The Prime Minister visited troops on the front line in Afghanistan as a senior British commander claimed talks with the Taliban should have been attempted a decade ago. On a trip timed to coincide with Armed Forces Day, David Cameron acknowledged that things could have been done differently after military operations removed the Taliban regime. But he insisted it was right for the West to consider talks with the Taliban now, with hopes of an Afghanistan where everyone can play a role in the country's future. General Nick Carter, deputy commander of the Nato-led coalition, told The Guardian that it would have been more successful to approach the Taliban in 2002 after they were knocked from pow read more
'Twisted light' shown off in fibre A novel way of packing more data in optical communications by using "twisted light" is shown to work in optical fibres - with terabit-per-second rates.
Source: BBC News Posted on:
Friday, Jun 28, 2013, 8:32am Views: 14
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) ? President Barack Obama is receiving the embrace you might expect for a long-lost son on his return to his father's home continent, even as he has yet to leave a lasting policy legacy for Africa on the scale of his two predecessors.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush passed innovative Africa initiatives while in the White House and passionately continue their development work in the region in their presidential afterlife. Obama's efforts here have not been so ambitious, despite his personal ties to the continent.
His first major tour of Africa as president is coming just now, in his fifth year, while Bush and Clinton are frequent fliers to Africa. Bush even will be in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, next week at the same time as Obama, although they have no plans to meet. Instead, their wives plan to appear together at a summit on empowering African women organized by the George W. Bush Institute, with the former president in attendance.
For Obama, one potentially memorable aspect of this trip -- a meeting with former South African president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela -- remained in doubt. Obama was en route from Dakar Senegal to Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday where Mandela was hospitalized in critical condition.
Obama, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, said it was uncertain whether he would get an opportunity to see the 94-year-old Mandela, a personal hero to the president.
"I don't need a photo-op, and the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition," he said.
In French-speaking Senegal, Africa's westernmost country, spirited crowds greeted Obama on his visit, with revelers frequently breaking into song and dance at the sight of the first African-American president. However thrilled they were to see him, many said they wish his visits weren't so rare.
"Two visits in five years, it's not enough," said Faye Mbissine, a 30-year-old nanny who took an early morning bus to come see Obama on Thursday outside the presidential palace. "We hope that he can come more."
Manougou Nbodj, a 21-year-old student, said he hopes Obama will bring American resources like jobs and health care. "If Obama can work with Macky Sall the way that George Bush worked with Africa before him, then we will be happy," he said, referring to the Senegalese president.
One of Bush's chief foreign policy successes was his aid to Africa, including AIDS relief credited with saving millions of lives and grants to reward developing countries for good governance. Bush followed on momentum on African policy that began under Clinton, who allowed several dozen sub-Saharan countries to export to the U.S. duty-free.
Obama has continued the Bush and Clinton programs during tough economic times. But his signature Africa policy thus far has been food security, through less prominent programs designed to address hunger with policy reforms and private investment in agriculture.
On Friday, Obama toured displays in small thatched booths at his hotel grounds on a bluff overlooking the ocean, meeting with farmers and entrepreneurs who are using new methods and technologies to advance the cause of food security.
"This is a moral imperative," he said. "I believe that Africa is rising and it wants to partner with us not to be dependent but to be self-sufficient.
Witney Schneidman, former deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Obama's efforts are not like Bush's AIDS initiative "where you put people on a medicine to save their lives ? very, extremely important. This is more of a structural change, and I think that's going to take time."
Under Clinton and Bush "you had this major funding, major attention, major initiatives going to Africa, and then President Obama came in, and there was a sense of stall, in a way," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said that's understandable as he grappled with wars and an economic crisis, and she gave Obama credit for working diplomatically with African governments in his first term.
But, she said, "they weren't big, splashy initiatives that got peoples' attention either in Africa or here at home, and no big money and no big ideas that really helped define what Obama was about in Africa."
That's a disappointed those who were expecting more from the first African-American president, especially after his speech during a brief stopover in Ghana his first summer in office, in which he spoke personally of his father's life in Kenya and declared "a new moment of great promise" in Africa. "I have the blood of Africa within me," Obama said.
Schneidman argued that Obama's personal connection may also have been an impediment to deeper engagement in his first term. "The whole birther movement here in the U.S. that was sort of questioning his place of birth to begin with ... I think it was a real constraint on dealing with Africa," Schneidman said.
Mwangi Kimenyi, a Kenyan who directs the Brookings Institutions' Africa Growth Initiative, said Obama may be a victim of misplaced sky-high expectations on the continent when he was first elected.
"Africans still consider Clinton their president," Kimenyi said. "If you go to Africa and mention Clinton ? I mean, he is a hero, even today. I don't think President Obama is going to approach the level of President Clinton at all, in terms of respect, in terms of what they feel, and it's partly because, as one whose family is from Africa, the expectations were rather high."
"There is not that feeling that, you know, we have our son there," Kimenyi said. "There's probably more reference of a prodigal son than a, you know, son."
Clinton first drew extensive attention to Africa in 1998 when he made the longest trip ever by a U.S. president, with stops in six countries that had never before been visited by any occupant of the Oval Office.
Bush's trip this week is his third in 19 months to promote his Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon partnership to combat breast and cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. On this visit, he and his wife, Laura, plan to help renovate a cervical cancer screening and treatment clinic in Zambia before heading to Tanzania for the African First Ladies Summit advocating investment in programs for women and girls.
"Frankly, Africa is a place that we had not yet been able to devote significant presidential time and attention to," Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes said. "And there's nothing that can make an impact more in terms of our foreign policy and our economic and security interests than the president of the United States coming and demonstrating the importance of our commitment to this region."
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Associated Press writer Robbie Corey-Boulet contributed to this report.
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JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Hundreds of protesters marched to the U.S. embassy in South Africa on Friday in a peaceful protest against the impending visit by President Barack Obama.
The demonstrators opposed U.S. policy on Cuba, the war in Afghanistan, global warming and other issues. The rally in Pretoria was organized by trade unionists and members of the South African Communist Party.
