Envoys seek to avert bloodbath in Egypt

By Tom Perry and Matt Robinson

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army-backed rulers and allies of its deposed Islamist president gave the first signs on Saturday of a readiness to compromise, pressed by Western envoys trying to head off more bloodshed.

Faced with the threat of a crackdown on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, diplomacy appeared to pick up pace, a month to the day since Egypt's army deposed President Mohamed Mursi and plunged the country into turmoil.

Recognizing for the first time the strength of popular protest against his one-year rule, Mursi's allies said they respected the demands of millions who took to the streets before his overthrow.

A spokesman said the Mursi camp, which has refused to abandon weeks of sit-in protests until he is reinstated, wanted a solution that would "respect all popular desires".

They told envoys from the United States and the European Union that they rejected any role in a political settlement for army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Mursi's ouster, and wanted the constitution he suspended to be restored.

"I respect and hold in regard the demands of the masses that went out on June 30, but I will not build on the military coup," spokesman Tarek El-Malt told Reuters, relaying what the pro-Mursi delegation had told the envoys.

Asked whether the delegation had insisted on Mursi's reinstatement as part of any political deal, Malt, a member of the Brotherhood-affiliated Wasat party, said that was a detail for future discussion.

But given that Mursi's opponents insist he should not be part of the political solution, Malt said that "Sisi must also not be in the political equation". He said the pro-Mursi camp was ready to talk with the National Salvation Front, a loose alliance of leftist and liberal parties represented in the interim government installed by the army.

RAGE 'THE EASIEST THING'

In an interview with the Washington Post, Sisi appeared to rule out running for president himself, despite his growing popularity among some of the 84 million-strong population.

"You just can't believe that there are people who don't aspire for authority," Sisi told the interviewer when asked if he would stand for president. Asked "Is that you?", he replied, "Yes." The Post said the interview was conducted on Thursday.

Egypt's military has laid out a "road map" to elections in about six months. It promises a return to civilian government, having brought down the first freely elected president after 60 years of rule by military men.

The Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that spent decades in the shadows before winning power in elections after the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, had spurned the road map.

But its supporters, camped out at two sites in Cairo, face the threat of being violently dispersed by security forces who shot dead 80 of them a week ago. Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since Mursi's overthrow, and much of the movement's leadership is in custody.

The deposed president is being held in a secret location, under investigation on a raft of charges including murder.

Diplomats say the Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), understand that Mursi will not return as president, but they want a face-saving legal formula for him to step down.

"Those empowered to speak for the FJP understand that Mursi is not coming back. But they are maintaining that as a negotiating position," a Western diplomat said. Another diplomat said the Mursi bloc had shown flexibility in Saturday's talks.

Analysts say civilians in the new government are also trying to promote a political solution despite resistance from security services that want to take a hard line on the Brotherhood.

"Rage is the easiest thing. It is the easiest thing to say, 'Let's crush the Brotherhood'," interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei told Al-Hayat TV. "There is no solution in Egypt that can be based on exclusion. Salafists, Brotherhood, secularists, liberals, whoever, we are condemned to live together."

He said talks with outside envoys would focus on "specific steps" to reduce tensions. "We will discuss together how in the next 48 hours how we can halt the violence, reducing the number of protests."

'CONTACTS' WITH BROTHERHOOD

Stepping back from a threat to disperse the Brotherhood protests, the government said on Friday it would blockade the camps, but not storm them.

On Saturday, the Interior Ministry offered protesters a "safe exit" and political integration. Spokesman General Hany Abdel Latif said they had been "brainwashed".

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and European Union envoy Bernadino Leon were leading the diplomatic push, meeting Mursi's allies, interim Foreign minister Nabil Fahmy and interim President Adli Mansour. The United Arab Emirates, which has given the new government $3 billion in support, sent Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, who also met with Fahmy.

Fahmy told reporters there had been some contact with the Brotherhood.

"I wouldn't use the word negotiation. There have been contacts between different figures. There is no desire to use force if there is any other avenue that has any potential for success," he said.

The crisis in the Arab world's most populous country has posed a dilemma for the United States and other Western governments, which had advocated democracy following the overthrow of Mubarak but grew increasingly uncomfortable with Mursi's Islamist leanings.

Many Egyptians shared that concern, and frustration grew over Mursi's failure to solve social and economic problems.

The interim government gained the United States' approval on Thursday when Secretary of State John Kerry said the army had been "restoring democracy" when it toppled Mursi. Cairo remains central to U.S. policy in the Middle East, notably because of its peace agreement with Israel.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Tom Finn and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Matt Robinson; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/international-envoys-meet-minister-cairo-ease-egypt-crisis-123128004.html

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Jobs growth in the US slows

Employers across the US hired fewer than expected people last month, according to new figures that showed a slow, if steady, recovery in the labour market that is likely to factor heavily in the Federal Reserve's calculations as it considers rolling back its stimulus measures.

