Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Law Ministry rules in favour of Health Ministry over no-smoking rules, Information and Broadcasting Ministry to follow rules - indiatoday.intoday.in
Rules restricting onscreen smoking scenes - notified by the Ministry of Health - can't be set aside by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I& B).
This has been conveyed by the Law Ministry in response to clarification sought from it, following disagreements between the Health and the Information and Broadcasting ministries over implementation of the rules, which require running of anti-tobacco messages, scrolls and spots in movies with smoking scenes.
The Health Ministry had notified the rules on October 27 under the anti-tobacco Act. Following this, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued directives to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to defer implementation citing "practical difficulties". The matter was then referred to the Law Ministry.
Since the notification has been issued under Section 31 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 2003, it can only be set aside or stayed by a competent court of law and not by mere administrative instructions or direction, a note by Law Ministry said. The legislation is regarded as 'validly made' and is part of the law of the land until a court decides otherwise. Therefore, all rules are presumed to be valid.
The Health Ministry officials said the two ministries were discussing the matter to reach a solution. The ministry has written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asking it to implement the rules. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Parliament said he had also written to CBFC and Advertising Standards Council of India for implementation of the rules and their monitoring.
He said the rules at present were being followed only to a limited extent. The two ministries were trying to minimise practical difficulties faced by the industry to ensure complete implementation of rules.
The two ministries have been at loggerheads over the rules. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has been accused of favouring the film industry over the health of people. Earlier, a note sent to the Health Ministry by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting made it appear that the ministry was never in favour of regulating scenes showing any form of tobacco use in movies.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting states that the Health Ministry's decision to come out with a notification was taken despite the I& B ministry's advice to the contrary.
Source: indiatoday.intoday.in
Law Enforcement In Six States And The US Military Honored For Work Involving Missing Or Sexually Exploited Children - YAHOO!
To: NATIONAL EDITORS
Extraordinary Efforts by Law Enforcement in the District of Columbia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, and Ramstein Air Base, Germany Recognized as a Part of National Missing Children's Day
ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, law enforcement officials from around the country were honored for their extraordinary efforts to recover missing children and resolve child sexual exploitation cases at the 17th Annual Congressional Breakfast and National Law Enforcement Awards. Hosted by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children(R) (NCMEC), the event honors exemplary efforts to protect and recover child victims. Federal, state and local officials, as well as members of Congress attended the event which was held on Capitol Hill.
Law enforcement from the District of Columbia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, and Ramstein Air Base in Germany were recognized at the 17th Annual Congressional Breakfast held in Washington, DC on Capitol Hill. The event is held each year to commemorate National Missing Children's Day which is observed on May 25. It is hosted by NCMEC, in partnership with the National Fraternal Order of Police and the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and will be attended by members of Congress, as well as federal, state and local officials
Actor Tim Kang, from the CBS drama "The Mentalist" attended the event this year. Also attending the event was John Walsh, host of Lifetime Television's "America's Most Wanted" and his wife Reve Walsh.
Each year in America, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing, more than 2,000 each day. "We set aside one day each year to recognize exceptional law enforcement officers who have distinguished themselves by going the extra mile to rescue children and to capture and prosecute criminals who seek to exploit them," said NCMEC president Ernie Allen. "Our greatest priority as a society is to protect the innocence of our children. The men and women who we honor each year share that goal and have made a real difference."
A list of Award Recipients Follows:
2012 National Missing Children's Award Recipients
OHIO Honorees: Sergeant Terry D. McConnell and Deputy U.S. Marshal Daniel DeVille (Columbus, OH).
Sergeant Terry D. McConnell from the Columbus, OH Division of Police and Deputy U.S. Marshal Daniel DeVille from the U.S. Marshals Service in Columbus, OH were honored for their work recovering a young girl who was abducted by her non-custodial mother and the mother's boyfriend when she was 7 years old. For two years, the abductors moved multiple times between four different states in an effort to hide the girl and avoid arrest. McConnell and DeVille led a coordinated investigation, executing numerous search warrants and serving legal process to obtain key information. They followed up on leads in Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and West Virginia. McConnell and DeVille tracked the abductors by monitoring the activities of their parents. Eventually cell phone and financial records led them to Atlanta, GA where both abductors were arrested and the young girl was safely recovered.