The protesters want to raise public awareness and warn U.S. citizens about human rights violations committed by the Obama administration, which includes the non-closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison holding terrorism suspects, said campaign coordinator Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.
"Their administration's government is not welcome, and is being received with antagonism," Ndlozi said. "Therefore they'll have to rethink the standards by which they hold their government."
Protesters carried signs that read: "No, You Can't Obama," a message inspired by the "Yes We Can" campaign slogan adopted by the president during his first run for election.
Obama and his family were expected to arrive in South Africa later Friday as part of a tour of three African countries. Their three-day trip includes a visit to Cape Town's Robben Island, where former President Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years imprisoned by the previous white racist South African government.
Demonstrators staged a similar protest outside the Parliament building in Cape Town where Obama's record on human rights and trade relations in Africa were questioned.
"He's coming here to plunder Africa and South Africa," protester Abdurahman Khan said. "He's coming for the wealth and resources, for the gold and the diamond mines, while the majority of Africans and South Africans are suffering."
Protesters also plan to rally Saturday at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto campus, where Obama will address students and receive an honorary law degree, and on Sunday at the University of Cape Town.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer on Thursday dismissed comparisons of Chinese and American snooping in cyber space, saying all countries gathered intelligence on their potential adversaries but Beijing's problematic "niche" was intellectual property theft.
Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the U.S. government was close to completing an update of its rules of engagement in cyber space and that Americans needed to understand a cyber attack could trigger a real-world military response.
"All nations on the face of the planet always conduct intelligence operations in all domains," Dempsey told an audience at the Brookings Institution think-tank after he was asked about intelligence leaks showing the National Security Agency targeted Chinese institutions for cyber spying.
He rejected suggestions that the leaks by NSA contractor Edward Snowden demonstrated hypocrisy on the part of the United States, which has been sharply critical of Chinese hacking of U.S. government and commercial computer networks.
"China's particular niche in cyber has been theft and intellectual property," Dempsey said. "I've had some conversations about that with them. Their view is that there are no rules of the road in cyber, there's nothing, there's no laws that they are breaking, there's no standards of behavior."
That disagreement is a point of friction in ties between the two countries and was discussed earlier this month by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping at a summit in California.
Dempsey said the two countries would have their first formal discussions next week to try to establish rules for conduct in cyber space "so we don't have these friction points."
STRONG ACCUSATIONS
The United States has become increasingly vocal about Chinese hacking, which officials say has cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars in lost intellectual property and is helping U.S. adversaries speed development of high-tech weapons systems.
The Pentagon's annual report on China in April for the first time directly accused the Beijing government and military of being behind the hacking.
Dempsey, in his remarks on cyber security at Brookings, said the government could not completely prevent insiders like Snowden from disclosing secrets if they were willing to break the law, but he said it could take steps to mitigate the risk.
He said a shift to so-called "cloud" or "thin client" computing could boost security and reduce the number of systems administrators needing with broad access. Deeper background checks and greater oversight also could be imposed, he said.
Snowden was a systems administrator working for Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii on an NSA contract when he disclosed details of secret U.S. surveillance programs.
"I think systems administrators is the right place to begin to clean this up ... because they have such ubiquitous access, and that's how he ended up doing what he did," Dempsey said.
Dempsey said the U.S. government is close to completing an update of its rules of engagement for dealing with a cyber attack, describing them as a "playbook" that outlines the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies involved.
He cautioned against assuming a cyber attack that caused significant damage would automatically be met with a cyber response of similar scope and destructiveness.
"I think what the president ... would insist upon, actually, is that he have the options and the freedom of movement to decide what kind of response we would employ," Dempsey said.
"That's why I say I don't want to have necessarily a narrow conversation about what constitutes war in cyber, because the response could actually be in one of the other traditional domains" of air, sea, space or land, he said.
(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Bill Trott)
'Shields to Maximum, Mr. Scott'Public release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Faith Singer-Villalobos faith@tacc.utexas.edu 512-232-5771 University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center
Researchers use TACC supercomputers to simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft and fragment impacts on body armor
We know it's out there, debris from 50 years of space exploration aluminum, steel, nylon, even liquid sodium from Russian satellites orbiting around the Earth and posing a danger to manned and unmanned spacecraft.
According to NASA, there are more than 21,000 pieces of 'space junk' roughly the size of a baseball (larger than 10 centimeters) in orbit, and about 500,000 pieces that are golf ball-sized (between one to 10 centimeters).
Sure, space is big, but when a piece of space junk strikes a spacecraft, the collision occurs at a velocity of 5 to 15 kilometers per secondroughly ten times faster than a speeding bullet!
"If a spacecraft is hit by orbital debris it may damage the thermal protection system," said Eric Fahrenthold, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, who studies impact dynamics both experimentally and through numerical simulations.
"Even if the impact is not on the main heat shield, it may still adversely affect the spacecraft. The thermal researchers take the results of impact research and assess the effect of a certain impact crater depth and volume on the survivability of a spacecraft during reentry," Fahrenthold said.
Only some of the collisions that may occur in low earth orbit can be reproduced in the laboratory. To determine the potential impact of fast-moving orbital debris on spacecraft and to assist NASA in the design of shielding that can withstand hypervelocity impacts Fahrenthold and his team developed a numerical algorithm that simulates the shock physics of orbital debris particles striking the layers of Kevlar, metal, and fiberglass that makes up a space vehicle's outer defenses.
Supercomputers enable researchers to investigate physical phenomenon that cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, either because they are too large, small, dangerous or in this case, too fast to reproduce with current testing technology.
Running hundreds of simulations on the Ranger, Lonestar and Stampede supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Fahrenthold and his students have assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. NASA uses ballistic limit curves in the design and risk analysis of current and future spacecraft.
Results from some of his group's impact dynamics research were presented at the April 2013 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) meeting, and have recently been published in the journals Smart Materials and Structures and International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. In the paper presented at the AIAA conference, they showed in detail how different characteristics of a hypervelocity collision, such as the speed, impact angle, and size of the debris, could affect the depth of the cavity produced in ceramic tile thermal protection systems.
