Continue reading »]]> Shahba?z invite?s Fazlur Rehman to join govt in Centre, Baloch?istan.

Sartaj Aziz designated adviser to PM on economy and foreign affairs. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD / LAHORE:?

Nawaz Sharif has officially designated Senator Ishaq Dar as the federal minister for finance and Sartaj Aziz as the adviser to the prime minister on economy and foreign affairs, as the PML-N works towards finalising its cabinet, The Express Tribune has learned.

According to credible sources within the PML-N, Nawaz held a one-on-one meeting with Aziz ? who is also the head of the party?s manifesto committee ? at Raiwind on Thursday, asking him to take up the responsibility of the prime minister?s adviser on economy and foreign affairs. They added that the party?s senior leadership has been informed both of Aziz?s new assignment and Ishaq Dar?s appointment
as finance minister.

The next development regarding the PML-N government?s cabinet will be the designation of the federal minister for foreign affairs, the sources said, adding that Aziz will assist the PML-N chief in making a decision in this regard.

Khawaja Muhammad Asif is reportedly lobbying for the slot of foreign minister, citing his foreign qualifications, command of English and contacts both in Pakistan and overseas as his credentials for the office.

They said the PML-N chief is also contemplating the appointment of a minister of state for foreign affairs. Siddique Khan Kanju had been appointed to the slot by the party in its previous tenure.

But it?s not all smooth sailing as the party is in a bit of a fix when it comes to accommodating two stalwarts from the same district. They are Ahsan Iqbal, who is being pegged to head the Water and Power ministry and Zahid Hamid, who is thought to be the top pick for federal Law Minister. The problem is that both hail from Narowal district, and granting two ministries to people from the same district may lead to criticism from within and without the party.

PML-N invites JUI-F

After snubbing Maulana Fazlur Rehman?s attempts at blocking the PTI in Khyber-Pakhtunhwa,? the PML-N has offered a sop to the JUI-F by inviting it to join its government in the Centre and Balochistan.

Although the PML-N has secured 124 seats in the National Assembly, Shahbaz Sharif made a formal offer in this regard during a meeting with JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman in Islamabad on Thursday. The JUI-F has only been able to win 10 seats in the National Assembly.

Talking to the media following the meeting, Shahbaz said ?JUI-F has been invited to join the government in the Centre keeping in view the national interest.? ?The challenges faced by the country needed to be addressed jointly,? he maintained, adding that countries are not just run by parties which win the elections, but through proper plans of action. He stressed that Nawaz Sharif wanted all political parties on board to tackle terrorism, corruption and the energy crisis.

According to sources privy to the discussions, during the meeting the JUI-F chief once again stressed that allowing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to form a government in K-P would be against both parties? interests.

Shahbaz Sharif, however, countered Fazl?s apprehensions saying that denying the PTI?s mandate would give the nation a negative message and hurt both parties? credibility. He, meanwhile, invited Fazl to become a coalition partner in Balochistan as well.

However, Fazl told reporters that no decision regarding the formation of a government in Balochistan had been reached between the parties.

?We have called a party meeting and will take the matter forward after taking everyone?s opinion? We will continue with our mutual cooperation,? he added.

New inductees

Four more independent MNAs joined PML-N after meeting Nawaz Sharif at Raiwind on Thursday. The inductees were Asghar Shah from Bahawalnagar, Dostain Domki from Sibi, Khalid Magsi from Jhal Magsi and Jam Kamal.

?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2013.

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Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/550558/raiwind-revelations-nawaz-picks-ishaq-dar-as-finance-minister/

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Continue reading »]]> BANGKOK (AP) ? The price of oil fell to near $95 per barrel Friday after new signs of a choppy economic recovery in the U.S.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 12 cents to $95.04 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 86 cents to close at $95.16 on the Nymex on Thursday.

Applications for U.S. unemployment aid rose last week by 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the highest in six weeks, the Labor Department said. A report on housing was neutral, while manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region fell.

That data came on top of the 17-nation euro region remaining mired in recession after contracting for a sixth-straight quarter in the January-March period.

“Several forces should keep the region in recession, including continued fiscal austerity, poor credit conditions in peripheral economies and weak external demand,” analysts at Capital Economics said in a market commentary.

