Coal company announces layoffs in response to Obama win

A coal company headed by a prominent Mitt Romney donor has laid off more than 160 workers in response to President Obama's election victory.
Murray Energy said Friday that it had been "forced" to make the layoffs in response to the bleak prospects for the coal industry during Obama's second term. In a prayer circulated by the company, CEO Robert Murray said Americans had voted "in favor of redistribution, national weakness and reduced standard of living and lower and lower levels of personal freedom."
"The American people have made their choice. They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals of our Founders," Murray said in the prayer, which was delivered in a meeting with staff members earlier this week.
"Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corporation for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."
Murray cited pending regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the possibility of a carbon tax as factors that could lead to the "total destruction of the coal industry by as early as 2030."
In August, Murray shuttered an operation in Ohio, again blaming the Obama Administration and its alleged "war on coal."
Mitt Romney echoed this line on the campaign trail, accusing Obama of undermining the country's energy security.
Administration officials responded to these attacks by affirming that Obama supports "clean coal." They also pointed out that more coal miners were on the job in the U.S. this year than at any time since 1997, and that U.S. coal exports have risen 31%.
Domestically, however, coal production has dropped sharply, falling roughly 15% in 2011 versus years prior, according to the National Mining Association.
But the industry's woes go way beyond Obama's policies.
Utility companies are increasingly ditching coal in favor of cheaper, cleaner natural gas. In addition, the recession and improved energy efficiency have crimped demand for power.
Looking ahead, the coal industry faces a rule going into effect in 2015 that tightens the amount of mercury coal plants can emit, as well as regulations on mountain-top mining. Both will make coal production and coal-fired power plants more expensive.
The rules themselves are not Obama's doing, although he has implemented them fairly quickly. Most stem from the Clean Air Act, which was signed by Richard Nixon and strengthened during the first Bush presidency.

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U.S. to Pass Saudi Arabia in Energy Production, IEA Says: Huge Foreign Policy, Economic Implications

A new report by the International Energy Association says the U.S. will become the world's largest oil producer by 2017, overtaking current leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia. U.S. energy policies initiated by the George W. Bush administration and implemented by President Barack Obama have moved the U.S. toward energy independence and away from Middle East energy sources. U.S. oil production has risen rapidly since 2008 and oil imports are at their lowest level in two decades.
"North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world, yet the potential also exists for a similarly transformative shift in global energy efficiency," says IEA Executive Director Marian von der Hoeven in a statement.
The IEA also says the U.S. could become self-sufficient in energy by 2035 and a net exporter of natural gas by 2020. The Obama administration's push to develop and grow domestic natural gas capabilities has led to a natural gas drilling boom. Production has jumped 15% in four years but the glut in natural gas supplies have also caused the price of natural gas to plummet. According to the White House, the U.S. holds a 100-year supply of natural gas and domestic production is at an all-time high. The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task and Henry Blodget both agree that the explosion in domestic energy production could alter the geopolitical landscape and U.S. labor market.
"The foreign policy implications are maybe even bigger than the economic ones," says Task.
"For 50 years or more we have been just addicted and coupled to a region of the world where so many people hate us," Blodget adds.
Oil and petroleum imports have fallen an average of more than 1.5 million barrels per day and domestic crude oil production has increased by an average of more than 720,000 barrels per day since 2008. As domestic drilling has expanded so has the number of oil and gas production jobs. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, job growth in these industries has risen 25% since January 2010.
Related: The Fracking Revolution: More Jobs and Cheaper Energy Are Worth the "Manageable" Risks, Yergin Says
President Obama says natural gas production could support 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. Most of these positions are highly desirable from a financial standpoint. Drilling and support jobs pay about $34.50 an hour, 50% more than the national average according to The New York Times.
Cheap natural gas and the administration's eagerness to expand U.S. energy production has shifted resources away from green energy technologies like solar and wind.
Related: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Renewable Energy Is Key to U.S. Growth
The method of extracting natural gas from shale rock formations has come under intense scrutiny. Many local cities and communities have already banned the practice. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly referred to as hydrofracking or fracking, involves injecting large amounts of sand, water and chemicals into the ground at high pressures. Critics of fracking say this process produces millions of gallons of wastewater that contain highly corrosive salts and carcinogens. These radioactive elements could pollute water sources such as rivers and underground aquifers and pose serious dangers to the environment and individuals.

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Eurozone back in recession in Q3

LONDON (AP) -- The 17-country eurozone has bowed to the inevitable and fallen back into recession for the first time in three years as a sprawling debt crisis took its toll on the region's stronger economies.
And with surveys pointing to increasingly depressed conditions across the eurozone at a time of high unemployment in many countries, there are fears that the recession will deepen, and make the debt crisis even more difficult to handle.
Official figures Thursday showed that the eurozone contracted by 0.1 percent in the July to September period from the quarter before as economies including Germany and the Netherlands suffer from falling demand.
The decline reported by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, was in line with market expectations and follows on from the 0.2 percent fall recorded in the second quarter. As a result, the eurozone is officially in recession, commonly defined as two straight quarters of falling output.
"We can dispense with the euphemisms and equivocation, and openly proclaim that the euro area economy is indeed in technical recession," said James Ashley, senior European economist at RBC Capital Markets.
Because of the eurozone's grueling three-year debt crisis, the region has the focus of concern for the world economy. The eurozone's economy is worth around €9.5 trillion, or $12.1 trillion, which puts it on a par with the U.S. economy. The region, with its 332 million population, is the U.S.'s largest export customer, and any fall-off in demand will hit order books.
While the U.S has managed to bounce back from its own savage recession in 2008-09, albeit inconsistently, and China continues to post still-strong growth, Europe's economies have been on a downward spiral — and there is little sign of any improvement in the near-term.
The eurozone has managed to avoid returning to recession for the first time since the financial crisis following the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, mainly thanks to the strength of its largest single economy, Germany.
But even that country is struggling now as confidence wanes and exports drain in light of the debt problems afflicting large chunks of the eurozone.
Germany's economy grew a muted 0.2 percent in the third quarter, down from a 0.3 percent increase in the previous quarter. Over the past year, Germany's annual growth rate has more than halved to 0.9 percent from 1.9 percent.
Perhaps the most dramatic decline among the eurozone's members was seen in the Netherlands, whose economy shrank 1.1 percent on the previous quarter.
Five eurozone countries are in recession — Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus. Those five are also at the center of Europe's debt crisis and are imposing austerity measures, such as cuts to pensions and increases to taxes, in an attempt to stay afloat.
As well as hitting workers' incomes and living standards, these measures have also led to a decline in economic output and a sharp increase in unemployment.
Spain and Greece have unemployment rates of over 25 percent. Their young people are faring even worse with every other person out of work. As well as being a cost to governments who have to pay out more for benefits, it carries a huge social and human cost.
Protests across Europe on Wednesday highlighted the scale of discontent and with economic surveys pointing to the downturn getting worse, the voices of anger may well get louder still.
"The likelihood is that this anger will continue to grow unless European leaders and policymakers start to act as if they have a clue as to how to resolve the crisis starting to unravel before their eyes," said Michael Hewson, markets analyst at CMC Markets.
The wider 27-nation EU, which includes non-euro countries, avoided the same fate. It saw output rise 0.1 percent during the quarter, largely on the back of an Olympics-related boost in Britain.
The EU's output as a whole is greater than the U.S. It is also a major source of sales for the world's leading companies. Forty percent of McDonald's global revenue comes from Europe - more than it generates in the U.S. General Motors, meanwhile, sold 1.7 million vehicles in Europe last year, a fifth of its worldwide sales.

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United's Rooney out of Liverpool clash

LONDON (Reuters) - Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney will miss Sunday's Premier League clash against north-west rivals Liverpool after failing to recover from a knee injury, manager Alex Ferguson said on Friday.
Rooney injured a knee ligament in training and missed United's holiday fixtures against Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion and Wigan Athletic as well as their FA Cup draw at West Ham United.
"Wayne Rooney is still out," Ferguson told reporters. "I am hoping he will start training today actually, in which case he won't be far away. I don't think it is an issue, but we need to guide him along.
"In terms of the injury he had, it's quite straightforward so if he starts today, I assume he will be available for Wednesday's replay (against West Ham)."
United winger Nani and midfielder Anderson will both return to the squad for Liverpool's visit to Old Trafford.
"Nani is back in training and will be included in the squad for Sunday.
"Anderson has been back training for 10 days now so he will be in the squad for Sunday. All in all it is quite a positive situation. It's good to have them back."
United lead the Premier League by seven points from local rivals Manchester City after 21 games, while Liverpool are 14 points further adrift in eighth place.
The fixture, however, remains as important as ever, according to Ferguson.
"The derby game against Liverpool never changes," he said. It's always an immensely important game - intense, emotional. We are going into the game in reasonable form."

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Soccer-I feel fine, Terry says after comeback from injury

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Chelsea's former England captain John Terry said his knee felt "totally fine" after making his comeback for the club's under-21 team following two months on the sidelines.
The 32-year-old central defender played for 45 minutes on Thursday night, featuring as an over-age player in a 2-0 victory over neighbours Fulham.
"I have come through alright," Terry told Chelsea TV.
"Initially I was going to play between 30 and 45 (minutes) so I managed to get through the first half and the knee feels totally fine which is the main thing.
"Lungs are a little bit... which is natural, but it is good to get in 45 under my belt. It has been frustrating two months really.
"I felt fine, totally fine. Passing, tackling, everything felt fine. It's really positive to come through a game and hopefully give myself a chance to be back involved with the first team."
Terry hurt his knee against Liverpool on Nov. 11, his first match back after serving a four-game ban for racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.
Terry has missed 16 games in all competitions and said he hoped to soon be back in contention for a first-team recall.
"Maybe it is too soon to get back starting. The lads have been playing well as well, so I know better than anybody I have to wait my time and be patient and try to get back in the squad first, than the team after that," he said.

