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ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Two Islamic shrines were damaged by bomb attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Sunday, the state news agency said, in a region where Islamist militants have stepped up attacks against the state since the army deposed President Mohamed Mursi.
One of the shrines targeted was near the North Sinai town of Bir el-Abd, and the other was in the area of el-Maghara farther south. Both were badly damaged.
Often dedicated to saints or descendants of the Prophet Mohammad, such shrines are forbidden according to the puritanical Islamic vision of the militants operating in the area.
Militants mostly based in North Sinai have escalated attacks on security forces and other targets since July 3, when the army deposed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and installed a new government in response to mass protests against his rule.
The militants have struck on an almost daily basis and killed around three dozen people, according to medical officials. Many of those killed were members of the security forces.
(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Doina Chaicu)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bombs-damage-two-shrines-egypts-sinai-233947323.html
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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to strengthen the Philippines' maritime defence capabilities on Saturday, while reassuring neighbours about Tokyo's intentions amid growing territorial disputes with regional rival China.
"For Japan, the Philippines is a strategic partner with whom we share fundamental values and many strategic interests," Abe told a joint news conference with Philippine president Benigno Aquino after their meeting in Manila.
Speaking through an interpreter, Abe said his visit was intended "to strengthen the relations with the Philippines in all areas", including politics, security, and the economy.
As part of Japan's commitment, Abe said there would be "continued assistance to the capacity-building of the Philippine coastguard".
As an example of this, he cited 10 patrol boats that Japan is providing to the poorly-equipped Philippine coast guard.
The Filipino coastguard and navy have been at the forefront of tense encounters with navy and maritime surveillance vessels from China, which claims most of the South China Sea including areas close to the Filipino coast.
China seized the Scarborough Shoal, a South China Sea outcrop just 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of the main Philippine island of Luzon, last year after Manila backed down from a lengthy stand-off.
This year the Philippines has complained about the presence of Chinese navy vessels near Filipino-held Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly islands.
Japan earlier this year announced it would make loans to the Philippines to purchase the 10 Japanese patrol vessels for its coastguard.
"The Prime Minister and I agreed to strengthen maritime cooperation which is a pillar of our strategic partnership," Aquino said Saturday.
Abe's visit came as tensions have also steadily risen between China and Japan over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea.
He reiterated a call for a leaders' summit with China to discuss their territorial dispute, and assured the rest of Asia that his vision for a more robust Japanese armed forces would not threaten the region's peace and security.
Abe said Saturday his party's decisive victory in the upper house of the Japanese parliament would help him pursue his vision of Tokyo's role in the region, many parts of which were under brutal Japanese occupation in World War II.
"Against this backdrop I intend to further proceed with strategic diplomacy which will contribute to regional and global peace and security," he said.
Abe has pledged to loosen limits on the military in Japan's pacifist, post-war constitution and stand up to China over their East China Sea dispute.
He acknowledged at a separate news conference, after he appeared with Aquino, that a more assertive Japanese military was a sensitive issue in the region.
"I intend to explain politely so that the countries in the region will not have any misunderstanding," he said.
Abe said problems with China were "inevitable" being neighbours, but stressed that peaceful coexistence between the two regional powers was crucial for Asian peace and prosperity.
"It is important that we have frank and candid discussions. I have given instructions so that the foreign affairs authorities (can) proceed with dialogue without any conditions attached. Foreign ministers-level and leaders-level meetings should be promptly held."
As Abe and Aquino met at the presidential palace, about 80 protesters including elderly ladies who said they were former comfort women staged a rally nearby, holding signs demanding reparations from Japan.
Japan diplomat visits China amid strained ties
Tokyo (AFP) July 29, 2013 -
Japan's vice foreign minister on Monday set off for a two-day visit to China, Tokyo said, the latest chapter in a bid by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to hold high-level talks with Beijing.
The trip comes as territorial tensions and maritime skirmishes have all but frozen relations between the Asian giants.
Akitaka Saiki, the top bureaucrat in Japan's foreign ministry, was expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Zhang Yesui and other senior Chinese officials, Jiji Press news agency and other Japanese media reported Monday.
"We coordinated the trip as Mr Saiki has hoped to visit China as soon as possible since he assumed his post" last month, a foreign ministry official told AFP.
On Saturday, Abe told reporters in Manila that he hoped to hold top-level talks with China.
One of his closest advisers also said at the weekend that the testy neighbours could soon hold a meeting.
"I think a summit will be held in the not-so-distant future," Isao Iijima was quoted by Japan's Kyodo news agency as saying.
The diplomatic overtures come on the back of a long-running dispute between Tokyo and Beijing over ownership of an East China Sea island chain.
Since the row flare anew last year, China has become increasingly active in the seas around the disputed archipelago, while it has cancelled diplomatic and cultural events involving Japan.
On Friday, the Chinese coastguard entered disputed waters surrounding the islets for the first time, straining an already tense situation as Tokyo mulled plans to establish a US Marines-style force to protect its claim on the islands.
Although Chinese government ships have been in and out of the waters for many months, this was the first time they have ventured there since Beijing combined several agencies under the coastguard flag last week.
Source: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japans_Abe_vows_to_help_Philippines_amid_China_row_999.html
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Aubrey Sacco went missing in Nepal in April 2010. (Courtesy of the Sacco family)
This map shows areas searched by Paul and Connie Sacco for their missing daughter Aubrey, who vanished in the Himalayas in 2010. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post file)
Police in Nepal said Friday they have arrested two men suspected of being involved in the 2010 disappearance of 23-year-old University of Colorado graduate Aubrey Sacco, but family members said they have not yet heard any news from officials.
"We're kind of in shock," Sacco's father, Paul, who lives in Greeley, said in a phone interview Friday. "We have some very good people working on this case, and when they tell me this then I'll believe it. We've learned to be very cautious about these reports."
