Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Chargers rip Jags, end skid

Rivers passes for 294 yards, three touchdown passes in 38-14 win

updated 11:53 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2011

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - No matter how many interceptions he threw, no matter how many turnovers he committed, Philip Rivers refused to play it safe.

He knew things would change.

They finally did. On "Monday Night Football" no less, and with his San Diego Chargers in the deepest of holes.

Rivers threw for 294 yards and three touchdowns, burning Jacksonville's depleted secondary early and often, and the Chargers beat the Jaguars 38-14 to snap a six-game losing streak.

The Chargers (5-7) had been waiting for the three-time Pro Bowl selection to return to form. Some questioned whether it would happen this season. But Rivers never lost faith even though he leads the NFL in interceptions (17) and turnovers (21) and was a key part of the team's disappointing slide.

"It's been a rough six weeks," Rivers said. "I haven't put a complete game together, but I don't care about the numbers. I just want to win."

Rivers was nearly perfect against Jacksonville (3-9), adding to the team's tumultuous week.

He completed 22 of 28 passes - hooking up with Vincent Brown, Vincent Jackson and Malcom Floyd for long scores - before sitting out the final few minutes. Rivers finished with a 146.1 QB rating, by far his highest of the season.

The Chargers scored on five of their first six drives, then sent most of the home crowd scrambling for the exits with Ryan Mathews' 31-yard TD run in the fourth. Mathews ran 13 times for 112 yards.

"That's the type of chemistry coming into this season we knew we had," tight end Antonio Gates said. "We stayed on course despite what we've been through these last six weeks. That we were able to get a win tonight speaks volumes for this team."

It was a much-needed victory for a team that trails Denver and Oakland by two games in the AFC West with four to play.

And it was another blow to the Jaguars, who endured the most sweeping changes in the 17-year history of the franchise last week.

Team owner Wayne Weaver fired coach Jack Del Rio and announced he was selling the club to Illinois businessman Shahid Khan. Interim coach Mel Tucker fired receivers coach Johnny Cox, reassigned quarterbacks coach Mike Sheppard and waived starting receiver Jason Hill.

The moves seemed to invigorate a franchise that had seemingly gone stale in Del Rio's ninth season. Fans showed up energized for a prime-time game that signaled the start of a new era. Some wore "Yes We Khan" T-shirts. Other donned fake mustaches to emulate the owner-in-waiting.

It made little difference on the field, mostly because Jacksonville's defensive injuries proved too much to overcome.

The Jaguars played without their top three cornerbacks - Rashean Mathis, Derek Cox and Will Middleton - and lost safety Dwight Lowery (shoulder) and defensive end John Chick (knee) during the game.

"No excuses here," Tucker said. "We won't allow ourselves to go down that road."

Rivers took advantage of the injuries, picking on a pair of cornerbacks who were signed off the street in recent weeks.

Rivers threw a 22-yard TD pass to Brown and a 35-yarder to Jackson on the final two drives of the first half as the Chargers overcame a brief deficit to seize control. Those scores came in the final 2:32 of the half.

The opening drive of the third quarter didn't take long, either. On the fifth play, Rivers found Floyd deep down the right sideline for a 52-yard score. Floyd, activated Monday night after missing six games with a hip injury, beat Ashton Youboty badly on the play. Floyd finished with four receptions for 108 yards.

"He's just an outstanding player," Chargers coach Norv Turner said of Rivers. "Like any quarterback, it starts with protection, with the guys up front. He's missed Malcom. We've missed Malcom. When Philip has all his guys, and he can operate like he did today, he's as good as anybody."

It was the second TD given up by Youboty, who was replaced on the next possession by Morgan Trent, signed five days ago.

The biggest cheer for the Jaguars came late in the third quarter, when Weaver was shown on the stadium's large video board. Weaver and his wife received a standing ovation.

The $760 million sale must be approved by the NFL later this month. Khan chose not to attend the game, which turned out to be a good move.