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I feel fine, Terry says after comeback from injury

LONDON (Reuters) - Chelsea's former England captain John Terry said his knee felt "totally fine" after making his comeback for the club's under-21 team following two months on the sidelines.
The 32-year-old central defender played for 45 minutes on Thursday night, featuring as an over-age player in a 2-0 victory over neighbours Fulham.
"I have come through alright," Terry told Chelsea TV.
"Initially I was going to play between 30 and 45 (minutes) so I managed to get through the first half and the knee feels totally fine which is the main thing.
"Lungs are a little bit... which is natural, but it is good to get in 45 under my belt. It has been frustrating two months really.
"I felt fine, totally fine. Passing, tackling, everything felt fine. It's really positive to come through a game and hopefully give myself a chance to be back involved with the first team."
Terry hurt his knee against Liverpool on November 11, his first match back after serving a four-game ban for racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.
Terry has missed 16 games in all competitions and said he hoped to soon be back in contention for a first-team recall.
"Maybe it is too soon to get back starting. The lads have been playing well as well, so I know better than anybody I have to wait my time and be patient and try to get back in the squad first, than the team after that," he said.
Chelsea, fourth in the Premier League - 14 points behind leaders Manchester United - travel to Stoke City on Saturday looking to bounce back from a midweek home defeat by Swansea in the Capital One (League) Cup, semi-final first-leg.

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Star Hackers: Scientists Hold 1st Astronomy 'Hack Day'

Astronomers have a "Big Data" problem. While telescopes around the world record reams of data every day, researchers struggle to manage this surplus of information. But there is a change brewing within the astronomy community, one where researchers  assume many different roles: astronomer, hacker and communicator.
DotAstronomy, a community that bridges the gap between science research and computer coding, hosted the first "Hack Day" exclusively for astronomy in the United States, last month at the Bit.ly headquarters in New York.
The Dec. 15 event was co-sponsored by Bit.ly and Harvard's Seamless Astronomy Group. Participants had a single day to tackle a problem within astronomy data. The day was split into three parts: presentations of tools that some participants have been working on, hack time, and presentations of the day's accomplishments.
Participants came from all over the tri-state area to learn from other astronomy hackers and work on joint projects. Most of them were either professors or graduate students from NYU, Harvard, Yale or CUNY, but there were others from non-astronomy backgrounds as well.
Many of the tools presented were frameworks to make astronomy data more manageable, often with a heavy community and open-source aspect.
For example, there was Astropy, a community-driven astronomy package; Planethunters.org, where public online users can hunt for exoplanets; the yt-project, a community-driven platform that transforms data into breathtaking graphic models, to help researchers ask better questions from their data; and an API (an interface between a user and a site's database) where you can easily look up any celestial object's spectral data from archives of the Sloan Digital Survey.
Hacking and camaraderie
After the main presentations, everyone grabbed a quick lunch and circled the whiteboard to pitch their hacks. They then split into groups and started exchanging ideas, debugging, and scrawling flow charts or models. Practically all the participants were acquainted with Python computer coding, but still, the best hackers quickly stood out, and many clamored for their aid. [5 Threats That Keep Security Experts Up at Night]
Demitri Muna is one of those hackers. He runs an online forum and workshop called SciCoder, teaching scientists how to efficiently work in Python. Muna is working toward a SciCoder book, which will include a free PDF for the astronomy community.
Muna worked during the hack day with Kelle Cruz from the American Museum of Natural History department of astrophysics and others to create a "SQLite" database to store brown dwarf star data that they could distribute to members' email accounts.
"Astronomers are dealing with an embarrassment of riches in the volume of data at our fingertips, but most still work with the same tools and file formats from 25-30 years ago," Muna said. "These tools are increasingly unable to scale to handle the data we now have. I strongly feel that better, not just more, investment into software development needs to be made in our community."
Different worlds
In our age of social media, it's not just about getting the data, but making it fast and convenient to use. However, many of the online tools that house the necessary astronomy data are scattered in terms of compatibility, programming interface capability, naming conventions, units used, and descriptive data. Astronomers typically have to write the same code over and over again to customize it on a case-by-case basis.
"One problem is that every sub-community [in astronomy] handles data differently, and the tools they might use are different," said Lia Corrales, a grad student at Columbia University. "I'm working to make cross-communication between different databases easier. I work with X-ray data. I'd like to put all of [the] data together, find all the quasars and say something about the dust around each one. I've wasted a lot of time in the past writing the cross-communicating code manually. I learned a lot from that experience but also to never do it again."
Adric Riedel, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, said that his current dataset was taken from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey, which was photographed in the 1950s; researchers are still getting new things out of it. "We need to work smarter and take advantage of tools that others have built."
David Hogg, an astronomy and physics professor at NYU, worked on a paper predicting the distribution of stars that have transiting exoplanets based on data from NASA's Kepler planet-hunting space telescope.
"Kepler has been very generous with their data and astronomers have just started asking questions about it," he said. "We're guessing [based on observations] that the numbers of one-, two-, and three-planet systems puts a strong constraint on the true numbers. What we really want to do has to be simplified if we are going to finish it in one day." [Gallery: A World of Kepler Planets]
Unfortunately, the paper wasn't completed by the end of the Hack Day, but his group put together a literature review and a graph to model the assumptions about the data.
Hack Day results
Chris Beaumont, a graduate student from Harvard, worked on a project to speed up plots and models in Python. He used OpenGL, a platform used for 3D game graphics, to leverage its processing power and resolution. The results shown, at the end of Hack Day, were quite amazing. He's now planning to create full-featured code for others to use.
And Megan Schwamb, who is part of the Planethunters.org team, created a new API for the site that retrieves data about possible planets orbiting binary stars.
One the most unconventional hacks attempted to take down and expose the flaws of MAST (Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes), carried out by Micha Gorelick, a data scientist at Bit.ly.
Gorelick found that when MAST data parameters are entered to find celestial objects, the program didn't check what type of data was being requested. This could lead to the ability of hackers to insert their own database commands to manipulate the catalog. Afterward, he contacted the folks at MAST, and they are currently addressing the issue.
Overall, the Hack Day was a success, according to those involved, not only because of the projects completed, but because of the discussions and information sharing that the event sparked.

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Netflix announces ‘Super HD’ and 3D streaming for select ISPs

Netflix (NFLX) on Tuesday announced new enhanced streaming options for users on select ISPs. Following a series of rumors that suggested as much, Netflix has confirmed the availability of “Super HD” streaming — which is simply Netflix’s branding for 1080p content — and 3D video streaming. Both services are available immediately with a huge caveat: only Netflix subscribers with Cablevision or Google Fiber Internet service have access to the new content. For those lucky subscribers, Super HD and 3D content is accessible using a number of devices including the Wii U, compatible Roku players, the Apple TV, Windows 8 PCs and select smart TVs and Blu-ray players. Netflix’s full press release follows below.
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Netflix “Open Connect” Delivery Network Gains Widespread Global Acceptance
Cablevision Most Recent Major Provider to Join Open Connect
New Super HD and 3D Video Formats Available on Open Connect
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Jan 8, 2013
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Netflix Open Connect, the single purpose video content delivery network launched last year, is now delivering the majority of Netflix international traffic and is growing at a rapid pace in the domestic market.
In early 2012 Netflix began enabling Internet service providers (ISPs) to receive, at no cost to them, Netflix video directly at the interconnection point of the ISP’s choice. By connecting directly through Open Connect, ISPs can more effectively manage their networks and more efficiently deliver Internet services to consumers, including the more than 1 billion hours of Netflix TV shows and movies consumers watch every month.
Netflix Open Connect is now widely deployed around the world, serving the vast majority of Netflix video in Europe, Canada and Latin America, and a growing proportion in the U.S., where Netflix has over 25 million streaming members.
“Leading-edge ISPs around the world such as Cablevision, Virgin Media, British Telecom, Telmex, Telus, TDC, GVT, among many others, are already participating in Open Connect to provide the highest-possible quality Netflix service to consumers,” said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings. “Our goal is to have all of our members served by Open Connect as soon as possible.”
“Optimum is committed to providing the highest-quality TV, phone and Internet to our customers, and our new partnership with Netflix supports this critical objective,” said James L. Dolan, president and CEO of Cablevision, the most recent major provider to join Open Connect. “With Open Connect, we are establishing a direct local connection with Netflix that delivers a higher-quality Netflix viewing experience for Optimum customers than Verizon or AT&T can provide, including access to new Netflix Super HD and 3D TV shows and movies.”
Netflix Super HD and 3D
Now available through Open Connect partners, Netflix Super HD is the highest quality video format offered by Netflix, providing an even better picture on 1080p HDTVs.
In the U.S., Netflix is also for the first time offering a small number of titles streaming in 3D through Open Connect partners. Available for 3D viewing are, among other titles, the action fantasy drama “Immortals,” Red Bull Media House’s snowboarding documentary “The Art of Flight,” and a number of titles from the Discovery/Sony/Imax joint venture 3net Studios – including the native, original 3D series “African Wild,” “Scary Tales,” and “Live Fire.” Depending on member demand, Netflix will consider adding 3D titles and expanding availability to international markets.
“These new Super HD and 3D formats are more challenging to deliver than our other video streams, which is why we will deliver them through Open Connect,” said Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery at Netflix. “Any ISP that wants to be able to deliver our new formats can do so easily and for free.”
Netflix members can verify if their ISP is part of Open Connect and provides access to Netflix Super HD and, in the U.S. only, 3D on this Web site: http://www.netflix.com/superhd
ISPs that are not yet on Open Connect can contact Netflix at openconnect.netflix.com to start their Open Connect relationship. As part of Open Connect, Netflix is also sharing its hardware design and the open source software components. These designs are suitable for any other provider of large media files and are very cost efficient.