The development of these models is not just a shot in the dark. Fahrenthold's simulations have been tested exhaustively against real-world experiments conducted by NASA, which uses light gas guns to launch 'centimeter' size projectiles at speeds up to 10 kilometers per second. The simulations are evaluated in this speed regime to insure that they accurately capture the dynamics of hypervelocity impacts.
Validated simulation methods can then be used to estimate impact damage at velocities outside the experimental range, and also to investigate detailed physics that may be difficult to capture using flash x-ray images of experiments.
The simulation framework that Fahrenthold and his team developed employs a hybrid modeling approach that captures both the fragmentation of the projectiles their tendency to break into small shards that need to be caught and the shock response of the target, which is subjected to severe thermal and mechanical loads.
"We validate our method in the velocity regime where experiments can be performed, then we run simulations at higher velocities, to estimate what we think will happen at higher velocities," Fahrenthold explained. "There are certain things you can do in simulation and certain things you can do in experiment. When they work together, that's a big advantage for the design engineer."
Back on land, Fahrenthold and graduate student Moss Shimek extended this hybrid method in order to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials in research supported by the Office of Naval Research. The numerical technique originally developed to study impacts on spacecraft worked well for a completely different application at lower velocities, in part because some of the same materials used on spacecraft for orbital debris protection, such as Kevlar, are also used in body armor.
According to Fahrenthold, this method offers a fundamentally new way of simulating fabric impacts, which have been modeled with conventional finite element methods for more than 20 years. The model parameters used in the simulation, such as the material's strength, flexibility, and thermal properties, are provided by experimentalists. The supercomputer simulations then replicate the physics of projectile impact and yarn fracture, and capture the complex interaction of the multiple layers of a fabric protection system some fragments getting caught in the mesh of yarns, others breaking through the layers and perforating the barrier.
"Using a hybrid technique for fabric modeling works well," Fahrenthold said. "When the fabric barrier is hit at very high velocities, as in spacecraft shielding, it's a shock-type impact and the thermal properties are important as well as the mechanical ones."
Moss Shimek's dissertation research added a new wrinkle to the fabric model by representing the various weaves used in the manufacture of Kevlar and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (another leading protective material) barriers, including harness-satin, basket, and twill weaves. Each weave type has advantages and disadvantages when used in body armor designed to protect military and police personnel. Layering the different weaves, many believe, can provide improved protection.
Fahrenthold and Shimek (currently a post-doctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory) explored the performance of various weave types using both experiments and simulations. In the November 2012 issue of the AIAA Journal, Shimek and Fahrenthold showed that in some cases the weave type of the fabric material can greatly influence fabric barrier performance.
"Currently body armor normally uses the plain weave, but research has shown that different weaves that are more flexible might be better, for example in extremity protection," Shimek said.
Shimek and Fahrenthold used the same numerical method employed for the NASA simulations to model a series of experiments on layered Kevlar materials, showing that their simulation results were within 15 percent of the experimental outcomes.
"Future body armor designs may vary the weave type through a Kevlar stack," Shimek said. "Maybe one weave type is better at dealing with small fragments, while others perform better for larger fragments. Our results suggest that you can use simulation to assist the designer in developing a fragment barrier which can capitalize on those differences."
What can researchers learn about the layer-to-layer impact response of a fabric barrier through simulation? Can body armor be improved by varying the weave type of the many layers in a typical fabric barrier? Can simulation assist the design engineer in developing orbital debris shields that better protect spacecraft? The range of engineering design questions is endless, and computer simulations can play an important role in the 'faster, better, cheaper' development of improved impact protection systems.
"We are trying to make fundamental improvements in numerical algorithms, and validate those algorithms against experiment," Fahrenthold concluded. "This can provide improved tools for engineering design, and allow simulation-based research to contribute in areas where experiments are very difficult to do or very expensive."
###
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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.
'Shields to Maximum, Mr. Scott'Public release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Faith Singer-Villalobos faith@tacc.utexas.edu 512-232-5771 University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center
Researchers use TACC supercomputers to simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft and fragment impacts on body armor
We know it's out there, debris from 50 years of space exploration aluminum, steel, nylon, even liquid sodium from Russian satellites orbiting around the Earth and posing a danger to manned and unmanned spacecraft.
According to NASA, there are more than 21,000 pieces of 'space junk' roughly the size of a baseball (larger than 10 centimeters) in orbit, and about 500,000 pieces that are golf ball-sized (between one to 10 centimeters).
Sure, space is big, but when a piece of space junk strikes a spacecraft, the collision occurs at a velocity of 5 to 15 kilometers per secondroughly ten times faster than a speeding bullet!
"If a spacecraft is hit by orbital debris it may damage the thermal protection system," said Eric Fahrenthold, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, who studies impact dynamics both experimentally and through numerical simulations.
"Even if the impact is not on the main heat shield, it may still adversely affect the spacecraft. The thermal researchers take the results of impact research and assess the effect of a certain impact crater depth and volume on the survivability of a spacecraft during reentry," Fahrenthold said.
Only some of the collisions that may occur in low earth orbit can be reproduced in the laboratory. To determine the potential impact of fast-moving orbital debris on spacecraft and to assist NASA in the design of shielding that can withstand hypervelocity impacts Fahrenthold and his team developed a numerical algorithm that simulates the shock physics of orbital debris particles striking the layers of Kevlar, metal, and fiberglass that makes up a space vehicle's outer defenses.
Supercomputers enable researchers to investigate physical phenomenon that cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, either because they are too large, small, dangerous or in this case, too fast to reproduce with current testing technology.
Running hundreds of simulations on the Ranger, Lonestar and Stampede supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Fahrenthold and his students have assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. NASA uses ballistic limit curves in the design and risk analysis of current and future spacecraft.