The Labor Department said payrolls in the world's largest economy expanded by 162,000 over July, fewer than the 183,000 news jobs anticipated by analysts. Although the growth was slower than forecast, the unemployment rate, drawn from a separate survey, fell to 7.4 per cent from 7.6 per cent, its lowest since December 2008.

The lacklustre growth highlighted the continued impact of what is still a wounded economy that is recovering only slowly. The pressure of government spending cuts was apparent in the figures, which showed that public payrolls had declined.

Worryingly for an economy dependent on consumer spending, the report showed Ameri-cans are earning less money: average hourly earnings fell 2 cents to $23.98 and the average workweek also fell.

In addition to publishing figures for July, the Labour Department revised its estimates of job growth over May and June, saying 26,000 fewer jobs had been created.

The figures come as the Fed considers when and how to begin reducing the size of its $85bn (?56bn) per month bond buying programme.

Source: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/266/f/3510/s/2f7ed506/sc/25/l/0L0Sindependent0O0Cnews0Cbusiness0Cnews0Cjobs0Egrowth0Ein0Ethe0Eus0Eslows0E87445710Bhtml/story01.htm

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Total War: Rome 2 Interview with Jamie Ferguson and Al Bickham

If the IncGamers hands-on preview with Total War: Rome II still left you with questions, perhaps they?ll be answered here by Creative Assembly?s Jamie Ferguson and Al Bickham. David Reid chatted to the duo about gameplay, physics, AI, factions and even whether Total War will be playable in 20 years time via telekinesis.

Read on to learn about the mass of elephants, the benefits of flaming sheep and how the Iceni are all just a bunch of angry Essex boys.

We?ll show you angry, mate.

Gameplay

IncGamers: Do you have stats that scale dynamically in battle for units ? for example if an elite Roman unit of troops were hit by a unit of chariots due to their ?mass? rating and subsequently knocked down, do the Roman still attack as if they were imbued with Mars himself?

Jamie Ferguson (Lead Battle Designer): Our stats do change as the battle goes on, your units will be affected for example by fatigue and also their morale stats will actually change when a unit fights in combat. Also whether you?re standing on top of a hill defending or whether you?re pushing up that hill is completely different in terms of combat. So you could be hit by a bunch of chariots, depends whether you?re organised, i.e. set for the charge or actually in the middle of running up hill or whatever, those kinds of things all affect combat.

IG: I?ve always faced my friends uphill during battles. During your E3 demo of the Battle of the Nile, the defenders had a lot of advantages over the attacker. What advantages would an attacker have if no reinforcements or missile/siege weapons are available for either side when attacking a defending army upon the hill?

JF: If you?ve developed the game obviously that helps (laughs). Also it?s picking your grounds and using what you have, we have a line of sight system so for example if the terrain is right you can actually sneak around behind the enemy without them realising that you?re there. So even if they?re in a well-entrenched position you can actually negate that by attacking through surprise. Again on the campaign map you can actually try to create an ambush, if you ambush the enemy then their options of manoeuvring and placing their units are severely limited, same applies to you if you get ambushed.

So tactics and strategy are all important in terms of being a successful commander, picking the troops at the right time. If you don?t have those things than you could find yourself in a losing situation. Obviously skill and strategy are human elements that the player himself inputs into the game so there?s no such thing as an automatic win, it?s up to the player how they do things and how they react.

We do have an AI control that allows the player to give over control of his forces, so if they feel they?re not particularly confident in a battlefield situation, they can still actually let the AI control and still enjoy the whole kind of spectacle, obviously the AI won?t be as competent as a very good player, but at the same time it will do a good job. The AI certainly has managed to catch me unawares on a number of occasions. Obviously I still win, as it?s one of those things where I know how it works but at the same time? (laughs) you know there?s not one way of doing things and necessarily the way to win.

Jumping across water to attack boats may or may not be an official Sun Tzu tactic.

IG: What effects can we expect in regards to terrain playing a part on the battlefield and campaign map? Could I use fire arrows and set a forest alight with enemy troops inside for example?

JF: As with all previous games, terrain affects fatigue and fatigue affects your unit?s speed and as a result of that it also has effects on morale. Again those are all the way through the game so that affects both the campaign map and the battlefield as well. So how far you move is entirely dependent on where you?re walking and what you?re walking on, so if its mountains the experience is different compared to walking on the fields.

IG: Is it possible to sack Rome and remove the Senate?

JF: Yes it is possible to sack Rome. If you?re an enemy fraction you automatically remove the senate (evil laughs) and if you?re a Roman fraction you can try and remove the senate but you may end up with a civil war on your hands.