VIRGINIA Honoree: Sheriff David Hines (Hanover, VA).
Colonel David Hines, Sheriff of Hanover County, was honored for his work to recover a severely autistic and non-verbal 8-year-old boy, who wandered away from his family during an outing to a Civil War battlefield park. Hines immediately organized a large-scale search. This task was particularly challenging because the area consisted of two miles of trails amid 80 acres of dense woods and Civil War trenches bordering a river. The park is surrounded by property belonging to a mining company with two active quarries. Hines directed a search effort that involved multiple law enforcement agencies and more than 3,500 volunteers. The young boy was safely recovered five days into the search and was in remarkably good health considering the amount of time he had spent out in the elements.
2012 National Exploited Children's Award Recipients
LOUISIANA AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Honorees: Special Agent Leslie Williams (Shreveport, LA) and Special Agent Neil O'Callaghan (Washington, DC).
Special Agent Leslie Williams from Shreveport, LA and Special Agent Neil O'Callaghan from Washington, DC, both with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, were honored for their work on "Operation Delego," one of the largest and most significant undercover child exploitation investigations of its kind. Operation Delego investigated an Internet forum known as "Dreamboard" where members were actively posting and trading hard-core child pornography involving children as young as infants. "Dreamboard" used sophisticated technology intended to evade detection by law enforcement and had an estimated 600-900 members, based in the U.S. and around the world. The team developed innovative investigative approaches to identify the forum's members and spent thousands of hours reviewing and processing evidence. To date, a total of 72 targets have been indicted as a result of Operation Delego both in the U.S. and abroad. Of the total number indicted, 53 have been arrested; 29 of those in custody have pled guilty. Thus far, 13 have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 20 to 35 years.
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE IN GERMANY Honoree: Special Agent Jess Thompson (Ramstein Air Base, Germany).
Special Agent Jess Thompson with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, 13th Field Investigations Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in Germany was honored for his investigation of an Air Force staff sergeant who was engaged in child sexual exploitation and the production of child pornography. The investigation began when a 7-year-old girl reported that the staff sergeant had exposed his genitals to her twice and took pornographic images of her. When questioned by law enforcement he confessed to assaulting additional victims and a review of his computer found 137 images and 16 videos of child pornography that he had produced, along with an additional 2,846 images and 132 videos of child pornography. The thorough investigation included multiple searches, more than 100 interviews, and a total of 27 law enforcement and 18 administrative records checks in three different countries and four states. The investigation led to additional charges for two subjects, criminal intelligence being developed on two subjects, and the arrest of a fifth subject. Authorities prosecuting the fifth subject, who was caught in the act of molesting a child, are seeking life imprisonment. The staff sergeant who was the original focus of the investigation was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Remarkably, his conviction is the Air Force's second non-murder life without parole conviction since the end of World War II.
2012 Law Enforcement Excellence Award Recipients
NORTH CAROLINA AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Honorees: Special Agent Sheila Quick and Special Agent Phillip Stevens (Raleigh, NC); Detective Charles Sole, Kristy Roberts, and Alison Hutchens (Durham, NC); Officer JaShawn Logan (Washington, DC).
Special Agent Sheila Quick and Special Agent Phillip Stevens of the NC State Bureau of Investigation in Raleigh, NC; Detective Charles Sole, Kristy Roberts, and Alison Hutchens of the Durham Police Department in Durham, NC; and Officer JaShawn Logan of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC were honored for their efforts in tracking down the killers of a young woman and a 5-year-old boy. The woman was reported missing when her family was unable to get in touch with her after she moved from Washington, DC to live with a man who led a cult-like group in Durham, North Carolina. The boy and his mother also lived with the man. After a confidential informant told police that the man and his followers had killed an unidentified woman and 5-year-old boy, the team worked to determine the victims' identities. The team conducted a thorough multi-state investigation. The case had a major break when the remains of both victims were located at a house that the cult leader's mother had once rented. Autopsy results revealed that they both died from gunshot wounds and the cult leader's fingerprint was found on tape that was wrapped around the young boy's body. He was arrested and charged with murder along with six other members of his group, including the boy's mother.