Results from some of his group's impact dynamics research were presented at the April 2013 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) meeting, and have recently been published in the journals Smart Materials and Structures and International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. In the paper presented at the AIAA conference, they showed in detail how different characteristics of a hypervelocity collision, such as the speed, impact angle, and size of the debris, could affect the depth of the cavity produced in ceramic tile thermal protection systems.
The development of these models is not just a shot in the dark. Fahrenthold's simulations have been tested exhaustively against real-world experiments conducted by NASA, which uses light gas guns to launch 'centimeter' size projectiles at speeds up to 10 kilometers per second. The simulations are evaluated in this speed regime to insure that they accurately capture the dynamics of hypervelocity impacts.
Validated simulation methods can then be used to estimate impact damage at velocities outside the experimental range, and also to investigate detailed physics that may be difficult to capture using flash x-ray images of experiments.
The simulation framework that Fahrenthold and his team developed employs a hybrid modeling approach that captures both the fragmentation of the projectiles their tendency to break into small shards that need to be caught and the shock response of the target, which is subjected to severe thermal and mechanical loads.
"We validate our method in the velocity regime where experiments can be performed, then we run simulations at higher velocities, to estimate what we think will happen at higher velocities," Fahrenthold explained. "There are certain things you can do in simulation and certain things you can do in experiment. When they work together, that's a big advantage for the design engineer."
Back on land, Fahrenthold and graduate student Moss Shimek extended this hybrid method in order to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials in research supported by the Office of Naval Research. The numerical technique originally developed to study impacts on spacecraft worked well for a completely different application at lower velocities, in part because some of the same materials used on spacecraft for orbital debris protection, such as Kevlar, are also used in body armor.
According to Fahrenthold, this method offers a fundamentally new way of simulating fabric impacts, which have been modeled with conventional finite element methods for more than 20 years. The model parameters used in the simulation, such as the material's strength, flexibility, and thermal properties, are provided by experimentalists. The supercomputer simulations then replicate the physics of projectile impact and yarn fracture, and capture the complex interaction of the multiple layers of a fabric protection system some fragments getting caught in the mesh of yarns, others breaking through the layers and perforating the barrier.
"Using a hybrid technique for fabric modeling works well," Fahrenthold said. "When the fabric barrier is hit at very high velocities, as in spacecraft shielding, it's a shock-type impact and the thermal properties are important as well as the mechanical ones."
Moss Shimek's dissertation research added a new wrinkle to the fabric model by representing the various weaves used in the manufacture of Kevlar and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (another leading protective material) barriers, including harness-satin, basket, and twill weaves. Each weave type has advantages and disadvantages when used in body armor designed to protect military and police personnel. Layering the different weaves, many believe, can provide improved protection.
Fahrenthold and Shimek (currently a post-doctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory) explored the performance of various weave types using both experiments and simulations. In the November 2012 issue of the AIAA Journal, Shimek and Fahrenthold showed that in some cases the weave type of the fabric material can greatly influence fabric barrier performance.
"Currently body armor normally uses the plain weave, but research has shown that different weaves that are more flexible might be better, for example in extremity protection," Shimek said.
Shimek and Fahrenthold used the same numerical method employed for the NASA simulations to model a series of experiments on layered Kevlar materials, showing that their simulation results were within 15 percent of the experimental outcomes.
"Future body armor designs may vary the weave type through a Kevlar stack," Shimek said. "Maybe one weave type is better at dealing with small fragments, while others perform better for larger fragments. Our results suggest that you can use simulation to assist the designer in developing a fragment barrier which can capitalize on those differences."
What can researchers learn about the layer-to-layer impact response of a fabric barrier through simulation? Can body armor be improved by varying the weave type of the many layers in a typical fabric barrier? Can simulation assist the design engineer in developing orbital debris shields that better protect spacecraft? The range of engineering design questions is endless, and computer simulations can play an important role in the 'faster, better, cheaper' development of improved impact protection systems.
"We are trying to make fundamental improvements in numerical algorithms, and validate those algorithms against experiment," Fahrenthold concluded. "This can provide improved tools for engineering design, and allow simulation-based research to contribute in areas where experiments are very difficult to do or very expensive."
###
[ | 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.
Apple, has released a statement in support of this morning's rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Proposition 8, which effectively banned same-sex marriage in the state of California. Speaking with All Things D, and Apple spokesman praised the decisions, calling marriage a civil rights issue.
?Apple strongly supports marriage equality and we consider it a civil rights issue. We applaud the Supreme Court for its decisions today,? an Apple spokesman told AllThingsD in a statement.
Back in February, Apple joined other tech companies including Facebook, Google, and Intel in supporting same-sex marriage. At the time, the companies argued that California's ban led to decreased company morale and hurt recruiting efforts.
Microsoft's new version of Kinect for Xbox One is also headed to the world of PCs, like its previous incarnation. The new Kinect for Windows sensor won't be available publicly until some point in 2014, but developers can apply for an early, $400 development kit starting right now (due before July 31st at 9AM PT), Microsoft announced today. In that $400, developers (if accepted) will get early SDK access, a pre-release "alpha" version of the device, a final retail version (at launch), and private access to both APIs and the Kinect for Windows engineering team (in private forums and webcasts). Should you get in, you'll find out more come this August.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The owner of a well-known D.C. rock club will soon begin operating the city's historic Lincoln Theatre where Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald once performed.
Mayor Vincent Gray announced Thursday that the entertainment group I.M.P was selected as the winning bidder to operate the theater in the city's U Street neighborhood beginning in September. The city says I.M.P brings a proven track record. It currently operates the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md.
In a statement, Seth Hurwitz of I.M.P says it's an honor to be entrusted with bringing new life to an old theater. He says many shows that don't fit in the 9:30 Club will have a place at the Lincoln.
In late 2011, the theater was threatened with closure after the city cut off subsidies and began seeking new management.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's bid to defuse a sudden outburst of national discontent by proposing a referendum on political reforms ran into stiff opposition on Tuesday from politicians and lawyers who questioned its legality.
