Pope urges Church to ?act with determination in cases of sexual abuse?

Pope Francis

Image: Alessandra Tarantino/AP/Press Association Images

POPE FRANCIS HAS given his first pronouncement on the Catholic Church?s pervasive paedophile priest scandal, urging Vatican disciplinarians to act ?with determination? against the scourge.

Meeting with Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Vatican department that disciplines predator priests, the?pope?asked him to ?act with determination in cases of sexual abuse,? the Vatican said in a statement.

It was the first official word on the issue from the?pope, who was elected March 13 to succeed Benedict XVI, whose papacy was marred by relentless paedophilia scandals with tens of thousands of victims over several decades.

The statement noted that the policy followed ?the line established? by Benedict XVI, who was the first?pope?to apologise to victims and called for zero tolerance against sexual abuse by priests.

The Argentine?pope?asked for ?stepped-up measures to protect minors and help those who were subjected to such violence in the past?.

Also in line with his predecessor, Francis reminded the heads of national Catholic churches around the world that they had committed to formulating and implementing directives for addressing the problem ? including turning abusers over to local law enforcement.

Mueller?s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published in May 2011 a document ordering bishops to turn in members of the clergy suspected of paedophilia and to prevent them from working in settings involving minors.

It gave the bishops? conferences (national churches) one year to come up with guidelines on combating the crimes and cooperating with police.

600 claims of abuse every year

As of September 2012, three-quarters of the national churches had complied, according to Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican ?prosecutor? in sex abuse cases.

The scourge of abusive priests burst into the spotlight more than a decade ago with a cascade of scandals rocking the Church worldwide, from Ireland to the United States, from Australia to Benedict?s native Germany.

The Vatican says it continues to receive around 600 claims against abusive priests every year, many of them dating back to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Sexual abuse by priests has often been coupled with cover-ups by their superiors, typically by transferring them to other parishes.

In Latin America, Francis?s home region, the most notorious scandal concerned the Mexican founder of the conservative Legionnaires of Christ congregation, Marcial Maciel, who was accused of sexually abusing children before he died in 2008.

SNAP, a vocal support group for victims, reacted immediately to Friday?s statement, demanding that the?pope?match words with actions.

?We can?t confuse words with actions,? said the Survivors? Network for those Abused by Priests.

?Kids won?t be helped by a ?continuation? of the tiny symbolic gestures taken by?Pope?Benedict,? it said. ?Kids will be helped by decisive changes. Thus far,?Pope?Francis hasn?t even discussed, much less adopted, even a single reform.?

SNAP, which has asked the International Criminal Court to prosecute Benedict XVI for crimes against humanity, has demanded that the Church publish the names of predator priests on the Internet.

-?? AFP 2013

Read:?Pope prays for peace in Syria, Korea on first Easter

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Source: http://www.thejournal.ie/pope-francis-church-sex-abuse-scandal-859318-Apr2013/

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Warner criticizes military's delay in testing drinking water

by 13News

WVEC.com

Posted on April 4, 2013 at 4:13 PM

WASHINGTON--Sen. Mark Warner is questioning the military's safeguards against lead in drinking water at its facilities.

Warner's comments came after unsafe levels of lead in drinking water were found at two Navy child care centers in Hampton Roads last week.

In a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Warner raised concerns over the apparent five-year delay between an Oct. 2007 Pentagon mandate to test lead in drinking water fixtures and the initiation of testing at Hampton Roads facilities in October 2012 saying, "This is not acceptable."

According to Warner's office, the senator asked Hagel for assurance that everything possible was being done to protect military families from elevated levels of lead. Warner urged Hagel to confirm that appropriate testing has occurred at other military facilities across all branches of the military.

During routine testing of nearly 300 water outlets at nine centers, the Navy discovered elevated levels at a center outside Naval Station Norfolk on Hampton Boulevard and at the Fort Story side of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

The voluntary EPA standards recommends a lead level of no higher than 20 parts per billion, which is said to be equivalent to 20 eye drops in an Olympics-sized pool. The testing showed a highest level of 66 parts per billion.