"I don't think anyone has been through anything like that," said Maurice Jones-Drew, who finished with 188 total yards. "This is a $9 billion business. Other than that, we played football. We've got to figure out how to keep going for four quarters and not two."

Jones-Drew was the lone offensive star for Jacksonville - again. He finished with 97 yards rushing and 91 yards receiving. He leads the NFL in rushing with 1,137 yards.

MJD caught a 9-yard touchdown pass from Blaine Gabbert to cap a 79-yard drive at the start of the second quarter. The Jaguars managed only 27 yards in the opening quarter.

After a three-and-out by the Chargers, Gabbert and Drew hooked up on a 48-yard shovel pass. It was a beautifully executed play, with Gabbert flicking the ball five yards with his left hand to Drew, who had the middle of the field all to himself and ran down to the 4-yard line.

Chargers cornerback Antoine Cason broke up a potential touchdown pass to Jarett Dillard, but on third-and-goal from the 5, Gabbert found Cecil Shorts in the back corner of the end zone to give the Jaguars a 14-10 lead.

It was all San Diego after that, mostly due to Rivers.

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45562851/ns/sports-nfl/

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Protester shaves year-old beard with new Belgian government (Reuters)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? A Belgian radio presenter who grew a beard for almost a year in protest at protracted talks to form a government finally shaved Monday with new coalition about to take office.

Koen Fillet and almost 800 others joined the call for a beard protest by actor Benoit Poelvoorde in January 2011, when negotiations had already dragged on for more than six months after a June 2010 election.

Many of the protesters eventually shaved, including Poelvoorde, but Fillet said he had unwilling to give up.

"I had moments of weakness, but if I had shaved I would have faced the ridicule of the nation," Fillet told Reuters, still sporting an impressive dark and grey beard that reached down to his chest.

In an elaborate ceremony at an impromptu barbershop set up at the studios of Flemish public broadcaster Radio 1 in Brussels, Fillet was eventually shaved facing a large press corps with a broad smile on his face.

Six Belgian political parties completed negotiations last week form a coalition government, a year and a half after parliamentary elections.

"I'm happy and relieved there is a new government. We will see whether it is a good government which does the right things," Fillet said. He said he would not be available for future follicular protest of this kind, should Belgian politics face another impasse in the future.

"Absolutely not. I gave up my own destiny, I was no longer the master over my own appearance. I won't do it a second time."

(Reporting By Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/od_nm/us_belgium_government_beard

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LaVar Young: Still Waiting: Black Male Achievement in America

The gap in achievement between black males and their white counterparts isn't news -- it's common knowledge, generally accepted, and only sometimes bemoaned. But it seems to me that we should be more alarmed -- four hundred years after arriving in America aboard slave ships, and they have yet to reach academic or socio-economic parity with their white peers. Does anyone see a problem here?

It's hard to believe that four hundred years have passed since slavery ravaged America beginning in the 1600s, and even harder to believe that it's been four hundred years of African Americans fighting unsuccessfully for full equality.

And now that schools and public places are no longer segregated, and legislation exists against discrimination in employment, voting and education, the fight has changed. In the 1950s and 60s, efforts towards equality coalesced into a national movement of sit-ins, bus boycotts, mass voter registrations and marches. Now, the once national response has been replaced by an array of individual and community-specific efforts, which, however beneficial, are too isolated to affect large-scale, national change.

The reality is that the inequalities of the 21st century aren't as explicit as Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan, and the law does not sanction them -- which means there is no obvious fix. But, the statistics are tangible and certainly disturbing, and they start immediately at birth. For one, black infant mortality rates are more than twice that of whites, in a country that already has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.

As they grow into toddlerhood and childhood, the evidence mounts. Two-thirds of black children live in single parent households, which is three times that of white children. And one-third live in poverty, compared with one tenth of their white counterparts.

In school, black males score lower on standardized tests, are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school, three times as likely to be suspended from school and less likely to go on to a two-year or four-year college.