UTAH Honoree: Special Agent Eric Zimmerman (Salt Lake City, UT)
Special Agent Eric Zimmerman with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Salt Lake City, UT was honored for his work on the development, deployment, and maintenance of technical tools used to combat the online sexual exploitation of children. Zimmerman has developed five peer-to-peer investigative/analytical tools, four investigative tools to assist law enforcement with online covert activity, and one on-scene triage tool. His tools help law enforcement by automatically alerting law enforcement officers to existing undercover contacts on a subject, identifying additional subjects, and providing instant email alerts to law enforcement regarding subjects' online activity. In 2011, the use of these tools led to the rescue of at least 45 children, and the execution of 330 searches and 222 arrests. The FBI and many international law enforcement agencies have adopted Zimmerman's tools as mandatory protocol for certain investigations.
About the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1984. Designated by Congress to serve as the nation's clearinghouse, the organization has operated the toll-free 24-hour national missing children's hotline which has handled more than 3,568,780 calls. It has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 175,230 children. The organization's CyberTipline has handled more than 1,424,930 reports of child sexual exploitation and its Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 68,962,840 child pornography images and videos. The organization works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. To learn more about NCMEC, call its toll-free, 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or visit its web site at missingkids.com.SOURCE National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
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Source: news.yahoo.com
Facebook confronts the law of big numbers - Benzinga
Author: Patrick McFadden, M2 Global
Covestor model: M2 Global
Beware of a Facebook (FB) top! Ahead of the social network's initial public offering on May 18, there were competing news reports about the level of investor interest and outlook for Facebook. It is refreshing that we can see exactly where people stand on Covestor.com.
Facebook's IPO price was set at $38 per share on May 17 giving it a market value of about $104 billion or in the range of eight times-plus net book value per share post offering. The most recent updates to the S1 also indicated that net operating margins and profit margins may be under pressure. (In the first few days after the social network site's offering, Facebook's stock has performed poorly.)
Surely this makes sense as Facebook's management has hired aggressively and expanded infrastructure to accommodate growth. The issue: The company may be starting to run into the law of large numbers and simply may not be able to continue to grow at the previous pace. Remember, they are banned in China.
Operating leverage will be key for the future price of this stock, but with large number of Facebook users moving primarily to mobile platforms, it will be more difficult for the company to monetize users via display ad-click through. Will Facebook be able to draw an increasing share of the online ad dollars spent by the Fortune 500?
If they can continue to take share from Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), and AOL (AOL), Facebook will be successful. However, much of this success seems to be priced in at anything above 20 dollars per share.
The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) has been saying for months that its database of forward indicators on income and consumption is predicting that we will go back into recession this year.
The S&P 500 index (SPX) has threatened to roll over and has bounced off the 100-day moving average and lower Bollinger Band technical supports a number of times near the 1349 level.
With 200-day moving average at 1275, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank is running out of time for a third round of quantitative easing ahead of the Presidential election or more potential trouble in Europe later in the year.
Hopefully our analysis is wrong. However, in the past two plus centuries we have experienced 47 recessions, or one every 4.75 years on average according to ECRI, and the current expansion hasn't gained escape velocity. We think investors need to be prepared, especially since the market has returned years of average performance in the past few months and hedge funds are likely to sell in mass if the clouds gather quickly.
We have stepped back from Mannkind (MNDK). We still believe that there is a significant long-term opportunity, however, the continued inability to address the long-term viability of the capital structure while in Phase III trials for their first product, Afrezza, leaves the stock technically open to gap downs. We have largely avoided the most recent, and are now price vigilant; however we believe the long-term warrants make more sense for large positions given the risk/leverage ratio and the bi-polar nature of an FDA review which may not start for another year.
Diabetes is a complicated disease and is becoming a major global health hazard that will cost hundreds of billions to treat. We believe that Mannkind's Afrezza will fit into the treatment regimen for a wide array of patients in the future.