Lead exposure has been found to cause serious medical issues including permanent damage to the brain and nervous system, which can result in behavioral and learning problems.

Following the discovery of elevated lead levels last week, the Navy said installation commanding officers, day care center management, environmental and health specialists were available to meet individually with parents and employees to provide results of the tests and have their questions and concerns addressed.

Warner praised the, "aggressive and proactive response by the Hampton Roads Navy command following last week?s reports."?

Click here to read a copy of the letter from Sen. Warner to Secretary Hagel.

Source: http://www.wvec.com/my-city/vabeach/Va-senator-wants-assurance-Navy-families-are-safe-from-lead-in-their-water-201494771.html

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Why was March so cold? Blame Greenland.

You're not imagining it: March 2013 was chilly ? the second-coldest March since 2000. The culprit is a stubborn mass of warm air over Greenland that blocked the jet stream.

By Douglas Main,?Our Amazing Planet / April 2, 2013

This NOAA satellite image taken March 28 shows the stationary air mass over Greenland and the North Atlantic that kept March so chilly for most of the continental US.

Weather Underground / AP

Enlarge

Although spring has arrived, it may not feel that way for many in the United States and Canada who have had to put up with unusually cold temperatures.

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Last month was a chilly one, ranking as the second-coldest March in the continental United States since 2000, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The average temperature across the United States this March was also 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 degrees Celsius) lower than in March 2012, and a late-winter blizzard broke snowfall records in many areas.

So, why has it been so cold?

The culprit is a stubborn, stationary mass of warm air over Greenland and the North Atlantic that has blocked the normal flow of air from west to east and south to north, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist with the NWS' Storm Prediction Center. This flow of air, known as the jet stream, usually brings more warm air from the South as the Northern Hemisphere begins to heat up in the spring.

Obstinate air masses

This March, however, the mass of warm air ? a high-pressure system that repels incoming weather systems ? has redirected air currents and created a pattern of winds coming from the Northwest, blasting the eastern two-thirds of the United States with Arctic air, Carbin said.

"This obstinate mass of warm air over Greenland has redirected air currents like a rock in a stream," Carbin said.

However, the spring season hasn't been cold everywhere. In fact, the southwestern United States has been warmer than average, as the region has been unaffected by the blocking system in the North Atlantic, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and science writer with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Due, in part, to the cold, there have been fewer than 20 tornadoes in the United States this March, Carbin said. On average, March will see 76 twisters across the United States. Tornadoes depend on warm, moist air, which was scarce this past March, Carbin added.?

Climate change?

Some research has suggested a link between a retreat of Arctic sea ice in a warming world and these high-pressure blocking systems, Carbin said.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/HgNeTN30RiQ/Why-was-March-so-cold-Blame-Greenland

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Video Gets Social With New Streaming Service From Rdio

Rdio launches a new streaming video service called Vdio. It lets users rent and purchase movies and TV shows, create and share video playlists, and features strong discovery tools designed to help surface content.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/eMjCn-0CzKQ/

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US is halfway to Obama 5-year export-doubling goal

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Suddenly outsourcing is on the way out and insourcing on the way in as the U.S. trudges unevenly toward President Barack Obama's goal of doubling American exports around the world by the start of 2015.

So far, export levels are about halfway to his mark.

Obama set the five-year target in his January 2010 State of the Union address and recently has hastened his drumbeat, telling his export advisory council last month the nation was "well on our way" to his goal. "The question now becomes: How do we sustain this momentum?"

While economists and industry leaders generally expect the ambitious target to be missed, impressive gains already booked in American manufacturing and exporting suggest such a miss may not be by that much.

Why the optimism toward a manufacturing comeback? Here are five reasons:

? Cheap U.S. natural gas and other increased energy production are helping to power U.S. factories more efficiently, with gas especially providing inexpensive raw materials for U.S. manufacturers of plastics, tires, certain pharmaceuticals and other petrochemical products.

? Higher wages in China and other foreign export markets are making outsourcing less profitable to U.S. firms.

? Congressional approval in 2011 of trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and other agreements being negotiated now with Asia and Europe are promising to open more foreign markets to U.S. products.

