ukrainian news: January 2013

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Algeria: 32 militants killed, with 23 hostages

Two British hostages Peter, left, and Alan, right, (no family name available), are seen after being released, in a street of Ain Amenas, near the gas plant where they have been kidnapped by Islamic militants, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013. Algeria's special forces stormed the natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert in a final assault Saturday, killing 11 militants, but not before they in turn killed seven hostages, the state news agency reported.(AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

This Nov. 29, 2012 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows the Amenas Gas Field in Algeria, which is jointly operated by BP and Norway's Statoil and Algeria's Sonatrach. Algerian special forces launched a rescue operation Thursday Jan. 17, 2013 at the plant in the Sahara Desert and freed foreign hostages held by al-Qaida-linked militants. The bloody three-day hostage standoff took a dramatic turn Friday as Algeria's state news service reported that nearly 100 of the 132 foreign workers kidnapped by Islamic militants had been freed. That number of hostages at the remote desert facility was significantly higher than any previous report, but it still left questions about the fate of over 30 other foreign energy workers. (AP Photo/DigitalGlobe)

Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is embraced by Executive Vice President in Statoil, Margrethe Oevrum, Saturday Jan. 19, 2013, after his visit at the drop-in center in Bergen for relatives of the Statoil-employees taken hostage in Algeria. In a bloody finale on Saturday, Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert to end a four-day standoff with Islamic extremists that left at least 19 hostages and 29 militants dead. With few details emerging from the remote site, it was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final operation. (AP Photo / Anette Karlsen, NTB scanpix) NORWAY OUT

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaks to the media during a news conference with the Secretary of State for Defense Philip Hammond, not pictured, at Lancaster House in London on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013. Britain's defense minister says it appears the hostage situation in Algeria has come to an end and resulted in further loss of life. Philip Hammond calls the loss of life appalling and unacceptable. He says "it is the terrorists that bear the sole responsibility for it." Hammond spoke at the start of a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) ? In a bloody finale, Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end a standoff with Islamist extremists that left at least 23 hostages dead and killed all 32 militants involved, the Algerian government said.

With few details emerging from the remote site in eastern Algeria, it was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final operation, but the number of hostages killed on Saturday ? seven ? was how many the militants had said that morning they still had. The government described the toll as provisional and some foreigners remained unaccounted for.

The siege at Ain Amenas transfixed the world after radical Islamists linked to al-Qaida stormed the complex, which contained hundreds of plant workers from all over the world, then held them hostage surrounded by the Algerian military and its attack helicopters for four tense days that were punctuated with gun battles and dramatic tales of escape.

Algeria's response to the crisis was typical of its history in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation, which caused an international outcry from countries worried about their citizens. Algerian military forces twice assaulted the two areas where the hostages were being held with minimal apparent mediation ? first on Thursday, then on Saturday.

"To avoid a bloody turn of events in response to the extreme danger of the situation, the army's special forces launched an intervention with efficiency and professionalism to neutralize the terrorist groups that were first trying to flee with the hostages and then blow up the gas facilities," Algeria's Interior Ministry said in a statement about the standoff.

Immediately after the assault, French President Francois Hollande gave his backing to Algeria's tough tactics, saying they were "the most adapted response to the crisis."

"There could be no negotiations" with terrorists, the French media quoted him as saying in the central French city of Tulle.

Hollande said the hostages were "shamefully murdered" by their captors, and he linked the event to France's military operation against al-Qaida-backed rebels in neighboring Mali. "If there was any need to justify our action against terrorism, we would have here, again, an additional argument," he said.

President Barack Obama said in a statement Saturday that the U.S. stood ready to provide whatever assistance was needed in the wake of the attack.

"This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al-Qaida and other violent extremist groups in North Africa. In the coming days, we will remain in close touch with the Government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place so that we can work together to prevent tragedies like this in the future," the statement said.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement condemning the militants' terrorist attack and said all perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of such "reprehensible acts" must be brought to justice.

In the final assault, the remaining band of militants killed the hostages before 11 of them were in turn cut down by the special forces, Algeria's state news agency said. The military launched its Saturday assault to prevent a fire started by the extremists from engulfing the complex and blowing it up, the report added.

A total of 685 Algerian and 107 foreigner workers were freed over the course of the four-day standoff, the ministry statement said, adding that the group of militants that attacked the remote Saharan natural gas complex consisted of 32 men of various nationalities, including three Algerians and explosives experts.

The military also said it confiscated heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades attached to suicide belts.

Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company running the Ain Amenas site along with BP and Norway's Statoil, said the entire refinery had been mined with explosives, and that the process of clearing it out is now under way.

Algeria has fought its own Islamist rebellion since the 1990s, elements of which later declared allegiance to al-Qaida and then set up new groups in the poorly patrolled wastes of the Sahara along the borders of Niger, Mali, Algeria and Libya, where they flourished.

The standoff has put the spotlight on these al-Qaida-linked groups that roam these remote areas, threatening vital infrastructure and energy interests. The militants initially said their operation was intended to stop a French attack on Islamist militants in neighboring Mali ? though they later said it was two months in the planning, long before the French intervention.