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The next CIA's director's challenges

qWhat John Brennan faces after confirmation
I see no reason why the Senate won't confirm John Brennan, President Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, to be the next director of the CIA. There will be pro forma inquiries into his past entanglements with the NSA's domestic surveillance program and his knowledge and approval of the CIA's "Greystone" torture protocols, but he will have ready answers for the questions and he will say plenty in private to sooth the concerns of those whose concerns need to be soothed.
Assuming Brennan becomes the DCIA, as he will thenceforth be acronymed, he'll inherit a powerful spy agency facing a set of tough questions. Actually, every CIA director since the advent of the age of Al Qaeda has more or less dealt with these same issues. The daily demands of the job require tactical thinking and leave little room for attention to the bigger picture.
SEE MORE: Why Django is better than Lincoln
# Is the CIA a paramilitary force? Should it go back to its roots as a source of intelligence and warning?  You see this question phrased as such a lot, but it ignores virtually all of the CIA's history, except for a period in the 1990s when the "Peace Dividend" and director John Deutch pulled back significantly on the agency's ambit. The CIA has always been both and will always be both. From the start, the agency has very broadly and probably (in an affront to the original understanding of the National Security Act of 1947) interpreted its mandate to do stuff to further American interests abroad, even and often to the point of violence, as Adam Elkus reminds us today. The question really is one of authorities and chains of command: how are American resources properly allocated? Are the mechanisms of accountability sufficient? Is there really anything better than an ad hoc framework for determining whether combined CIA-military operations are really CIA operations or military operations?
# There is no such thing as secrecy anymore, at least not in the way that the CIA has understood the term. We live in an era of open source everything, which means that the agency's crown jewels have very short lifespans and that public interest in what the CIA does is bound to increase exponentially. The agency has to figure out a posture on the New Secrecy that satisfies its mission while accepting the Open Source reality. Younger analysts have different expectations of how to gather and collect information and are less satisfied with the complicated and fairly broken traditional secrecy rules.
# Similarly, it is exceedingly difficult for would-be spies to come to the CIA without significant social media trails, and it is very hard for them to work in the world without leaving electromagnetic detritus for everyone to exploit and discover. How can the CIA's case officers maintain their cover identities? Is the era of fully-fledged cover identities over? Will the CIA continue to rely (and over-rely) on foreign intelligence services for critical human intelligence operations?
# The same Open Source world that hinders CIA secrecy also provides the agency with far more data than it ever imagined having. The CIA will never face a problem of not having enough intelligence. It will face the problem of having too much and not knowing what it has or how to use it.

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UN estimate of Syria death toll highlights discrepancies in casualty reporting

A new United Nations-sponsored report that estimates more than 60,000 people have died in Syria’s political violence has touched off a new dispute that underscores how little is truly known about the toll from a civil war just weeks from beginning its third year.
One Syrian activist who provided some of the numbers for the study says he believes the new numbers are inflated, while another says he believes they underrepresent the dead.
“They are being used as propaganda,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who believes the new numbers overstate the number of dead. “The UN is not a human rights organization, it is a political one.”
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Rahman said he believed the report, made public Wednesday, was being used to pressure countries into working harder to reach a political deal to stop the fighting.
Rahman’s criticism is notable. His organization’s numbers, gathered from informants on the ground in Syria, are the most widely quoted source for information on the daily violence inside Syria. His is also the only organization that attempts to record casualties from all sides of the conflict – rebels, the government and civilians. To date, he’s logged about 46,000 deaths since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.
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Megan Price, a senior statistician for Benetech, the California firm that compiled the report for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Rahman had shared his concerns with the report’s authors. "We have nothing but the utmost respect for the groups doing this very hard work,” Price said, adding that Rahman’s concerns about the accuracy of some of the data used in the study “are valid."
But she also said she still agreed with the report’s general conclusion that the data used to compile the report, gathered from six organizations and the Syrian government, almost certainly missed a number of deaths that have yet to be counted. “The statistics presented in this report should be considered minimum bounds,” the report said.
“Based on our experience in other countries, and really just thinking about the way that violence occurs, there will inevitably be violence that is not recorded, especially if it leaves behind only the perpetrators or witnesses who don’t feel safe enough to report or they don’t have any reason to,” she said.
That view was endorsed by Radwan Ziadeh, the director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, which is part of another group that tracks casualties, the Syrian Network for Human Rights. The network, which only records deaths of rebel fighters and civilians, has reported the deaths of 42,343 people since March 18, 2011.
The likelihood that many deaths have gone unreported should spur a push for international monitors to document the violence in Syria, said Ziadeh, a member of the Syrian National Council, an opposition exile group that has lobbied hard for international support for the rebels.
“This is why it’s important to have independent fact-finding on the ground,” he said.
Syria’s death toll has long been a hotly debated topic. The United Nations stopped publishing a death toll nearly a year ago after officials realized that they could not independently document the killings and that most of the groups purporting to have information were sympathetic to the rebels and did not delineate between civilian deaths and those of rebel combatants. For its part, the Syrian government provided statistics primarily for its supporters and police and soldiers killed in combat with the rebels. The government stopped publicizing those casualties late last spring as it became clear rebels were taking an ever greater toll on government forces.
The Benetech study was an effort to arrive at an accurate figure by comparing the reports provided by both Rahman’s and Ziadeh’s groups and four others as well as the Syrian government. The firm’s statisticians compared each of the databases with one another in an effort to weed out duplicates and insufficiently documented deaths. Researchers included only casualties that had been identified with a first and last name and a date and place of death.
The process yielded a list of 59,648 unduplicated death reports from March 2011 through November. Of those, 76.1 percent were male and 7.5 percent were female. The sex of 16.4 percent could not be determined from the records, the report said.
But there were many questions that the report could not answer. For one, the analysis could not determine how many of those killed were civilians and how many were combatants. It also said that more than 70 percent of the records did not provide an age for the victim, meaning that the study could reach no conclusions about the death toll among children and the elderly.
The lack of information about whether the dead were bystanders or combatants also leaves open the debate over Syrian government tactics. Anti-Assad groups have consistently accused the government of targeting civilians in its bombardment of urban areas, a charge the Syrian government answers by claiming that the areas were occupied by armed rebels.
The way the various groups account for civilian casualties varies widely, underscoring the difficulty.
Ziadeh says his group’s numbers “indicate that 90 to 95 percent of those killed are civilians.” But Rahman’s Syrian Observatory sees a less lopsided ratio, with its numbers for November and December – 3,860 and 3,690, respectively – showing that only 42 percent of those were civilians.
Those variations exist even though both groups say they rely on the same basic methodology to gather their information: interviews with family members, photographic and video evidence, and evidence collected by activists on the ground to back up their statistics.
Both groups agree that violence peaked in August, when each counted for than 5,000 dead.
Rahman said, however, that he intends to present evidence to the United Nations that some of the death reports its study used included faked names and people who died from causes unrelated to the war.
He cited a recent attack on a gasoline station as example of the misrepresentation of some of the attacks that take place inside Syria.
“People said more than 30 people died,” Rahman said. “But no one had more than 12 names, or video of more than 12 bodies.”