“The US is the only major advanced economy to have achieved steady growth since 2009. The latest data have been mixed, but the fundamentals look strong enough to sustain a solid, if unspectacular, recovery.”

Brent crude, a benchmark for many international oil varieties, fell 6 cents to $103.72 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex:

? Wholesale gasoline rose 0.6 cent to $2.869 a gallon.

? Heating oil rose 0.1 cent to $2.91 a gallon.

? Natural gas rose 0.2 cent to $3.934 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-falls-near-95-choppy-growth-outlook-091716794.html

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The organizers of a private plan to send two people on a round-trip flyby of Mars in 2018 are choosing between a variety of commercial rockets and a NASA booster for the mission.

The nonprofit Inspiration Mars foundation was founded by entrepreneur and space tourist Dennis Tito, who flew to the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito said the flyby mission is aimed at inspiring the public about space exploration and accelerating humanity’s quest to visit Mars by taking advantage of a rare launch opportunity that allows for a relatively brief 501-day round trip.

“The way we’re going, we’ll never get started,” Tito said of the government’s approach to manned missions to Mars Wednesday (May at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. “It’s time for us to take the first step.” [Private Mission to Mars Explained (Infographic)]

At the summit, Tito and his Inspiration Mars colleagues laid out some of the details of their plan, which will send a married male-female couple within about 93 miles (150 kilometers) of the Martian surface. The team hasn’t yet chosen a launch vehicle for the mission, but said there are three main options.

The first option is to use the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket being designed by commercial firm SpaceX. The booster is still in development, but it should be able to launch about 10 metric tons of mass into low-Earth orbit, which is enough to send the Mars-bound capsule and crew in one go. The vehicle is due for its first test launch next year. “Then we’ll find out if that is an option,” said John Carrico, vice president of space systems for Applied Defense Solutions, a contractor for Inspiration Mars.

A second option is to launch the Inspiration Mars crew separately from the fuel that will send them out to Mars and back. This scenario would use an Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA) to lift off the fuel for the mission, and a Delta 4 Heavy booster from the same company to carry the crew to Earth orbit. There, the propellant tank would rendezvous and dock with the crew capsule to transfer over the fuel. While this plan requires two launches and an orbital rendezvous, it has the advantage of using well-tried ULA rockets, which are routinely launched to carry unmanned commercial and government payloads.

Finally, Carrico said Inspiration Mars team members have been in touch with NASA about its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is being developed to send astronauts to an asteroid and Mars in the next decades.

“The nice thing about the SLS is this mission closes with a single launch,” Carrico said. The rocket should be able to launch more mass than Inspiration Mars requires, potentially offering extra energy that could be used to add more mass to the life support system or other equipment onboard the spacecraft, or to slow down the rather speedy planned Earth re-entry.

Inspiration Mars calculates its crew will plummet back to Earth at 14.2 kilometers per second, which is quicker, and therefore hotter, than the Apollo crews’ re-entries coming home from the moon. With the extra launch ability from SLS, this speed could be slowed to 14.0 or 13.9 km/s, Carrico estimated.

However, SLS is not scheduled to make its first test launch until 2017.

Despite the challenges and uncertainties, the mission has sparked the interest of many. Apollo moonwalker Buzz Aldrin praised the plan Wednesday at the Humans 2 Mars Summit, saying, “I think this should be supported to the maximum degree possible.”

Indeed, interest has been stronger from around the world than the Inspiration Mars team anticipated.

“It’s been interesting to see the international response we’ve gotten,” said Taber MacCallum, co-founder of Paragon Space Solutions, which has been hired by Inspiration Mars to develop its life-support system. “When we proposed this mission, we called this a mission for America. We’re really being almost forced to rethink this as a mission for Earth with American leadership.”

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter and Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/private-mars-flyby-mission-ponders-nasa-commercial-rockets-210422902.html

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Continue reading »]]> Cameron Hatheway writes;

As many of you know, the 2013 Eisner Nominees were announced last month. Last year I wrote a weekly column on the nominees and who I thought should win, could win, and should have been nominated, and did pretty well with my overall guesstimations. As usual with the Eisners, there were surprises all around, with the main one this year being the multiple indie nominees flooding the categories. With the winners being announced July 19^th at Comic-Con International, this gives me enough time to share with you my picks of who I feel should win in each category in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. Today I?ll be focusing on the Best Short Story category.