Aubrey Sacco failed to return from a solo hike in the Langtang area of northern Nepal in April 2010. The two suspects were arrested Thursday in Rasuwa, near where she went missing, and were being questioned, police official Raj
Police in Nepal have arrested two men in the disappearance of Aubrey Sacco. (Courtesy of the Sacco family)
Kumar Shrestha told The Associated Press.Nepal has been under pressure to investigate the case. This is the first time suspects have been arrested.
Read more of the article Arrests made in case of University of Colorado grad missing in Nepal at DailyCamera.com.
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By Caroline Humer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the October 1 date for enrollment in the health insurance exchanges being created by Obamacare less than two months away, a war of numbers has been escalating.
Health insurance will cost way less. Or it will cost way more. It depends who you ask.
Residents of states that have embraced President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, including New York, California and Oregon, will save on health insurance, officials there say. In Indiana, Florida, Ohio and Georgia, where opposition to the healthcare law runs high, residents will suffer an unprecedented spike in costs, according to the states' insurance departments.
Fueling the divide is the creative use of statistics by states to support their political stance on Obamacare. And because there is no standard for how to compare premium prices for the new insurance plans, it is easy to turn the numbers into a political football, actuaries, exchange officials and health economists say.
"So much of what we are reading about these days is part of the ... back-and-forth of 'it's a disaster' or 'it's really going to be nirvana for consumers,'" said Jon Kingsdale, former head of the Massachusetts Health Connector insurance exchange and a managing director at the Wakely Group healthcare consultancy.
"For consumers, the real helpful information is going to come in October when they can get on the exchange and look at the full comparisons," Kingsdale said.
Enrolling enough consumers is key to making the healthcare overhaul work economically, with price considered the most important factor driving enrollment, according to insurance industry surveys.
"There is not necessarily one best way to do this," said Cori Uccello, an actuary who works as a fellow for the American Academy of Actuaries. "What is important when looking at these comparisons is understanding what the before and after are representing."
None of the figures account for the substantial government subsidies that are expected to apply to a majority of the uninsured who enroll next year. Also missing from the conversation is the makeup of each plans' doctor networks, the out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and co-insurance, and the exact premiums by age or location.
The Obama administration is counting on signing up 7 million uninsured Americans in the first full year of reform through the state exchanges, including 2.7 million younger and healthier consumers who are needed to offset the costs of sicker members.
STATE BY STATE DEBATE
States and the federal government are beginning marketing and education campaigns this month to win over the uninsured. At the same time, Obamacare's opponents are increasing calls to roll back the program. A government deadline this week to submit health plan prices for review has played into the battle, as individual states announce how prices are shaping up.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said last month that prices for top-of-the line "platinum" and "gold" insurance plans would fall more than 50 percent compared to what individuals are paying for insurance they bought directly this year.
New York's insurance rates are currently among the highest in the country. The estimated decline in rates is based on an expectation that the number of New Yorkers who buy individual health plans will balloon from 17,000 people to 1 million in the next few years as the Congressional Budget Office has forecast, the state said.
Republican-led Indiana swung the opposite way, saying insurance costs would rise by 72 percent in 2014 compared with 2012. Indiana added to its model costs such as deductibles, prescription rates and co-insurance or co-payments, the only state that appears to have done so.
The federal government has also entered the fray, saying that prices in 10 states and Washington, D.C., on average will be 18 percent lower than what the Congressional Budget Office estimated for the mid-range or "silver" plans.
To get to the 18 percent figure, the Department of Health and Human Services compared proposed premium prices with a figure derived from a forecast by the CBO, the non-partisan research arm of Congress. HHS used the CBO forecast of an annual premium of $15,400 in 2016 for a family, and divided by 2.7 people to arrive at an estimate for an individual in 2014.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, says the HHS report relies largely on data from states taking an active role in implementing Obamacare, suggesting that the government has cherry-picked the results.
"It's not a random sample. It's from states that have set up their own exchanges and are sympathetic to the cause," said Holtz-Eakin, who now heads the center-right American Action Forum.
HHS declined to comment on the various ways that rate data are being presented. In the study, it said it aimed "to move from theoretical arguments to data-driven analysis."
But many observing the cost debate say that too many unknowns remain to say if the estimates are right - or wrong.
"I don't know whether this 18 percent is right or not," said Jay Angoff, a lawyer at Mehri & Skalet who previously worked at HHS as director of the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, referring to the HHS report. "There are other factors than actuarial analysis that affect the rates. This is a huge new market that is going to be heavily subsidized."
(Additional reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Leslie Adler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obamacare-rate-debate-price-gets-political-175056352.html
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The move was expected, as Foursquare had been using an ad sales pitch deck since April that touted check-in targeting and pixel tracking. (Pixel tracking is one way that users are followed on the web by advertisers.)
What's interesting about the choice of Turn is that the company is best-known as one of the adtech world's largest "demand-side platforms" (DSPs). A DSP is basically an ad-buying system, in which clients buy inventory in a real-time bidding auction. The inventory is usually triggered by tracking cookies, so buyers can target people by their apparent interests as indicated by their web surfing history.
Turn is a major player inside FBX, Facebook's cookie-driven, RTB ad exchange.
At Foursquare, a users' interest will, obviously, be inferred from their check-in. The innovation here ? if the implication in the ad sales pitch deck is correct ? is that the ad will be triggered by the check-in as opposed to a cookie. Turn can apply its database of cookies to match that check-in with a relevant audience.
It looks like Foursquare will not be offering individual users as targets, but rather anonymous blocks of users with similar interests, such as "mass market mom," "business traveler," and "luxury affinity."
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-does-deal-with-turn-2013-8?op=1
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