IG: Will there be any units to directly control like in Fall of the Samurai or Empire Total War? What did you learn from such a feature from previous series?

JF: We do still have artillery pieces that you can control and also you can move down in the first person view of melee units and watch them get involved in combat and so on. There?s no reason we?d want to take that out, maybe in the future we might think of expanding on that.

IG: Could you tell us about the starting and ending dates for the campaign? Also is there an option to change the campaign game turns into more than just seasons like in Shogun 2?

JF: There is no ending date; it?s up to the player on how quickly they complete their game. Starting date is 272BC, the prologue itself take place just before that and is actually an introduction to the player of the situation that begins the Roman campaign. There isn?t an option for the player to change the campaign game turns; I?m sure though somebody?s capable of getting their hands in there and might be able to do something with a mod.

IG: Are there finishing moves for a unit that?s about break another or like what we saw in the pre-order Greek states trailer with the Spartan Warrior? Will this apply to missile weapons as well?

JF: Yeah you will see finishing moves. They are actually just a naturally moving element of combat and we got more animations than we?ve done in a previous Total War game, nearly double, and in terms of the depth and quality, the entire system is completely overhauled. It creates very spectacular views, so one of my favourites is an overhand kind of downward swing with sword into the clavicle? (laughs). You get to see stuff like the Roman guys out there today, doing testudo and so on, all in the game.

Well, close enough.

AI

IG: Can you give me some in-depth examples on the improved AI since the previous series?

Al Bickham (Studio Communications Manager): One feature in Rome 2 for AI in the campaign game is the faction AI now reasons a lot more deeply about what everybody else is doing. So it builds an ?I like you for these reasons and I hate you for these reasons?? list as it always has done, but it looks deeper and looks at more cultures; specifically, the cultures that you?re friendly with in a broader way. So you can see that when you open up the diplomacy panel and we have a sort of attitude meter and it lists the reasons why it likes you, so your actions as a player faction influence how that culture feels about you. If you have rampaged through the lands of Sparta and Macedonia the faction you?re in diplomacy with right now is going to have a reaction to that. So they might really like that because they?re friends of yours or enemies of those guys.

And they look beyond the immediacy and more factions down the chain. For example, I?m playing as the Brits (Iceni) and I?m at war, say, with Rome itself and I?ve come down the map. Rome is going to look at who my friends are and how they feel about me as well as my direct actions or non-actions against Rome. So it?s a lot more subtle and you?ll find there?s interesting power blocks growing as a result of that.

IG: In Shogun 2 you had Sun Tzu strategies implemented. Could you give some faction-specific AI examples using strategy from Roman times? E.g. would the AI know that my Spartan army uses pikes almost exclusively so they would play coy and try to get my unit?s rear flank exposed whist trying to make me keep moving?

AB: So the battle AI is more based around unit types, not necessarily that it?s a Greek army, it will go those are spearmen and I?m going to react to them like this?, it will look to cover its flanks and do that stuff a player would do. But one of the things is that we?ve had to work quite hard on the siege AI because we?ve got decisions that are completely different now.

So in Shogun 2 they were kind of a series of steps and buildings, whereas cities in Rome 2 are like this?i.e. there are side streets and avenues and things like that and in the bigger cities we?ll have several capture points so we?ve had to sort of train the AI to understand the use of capture points and the ways to split its forces to make that successful.

Imagine if you were the player, what would you do in that situation if that pillar there (points to one of HBO Rome?s TV sets pillars) and the other there is a capture point? So, I?m going to put all my guys at one point and make that undeniable. How many am I going to send over there, what are the variables between the two points, (e.g. enemy units) and are they in line of sight? Line of sight is a new feature so if there?s a unit of archers round a corner I wouldn?t know about it until I saw them, so the AI has to react to that as well. We?ve had to do quite a lot of new work, which is good.

Source: http://www.incgamers.com/2013/08/total-war-rome-ii-interview

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Most doctors in urban India are not MBBS, study finds

MUMBAI: In a shocking representation of the lack of essential healthcare, the largest chunk of doctors in the country do not hold the MBBS degree (bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery) ? a basic prerequisite to practice modern medicine (allopathy). Instead, they have degrees of alternative medicine like ayurveda or homeopathy, but they may still be prescribing a significant portion of allopathic medicines.

Data culled from the physician census by market research firm, IMS Health says that the non-MBBS general physicians (GPs) charge the lowest ? possibly because of their low qualification, experts point out, while the super-specialists like the oncologists and neurologists occupy the top rung, in terms of consulting fees.

The physician census, covering 120 cities (metro and non-metro) across the country with nearly four lakh doctors, confirms the huge dearth of quality healthcare professionals, and worse, this situation is not illustrative of rural areas at all.