The unemployment rate is more than twice that for blacks than for whites, 16.7 and 8 percent respectively. And it's been double that of whites since the government started keeping tabs in 1972. And while the unemployment rate surged to its highest since 1984, the white unemployment rate actually dropped slightly.

Fortunately, some leaders are refusing to accept the status quo any longer, and efforts at a large-scale national response are mounting. Back in September, I attended a conference hosted by the Open Society Foundations , where a national call to action was set in motion. Since then, Newark and twenty-five cities throughout the country participated in a Day of Action, where black leaders discussed various solutions to the problem.

And recently, Dr. Warren Farrell proposed the creation of a White House Council on Boys to Men, in response to President Obama's 2009 Executive Order creating a similar council for women, which was written up in Forbes magazine. In his proposal, the Council would focus on the fives areas in which boys are in crisis: education, jobs, emotional health, physical health, and fatherlessness. For Farrell, a national response is imperative, because "the best solutions are holistic ones."

Clearly, some leaders have the right idea. But our society's current laissez faire attitude suggests either apathy, or an assumption that the issue will resolve itself over time. Neither are appropriate responses. We have to decide if we are willing to accept these statistics as a permanent fixture of American society, and if not, what needs to be done. We must make an effort, not only as individuals and communities, and but collectively as a society.

For the first time in history, we have a black president in office. And while his election challenged society's latent bias, the buck doesn't stop there. We must take this opportunity to turn our attention towards the appalling discrepancies in black male achievement on a grander scale.

I've always felt that the absence of legally sanctioned discrimination meant that a national movement was no longer possible. I've since changed my mind -- the statistics I've shared are tangible, appalling, and worthy of a national response. The onus is now on the nation to set the agenda for change. Fifty years after the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and equality among black males is still only a dream. I think it's time to make it a reality.

?

Follow LaVar Young on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@LaVarYoung

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lavar-young/black-male-achievement_b_1121379.html

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Signal for Consciousness in Brain Marked by Neural Dialogue

Head Lines | Mind & Brain Cover Image: November 2011 Scientific American MagazineSee Inside

Brain areas send signals back and forth to generate conscious thoughts

Image: Getty Images

Scientists have long hunted for a pattern of brain activity that signals consciousness, but a reliable marker has proved elusive. For many years theorists have argued that the answer lies in the prefrontal cortex, a region of high-level processing located behind the forehead; neural signals that reach this area were thought to emerge from unconscious obscurity into our awareness. Recent research, however, supports the idea that consciousness is a conversation rather than a revelation, with no single brain structure leading the dialogue.

The most recent to challenge the prevailing theory is Simon van Gaal, a neuroscientist who investigates the borders of conscious awareness at the Neurospin Institute in Paris. He asks participants in his ongoing experiments to push a button every time they see a symbol flash on a screen, except when they see a certain icon that means ?stop.? During some of the trials van Gaal flashes the stop signal in a way that the subjects cannot consciously perceive. Although they do not see the stop signal, they hesitate to push the button, as though some part of the brain were choking on the information. As he runs the test, van Gaal measures brain activity with functional MRI and electroencephalo?graphy (EEG). He has found that the unconscious inhibitory signal seems to make it all the way up to parts of the prefrontal cortex.

The results indicate that ?activity in a certain region is not sufficient to generate consciousness,? van Gaal explains. Instead, he posits, different regions must exchange information before consciousness can arise.

A study in Science in May bolsters the claim that awareness emerges when information travels back and forth between brain areas rather than from ascending a linear chain of command. Researchers in Belgium recorded EEG signals in patients with brain damage as they listened to stimulating tones. All the patients were awake and alert, but with a range of responsiveness. Mathematical models built from the data suggest that feedback between the frontal cortex and the lower-level sensory areas is crucial to producing conscious experience. These results agree with previous work done with monkeys and healthy human volunteers.