? High U.S. unemployment is relieving pressure on factory owners to increase wages, helping to make U.S. labor costs more globally competitive.

? Major technology advances have steadily boosted factory efficiency and worker productivity.

Yet while many industries are doing more with fewer workers, more than half a million new manufacturing jobs have been added in just the past few years.

Of course, some big bumps lie in the road. Europe is mired in recession, the American economy continues to expand at a snail's pace and the jobless rate sits at a stubbornly high 7.7 percent almost four years after the 2007-09 recession ended.

Obama's starting point was 2009 exports of $1.57 trillion. Since then, they've climbed to a record $2.19 trillion in 2012 ? about 48 percent toward his goal of some $3.14 trillion a year by the start of 2015.

But 2012 exports, while a record, grew just 5.5 percent from those in 2011, down from a 15.9 percent surge from 2010 to 2011. The rate would have to pick up sharply again this year and next to meet Obama's target.

"Some of the headwinds we faced last year have started to improve," said Chad Moutay, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers. "And I think energy is a game-changer. We definitely have increased the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing."

U.S. manufacturers posted a fourth consecutive month of expansion in March. While the rate was a bit below February's gain, the overall trend is still up.

Some critics argue that Obama set the bar artificially low by using recessionary 2009 numbers as his starting point.

Alan Tonelson, an official with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, said Obama also "has the wrong goal" by focusing on exports and not the other part of the trade equation: still-huge import levels and resulting trade deficits.

The U.S. imported $540.4 billion more in goods and services last year than it exported, down only slightly from the $559.9 billion trade deficit in 2011.

"We racked up a pretty impressive export performance over the last few years. But the main reason that we may not reach the Obama doubling-export goal is the world economy is slowing down," said Tonelson, whose organization represents nearly 2,000 mainly family-owned U.S. manufacturing companies.

Obama shrugs off such skepticism, suggesting the recent manufacturing gains speak for themselves.

"What's happening here is happening all around the country," the president said during a recent visit to a flourishing engine-part factory in Ashville, N.C. "Just as it's becoming more and more expensive to do business in places like China, America is getting more competitive."

Federal legislative "Buy America" restrictions on certain recent government contracts? considered protectionist by many economists ? are also being credited with helping to spur some recent U.S. manufacturing gains.

The U.S. now makes about 18 percent of the world's goods, down from nearly 40 percent right after World War II. Clearly, many manufacturing jobs will never come back.

"The U.S. had manufacturing trade surpluses until around 1980 (but) has run big deficits since then," said Martin Baily, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and co-author of a new Brookings study of U.S. manufacturing.

The study showed that high trade deficits, especially with China, and high U.S. business tax rates are combining to keep U.S. manufacturing from rebounding more strongly.

Manufacturing "still remains a very important sector and one that I think we need to foster and that needs to flourish," Baily said. "So we need to expand manufacturing in order to reduce that trade deficit. We can't just do it on services alone."

Republicans have long clamored for lower corporate tax rates to stimulate business growth. At a nominal top rate of 35 percent, the U.S. has the highest corporate tax of the world's industrialized nations.

While few U.S. companies actually pay the full rate due to various deductions and credits, U.S. tax bites dissuade foreign companies from setting up shop here while providing incentives to U.S. multinational companies to keep large sums overseas, Republicans argue.

Obama largely agrees and has proposed lowering the top rate to 25 percent for manufacturers, even lower rates on income from still-undefined "advanced manufacturing" and 28 percent for all other corporations.

Laura D. Tyson, who was President Bill Clinton's chief national economic adviser and served on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said there are big barriers to getting a significant reduction in corporate rates. Among them: "The country desperately needs more tax revenues" and "there are huge vested interests" to protect existing loopholes, she said.

"At the end, I would like to get rid of the corporate tax," Tyson said. "That's probably not going to happen."