Nevertheless, we are constantly doing research on the topic and will continue to advise. Those interested in more information can take a look at a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine to see just how complicated the disease is for children in example.
We have initiated a position in Alcatel-Lucent (ALU). Europe is clearly in recession and the stock has given back all of the substantial gains made in 2011 based on a turn to profitability for the company. This is a price based opportunity, albeit, on a company we have some knowledge and experience.
There are only a few companies in the world with the experience and IP to develop Core routers and switches. Even less that can do it with technology they didn't misappropriate. ALU is one and the combination of their position in data centric and wireless technologies far outweighs the legacy costs that are becoming a smaller anchor over time.
Also, the emergence of a left-leaning government in France may actually be a positive for the company. In any event, we view Alcatel as a super cyclical, getting hit by the global slowdown first and hard but with a chance to come out first and hard.
The company's clients in both developed and emerging markets is second to none. Volatility is high, but as the ADR approaches $1.50 the upside potential more than compensates.
Covestor Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Covestor licenses investment strategies from its Model Managers to establish investment models. The commentary here is provided as general and impersonal information and should not be construed as recommendations or advice. Information from Model Managers and third-party sources deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Transaction histories for Covestor models available upon request. Additional important disclosures available at http://site.covestor.com/help/disclosures. For information about Covestor and its services, go to http://covestor.com or contact Covestor Client Services at (866) 825-3005, x703.
Source: www.benzinga.com
London 2012: Heathrow Airport in numbers - BBC News
Heathrow in numbers - how the UK's biggest airport is getting ready for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Some 500,000 people will be flying into London for the Olympics and Paralympics this summer.
That includes 100,000 athletes, 20,000 members of the media and 150 heads of state. Most of them will arrive via Heathrow.
It will be the start and finish line for the bulk of visitors, giving the country's biggest airport its busiest day ever.
That day will be Monday 13 August, the day after the closing ceremony and the day 65% of visitors are planning to leave.
Some 203,000 bags will be squeezed on to the baggage system - that's 35% more than on a normal day and about 13,000 more than it is designed to handle.
Of those bags, 15,000 will be oversized - full of canoes, javelins, bikes and poles for the pole vault. There will also be more than 980 firearms to check, plus ammunition.
'Heavily-congested skies'A special temporary terminal is being built just for the "Games family" - athletes and coaches to you and me.
It will be open for three days, snuggled between terminals four and five, and will boast 31 check-in desks and seven security lanes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of extra border staff - they will not give an exact figure - will be on hand to try to keep passport queues down.
Sixteen mobile teams of 10 guards each will be available to target trouble spots if, or should that be when, the queues build up.
It is not just Heathrow of course.
Air traffic control is facing its biggest ever challenge, coping with heavily-congested skies, the threat of a terror attack and possible bad weather. Twenty-five controllers are practising in the simulator every day.
In all, 400 have been specially trained over the past four years to deal with the extra workload.
Any rogue planes should be spotted within two to three minutes, after which military controllers take over that zone and a decision is made whether or not to scramble fast jets.
Extra plane?The Paralympics is a third of the size of the main event but it is still a huge challenge.
“Start Quote
End QuoteThe Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals”
Heathrow will have to deal with a month's worth of wheelchair users in just a week - about 1,800 in total.
Thirteen new scissor lifts and 100 new ramps have been deployed to load and unload wheelchairs while there are six new powered stair climbers to move large electric wheelchairs.
Two-hundred extra staff will welcome the Paralympians and help with the biggest challenge of all - making sure every athlete is reunited quickly with their chair.
As one Paralympian put it, you wouldn't expect able-bodied athletes to leave the plane in someone else's trainers would you?
The Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals. I made that last bit up.
Finally, 1,000 local volunteers will greet athletes off the plane, help with their luggage and welcome them to London.
Then a few weeks later, as the Olympic flame dies, those volunteers will wave them off again as they head for home.
One thousand people will be standing there waving goodbye at planes, so if you happen to be going on holiday that day, you might want to wave back.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the biggest sporting event in the UK this year. Will you be travelling to the UK to see the Games? Please send us your comments and experiences.