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Karzai meets Obama: How will they shape a post-2014 Afghanistan?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington this week will shape the future of Afghanistan, as he and Obama determine the number and role – if any – of US forces in Afghanistan post-2014.
After more than a decade of war and costly efforts to build infrastructure and train Afghan security forces that now number 350,000, the view from Kabul is still mixed. Many are concerned about what will happen when the bulk of the 66,000 remaining US troops will be withdrawn by the end of 2014. Others believe that Afghanistan is ready to stand on its own.
Yet worries about a collapse or a reignited civil war after the US pullout may be overblown, just as similar doomsday predictions about Iraq after the final US withdrawal in December 2011 have not come to pass.
"There is now a sense [among foreigners] that the lights are going to go out in 2014, that the sun is going to stop shining," says Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul. "In the early years, they had this overly rosy picture, but since then there has been this decline and increasing pessimism. Both are over-estimations of the international role."
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Some fear a return to the dark days of the late 1990s, when the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan with a centuries-old, unbending Salafi Islamist worldview. Others fear a breakdown of central government and return of warlordism, competing militias, and civil war.
A number of analysts, however, say Afghanistan has come too far since 2001 to disintegrate again into past eras of violence and lawlessness, and that those who fought over Kabul in the 1990s today have vested interests in keeping the peace in the capital.
"It's not important for us, the physical presence of Americans in Afghanistan, the numbers beyond 2014," says Hilaluddin Hilal, an Afghan Air Force general and deputy Interior minister for security until 2005.
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"The important thing is a strong partnership and the existence of the US as an ally. We don't want the Americans to take part in the frontline fight against insurgents; we have enough [troops]," says Hilal.
He ticks off a list of complaints voiced by many Afghans: rampant corruption, poor governance with limited capacity, and billions in Western reconstruction aid that often lined pockets instead of creating sustainable, tangible results.
"Now the big problem is disagreement between Karzai and the US – this can create strategic problems for the US and Afghanistan in the future," says Hilal. "Sometimes the president says the reason for insecurity is America itself.... And the Taliban, the president calls them 'brothers,' but they kill innocent people. How can that be? We have no definition of who is the enemy [so] there is no clear strategy about the enemy in Afghanistan."
Mr. Karzai's visit to Washington comes amid news from Afghanistan of yet another "green on blue" attack of a uniformed member of the Afghan Army shooting dead a British soldier on Monday – a reminder of the uncertainties and eroded trust as the US plans to withdraw the bulk of its troops. US forces are part of a 100,000-strong NATO contingent.
The killing was the latest in a surge of such attacks. During the past year, insider attacks killed 63 US and NATO troops, in 47 incidents.
'WE HAVE DONE SO MUCH'
"There is a Western point of view that we have done so much all this time, that we have tried so hard to build up this government, that it's still in such bad shape, that it must be impossible for it to roll on and continue to exist without our help," says Ms. Bijlert.
Yet, "the actual locally relevant governance and politics that went on was often not that visible to the foreigners here. This will probably continue," says Bijlert. Often classified as dysfunctional, that system "has defused a lot of the possible violence."
"The complexity of it might be uniquely Afghan. It's very much a personalized, patronage-based society.... Your relationships are the main capital you have, and also the greatest threat: Who is your friend and your enemy is the most important thing in life," adds Bijlert.
"And with all the turnovers over the decades, things have become ever more complicated, [leaving] you with layers of multiple loyalties," notes Bijlert. "Anyone who's anybody, politically or socially, even on the village level, has to engage in complicated, almost mathematical relational calculations all the time – that's what politics are made of here. Also, it's very brutal: It's easy to get killed or beaten up. So you're constantly engaging in actions to defuse that."
Much of that political dynamic bypassed US and NATO forces as they sought to stamp out an insurgency that leapt up after US forces and intelligence shifted attention in 2002 toward Iraq.
DASHED HOPES
The result has been dashed hopes that were high among Afghans, after the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants were forced from power and out of Kabul by US airstrikes and Northern Alliance fighters in late 2001. Afghans expected dramatic and positive change, spearheaded by American forces, aid, and good intentions.
"People are so disappointed; expectations were normal, but they didn't finish the Taliban," says a former translator for US and British forces, who spoke in Kabul on the condition he not be named because has been threatened because of his previous translation work.
"Before [2001], people thought of the Taliban as a military power, but now they are a political power, because they can play a game and they are doing it," says the Afghan translator.
"To be honest, [the US] lost the war. With all this effort, you expect good results, but they are not there," says the translator. "Now [US forces] are trying to reduce their casualties. If they won the war, why do they want to keep 10,000 troops? It means there are still things to do, and the threats are worse [today] than five years ago. In 2001, it was so easy to finish the Taliban, [but] now the Taliban are in an offensive position."
The translator recalls hearing repeated complaints from Afghan villagers as US troops made patrols in the less-welcoming southern reaches of the country, that it was the US presence that endangered them – not only the Taliban.
"They were hating both sides, they were harmed by both sides," says the translator. "[Villagers] would say: 'Please, for God's sake, leave! You are the main reason for the problem. From the day you arrived, there was bombing.' The American commander laughed and said, 'We are bringing security to you.' They replied: 'No, we feel insecurity with you.'"
An elder from the remote eastern province of Nuristan says he heard similar sentiments.
Yacoub Nuristani, who helped US Provincial Reconstruction Teams choose and fund projects, says there is little left to show for that work besides a few clinic and school buildings.
A key road near Kamdesh is now too insecure to use. Five years ago, the Monitor reported on Taliban killings of elders who cooperated with US forces, which later withdrew completely from the province.
"The people of Kamdesh fought against the Taliban when the Americans were there, they were threatened by the Taliban," says Mr. Nuristani, speaking in Kabul. "Now the Taliban are there, but they don't threaten because there are no US or foreign troops."
Those who supported the government and fought the Taliban, says Nuristani, now have no government support "so they had to flee."
NO 'VICTORY'
Few say they believe that the Taliban could reimpose their rule on Afghanistan before or after 2014, and some say the spate of suicide bombings in recent years – which have often targeted civilians in mosques and shops – is a sign of weakness.
However, few on the ground here use the word "victory."
"It was just a given, it was going to be a success, and if it wasn't going to be a success, it had to be made to look like a success," says Bijlert of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. "That skewed everything, so it became difficult to say, 'Actually, this is very hard, and maybe we should rethink.'
Thus emerged a pattern of expectation, that a solution was just around the corner, if this step were taken to win hearts and minds, or that troop surge was implemented. Instead, the insurgency continues.
Says Bijlert: "Some of it was almost like an evangelical belief, that something was on the verge of happening that would change everything."
Recommended: How well do you know Afghanistan? Take our quiz.

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Britain debates: What should European welfare look like?

On Tuesday, the British government pushed through a parliamentary vote to temporarily cap welfare benefits, setting down a dividing line on an issue that will be pivotal in determining who wins the UK's next general election.
But it also is the latest round of a struggle being played out across virtually every European nation facing the questions of what a welfare state should look like in the 21st century and how it can be subsidized in an era when the right (and many on the left) claim that dwindling resources mean traditional models are no longer affordable.
Recommended: Think you know Europe? Take our geography quiz.
The bill, backed by the government's Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties coalition, caps annual increases in many benefits to 1 percent – effectively a real-term cut as it is below the expected level of inflation – and passed the House of Commons easily despite opposition from both the opposition Labour Party and even from some Liberal Democrat members of the governing coalition.
DOMESTIC DEBATE OVER DEPENDENCY
The government paints the measure as necessary to fix an increase in benefits paid to supposedly work-shy “shirkers” over the past five years at a time when another group characterized as “strivers” have been unfairly shouldering the burden of paying taxes.
"Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbor sleeping off a life on benefits?” asked Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne last year when the measure was announced.
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But critics charge that Mr. Osborne's imagery was a classic example of Conservative Party scapegoating of the poor, meant to play to a particular strata of voters fiercely fought over by the Tories and Labour. Labour points to analysis showing seven million working households will lose out by an average £165 ($265) annually under the plan. And Sarah Teather, a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament who lost her job as children and families minister in a reshuffle in September, also said she would be voting against.
"As a constituency MP representing a very deprived area in London, I feel deeply anxious about the policy and I will be voting against the bill... very reluctantly and with a very heavy heart," she told the BBC.
By ramping up the rhetoric ahead of today's vote, Britain's Conservative Party sought to exploit perceived associations between their Labour opponents and notions of an outdated welfare state. Drawing on focus group research, one recent Conservative election attack advert featured an image of a man on sofa watching day-time television and asked if the government should support “hard-working families or people who don’t work.”
Polling last week also revealed that more than two out of five people believe that benefits were too generous, and three out of five buy into the idea that a culture of dependency had emerged. A British trade union umbrella body that commissioned the research said Tuesday that public support for measures such as the one adopted by Parliament was based on ignorance of who will suffer.
A EUROPEAN PROBLEM
But in many ways, the British debate over how to deal with its welfare state amid an economic crisis is par for the course in Europe – and one that, according to the British government, the UK is handling better than its peers on the continent.
In Portugal, Ireland, and Greece, the three eurozone countries that have suffered most from the crisis engulfing the current zone, draconian cuts in welfare have been part of the bargain for IMF bailouts. France's newly elected Socialist president, François Hollande has meanwhile been preparing the French for major changes to one of Europe's most expansive welfare states, pledging to bring down the budget deficit to 3 percent this year and announcing that “we must be ready to do better by spending less.”
Traute Meyer, a professor at the University of Southampton involved in research about the welfare state in Europe, points out that trends over the past 10 years have seen every European welfare state moving to change to their system in line with their own unique cultural and historical traditions. “Nordic countries are still those with the highest employment rates and equality measures. Systems in southern countries still tend to be the most fragile, while Germany and others on the continent are holding onto systems based on social-insurance-based income,” she says.
“But at the same time you can see certain challenges and priorities are very similar," Dr. Meyer adds. "One is that all countries are thinking more about measures that will integrate people in the labor force – welfare to work.”
“So, in most countries, benefits that deactivate workers, such as early retirement, are being phased out, while those that activate people into the workforces are being brought in. Enhanced childcare is on the table in many places.”
James Plunkett, director of policy at the Resolution Foundation think tank, notes that much political debate about welfare reform in the UK had turned on a long-running theme drawing on language such as “scroungers and strivers” – language particular to the British view of welfare.
While British workers pay a certain percentage of their income – known as the "replacement rate" – into an unemployment fund which they can tap if they become unemployed, that rate is so low that it gives the workers a sense that unemployment payments are "not meant for everyone," thereby creating a stigma against taking such payments, he says.
“In other countries," he adds, the welfare system "is seen more as a general insurance mechanism for everyone.”
“[I]n a country like Denmark for example, there is almost no stigma attached to being on unemployment benefit. It's quite common to graduate and be on unemployment benefit for a time. I suspect that is a more common experience where as here there is more stigma attached to it.”
AHEAD OF THE GAME?
When it comes to the much larger budget surrounding pensions Britain may at least be a step ahead of other continental countries, including Germany, despite an often repeated narrative that holds that past reforms by German governments to streamline labor laws and revamp unemployment benefits have put it on the kind of stable footing envied by European peers.
Meyer, whose particular area of expertise is pensions, said that reforms in Britain by Labour in the second half of the last decade, and taken on by the coalition, have improved pension benefit in the future for lower income groups.
“In contrast, arising from the German pension reforms during the late '90s and early 2000s, there is increasing recognition in the German poverty debate that changes have led to a significant deterioration in future benefits for pensioners. If you take the perspective of pension, which is one of the largest parts of the Western welfare state budget, Germany has deteriorated and future poverty risks have increased while poverty rates for British pensioners have improved."
With its latest pension reforms, Meyer says that the UK is now closer to the sort of welfare approach taken by Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
"They have a basic state pension close to the poverty line and an occupational compulsory pension on top. In that sense the UK is not ahead but catching up, however, it is ahead of those countries that have now cut their previously very generous state pensions considerably, such as Germany and Italy."