Understanding consciousness has a universal philosophical appeal, but it is also clinically urgent, according to lead author M?lanie Boly of the University Hospital Center of Sart-Tilman in Li?ge, Belgium. ?The diagnosis of patients in a vegetative state or minimally conscious state is extremely difficult, and the misdiagnosis rate can be as high as 40 percent,? she says. By defining a neural correlate for con?sciousness, Boly and her colleagues hope to improve those patients? quality of care.


Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=c2ad17985c30309eef9775132f2e514e

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Monday, December 5, 2011

Team of astronomers finds 18 new planets

Friday, December 2, 2011

Discoveries of new planets just keep coming and coming. Take, for instance, the 18 recently found by a team of astronomers led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"It's the largest single announcement of planets aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission," says John Johnson, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech and the first author on the team's paper, which was published in the December issue of The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. The Kepler mission is a space telescope that has so far identified more than 1,200 possible planets, though the majority of those have not yet been confirmed.

Using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii?with follow-up observations using the McDonald and Fairborn Observatories in Texas and Arizona, respectively?the researchers surveyed about 300 stars. They focused on those dubbed "retired" A-type stars that are more than one and a half times more massive than the sun. These stars are just past the main stage of their life?hence, "retired"?and are now puffing up into what's called a subgiant star.

To look for planets, the astronomers searched for stars of this type that wobble, which could be caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. By searching the wobbly stars' spectra for Doppler shifts?the lengthening and contracting of wavelengths due to motion away from and toward the observer?the team found 18 planets with masses similar to Jupiter's.

This new bounty marks a 50 percent increase in the number of known planets orbiting massive stars and, according to Johnson, provides an invaluable population of planetary systems for understanding how planets?and our own solar system?might form. The researchers say that the findings also lend further support to the theory that planets grow from seed particles that accumulate gas and dust in a disk surrounding a newborn star.

According to this theory, tiny particles start to clump together, eventually snowballing into a planet. If this is the true sequence of events, the characteristics of the resulting planetary system?such as the number and size of the planets, or their orbital shapes?will depend on the mass of the star. For instance, a more massive star would mean a bigger disk, which in turn would mean more material to produce a greater number of giant planets.

In another theory, planets form when large amounts of gas and dust in the disk spontaneously collapse into big, dense clumps that then become planets. But in this picture, it turns out that the mass of the star doesn't affect the kinds of planets that are produced.

So far, as the number of discovered planets has grown, astronomers are finding that stellar mass does seem to be important in determining the prevalence of giant planets. The newly discovered planets further support this pattern?and are therefore consistent with the first theory, the one stating that planets are born from seed particles.

"It's nice to see all these converging lines of evidence pointing toward one class of formation mechanisms," Johnson says.

There's another interesting twist, he adds: "Not only do we find Jupiter-like planets more frequently around massive stars, but we find them in wider orbits." If you took a sample of 18 planets around sunlike stars, he explains, half of them would orbit close to their stars. But in the cases of the new planets, all are farther away, at least 0.7 astronomical units from their stars. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the sun.)

In systems with sunlike stars, gas giants like Jupiter acquire close orbits when they migrate toward their stars. According to theories of planet formation, gas giants could only have formed far from their stars, where it's cold enough for their constituent gases and ices to exist. So for gas giants to orbit nearer to their stars, certain gravitational interactions have to take place to pull these planets in. Then, some other mechanism?perhaps the star's magnetic field?has to kick in to stop them from spiraling into a fiery death.

The question, Johnson says, is why this doesn't seem to happen with so-called hot Jupiters orbiting massive stars, and whether that dearth is due to nature or nurture. In the nature explanation, Jupiter-like planets that orbit massive stars just wouldn't ever migrate inward. In the nurture interpretation, the planets would move in, but there would be nothing to prevent them from plunging into their stars. Or perhaps the stars evolve and swell up, consuming their planets. Which is the case? According to Johnson, subgiants like the A stars they were looking at in this paper simply don't expand enough to gobble up hot Jupiters. So unless A stars have some unique characteristic that would prevent them from stopping migrating planets?such as a lack of a magnetic field early in their lives?it looks like the nature explanation is the more plausible one.