___

Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-halfway-obama-5-export-065157609.html

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LG Jukeblox hits the FCC, makes us wonder what a Jukeblox is

Once in every while, a product meanders through the FCC that we've actually never heard of. Today we found a test report concerning LG's Jukeblox, a "networked media module" that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else on the internet. The report details that the unit has an 802.11 b/g WiFi module, but no hints as to its intended purpose or destination. At a guess, we'd posit that the device is destined to rival the AllShare Cast, but given that "Jukeblox" is also the name of SMSC's digital audio technology, LG might have to deal with some trademark wrangling before this product sees the light of day.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Wireless, LG

Comments

Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/lg-jukeblox-fcc/

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'DWTS' Results: Wynonna Judd Eliminated After Week 3

The "DWTS" results are in and Wynonna Judd is out.

Lisa Vanderpump and Gleb Savchenko were the first in the Bottom 3, followed by Andy Dick and Sharna Burgess, and Wynonna and her partner Tony Dovolani were the final couple in jeopardy.

"I faced some of my biggest fears," Judd said before saying goodbye to "DWTS." "This is the hardest job I've ever had ... I did the best I could."

Judd is the first contestant to be eliminated from Season 16 of "Dancing With The Stars" since Dorothy Hamill withdrew from the competition due to an injury in the first "DWTS" results week.

Zendaya and Jacoby Jones won the Prom Queen and King titles, thanks to the "DWTS" audience. That put Zendaya and her partner Val Chmerkovskiy, and Jacoby and his partner Karina Smirnoff, through to Week 4. At the end of the night, when the "DWTS" results were in, Zendaya gave her Prom Queen sash to Wynonna.

Unsurprisingly, Kellie Pickler and her partner Derek Hough were also safe after topping the leaderboard and, despite having some of the lowest scores of the week and some very harsh criticism from the judges, D. L. Hughley and his partner Cheryl Burke were also revealed to be moving on. Sean Lowe and Peta Murgatroyd, Victor Ortiz and Lindsay Arnold, Ingo Rademacher and Kym Johnson, and Aly Raisman and Mark Ballas were also safe for Week 4 on "DWTS."

Do you agree with this week's "DWTS" results? Sound off in the comments!

"Dancing With The Stars" airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET and Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

• Dorothy Hamill & Tristan MacManus

  Dorothy Hamill & Tristan MacManus

• Ingo Rademacher

  Ingo Rademacher

• Kym Johnson

  Kym Johnson

• Wynonna

  Wynonna Judd

• Ingo Rademacher & Kym Johnson

  Ingo Rademacher & Kym Johnson

• Jacoby Jones

  Jacoby Jones

• Karina Smirnoff

  Karina Smirnoff

• Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff

  Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff

• Aly Raisman

  Aly Raisman

• Aly Raisman & Mark Ballas

  Aly Raisman & Mark Ballas

• Andy Dick

  Andy Dick

• Sharna Burgess

  Sharna Burgess

• Andy Dick & Sharna Burgess

  Andy Dick & Sharna Burgess

• D.L. Hughley

  D.L. Hughley

• Victor Ortiz

  Victor Ortiz

• Lindsay Arnold

  Lindsay Arnold

• Victor Ortiz & Lindsay Arnold

  Victor Ortiz & Lindsay Arnold

• Zendaya Coleman

  Zendaya Coleman

• Val Chmerkovskiy

  Val Chmerkovskiy

• Mark Ballas

  Mark Ballas

• Zendaya Coleman & Val Chmerkovskiy

  Zendaya Coleman & Val Chmerkovskiy

• Kellie Pickler

  Kellie Pickler

• Derek Hough

  Derek Hough

• Kellie Pickler & Derek Hough

  Kellie Pickler & Derek Hough

• Lisa Vanderpump

  Lisa Vanderpump

• Gleb Savchenko

  Gleb Savchenko

• Lisa Vanderpump & Gleb Savchenko

  Lisa Vanderpump & Gleb Savchenko

• D.L. Hughley & Cheryl Burke

• Dorothy Hamill

  Dorothy Hamill

• Tristan MacManus

  Tristan MacManus

• Tony Dovolani

  Tony Dovolani

• Wynonna Judd & Tony Dovolani

  Wynonna Judd & Tony Dovolani

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/dwts-results-wynonna-judd-eliminated_n_3003060.html

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