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Katusha denied wild-card entry to Giro d'Italia

MILAN (AP) -- The Russian team Katusha featuring top-ranked Joaquin Rodriguez has been denied a wild-card entry into the Giro d'Italia.
Organizers RCS announced four wild-card entries on Tuesday for the May 4-26 race: Italian teams Androni Giocattoli, Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox and Vini Fantini, plus South American squad Colombia.
The 18 UCI Pro Teams received automatic invites.
Katusha has filed a suit in the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the UCI's refusal of its application for the 2013 World Tour.
RCS said Katusha was considered as a professional continental team. Rodriguez has said he will leave Katusha if it is not allowed to compete in the World Tour.
Last year, Rodriguez was runner-up in the Giro to Ryder Hesjedal of Canada.
RCS did invite Katusha to the Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo and Il Lombardia.

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Oakley challenges Nike over McIlroy move

LONDON (Reuters) - American sunglasses maker Oakley has launched legal action to try to retain its sponsorship of world number one golfer Rory McIlroy who is set to become the new face of sportswear giant Nike.
U.S. PGA champion McIlroy is poised to rubber-stamp a 10-year deal with U.S. company Nike worth as much as $250 million, according to media reports.
Nike is set to supply the 23-year-old Northern Irishman's clubs and have its name or logo on his clothing in an exclusive deal.
However, Oakley, owned by Italy's Luxottica, is challenging the move and started legal action in its home state of California last month.
"Oakley's contract with Rory has a right of first refusal that permits us to retain Rory as an Oakley endorser by matching any offer he receives covering our products," the company said in a statement to Reuters.
"These types of provisions are common in the industry. Oakley values Rory and will do all it can to retain him," it added.
The Dubai-based hotel company Jumeirah Group confirmed earlier on Tuesday that its five-year sponsorship with 2011 U.S. Open champion McIlroy had ended, the latest indication that confirmation of the Nike deal was imminent.
"Jumeirah became my first corporate sponsor when I turned professional back in 2007 and I would like to thank everyone at the company for their support in helping me become the player I am today," McIlroy said in a news release.
The player, who topped the money-lists on both sides of the Atlantic last year, said in November he did not think that ditching the Titleist clubs that have taken him to the top of the sport would affect his game.
Nike is hoping a partnership with the clean-cut McIlroy will help it to move on after it dropped disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong last year over his doping scandal.
The company stuck with former world number one golfer Tiger Woods despite the bad publicity the American suffered when a series of extra-marital affairs were exposed in 2009.

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Armstrong offered donation to anti-doping agency: report

(Reuters) - Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong once offered to donate nearly $250,000 to anti-doping efforts, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) tells 60 Minutes Sports in an interview to be aired on Wednesday.
Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles last year after an investigation by USADA found evidence of wide-spread doping, had a representative offer the agency a large sum of money in 2004, USADA chief Travis Tygart says in the wide-ranging interview.
"I was stunned," Tygart tells interviewer Scott Pelley, according to a statement issued by the program. "It was clear -- it was a clear conflict of interest for USADA.
"We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer."
Asked how much money Armstrong offered the agency, Tygart replied; "in excess of $150,000."
Told by Pelley that 60 Minutes had learned it was $250,000, Tygart answered; "It was around that ballpark."
Tygart also alleges Armstrong provided the International Cycling Union (UCI), a regulatory body for the sport, a gift of $100,000.
During the interview, Tygart describes Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a "Mafia" that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.
Some of those riders are considered victims by Tygart and he says they were forced to choose between following the doping program or being off the team.
Tygart tells Pelley, he was "stunned" when the U.S. Justice Department failed to charge Armstrong at the end of a two-year investigation and failed to share their findings with USADA.
"I don't know (why they failed to charge Armstrong)," says Tygart. "It's a good question and one that if you finally answer, let me know."
Armstrong has denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs but according to a recent New York Times story is considering coming clean about doping in an effort to return to competition.
He declined to be included in the 60 Minutes Sports story and his spokesman did not return calls from Reuters seeking comment.

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Worldwide Supply Appoints New Regional Business Development Executive

Veteran telecommunications sales professional to lead business development efforts for the rapidly growing recognized leader in the secondary networking hardware marketplace.

Franklin, NJ (PRWEB) January 07, 2013
Worldwide Supply, the recognized leader in the secondary networking hardware marketplace, today announced the appointment of Jeffrey Giali to the role of Regional Director of Business Development.
Giali, a 12-year sales veteran of the telecommunications industry, joins Worldwide Supply from Trimble Navigation where he led the business development efforts for its enterprise clients. "As we further expand our presence into new business segments and continue our efforts to grow market share with current clients, Jeff’s deep knowledge of our market and strong industry relationships make him a valuable addition to our team," says Jay VanOrden, CEO of Worldwide Supply.
“I’m excited to join Worldwide Supply and support our sales directors and account managers in expanding key accounts in the industry,” states Giali. “I look forward to sharing the cost-effective programs and services offered by Worldwide Supply with existing clients and with some of my long-term contacts,” continues Giali.
Prior to joining Worldwide Supply, Giali held executive sales and operations roles at Trimble Navigation, Ubee Interactive and AT&T.
Giali holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California.
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About Worldwide Supply

Worldwide Supply is a recognized leader in the secondary network hardware marketplace, providing and buying networking and telecommunication equipment to, and from, companies globally. Some companies sell used networking gear to Worldwide Supply. Others may be searching for items ranging from used cisco routers to optics transceivers and beyond.
Headquartered in northern New Jersey, and with offices in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and Texas, Worldwide Supply provides a full line of certified pre-owned and new-surplus networking and telecommunication products from major manufacturers such as Cisco, Juniper, Arris, Dell, Calix, Extreme and Motorola.
Worldwide Supply backs the products it sells with an industry-leading lifetime warranty.

Worldwide Supply is TL 9000 and 9001:2008 certified. For more information, visit http://www.worldwidesupply.net.
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For additional information on this topic, about Worldwide Supply or to schedule an interview with Worldwide Supply CEO, Jay VanOrden, please contact Veronique Deblois at 973-823-6412 or via email at pr(at)worldwidesupply(dot)net

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Jersey Boys Ticket Sales Prove Just Too Good To Be True On BuyAnySeat.com

The musical Jersey Boys has been taking the world by storm since 2005, creating ticket sales that continue to be just too good to be true, said Felina Martinez at online ticket marketplace BuyAnySeat.com. The popular, Tony Award-winning play’s various productions are performing in New York, Detroit, Las Vegas, London, New Orleans, and Indianapolis this month.

Denver, CO (PRWEB) January 07, 2013
To echo a line from one of their 60’s hits, the Jersey Boys enduring popularity seems `just too good to be true'.
Based on the 1960’s rock `n roll group called The Four Seasons, Jersey Boys opened on Broadway on November 6, 2005. Since then, the show’s various productions have won Tony, Grammy and Olivier Awards for Best Musical – as well as numerous other awards around the world.
Recently, the jukebox/documentary-style production surpassed My Fair Lady with over 2,718 performances, becoming the 19th longest-running show in Broadway history. (Source: Wikipedia.com)
The musical’s various productions are currently making concurrent performances in New York, Detroit, Las Vegas, London, New Orleans, and Indianapolis this month. Productions in Boston and Wichita are scheduled to follow in February, as well as continued performances in Las Vegas, New York and London. A Singapore production, which features an all South African cast, will open in Johannesburg, South Africa in March 2013.
“Online traffic for Jersey Boys tickets has been phenomenally steady for over seven years,” said Felina Martinez at online ticket marketplace BuyAnySeat.com. “In fact, the musical’s continued popularity is still very high, as the show is currently ranked #2 on our Most Popular Theatre Tickets list.
“Not only are tickets continuing to sell out for some of the dozens of upcoming shows, the production’s pulling power is still growing each year. Since fans and their families continue to flock to Jersey Boys performances, we’re proud to be able to offer them a complete selection of Jersey Boys tickets, with a worry-free guarantee to protect their purchase,” said Martinez.
“To access the continuously updated selection of cheap Jersey Boys tickets we have available, fans can go to BuyAnySeat.com and search for Jersey Boys – then select their tickets,” said Martinez.
Jersey Boys tells the back-story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks who beat the odds – enduring jail time, bad debts, broken relationships and, ultimately a break-up – to became one of the most successful American pop music groups in history.
The Four Seasons – comprised of Belleville, New Jersey natives Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi – shot to fame in 1962 with a song about a girl named “Sherry.” The boys wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide – all before they turned thirty.
The show, which debuted as a Broadway musical in 2005, features all of the group’s hits including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Oh What A Night,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Working My Way Back To You,” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, which opens with the lyrics: `you’re just too good to be true’.
In all, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons racked up 71 chart makers, including: 40 in the Top 40, 19 in the Top 10 and eight Number One hits. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
The rags-to-riches, rise-and-fall musical sheds light on the music industry, our culture’s obsession with celebrity and the sacrifices artists make to realize their dreams. See below for a complete listing of the production’s upcoming venues and performances.