Tens of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets this month in the biggest protests in 20 years, fueled by an array of grievances ranging from poor public services to the high cost of World Cup soccer stadiums and corruption.
The demonstrations against Brazil's political establishment have jolted politicians of all stripes and clouded the outlook for Rousseff, who is expected to seek re-election next year.
The national capital, Brasilia, braced for more protests on Wednesday, with some schools cancelling classes. New demonstrations were also expected in Belo Horizonte during a game between Brazil and Uruguay for the Confederations Cup, a warm-up for the World Cup in 2014.
In an emergency meeting with Brazil's governors on Monday, Rousseff proposed a national plebiscite to ask voters whether they agree to holding a constituent assembly to reform Brazil's political system.
The bold move was seen as an attempt by a popular president to bypass the country's unpopular Congress with an appeal to the people. Legal experts said that was unconstitutional.
The head of the Brazilian Bar Association, Marcus Vinicius Furtado, proposed in a meeting with Rousseff that political reforms be adopted by Congress based on a popular petition.
Politicians - including the head of the lower chamber of Congress Henrique Alves, a member of the governing coalition of parties - said political reforms should be decided by Congress.
Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso said that under Brazil's constitution Rousseff could not call an assembly to amend the charter. He said political reforms should be drawn up by Congress and then submitted to the country's approval in a plebiscite.
To hold a referendum to decide what to reform would "take up what is left of this presidential term and have repercussions for the economy that are hard to predict," Cardoso said in a post on the FHC Institute's Facebook page.
Political analysts saw Rousseff's referendum proposal as a ploy to gain time and spread the political risk of the crisis.
"Rousseff's intention is to address the public's huge disaffection with the political class by separating herself as an agent of change," Washington-based Eurasia consultancy said in a note to clients. "In practical terms, however, the proposal is unlikely to lead to any meaningful political reform."
Eurasia said it was not a lack of legal mechanisms that has hampered political reform in Brazil, but the absence of will across the political class.
The same point was made by the president of Brazil's Supreme Court, Joaquim Barbosa, who weighed into the debate with a news conference after meeting with Rousseff on the issue.
"Proposals have been sitting for years in Congress, which has shown no interest in reforming the political system. And that lack of interest, in part, has led to the crisis of legitimacy we have now," Barbosa told reporters.
It was unusual for a chief justice to be publicly giving his opinion on a matter he might have to rule on if it is brought before the Supreme Court. But Barbosa is highly respected in Brazil for leading the country's biggest political corruption trial, which led to the conviction last year of several leaders of the ruling Workers' Party.
Barbosa said the Brazilian people should be consulted directly because they were tired of political deals negotiated behind their backs by the political elites.
Brazil's democratic system was not endangered by the current wave of protests, he said. "Brazil's democracy is solid enough to weather this turbulence."
I have a summer tradition. Every year, as close to the first day of summer as possible, I hop onto one of the many whale-watching tours that depart from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and spend an afternoon on the ocean. On a good day we can end up seeing a dozen or so whales. On a great day we can see hundreds of incredible harbor seals swimming through the clear water or sunning themselves on the dozens of tiny islands dotting the horizon.
Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) have another name: Common seals. As you might guess from that sobriquet, harbor seals are, indeed, quite common, with worldide populations somewhere in the five million to six million range. Unfortunately, not all seal species are as populous or as secure in their place in the world. Some species or subspecies are barely hanging on. Here are the four most endangered seal species and subspecies, all of which face uncertain futures.
1. Saimaa ringed seals
Seals don?t get any rarer than the Saimaa ringed seals (Pusa hispida saimensis) of Finland. Only about 310 members of this subspecies remain in Lake Saimaa, the largest lake in the country, where the animals have been cut off from the ocean since the last ice age.
Saimaa ringed seals are actually doing better than they were the last time I wrote about them. Back in 2010 the population was at a low of just 260 seals. At the time, warmer winters left the seals without their usual protective ice dens. Exposure to the elements increased infant mortality and left adults unprotected from fishermen, who all too often kill the animals rather than share their catch (there even used to be a state bounty for killing the seals). Luckily colder weather the last couple of years has benefitted the seals and allowed them to breed more successfully. Meanwhile new restrictions on the use of nets in some parts of the lake have lowered the number of seals accidentally caught and killed by fishermen, and six new protected zones established this past April should provide the seals with additional safe territories.
Even with a few good years under their belt, problems remain. According to a report from Finland?s Yle Uutiset, this year?s pups are as much as 30 percent underweight. Scientists say the winter brought enough snow to build nests but it arrived late in the season, lowering the amount of time for parents to nurse their young pups.
2. Lacs des Loups Marins harbor seals
Placing the Lacs des Loups Marins harbor seal (a.k.a. Ungava seals, P.v. mellonae) on this list is difficult, because nobody knows exactly how many exist. Estimates range from as few as 50 to as many as 600, all of which live in freshwater lakes and rivers in Quebec, where they have been cut off from the ocean for millennia. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the subspecies?which was protected in 2007?has declined due to hunting and faces risks from climate change and potential hydroelectric dams, although none are actually in the planning stages. I would say more about this subspecies, but that?s about all that?s available. There hasn?t been any new scientific information on these seals in years.
3. Mediterranean monk seals
We now move from the cold north to the warmer south, where the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus) live in and around the sea from which they get their name. Long the victim of commercial hunting and persecution by fishermen, these seals also lost much of their former habitat to coastal development and suffered from the effects of both pollution and ocean traffic. Today the population for this species is estimated at fewer than 600 individuals, and perhaps as low as 350.
Even that count doesn?t quite convey the true risk these seals face, as those 350 to 600 animals are scattered over much of the Mediterranean, as well as two small populations in the Atlantic. About 130 seals live off the coast of Western Sahara. About 20 more can be found on the tiny Desertas Islands, a little over 400 kilometers from mainland Portugal. The three islands in the archipelago, totaling less than 15 square kilometers, are a protected nature reserve for the seals.