When contacted by TOI, an official of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), a body representing healthcare practitioners, said it has urged the government to bring in laws to prevent quacks from practicing. Corroborating the census findings, the IMA says on its website that quacks are increasing in the country, both in urban and rural areas, and an estimated 10 lakh quacks are practicing allopathic medicine, out of which four lakh belong to practitioners of Indian Medicine (Ayurvedic, Sidha, Tibb and Unani).

It further divides quacks amongst three basic categories? quacks with no qualification whatsoever, secondly, practitioners of Indian Medicine (Ayurvedic, Sidha, Tibb, Unani), Homeopathy, Naturopathy, commonly called Ayush, who are not qualified to practice modern medicine (allopathy) but are practicing modern medicine, and lastly, practitioners of so-called integrated medicine, alternative system of medicine, electro-homeopathy, indo-allopathy etc terms which do not exist in any Act. Only practitioners who hold the MBBS degree, and registered with the Medical Council of India or the state medical council can practice modern medicine (allopathy).

IMA has also urged the government to bring in an anti-quackery law to curb unqualified and unlicensed people from taking up medical practice in the country, IMA national president Dr K Vijayakumar told TOI, adding "we are demanding an increase in the undergraduate and post-graduate seats in medical colleges to fill the gap".

Says Amit Backliwal MD IMS Health South Asia: "Access to good quality healthcare is a significant challenge in India. A key issue in getting access, according to an earlier IMS study is availability of healthcare workers, diagnostic facilities and delivery of care of a standard quality. The significant variations and disparities in number of doctors across cities, high burden on tertiary care physicians especially more prominent in smaller towns, along with mismatch in healthcare indicators to inadequate presence of healthcare infrastructure and manpower, all lead to an extremely fragmented, chaotic and poor state of healthcare in India".

The disparities in consultation charges exist across doctor specialities as well as towns and cities, with factors like qualification and high cost of living, driving this trend.

While general physicians, dentists and consulting physicians are at the bottom, the top rungs are occupied by the super specialists like oncologists, neurologists, cardiac surgeons and nephrologists - whose fees are 4-5 times that of the general physicians. In the middle lie doctor specialties like pediatricians, gynecologists, ENTs and ophthalmologists who charge 2-3 times more than general physicians. Predictably doctors from mega metros charge a premium over doctors from smaller cities; on an average a consultation with Mumbai doctors is 20-40% costlier than the all-India average doctor fee. Factors like higher cost of living, high disposable incomes, advanced treatment facilities, and higher repute of doctors drive this trend.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Most-doctors-in-urban-India-are-not-MBBS-Study/articleshow/21566944.cms

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IMF Wants EU to Help Cut Greek Debt

IMF Wants EU to Help Cut Greek Debt

Marjorie Olster - Associated Press

(AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt, File)
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde says Greece needs more help from its European partners in cutting its crushing debt as two bailout packages of $325 billion haven?t done enough and worsened a recession.

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The International Monetary Fund chief said she is counting on Europe to live up to its commitment to help Greece meet its targets for slashing debt under an international rescue program. The IMF said in its quarterly review of Greece?s progress earlier this week that the bailout program would fall short of the country?s needs by a total of $14.59 billion by the end of 2015 and Eurozone countries need to plug the hole. The international lending agency described the expected shortfall as a ?test of European support? and said finance ministers from the 17 countries that use the euro have already started discussing how to fill the financing gap.

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August 02, 2013

Source: http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/60132

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Koreans turn back Chinese

Fiba Asia champ falls in upset

By June Navarro
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Steady and resilient throughout, South Korea hammered out a stunning 63-59 win over defending champion China last night in the 27th Fiba Asia Championship at Mall of Asia Arena.

High-energy forward Cho Sung-min and veteran guard Yang Dong-geun cooly sank their free throws in the dying seconds as the Koreans escaped with the narrow victory in one of the most awaited matchups in Group C.

Former NBA center Yi Jianlian and shifty guard Wang Shipeng hastened China?s downfall by losing possession twice and muffing their desperation threes.

?They have taller guys than ours, so we really focused on the matchups,? said Korean coach Yoo Jae-hak through an interpreter. ?But it?s still a long tournament. I?m just glad to overcome the height of China.?

Yi, a 7-foot rim protector who played for the Milwaukee Bucks and Washington Wizards, was dominant in the paint but the Korean frontline simply held its ground with Cho, Lee Seung-jun and Kim Jong-kyu ganging up on him.

?He?s (Yi) a good player. Tall, fast and we had a hard time defending him. We just helped each other out to stop him,? said Cho, whose free throws with 21.5 seconds left gave the Koreans a 61-57 breather.

Source: http://sports.inquirer.net/112287/koreans-turn-back-chinese

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