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Georgia Engineering Firms and Contract Manufacturers Recently Accepted into the MFG.com Manufacturing Marketplace

Product Manufacturers in Georgia rely on MFG.com to find top-notch suppliers that meet all of their requirements

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) January 08, 2013
As the world’s leading online manufacturing marketplace for made-to-order parts, MFG.com proudly announced the acceptance of Georgia-based manufacturers into the MFG.com marketplace.
A few of the recent additions include:

Located in Powder Springs, GA, GTI Precision Components is an AS 9100 and ISO 9001:2000 certified job shop that has been manufacturing high-tech components for the last 28 years. Through their state-of-the-art technology and inspection equipment, GTI provides expertise in 5-axis machining, multi-axis mill turn, and wire EDM. GTI has worked with clients in the aerospace, satellite and energy industries and is proficient in machining high-speed aluminum, stainless steel and titanium.
Carbon Age Systems & Manufacturing, LLC is a custom manufacturing and mechanical engineering services firm located in Atlanta, GA. They provide a number of value-added services for their clients and it is their goal to ensure superb custom manufacturing and mechanical solutions for their clients' next projects. Carbon Age Systems & Manufacturing, LLC provides services including:
     Design development: CAD-CAM, concept development, prototyping, design for manufacturing
     Manufacturing: CNC milling and turning, 3D printing, welding, sawing
     Automated/Robotic systems: production line improvements, sensing system, PLC systems, system development & installation
     Quality: full order inspection, 5S
American Biosurgical (ABI) is a custom medical connector and cable development company specializing in surgical, patient monitoring, and diagnostics imaging cable assemblies. Located in Norcross, GA, ABI is an ISO 9001:2008, ISO 13485:2003(E) certified engineering firm that provides standard and custom turn-key solutions for global device manufacturers looking to outsource their high-reliability cabling needs. From front-end design and materials selection, to state-of-the-art manufacturing and supply chain efficiency, ABI offers a proven strategy that delivers a competitive solution without compromising on quality.
Since 1998, Murray Plastics has been offering its customers in electronics, packaging and other industries, the best in custom and plastic injection molding. Utilizing their in-house tool shop in Gainesville, GA, Murray Plastics provides injection molding and insert molding services for a wide range of plastics including ABS, nylon, polycarbonate, polystyrene, and HDPE/LDPE. The experts at Murray Plastics can also take two- or three-dimensional CAD drawings and custom-build prototype or production tooling.
“We are honored to be admitting such qualified contract manufacturers and engineering firms from Georgia into the MFG.com marketplace,” said Mitch Free, Founder and CEO of MFG.com. “Each one of these companies will be introduced to the hundreds of product manufacturers that use MFG.com every day to fulfill their sourcing needs. The product manufacturers using the MFG.com marketplace to source their made-to-order parts, have never had it easier. MFG.com has simplified the process to find the right suppliers, collaborate with them, and perform due diligence with just a few mouse clicks.”
About MFG.com

MFG.com is the largest online marketplace for the manufacturing industry, facilitating interaction between buyers and manufacturers. MFG.com enables sourcing professionals and engineers to quickly and easily locate quality suppliers for CNC Machining, Injection Molding, Metal Stamping, Metal Fabrication and many other processes through an easy-to-use online marketplace. With more than $115 billion in RFQs passing through the marketplace, MFG.com has helped thousands of manufacturers - ranging from small machine shops to large conglomerates - increase sales and grow profits. MFG.com is a global business, with offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Mexico.

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Tennis-Serena offers ominous warning for Australian Open rivals

BRISBANE, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Serena Williams felt she was close to accessing the sporting "zone" during her emphatic 6-2 6-1 victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the final of the Brisbane International on Saturday.
Williams needed only 51 minutes to beat the Russian in an ominous warm-up for the Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on Jan. 14.
"I've been in the zone a few times," Williams told reporters.
"I don't know if I was in the zone today, but I was definitely heading in that direction. I've been in the twilight zone before, where I just felt so good I couldn't do anything wrong."
The world No.3's performance was so strong that Pavlyuchenkova said afterwards: "I always feel like I don't know how to play tennis when I play against you."
Williams captured the 47th title of her career. She has won 35 of her past 36 matches while claiming Wimbledon, the Olympics, the US Open, the season-ending tour championship and now the opening event of 2013.
The 31-year-old American roared through the Brisbane tournament without the loss of a set.
She said: "I was looking at a lot of old matches on YouTube, and I feel like right now I'm playing some of my best tennis. I feel like I want to do better and play better still."
Williams said a decision to seek on-court tranquillity after a shattering defeat to Virginie Razzano at the French Open last year had triggered her career resurrection.
"I really started being more calm on the court and just relaxing more, if it's possible for me to relax," she said.
"I feel better when I'm more calm. When I'm crazy like I was in Paris, as you can see, it doesn't do great for me. I think it is a really fine line between being too calm... I think sometimes if I'm too calm it doesn't work for me, either. I can be calm and still be pumped up and really excited.
"I can't do too much of either."
Williams said she wanted to take up meditation as an off-court routine, even though it would challenge her.
"I can never sit long enough for meditation," she said. "I really want to meditate more and I want to be still and be in that quiet area. But I just pick up my iPad and start playing some games, and then next thing I know I'm watching TV.
"Hopefully I can get there."
At Melbourne Park Williams will be chasing her 16th major championship and sixth Australian Open title.

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Cricket-Australia drop Hussey, rest Clarke for one-dayers

SYDNEY, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Mike Hussey's retirement from international cricket is likely to come sooner than he thought after he was omitted from Australia's squad for the first two matches of their one day series against Sri Lanka on Sunday.
Hussey had already said that the third test against Sri Lanka, entering its fourth day at the Sydney Cricket Ground, would be his last for his country and he would step away from international cricket at the end of the Australian summer.
Australia's selection panel, however, did not give the 37-year-old the opportunity of a farewell tour in the shortened form of the game, instead opting to look to the 2015 World Cup.
"Taking a long term view towards the ... World Cup the (selectors have) decided not to include Michael Hussey in the squad for the ... series," said chairman of selectors John Inverarity.
"Michael has been a tremendous ODI player for Australia over a long period of time, a match-winner for his country and his presence in coloured clothing will be sorely missed."
Australia captain Michael Clarke, aggressive opening batsman David Warner and wicketkeeper Matthew Wade were also not considered for the squad.
Clarke has been given time to recover from a hamstring injury, while Warner and Wade are given time to rest having played all six tests so far this season.
All rounder Shane Watson, who has been struggling with a calf injury, was also not considered. George Bailey will captain the side in Clarke's absence.
The five-match one day series begins on Jan. 11 in Melbourne.

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Cricket-Australia set target of 141 for third test victory

SYDNEY, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Australia were set a victory target of 141 runs after bowling Sri Lanka out for 278 in their second innings before lunch on the fourth day of the third test on Sunday.
The tourists, already 2-0 down in the series, resumed on 225 for seven looking to bulk up their lead of 87 to somewhere between 150 and 175 to give their bowlers something to work with.
Dinesh Chandimal hit a defiant 62 not out off 106 balls but ran out of partners when Jackson Bird had Nuwan Pradeep caught behind for nine about 30 minutes before lunch.
Rangana Herath had survived an early run out scare when Matthew Wade threw the ball over the head of Mitchell Johnson but was gone for 10 in the next over when he dragged the ball onto his stumps off the bowling of Jackson Bird.
Suranga Lakmal did not hang around for long, departing for a duck after walking across his stumps, swinging and missing and watching Johnson's delivery shatter the stumps.