The new batch of planets have yet another interesting pattern: their orbits are mainly circular, while planets around sunlike stars span a wide range of circular to elliptical paths. Johnson says he's now trying to find an explanation.

For Johnson, these discoveries have been a long time coming. This latest find, for instance, comes from an astronomical survey that he started while a graduate student; because these planets have wide orbits, they can take a couple of years to make a single revolution, meaning that it can also take quite a few years before their stars' periodic wobbles become apparent to an observer. Now, the discoveries are finally coming in. "I liken it to a garden?you plant the seeds and put a lot of work into it," he says. "Then, a decade in, your garden is big and flourishing. That's where I am right now. My garden is full of these big, bright, juicy tomatoes?these Jupiter-sized planets."

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115688/Team_of_astronomers_finds____new_planets

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Newt Gingrich's Rise Continues, Ron Paul Second, Romney Third In Iowa: Des Moines Register Poll

WASHINGTON -- Eighteen years after he led Republicans to an unexpected takeover of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich looks increasingly poised to engineer yet another improbable election win.

The former House Speaker, whose presidential campaign was left for dead a few months ago amidst heavy debt and a staff exodus, sits atop the new Des Moines Register poll, at 25 percent. In the last Register poll -- released in late October -- he was at seven percent.

The poll was conducted Nov. 27-30 among 401 likely Republican caucus-goers, and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.

Gingrich is trailed by Rep. Ron Paul at 18 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, with 16 percent. Businessman Herman Cain, who earlier in the day announced that he was suspending his beleaguered presidential campaign in response to allegations of an extramarital affair and past charges of sexual harassment, was favored by eight percent of voters, down from 22 percent in the Register's last survey.

In line with other recent surveys, the new poll shows that Cain was fading fast in Iowa as well as nationally before suspending his campaign.

The decline is likely music to Gingrich's ears. Several recent national polls have shown Gingrich potentially gaining the most ground among Cain supporters in the event the former Godfather's Pizza CEO dropped out of the race. According to the Register: "More respondents choose Gingrich as their second choice than any other candidate. Together, 43 percent of likely caucusgoers pick him as first or second."

With just weeks until Iowans gather to vote, the race for the Hawkeye State has boiled down to three candidates, none of whom, really, have devoted much time or energy to the primary battleground.

Paul maintains a devoted following, but has been primarily a national candidate rather than running an Iowa-centric campaign. Romney has campaigned tepidly in Iowa -- wary of being dealt a setback like the one he suffered when he finished second there in 2008. In the Register poll released in late October, he stood at 22 percent. On Saturday, however, Romney received the backing of the Sioux City Journal, a fairly powerful editorial board inside the state. That endorsement came after the field period for the new survey had ended.

Gingrich, meanwhile, just recently opened his first office in the Hawkeye State -- his campaign debt having eliminated any chance for an earlier investment. And yet, Saturday night's poll is only one of several recent surveys to show him on the rise.

The candidates who have spent the most time in Iowa, ironically, have remained stagnant in the polls. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) earned eight percent support in Saturday night's Register poll; former Sen. Rick Santorum received the backing of six percent; while Texas Gov. Rick Perry clocks in at six percent.

The Des Moines Register's Iowa survey is the nation's longest continuously running newspaper poll, beginning in the 1980s. As the Huffington Post's Mark Blumenthal noted in late October:

The Register and its current pollster Ann Selzer gained further acclaim four years ago when their final pre-caucus survey was the only public poll to show Barack Obama with a wide lead over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. It was also the only poll to accurately forecast the "dramatic influx" of first-time caucus-goers that helped propel Obama to his eventual Iowa victory.

