The channel is available in DISH Network’s Hindi mega pack, which currently offers 16 other premium Hindi channels.
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is the brand ambassador of the channel in US.
‘Though my association with the Indian channel began recently with one of its most successful shows in recent times – ‘Bigg Boss Season 3′, I’ve been watching it for over a year. Now, by taking on the responsibility of being its brand ambassador, I feel honoured in being able to partner with a media channel that has been a conduit of social change while churning out excellent quality entertainment,’ he said.
‘I am sure, Aapka Colors, with its myriad hues of entertainment, will spread its magic in the United States as well, as it did in India,’ he added.
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