The future of Mediterranean monk seals will depend upon their ability to breed. The seals used to raise their pups in coastal caves, which have mostly been destroyed by modern development. That leaves pups unprotected, and mortality rates as high as 50 percent have been observed. Research has also shown that the species suffers from a genetic bottleneck, reducing their genetic diversity and creating congenital defects. This has further reduced pup survival rates and left the adults more vulnerable to disease, such as one outbreak that wiped out a third of the Western Sahara population in 1997.
Luckily Mediterranean monk seals are now protected through most of their range, but some threats remain. Most notably, Turkey?s economic boom has increased fishing levels, which may put the monk seals in that region back in the crosshairs.
4. Hawaiian monk seals
Our final seal on this list also comes from the Monachus genus. Like their Mediterranean cousins halfway around the world, Hawaiian monk seals (M. schauinslandi) are also critically endangered. Much like the Mediterranean species, the seals in Hawaii suffer from low genetic variation?the lowest of any pinniped species?after a period of intense hunting in the 19th century. Coastal development in the 20th century and entanglement in fishing nets have also taken a toll. Today just 1,150 of the animals remain.
Hawaiian monk seals do enjoy a great deal of protection. Whenever a seal arrives on a Hawaiian beach, volunteers rush to set up signs and barriers to prevent people from disturbing the shy animals. But even with that assistance the seals remain controversial to fishermen, who fear the seals will take their catch, and a plan from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to set up new critical habitat has angered some residents . A few of the seals have been shot or bludgeoned to death in the past few years, mostly likely as a result of this pent-up resentment.
NOAA?s new critical habitat rules were originally scheduled to be published a few years ago. In June 2012 the agency announced a six-month extension for publishing the new rules for critical habitat. A final action was due in December 2012. We?re still waiting for it.
Next?
Most other seal species and subspecies appear to be fairly healthy. But that doesn?t mean that every seal is safe. Increasingly, small populations of seals find themselves isolated and at risk, if not on the verge of being wiped out.
One of the most notable cases like this comes from Alaska, where the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is investigating whether or not the small population of freshwater seals living in Iliamna Lake deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act. Although these 250 to 350 seals are probably not a separate species or subspecies, they have never been fully studied and it appears that at some if not all of the seals never mingle with other Pacific harbor seals (P. v. richardsi). NMFS will now investigate whether or not the Iliamna Lake seals should be considered a distinct population segment and if they are at risk of extinction due to low abundance, climate change and potential mining of nearby copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry deposits (the Pebble Mine Project). NMFS is currently collecting information on the Iliamna Lake seals?a public comment period runs through July 16?after which they will conduct a status review to see if the species should be protected. We?ll see what happens after that.
Photos: Maine harbor seal ? John R. Platt. Saimaa ringed seal by Juha Taskinen, via NOAA Fisheries. Hawaiian monk seal by Pete Markham. Used under Creative Commons license. Illiamna Lake seals, Dave Withrow, NMFS
The "Gossip Girl" star is over $2 million in debt.
She may have played a wealthy Upper East Side divorc? on "Gossip Girl," but in real life, actress Kelly Rutherford just filed for bankruptcy following a bitter, ongoing custody battle.
According to legal docs filed by Rutherford and obtained by TMZ, the 44-year-old mother-of-two has "assets totaling $23,937 ??dwarfed by debts totaling $2,021,832."
Rutherford's current monthly income is $1,279.33, way down from her $486,000 paycheck during the final season of "Gossip Girl," which wrapped for good in December.
The actress owes?more than $350,000?for income taxes in?2012 and?$25,251 in Amex charges.
Her expenses are only off-set by the?$11,487 in her checking account, $5,000 worth of furniture, $5,000 in clothing and $1,500 in jewelry.
According to the docs, the former "Melrose Place" star also "borrowed 10's of thousands of dollars from friends and relatives to dig out of the hole," reports TMZ.
As we previously reported, Rutherford?has been in an expensive four-year fight against her?ex?Daniel Giersch?over custody of the former couple's two young children.
Thanks to a judge's ruling, the children currently live in France with their father, who is?refusing to let them live with Rutherford in the United States ? despite this being their country of birth.
ABC?News called the decision ?one of the worst custody decisions ever."
Rutherford has been fighting the judge's ruling,?but legal expenses have reportedly mounted to over $1.5 million.
"I've traveled 40 times to either facilitate contact with their dad or visit them and bring them back and forth and paid for everything," Rutherford told E! News in April. "Every penny from 'Gossip Girl,' my pension, my stocks, it's all been spent fighting for my children."
Justin Rose, of England, poses with the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Justin Rose, of England, poses with the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Justin Rose, of England, kisses the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Justin Rose, of England, poses with the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Justin Rose, of England, celebrates with the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Justin Rose, of England, reacts after a putt on the 18th hole during the fourth round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) ? A steady hand gave Justin Rose the shiny U.S. Open Trophy. A wild ride gave Phil Mickelson yet another silver medal.
Rose captured his first major championship on Sunday with remarkable calm and three pure shots on the punishing closing holes at Merion. A par on the 18th hole gave him an even-par 70, and that was good enough to become the first Englishman in 43 years to win America's national championship.
Rose hit 5-iron to the first cut of rough, pin-high on the 17th for an easy par. He smashed the most important tee shot of his career down the middle on the final hole, about 15 feet short of the famous Ben Hogan plaque. And his 4-iron rolled near the pin and settled against the collar of the green.
"When I came over the hill and saw my ball laying in the fairway, I thought, 'This is my moment.' It was me hitting from the middle of the fairway," Rose said.
As usual, someone's big moment in the U.S. Open came at Mickelson's expense.
Rose was in the scoring area a half-mile from the grandstands behind the 18th green where the fans began to chant, "Let's go Phil!" as Mickelson paced off a last-ditch effort to force a playoff. It was a long shot ? the 18th hole didn't yield a single birdie all weekend. From about 40 yards away, Mickelson's chip for birdie raced by the cup, securing Rose's victory.
Mickelson, already in the U.S. Open record book with five second-place finishes, added another that will hurt as much any of them.