Because of the very low turnout of eligible adults to the Iowa Caucuses, however, all past polling of likely caucus-goers has been notoriously volatile. Although the Register poll accurately forecast Obama's win four years ago, its October poll conducted just three months earlier showed Obama running in third place, seven percentage points behind Clinton. Thus, with more than 10 weeks still remaining before the 2012 caucus, caution is in order.


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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/03/newt-gingrich-ron-paul_n_1127371.html

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Iraq PM: Green Zone bomb was assassination attempt

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is seen during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is seen during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

(AP) ? Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that a bombing earlier this week inside Baghdad's Green Zone was an assassination attempt against him, but he defended the nation's armed forces and said the breach did not signal a deterioration in security.

During an interview with The Associated Press, Nouri al-Maliki said the building housing the legislature or the parliament speaker also could have been targets but that preliminary information suggested the bombers were trying to get him.

"The preliminary intelligence information says that the car was due to enter parliament and stay there and not to explode. It was supposed to explode on the day I entered parliament," said al-Maliki, who was not in or near the parliament building when the bomb actually went off.

Monday's blast inside the central Baghdad zone, which is supposed to be one of Iraq's most secure areas, has raised new concerns about whether Iraqi forces are able to protect the country when the U.S. military leaves by the end of the year.

At the time of the explosion, officials said they did not know if it was the result of rocket or mortar fire into the Green Zone or a bomb, and it was unclear if anyone was being targeted specifically.

The Baghdad military spokesman, Qassim al-Moussawi, said late Friday that al-Maliki was the target. He said the driver of the vehicle tried to join a convoy of other vehicles going into the parliament grounds but was turned back by officials at the checkpoint because he didn't have proper identification. The driver then drove to the parking lot just opposite the parliament entrance, and the vehicle exploded seconds later.

Al-Maliki said the bomb had likely been assembled inside the Green Zone and was not very powerful.

A body was found near the wrecked car, but authorities were still trying to determine the person's identity and whether he was the bomber or a bystander, officials have said. Two other people were wounded.

Al-Maliki played down any suggestion that the attack, in an area that is also home to the U.S. Embassy as well as many Iraqi government institutions, demonstrated any weakness in security ahead of the U.S. military withdrawal. All American forces are to be out of the country by the end of this month.

"I don't think that this says something about the security situation in the country. Such breaches can happen in any country or anywhere," the prime minister said.

"It was a very simple operation," he said. "I cannot see in this operation any indication of a security deterioration in Iraq."

He blamed al-Qaida in Iraq and Saddam Hussein's Baath Party for the violence.

"They are opposing me, the parliament speaker and the parliament and the whole political process, so whomever the victim of their operation will be, it is a victory for them," he said.

The prime minister said he had previously shared information with the parliament speaker, Osama al-Nujaifi, that there might be an attempt to kill one of them at the parliament and that he advised the parliament speaker to exercise caution.

Al-Maliki said Iraqi security forces were still looking for at least four people believed to have played a role in the plot.

Meanwhile, rioters attacked dozens of liquor stores, a massage parlor and hotels after being stirred up by fiery sermons in a predominantly Kurdish city in north Iraq, police officials said Saturday.

The Kurdish-ruled north was spared much of the violence that engulfed the rest of the country from 2003 to 2008, but there have been several outbreaks of unrest against the rule of the two main secular-leaning parties.

The region also is home to a range of Islamist groups, including organizations involved in mainstream politics as well as smaller, more radical networks.

Friday's rampage began after midday prayers in the town of Zakho, some 300 miles (475 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. Thirty people were injured, according to hospital official Imad Barwari.

The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In retaliation for the initial rioting, angry crowds then attacked offices belonging to a Kurdistan-based Islamist party, officials said.

Police on Saturday also arrested a leader of Kurdistan's largest Islamist opposition party, which has denied any connection to the attacks.

___

Associated Press writers Bushra Juhi in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-03-Iraq/id-27be647d14fa4e5782668949e4642f81

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