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Mediation in NHL talks to continue Saturday

A federal mediator bridged the widening gap between the NHL and the players' association during 12 hours of talks without getting the fighting sides in the same room.
No one would say if progress was made over the course of the day and night Friday when mediator Scot Beckenbaugh walked back and forth between union and NHL headquarters in Manhattan to hold separate discussions with each side.
He began at 10 a.m. EST and didn't stop until nearly 11 p.m.
There are still no plans for the league and the players to get back to the bargaining table for the first time since the early morning hours of Thursday, but Beckenbaugh scheduled more mediation sessions for Saturday morning.
"I'm looking forward to continuing the process tomorrow," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote to The Associated Press in an email late Friday night.
Beckenbaugh also took part in talks during the 2004-05 lockout, which forced the cancellation of the whole season.
After marathon talks broke off overnight Wednesday, the sides have remained apart with the exception of two smaller meetings on Thursday.
The lockout reached its 111th day Friday, and there is only one week left to reach a deal on a collective bargaining agreement that would allow for a 48-game hockey season — the minimum the NHL has said it will play.
Commissioner Gary Bettman set a Jan. 11 deadline so the season can begin eight days later.
The players could be looking to wait until Saturday night to return to the bargaining table when it is expected that the executive board will again have the authority to exercise a disclaimer of interest that would allow the union to dissolve and become a trade association.
A vote among union members was initiated Thursday, and players have until 6 p.m. Saturday to cast their ballots that would allow the board to take the action of the disclaimer. An earlier vote passed overwhelmingly last month, but the union let its self-imposed deadline pass Wednesday night without acting on it.
A restoration of authority to go the route of the disclaimer might be the leverage the union wants before it starts negotiating again. If the union is dissolved, players can file individual antitrust suits against the NHL.
Representatives from the league and the union met twice Thursday for small meetings, one dealing with the pension plan, but never got together for a full bargaining session. A long night of discussions Wednesday that stretched into the early morning hours didn't end well and created Thursday's lack of activity.
The sides can't afford many more days like that.
All games through Jan. 14, along with the All-Star game, have been canceled, claiming more than 50 percent of the original schedule.
The talks appeared to take a downward turn late Wednesday after the players' association passed on declaring a disclaimer of interest.
The discord carried over to Thursday when Bettman had said he expected to resume negotiations at 10 a.m. at the request of the mediator. But the union was holding internal meetings then and didn't arrive at the league office until a few hours later.
When players and staff did get there, they did so without executive director Donald Fehr. The group discussed a problem that arose regarding the reporting by clubs of hockey-related revenue, and how both sides sign off on the figures at the end of the fiscal year. The union felt the language had been changed without proper notification, but the dispute was solved and the meeting ended in about an hour.
The wait for more elaborate talks went on, and didn't end until the players returned — again without Fehr — for a meeting about the pension plan. That one lasted just under two hours, and again the waiting game ensued.
The players' association held a late Thursday afternoon conference call to initiate its second vote regarding the disclaimer of interest. It wasn't immediately known when a new authorization would expire if the vote passes again.
A sense of progress might be why the union didn't declare the disclaimer Wednesday, but any optimism created after the deadline passed took several hits Thursday.
The NHLPA filed a motion in federal court in New York seeking to dismiss the league's suit to have the lockout declared legal. The NHL sued the union in mid-December, figuring the players were about to submit their own complaint against the league and possibly break up their union to gain an upper hand.
But the union argued that the NHL is using this suit "to force the players to remain in a union. Not only is it virtually unheard of for an employer to insist on the unionization of its employees, it is also directly contradicted by the rights guaranteed to employees under ... the National Labor Relations Act."
The court scheduled a status conference for the sides on Monday.
The sides have traded four proposals in the past week — two by each side — but none has gained enough traction. Getting an agreement on a pension plan would likely go a long way toward an agreement that would put hockey back on the ice.
Fehr believed a plan for a players-funded pension was established before talks blew up in early December. That apparently wasn't the case, or the NHL has changed its offer regarding the pension in exchange for agreeing to other things the union wanted.
The salary-cap number for the second year of the deal — the 2013-14 season — hasn't been agreed to, and it is another major point of contention. The league is pushing for a $60 million cap, while the union wants it to be $65 million with a floor of $44 million.
In return for the higher cap number players would be willing to forgo a cap on escrow.
Other issues still needing resolution include the maximum length of player contracts, the variance in salary for each year of those individual deals, and how long the new CBA should be in effect.
Both sides seem content on it lasting for 10 years, but they have different opinions on whether an opt-out should be allowed to be exercised after seven years or eight.
The NHL proposed last Thursday that pension contributions come out of the players' share of revenues, and $50 million of the league's make-whole payment of $300 million will be allocated and set aside to fund potential underfunded liabilities of the plan at the end of the collective bargaining agreement.
Last month, the NHL agreed to raise its make-whole offer of deferred payments from $211 million to $300 million as part of a proposed package that required the union to agree on three non-negotiable points. Instead, the union accepted the raise in funds, but then made counterproposals on the issues the league stated had no wiggle room.
"As you might expect, the differences between us relate to the core economic issues which don't involve the share," Fehr said of hockey-related revenue, which likely will be split 50-50.
Last season, the NHL posted record revenues of $3.3 billion.
The NHL is the only North American professional sports league to cancel a season because of a labor dispute, losing the 2004-05 campaign to a lockout. A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout stretched into January.

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Mediator back at work in NHL labor fight

Mediation between the NHL and the players' association started again Saturday morning about 12 hours after it ended Friday night.
With the hockey season hanging in the balance, Saturday could prove to be a pivotal day on all fronts.
Federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh spent more than 12 hours Friday walking back and forth between the Manhattan headquarters of each side — beginning at 10 a.m. EST and wrapping things up shortly before 11 p.m.
While Beckenbaugh never got the league and the union in the same room, enough was accomplished to convince the sides to keep going.
"I'm looking forward to continuing the process," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote to The Associated Press in an email late Friday night.
Beckenbaugh began Saturday by holding a meeting with the union and then walked over to talk to NHL officials. He then made the trek back to the players' association for another get-together shortly before 1 p.m.
Beckenbaugh also took part in talks during the 2004-05 lockout, which forced the cancellation of the whole season.
It isn't yet known if the league and union will meet face-to-face Saturday, the 112th day of the lockout. The sides have less than a week to reach a new collective bargaining agreement to save what would likely be a 48-game hockey season.
The players' association will conclude a two-day vote among its members at 6 p.m. Saturday that will determine whether the union's executive board will again have the authority to declare a disclaimer of interest.
If the vote passes, as expected, the disclaimer can be issued, and the union would dissolve and become a trade association. That could send this fight to the courts and put the season in jeopardy. The disclaimer would allow players to file individual antitrust suits against the NHL.
Earlier this week, a self-imposed deadline expired on the first authorization that union members gave the board. The initial threat seemed to work in getting the NHL back to the bargaining table, but talks broke down Wednesday night after the deadline passed without action taken by the union.
Now the players want to regain the leverage the potential disclaimer gives them.
After marathon talks broke off overnight Wednesday, the sides have remained apart with the exception of two smaller meetings Thursday.
Commissioner Gary Bettman set a Jan. 11 deadline for a deal so the season can begin eight days later. A 48-game season is the minimum Bettman said the league would play.
All games through Jan. 14, along with the All-Star game, have been canceled, claiming more than 50 percent of the original schedule.
Trust has become a major impediment in the talks that appear to have been rescued to some extent by Beckenbaugh.
On Thursday morning, the sides solved a problem that arose regarding the reporting by clubs of hockey-related revenue, and how both sides sign off on the figures at the end of the fiscal year. The union felt the language had been changed without proper notification. That dispute was ended in about an hour, but clearly discord was present in the talks.
Another small meeting, the second of the day without union head Donald Fehr, addressed the pension plan. That one lasted just under two hours and marked the last time the sides met this week.
The players' association held a late Thursday afternoon conference call to initiate its second vote on the disclaimer of interest.
A sense of progress might be why the union didn't declare the disclaimer Wednesday, but any optimism created after the deadline passed has taken several hits since.
The NHLPA filed a motion in federal court in New York seeking to dismiss the league's suit to have the lockout declared legal. The NHL sued the union in mid-December, figuring the players were about to submit their own complaint against the league.
But the union argued that the NHL is using this suit "to force the players to remain in a union. Not only is it virtually unheard of for an employer to insist on the unionization of its employees, it is also directly contradicted by the rights guaranteed to employees under ... the National Labor Relations Act."
The court scheduled a status conference for the sides on Monday.
The sides have traded four proposals in the past week — two by each side — but none has gained enough traction. Getting an agreement on a pension plan would likely go a long way toward a deal that would put hockey back on the ice.
Fehr believed a plan for a players-funded pension was established before talks blew up in early December. That apparently wasn't the case, or the NHL has changed its offer regarding the pension in exchange for agreeing to other things the union wanted.
The salary-cap number for the second year of the deal — the 2013-14 season — hasn't been agreed to, and it is another major point of contention. The league is pushing for a $60 million cap, while the union wants it to be $65 million with a floor of $44 million.
In return for the higher cap number, players would be willing to forgo a cap on escrow.
Other issues still needing resolution include the maximum length of player contracts, the variance in salary for each year of those individual deals, and how long the new CBA should be in effect.
Both sides seem content on it lasting for 10 years, but they have different opinions on whether an opt-out should be allowed to be exercised after seven years or eight.
Last season, the NHL posted record revenues of $3.3 billion. The sides seem likely to agree on a 50-50 split of the pot in any new deal.
The NHL is the only North American professional sports league to cancel a season because of a labor dispute, losing the 2004-05 campaign to a lockout. A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout stretched into January.