Keep in mind I cannot vote for who wins (nor can you, probably), as per the rules. However, that?s not keeping me from being vocal regardless!

Who is not eligible to vote?

• Comics press or reviewers (unless they are nominees)
• Non-creative publisher staff members (PR, marketing, assistants, etc.)
• Fans

Before I get back to work on inking All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder #11 so I can be eligible for next year, let the games begin!

?

Best Short Story

?A Birdsong Shatters the Still,? by Jeff Wilson and Ted May, in Injury #4 (Ted May/Alternative)

Based on a true story by writer Jeff Wilson, we follow five Iron Maiden fans as they make their way to detention. They decide to get high beforehand, causing each of them to trip-out in their own special way. They manage to still make too much noise while trying to remain quiet during detention, which leads to many comical situations. The black and white art does a lot of the storytelling, which is nice. Prepubescent mustaches, concert tees, and blue jeans; I think we?ve all been there at one point or another.

?Elmview? by Jon McNaught, in Dockwood (Nobrow)

We follow the day in the life of a young man who works at a nursing home in the town of Elmview. Mark?s daily tasks include prepping the food, delivering the tea, and cleaning for? the elderly residents. The different perspectives from both nature and the residents make for some beautiful storytelling with such a limited use of colors.

?Moon 1969: The True Story of the 1969 Moon Launch,? by Michael Kupperman, in Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 (Fantagraphics)

While the real story of what really happened during the moon launch was the main focus, the ads for Roman Pizza Garden Style Ranch Dressing stole the show, as well as my heart. I would definitely love to try a talking salad dressing that gave my partner and me syphilis. The whole story is just plain silly, with sight gags such as the press versus NASA being highly entertaining. The whole moon landing was just so a multi-millionaire could receive head from his wife (true story).

?Moving Forward,? by drewscape, in Monsters, Miracles, & Mayonnaise (Epigram Books)

Another true story, this one revolving around the author drewscape who can?t get his driver?s license in Singapore. I found it extremely relatable to me, for it took me three tries until I finally got my license back in the day. Andrew feels like he?s stuck in a rut, being single, unable to drive, and stuck in the same position at work. After two years of failing his driving tests, he changes instructors and finally passes. He ends up doing very well for himself after acquiring the license, and he even shows proof at the end of the comic. It feels like his old driving instructor Mr. Kok just wanted a friend to hang out with this whole time, and just didn?t push him hard enough.

?Rainbow Moment,? by Lilli Carr?, in Heads or Tails (Fantagraphics)

A conversation between two friends slowly starts to dive into another story, and from there into another, and another before finally coming around full circle. It was like the movie Inception, only with memories of the various characters. Very quirky cubism-like art by Carr?, and great use of colors in the flashbacks. In the end you get a very interesting description of a ?Rainbow Moment? is, which causes you to think back to a time where you may have had one yourself.

Who I think should win:
?Elmview? by Jon McNaught, in Dockwood (Nobrow)

From the opening pages I was completely in love with the beautiful use of colors, and the art style is very pleasant to look at as well. Every object was so simply illustrated, and the reflections out the various residents? windows were very unique. McNaught?s style reminds me of a blend of Mazzuchelli?s Asterios Polyp and Chris Ware.

I could definitely feel the early morning setting, and the way McNaught went about conveying the birds to the television commercials felt like something really special.

Who I think could win:
?Rainbow Moment,? by Lilli Carr?, in Heads or Tails (Fantagraphics)

The style of storytelling was very intriguing, and I enjoyed the constant journey further down the rabbit hole. Every character?s memory had a different color, in the end made for a very nice rainbow of sorts.

?

Who I think should have been nominated:
?Ghost for Hire,? by Geoff Johns and Jeff Lemire, in Ghosts (DC/Vertigo)

Two brothers, one living and one a ghost, scare people out of houses for cash. A very sweet and endearing story by Johns and Lemire, it?s nice to see these two working together outside of the superhero stuff.