Sunday was his 43rd birthday. It was the first time he was equipped with the outright lead going into the last day. His week began with a cross-country trip home to San Diego to watch his oldest daughter graduate from the eighth grade, returning just three hours before his tee time on Thursday. This was the same daughter born the day after his first runner-up finish in 1999.
All the stars were aligned. None of the putts fell in.
Mickelson surged back into the lead by holing out from 75 yards in thick rough on the 10th hole for eagle, another moment that made it seem like surely was his time. The cheer could be heard across the road, through the trees, loud enough that Rose knew exactly what had happened.
But on the easiest hole at Merion, Mickelson drilled a wedge over the green on the par-3 13th and made bogey.
What hurt Mickelson even more was a wedge from about 121 yards on the 15th hole. It should have given him a good look at birdie, but it came up so short that Mickelson's best chance was to use one of his five wedges to chip from the front of the green. He hit that one too far, 25 feet by the hole, and the bogey wound up costing him a chance at the major he covets.
Mickelson wound up with a bogey on the 18th for a 74 and tied for second with Jason Day, who closed with a 71.
"Heartbreak," Mickelson said. "This is tough to swallow after coming so close. This was my best chance of all of them. I had a golf course I really liked. I felt this was as good an opportunity as you could ask for. It really hurts."
Day appeared to salvage his round by chipping in for bogey on the 11th hole, and he was still in the picture when he made a 12-foot par putt on the 17th to stay one shot behind. But he put his approach into the bunker left of the 18th green, blasted out to about 7 feet and missed the putt.
The back nine was a four-way battle that included Hunter Mahan, who played in the last group with Mickelson. He was one shot out of the lead until he three-putted the 15th hole for a double bogey, and then closed with back-to-back bogeys when his hopes were gone. Mahan had a 75 and tied for fourth with Billy Horschel (74), Ernie Els (69) and Jason Dufner, who had a 67 despite making triple bogey on the 15th hole.
Rose finished at 1-over 281, eight shots higher than David Graham's winning score in 1981 when the U.S. Open was last held at Merion. The shortest course for a major championship in nearly a decade held up just fine. It was the third time in the last four years that no one broke par in the toughest test of golf.
The last Englishman to win the U.S. Open was Tony Jacklin at Hazeltine in 1970, though Rose added to recent dominance of the Union Jack at the U.S. Open as the third winner in four years. The others were Graeme McDowell (2010) and Rory McIlroy (2011) of Northern Ireland.
Walking off the 18th green, he looked through the patchy clouds and point to the sky, a nod to his late father, Ken, who died of leukemia in September 2002.
"I couldn't help but look up at the heavens and think my old man Ken had something to do with it," Rose said.
It seems like more than 15 years ago when Rose first starred on the major scene as a 17-year-old amateur who chipped in on the final hole at Royal Birkdale in the 1998 British Open and tied for fourth. He turned pro the next week, and then missed the cut in his first 21 tournaments. But he stayed the course and slowly picked off big tournaments ? including the AT&T National in 2010 just down the road at Aronimink.
The U.S. Open takes him to another level and moves him to No. 3 in the world.
"Just for the last few years has been known as one of the best ball-strikers in the game. He showed that today," said Luke Donald, who played alongside him. "To win a U.S. Open, you have to have the ultimate control of your golf ball. He did that. He hit some really clutch iron shots down the stretch."
Tiger Woods turned out to be nothing more than an afterthought. He hit out-of-bounds on his second hole and made triple bogey, and closed with a 74 to finish at 13-over 293, his worst score as a pro in the U.S. Open, and matching his worst score in any major.
The score wasn't nearly that bad considering the golf course, with its tricky contours on the greens and punishing rough.
Mickelson wore all black when he arrived for the final round, and in a brief TV interview he said, "The best for me is to play well and have fun."
Sunday at the U.S. Open is rarely fun.
Just ask Donald, who was only two shots behind starting the final round. It all crumbled when he pulled his tee shot on the par-3 third hole ? so long and hard that Donald hit a driver ? and struck a standard-bearer. She was on the ground for several minutes, and Donald appeared visibly shook. He made bogey, and then followed that with two bogeys and a double bogey. He shot 42 on the back nine.
Steve Stricker took his lumps on one hole, and it was ugly. One shot behind, he pushed his tee shot on the par-5 second hole out-of-bounds. After hitting the next tee shot into the fairway, he tried to lay up with a 4-iron and hit a shank out-of-bounds. Stricker had to make a 7-foot putt to escape with a triple-bogey 8.
Former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, trying to give South Africa a major for the fourth straight year, opened with a birdie and a tie for the lead. That became a distant memory, however, when he dropped seven shots over the seven holes and closed out his front nine with a 42.
Horschel wore pants with octopus prints, and he putted like he had eight arms. Out in 39, he opened the back nine with a pair of three-putts.
For a short time, it looked as though Mickelson might join this parade of pretenders when he three-putted for double bogey twice in three holes on the front nine. And then came his shot out of the rough on the 10th, and he was on his way ? but not for long.
Rose made his share of mistakes, too, like the three-putt bogey on the 11th and a horrible shot out of the bunker on the 14th. The difference was his approach into the 12th to 3 feet, followed by a 20-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole.
With Mickelson watching so many putts graze the lip, that cushion was all that Rose needed.
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) ? British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms ? and draw inspiration from the host country's ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict.
Cameron says he expects formal agreement Monday to launch negotiations on a European-North American free trade agreement. He says a pact to slash tariffs on exports would boost employment and growth on both sides of the Atlantic.
Leaders from the United States, Canada, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Japan are joining Cameron for trade-boosting talks ahead of Monday's ceremonial opening of the summit at a lakeside golf resort near the town of Enniskillen.
During a later working dinner, foreign policy issues ? especially Syria ? will be on the menu.
Egyptians are furious with President Morsi, who they blame for widespread?electricity?cuts that are further disrupting businesses, shops, and restaurants at a time of economic hardship.