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Mediator gets NHL, union back together

 A federal mediator has finally been able to get the NHL and the players' association back together Saturday for their first face-to-face meeting since talks broke down two days earlier.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly went to union headquarters for what a players' association spokesman called a "small group meeting" with the sides and mediator Scot Beckenbaugh.
Beckenbaugh had already held separate meetings with the union and league Saturday before bringing them together.
Beckenbaugh spent more than 12 hours Friday walking back and forth between the Manhattan headquarters of each side — beginning at 10 a.m. EST and wrapping things up shortly before 11 p.m.
While Beckenbaugh never got the league and the union in the same room then, enough was accomplished to convince the sides to keep going.
"I'm looking forward to continuing the process," Daly wrote to The Associated Press in an email late Friday night.
Beckenbaugh began Saturday by holding a meeting with the union and then walked over to talk to NHL officials. He then made the trek back to the players' association for the group meeting shortly before 1 p.m.
With the hockey season hanging in the balance, Saturday could prove to be a pivotal day on all fronts. The sides have less than a week to reach a new collective bargaining agreement to save what would likely be a 48-game hockey season.
Beckenbaugh also took part in talks during the 2004-05 lockout, which forced the cancellation of the whole season.
The players' association will conclude a two-day vote among its members at 6 p.m. Saturday that will determine whether the union's executive board will again have the authority to declare a disclaimer of interest.
If the vote passes, as expected, the disclaimer can be issued, and the union would dissolve and become a trade association. That could send this fight to the courts and put the season in jeopardy. The disclaimer would allow players to file individual antitrust suits against the NHL.
Earlier this week, a self-imposed deadline expired on the first authorization that union members gave the board. The initial threat seemed to work in getting the NHL back to the bargaining table, but talks broke down Wednesday night after the deadline passed without action taken by the union.
Now the players want to regain the leverage the potential disclaimer gives them.
Bettman set a Jan. 11 deadline for a deal so the season can begin eight days later. A 48-game season is the minimum Bettman said the league would play.
All games through Jan. 14, along with the All-Star game, have been canceled, claiming more than 50 percent of the original schedule.
Trust has become a major impediment in the talks that appear to have been rescued to some extent by Beckenbaugh.
On Thursday morning, the sides solved a problem that arose regarding the reporting by clubs of hockey-related revenue, and how both sides sign off on the figures at the end of the fiscal year. The union felt the language had been changed without proper notification. That dispute was ended in about an hour, but clearly discord was present in the talks.
Another small meeting, the second of the day without union head Donald Fehr, addressed the pension plan. That one lasted just under two hours and marked the last time the sides met this week.
The players' association held a late Thursday afternoon conference call to initiate its second vote on the disclaimer of interest.
A sense of progress might be why the union didn't declare the disclaimer Wednesday, but any optimism created after the deadline passed has taken several hits since.
The NHLPA filed a motion in federal court in New York seeking to dismiss the league's suit to have the lockout declared legal. The NHL sued the union in mid-December, figuring the players were about to submit their own complaint against the league.
But the union argued that the NHL is using this suit "to force the players to remain in a union. Not only is it virtually unheard of for an employer to insist on the unionization of its employees, it is also directly contradicted by the rights guaranteed to employees under ... the National Labor Relations Act."
The court scheduled a status conference for the sides on Monday.
The sides have traded four proposals in the past week — two by each side — but none has gained enough traction. Getting an agreement on a pension plan would likely go a long way toward a deal that would put hockey back on the ice.
Fehr believed a plan for a players-funded pension was established before talks blew up in early December. That apparently wasn't the case, or the NHL changed its offer regarding the pension in exchange for agreeing to other things the union wanted.
The salary-cap number for the second year of the deal — the 2013-14 season — hasn't been agreed to, and is another major point of contention. The league is pushing for a $60 million cap, while the union wants it to be $65 million with a floor of $44 million.
In return for the higher cap, players would be willing to forgo a cap on escrow.
Other issues still needing resolution include the maximum length of player contracts, the yearly variance in salary of those individual deals, and how long the CBA should be in effect.
Both sides seem content on it lasting for 10 years, but they have different opinions on whether an opt-out should be allowed to be exercised after seven years or eight.
Last season, the NHL posted record revenues of $3.3 billion. The sides seem likely to agree on a 50-50 split of the pot in any new deal.
The NHL is the only North American professional sports league to cancel a season because of a labor dispute, losing the 2004-05 campaign to a lockout. A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout stretched into January.

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NHL: League and players resume face-to-face labor talks

The National Hockey League (NHL) and the union representing its players met face-to-face along with a federal mediator on Saturday with hopes of ending a lockout in time to salvage a condensed season.
A small group meeting between the league, union and mediator began early Saturday afternoon in New York, according to a NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) spokesman.
The meeting, which began with less than a week to go until the league's self-imposed deadline to reach a deal, marked the first face-to-face dialogue between the league and NHLPA since talks broke down two days ago.
The two sides met separately with the mediator on Friday.
With half of the 2012-13 regular season already lost to the labor dispute, the NHL has set a January 11 deadline for a new deal so that a 48-game campaign could begin eight days later.
The lockout, which the league has said is costing it about $18-$20 million a day, began in mid-September when the previous collective bargaining agreement expired with both sides at odds over how to split the NHL's $3.3 billion in revenue.
The dispute, which follows a lockout that wiped out the entire 2004-05 campaign, is now centered around the salary cap number for the 2013-14 season, the pension fund and length of player contracts.

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10 facts about 10 new members of Congress

Which new member of the House is a former reindeer farmer? Who is the biggest new tea party name in the Senate? Here’s a look at 10 new members of Congress with unique backgrounds.

cruzwarren
The 113thCongress is sworn in on January 3, 2013, and it’s a diverse bunch.
There will be 90 new members of Congress to start the New Year, with 13 new senators and 67 representatives making their appearances in Washington.
The biggest names are in the Senate, with a superstar of the left and of the right getting top billing.
Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown in Massachusetts in one of the most publicized races in 2012. Warren is seen as a new leader of the left, but the former Harvard Law professor was a Republican until 1995.
Ted Cruz is already being talked about as a 2016 presidential contender, even before he sets foot on the Senate floor. The Republican from Texas has tea party roots. He has also argued nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin is another high-profile name from the 2012 election making her Senate debut. Baldwin served 14 years in the House and is the first openly gay candidate elected to the Senate.
Maine’s new senator, Angus King, isn’t a Democrat or a Republican. King is a former governor who ran as an independent candidate in 2012. Since the 1980s, King has been involved with alternative energy products.
And Deb Fischer, the new senator for Nebraska, has a hands-on business background. She’s been in the ranching business since the 1970s, which could come in handy if votes need to be wrangled on the Senate floor.
The House has some interesting new members, including that professional reindeer farmer.
Kerry Bentivolio from Michigan is a newcomer to politics. Yes, he has reindeer and has worked as a Santa Claus portrayer, as well as a school teacher and engineer. He replaces Thaddeus McCotter in the House.
A better-known name is Joseph P. Kennedy III of Massachusetts. Just 32 years of age, Kennedy is the son of Joseph P. Kennedy II and the grandson of Robert Kennedy. He will represent Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District.
Florida’s Ted Yoho will represent the state’s 3rd District in Congress. Yoho’s career prior to politics was being a large-animal veterinarian. He used a grassroots campaign to defeat incumbent Cliff Stearns in a primary.
And there will be two doctors in the House–literally. Dr. Ami Bera will represent California’s 7th District. He is the former chief medical officer for Sacramento County. Raul Ruiz, also of California, has three graduate degrees from Harvard and has worked as an E.R. doctor in the past.

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Factbox: Key players in scramble to avoid U.S. "fiscal cliff"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The outcome of the "fiscal cliff" debate will be decided in four days, with just a handful of powerful leaders in Washington calling the shots, for better or for worse.
Here are some of the politicians and administration figures who are involved in trying to head off the tax increases and federal spending cuts that will take hold in January unless Congress acts, possibly pushing the economy into recession.
* Barack Obama, Democratic president: Reelected last month, the former Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois campaigned on the need to raise taxes on high-income Americans. He has insisted on this through the "fiscal cliff" negotiations with Republicans. But he offered them a compromise last week on setting the income threshold for tax increases at a higher level than he had initially sought. This offer was spurned.
* John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives: Capitol Hill veteran from Ohio. Struggles to control conservative Republicans from the Tea Party movement. Walked out of talks with Obama last week and vowed that the House would pass its own plan to avoid the "fiscal cliff." That effort collapsed in disarray. Boehner adjourned the House for the holidays and has not returned. The House was expected to reconvene on Sunday.
* Joseph Biden, Democratic vice president: Played key role in forging the 2010 deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years after the Republican takeover of the House.
* Max Baucus, Democratic U.S. senator from Montana: Powerful chairman of tax-focused Senate Finance Committee. Will cross party lines for a deal. May be vulnerable in a 2014 re-election race.
* Dave Camp, Republican U.S. representative from Michigan: Chairs tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee until 2014. Gets along with Baucus. Has a tax plan of his own.
* Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary: Expected to step down soon, he is the architect of the Obama administration's fiscal policy. Took steps this week to postpone the arrival until sometime in February of U.S. government borrowing limit.
* Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator from Utah: Top Republican on Senate Finance Committee. Conservative but has worked with Democrats.
* Mitch McConnell, top Senate Republican: Worked with Biden on extending Bush tax cuts in 2010. Up for re-election in 2014 and faces scrutiny of Tea Party faction at home in Kentucky.
* Grover Norquist, activist: Heads the Americans for Tax Reform group. Almost every Republican in Congress has signed his group's "no new taxes" pledge, but its power may be fading.
* Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader: California representative and Obama ally. Powerful among liberal Democrats.
* Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader: Blunt Utah power-broker and dealmaker. Must balance liberal and conservative factions, with many fellow Democrats up for re-election in 2014.
* Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2012 election and House Budget committee chairman: Wisconsin representative known for controversial budget proposals.

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