Who do you think should win / been nominated?

Cameron Hatheway is the host of Cammy?s Comic Corner and Arts & Entertainment Editor of the Sonoma State STAR. You can illustrate your own short story starring him on Twitter @CamComicCorner.

Source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/17/countdown-to-the-eisners-by-cameron-hatheway-best-short-story/

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Continue reading »]]> New cell-based computers do division and logarithms the old-fashioned way

By Meghan Rosen

Web edition: May 17, 2013

Using a molecular dimmer switch that smoothly dials up glowing lights in bacteria, researchers can make calculators in living cells that add, subtract, divide, and even do logarithms.

These analog computations are much more powerful than those of previous, digital-based biological devices, says study author Timothy Lu, a synthetic biologist at MIT.

In biology and electronics, digital computers rely on simple on/off switches to perform calculations. More switches mean more computing power. ?Digital is great for electronics because we can put billions of switches together on a single chip,? Lu says. ?But it?s not so easy to do that in a cell.?

So Lu and his team designed a DNA-based circuit that can respond to gradual changes in a cell?s environment, rather than all-or-nothing signals.

By making bacteria glow more or less brightly depending on the number of different chemicals around, the new circuit can compute answers to math problems, Lu?s team reports May 15 in Nature. To add 1 plus 1, for example, the circuit would detect two chemicals and crank up the bacteria?s glow to ?2.?

The team?s new analog circuit could be useful in biomanufacturing, where, Lu says, engineers could fine-tune cellular production of insulin or other molecules.

Suggested Reading

M. Rosen. Biological transistor built for living computers. Science News. Vol. 183, May 4, 2013, p. 11. Available Online: [Go to]

A. Witze. Factory of Life. Science News. Vol. 183, January 12, 2013, p. 22. Available Online: [Go to]

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350549/title/News_in_Brief_Analog_circuits_boost_power_in_living_computers

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Gilded Moleskine Journal

Add some personality to your Moleskine by carving original gilded designs and pressing them against the journal. Head over to <a href=”http://www.designmom.com/2012/09/perfect-gift-gilded-moleskine-journal/” target=”_blank”>Design Mom</a> for the full tutorial.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/nail-polish-crafts_n_3268093.html

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Continue reading »]]> Shug McGaughey expecting Orb to continue winning streak ? Horseracing news

Shug McGaughey is hopeful that Orb will be able to continue his winning streak by claiming the Preakness Stakes (Grade 1) at Pimlico in the United States of America. The race is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 18, 2013.

At the moment, the young challenger has been given the best odds by different betting sites, which shows that he is definitely going to attract a lot of bets from the punters. However, he has not been rated as the outright favourite to succeed, which has disappointed his team to some extent.

Despite that, McGaughey is staying optimistic about the race and said, ?Obviously if I was going to pick the post, I wouldn’t have picked post one. But with only nine horses in there and with a rider like Joel [Rosario], he’s going to figure out what to do. He’ll have him in the right spot. I’m looking forward to Saturday afternoon.?

Orb started off his career in January this year and proved to be dominant in his first ever outing. He continued delivering good results over the next few months and is currently unbeaten with four race victories to his name.

Although the young stallion has got off to a great start to his career, it will be extremely difficult for him to maintain a 100 percent winning percentage. If he manages to do so, he will be rated right up there with the likes of Frankel and Black Caviar, who remained unbeaten in their respective careers before retiring to stud.

However, the three-year-old colt will have to battle hard in the upcoming event, which has attracted some fierce competitors.

This is not a worry for McGaughey though, as he stated, ?The one post here is different than the one post at Churchill Downs. It’s not going to be a concern. We’ve got an even-money shot in the Preakness. What more could I ask for??

The real challenge for Orb will be to weather the storm from Departing, who is quite a talented stallion and has been performing well too. Therefore, the competition will be an interesting one and the punters will have to place their bets carefully.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Shug-McGaughey-expecting-Orb-to-continue-winning-streak-Horseracing-news-a215414

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Continue reading »]]> Flavorful World?s Friday Fourplay offers up a bite-sized tidbit of info on each of the four food- and drink-related things we found most interesting each week.