By Kristen Chick,?Correspondent / June 13, 2013
People and vehicles are seen during a power cut in Toukh, El-Kalubia governorate, about 16 miles northeast of Cairo May 26. Egyptians are furious with President Morsi, who they blame for widespread electricity cuts that are affecting businesses.
Amr Abdallah/Reuters/File
Enlarge
On a busy street in Cairo, a strip of shops?typically?selling power tools have been doing brisk business in something a little bigger: generators. On a recent day, there were plenty of potential buyers checking out the shiny machines stacked on the sidewalk.
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Inside one store, the owner of a pastry shop negotiates a price as other customers interrupt to ask for details on various models. The buyer says he needs a generator to keep his refrigerators and other machinery running during power cuts that have increased in frequency since the temperatures began climbing into the triple digits?earlier this summer.
Shop owners and employees say?demand for generators?has soared as business owners and wealthy homeowners try to insulate themselves from electricity outages. Several years ago they might have sold one to three machines a day. But shop owners say they now often sell 10 to 15 a day.?
And when the customers come to buy, they are angry.
?They insult the government and the president,? says store manager Bishoy Hanna, with an embarrassed smile.
With temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and businesses already struggling amid an?economic slump, the electricity cuts are provoking anger across Egypt. Although President Mohamed Morsi inherited Egypt's energy problems, some energy experts say his government is not doing what it could to solve them.
Regardless of who is to blame,?when the lights go out, it is Morsi who bears the brunt of Egyptians' anger.
Noha Sayed, who runs a small restaurant in the Shubra neighborhood of Cairo, says the power cuts are affecting her business. ?It's ruining the restaurant. The country is standing still, and when the power goes out it gets even worse,? she says. ?I voted for Morsi. But now, I don't want him. ... I thought he would make things better, with Islam, but nothing. Nothing. He's not doing anything. He added to the problems.?
Years in the making
Egypt's energy crisis has been?years in the making, and electricity outages are not a post-uprising phenomenon ? fuel shortages began in 2007, and there were many outages in 2010, the year before the uprising.?
But recent events have exacerbated it. Energy subsidies have been consuming an increasingly large chunk of Egypt's budget, now?taking up?one-fifth of it.?It was long an exporter of natural gas, which fuels the majority of Egypt's power plants, but now it imports gas. As foreign reserves dropped after the uprising, Egypt struggled to buy enough fuel for its power stations.
Egypt has been forced to import fuel partly because foreign oil companies doing exploration in Egypt have stopped supplying?it with?gas because the government is already too heavily indebted to them. Farah Halime, who writes the Rebel Economy blog, says Egypt is?believed?to owe at least $5 billion to foreign oil and gas companies.
And when the government can't afford to buy enough natural gas and other fuel to keep up with the demand?generated by a population of?84 million, the lights go out.
Electricity ministry spokesman Aktham Abou-Elella says the government's recent allocations of $700 million to the oil ministry to purchase fuel for power stations means there will likely be occasional, short blackouts during the summer but not longlasting cuts in electricity. But he warned that during the month of Ramadan, which begins mid-July, demand might exceed capacity, even if Egypt has enough fuel to operate plants at full capacity.
There were extensive power outages during Ramadan last year as consumption spiked during the time when Egyptians break their daily fast. In some areas, power outages occurred nearly daily.
Dr. Abou-Elella blamed consumers for using too much electricity, or, in some places, blocking the construction of new power plants. ?If the people cooperate, [Ramadan] will pass maybe with small problems. If the people don't cooperate, we'll have big problems,? he said. ?It depends on the people, whether they cooperate or not. From my experience, the government will do all it can.?
Government mismanagement
But Magdi Nasrallah, founding chair of the Department of Petroleum and Energy Engineering at the American University in Cairo, says the government is not properly managing the crisis. Instead of planning ahead and buying the fuel needed to meet?the predictable spike in?demand as Egyptians switch on air conditioners in the summer heat, the government waited until a crisis arose to allocate extra funds, he says.
?This is a very serious concern and the government is not really paying attention," he says. "They just wait until a crisis happens and they start panicking."
He says the government also does a poor job of managing power plants. It?has been turning increasingly to a heavy fuel oil, which is more readily available than other fuels but is less efficient and requires more power plant maintenance. Dr. Nasrallah says that when this fuel is used, the power plants should be shut down periodically for cleaning, but they are not.?
And then there is the bloated subsidy program, which does not target the needy and is increasingly costly as Egypt imports fuel and then sells it at discounted prices. Reforming the program risks arousing popular anger at a time when the president is already facing significant challenges.
?But the truth is that there's no other choice,? says Halime. ?This idea that energy subsidies can continue to take up a bigger part of Egypt's budget every year is a serious problem.?
Reforms have been much discussed but always delayed, though officials say Egypt will begin rationing subsidized fuel through smart cards in July.
Blame all around
Not all Egyptians blame Morsi for their electricity woes. Farag Suleiman, a tailor who can't work his sewing machine when the electricity goes out, says Morsi's enemies are behind the blackouts. ?They want to make him fail,? he says.
Many of those angry at the president take out their frustration on their local electricity bill collectors, who go door to door to collect what is due. Some residents have declared they will not pay their bills.
At the Sultan falafel shop in Cairo's Shubra neighborhood, a slow but steady stream of customers files in on a sweltering afternoon to buy crispy, piping hot falafel, french fries, and other simple lunch foods.
A generator sits on the sidewalk in front of the shop, ready to roar to life when the electricity goes out. And here, says employee Emad Hamdi, that happens up to four times a day.
As he discusses the power outages, the neighborhood electricity bill collector walks in, his shoulders hunched as if to brace against the constant insults he bears these days. As he sits to eat his sandwich, another customer comes to the doorway and glares at him. ?What are you doing here?? he says angrily.
Mr. Hamdi, the employee, laughs. ?Everyone wants to kill him!? He gestures at the bill collector, who looks resigned to the abuse as he hunches his shoulders a little more and eats his falafel sandwich.?
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Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
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