The militants, who came from a Mali-based al-Qaida splinter group run by an Algerian, attacked the plant Wednesday morning. Armed with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers in four-wheel drive vehicles, they fell on a pair of buses taking foreign workers to the airport. The buses' military escort drove off the attackers in a blaze of gunfire that sent bullets zinging over the heads of crouching workers. A Briton and an Algerian ? probably a security guard ? were killed.

The militants then turned to the vast gas complex, divided between the workers' living quarters and the refinery itself, and seized hostages, the Algerian government said. The gas flowing to the site was cut off.

Saturday's government statement said the militants came across the border from "neighboring countries," while the militants said they came from Niger, hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the south.

On Thursday, Algerian helicopters kicked off the military's first assault on the complex by opening fire on a convoy carrying both kidnappers and their hostages to stop them from escaping, resulting in many deaths, according to witnesses.

The accounts of hostages who escaped the standoff showed they faced dangers from both the kidnappers and the military.

Ruben Andrada, 49, a Filipino civil engineer who works as one of the project management staff for the Japanese company JGC Corp., described how he and his colleagues were used as human shields by the kidnappers, which did little to deter the Algerian military.

On Thursday, about 35 hostages guarded by 15 militants were loaded into seven SUVs in a convoy to move them from the housing complex to the refinery, Andrada said. The militants placed "an explosive cord" around their necks and were told it would detonate if they tried to run away, he said.

"When we left the compound, there was shooting all around," Andrada said, as Algerian helicopters attacked with guns and missiles. "I closed my eyes. We were going around in the desert. To me, I left it all to fate."

Andrada's vehicle overturned allowing him and a few others to escape. He sustained cuts and bruises and was grazed by a bullet on his right elbow. He later saw the blasted remains of other vehicles, and the severed leg of one of the gunmen.

The site of the gas plant spreads out over several hectares (acres) and includes a housing complex and the processing site, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) apart, making it especially complicated for the Algerians to secure the site and likely contributed to the lengthy standoff.

"It's a big and complex site. It's a huge place with a lot of people there and a lot of hiding places for hostages and terrorists," said Col. Richard Kemp, a retired commander of British forces who had dealt with hostage rescues in Iraq and Afghanistan. "These are experienced terrorists holding the hostages."

While the Algerian government has only admitted to 23 hostages dead so far, the militants claimed through the Mauritanian news website ANI that the helicopter attack alone killed 35 hostages.

One American, a Texan ? Frederick Buttaccio from the Houston suburb of Katy ? is among the dead.

President Barack Obama said in a statement Saturday that the U.S. stood ready to provide whatever assistance was needed in the wake of the attack.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday that a Frenchman killed, Yann Desjeux, was a former member of the French special forces and part of the security team. The remaining three French nationals who were at the plant are now free, the Foreign Ministry said.

The British government said Saturday it is trying to determine the fate of six people from Britain who are either dead or unaccounted for.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said, "There is no justification for taking innocent life in this way. Our determination is stronger than ever to work with allies right around the world to root out and defeat this terrorist scourge and those who encourage it."

The Norwegian government said there were five Norwegians unaccounted for.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said Saturday one Romanian hostage was killed in the course of the siege, while the Malaysian government said two of its citizens were still missing.

The attack by the Masked Brigade, founded by Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar, had been in the works for two months, a member of the brigade told the ANI news outlet. He said militants targeted Algeria because they expected the country to support the international effort to root out extremists in neighboring Mali and it was carried out by a special commando unit, "Those Who Signed in Blood," tasked with attacking nations supporting intervention in Mali.

The kidnappers focused on the foreign workers, largely leaving alone the hundreds of Algerian workers who were briefly held hostage before being released or escaping.

Several of them arrived haggard-looking on a late-night flight into Algiers on Friday and described how the militants stormed the living quarters and immediately separated out the foreigners.

Mohamed, a 37-year-old nurse who like the others wouldn't allow his last name to be used for fear of trouble for himself or his family, said at least five people were shot to death, their bodies still in front of the infirmary when he left Thursday night.

Chabane, an Algerian who worked in food services, said he bolted out the window and was hiding when he heard the militants speaking among themselves with Libyan, Egyptian and Tunisian accents. At one point, he said, they caught a Briton.

"They threatened him until he called out in English to his friends, telling them, 'Come out, come out. They're not going to kill you. They're looking for the Americans,'" Chabane said.

"A few minutes later, they blew him away."

_____

Paul Schemm reported from Rabat, Morocco. Associated Press writers Aomar Ouali in Algiers; Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines; Elaine Ganley in Paris; Sylvia Hui in London; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen; and Peter Spielmann at the U.N. contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-19-Algeria-Kidnapping/id-28c7b128446648f1b5b9791dcae032ca

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Allen Frances: Terrible News: DSM-5 Refuses to Reduce Overdiagnosis of 'Somatic Symptom Disorder'

Many of you will have read a previous blog prepared by Suzy Chapman and me that contained alarming information about the new DSM-5 diagnosis "somatic symptom disorder" (SSD).

DSM-5 defines SSD so over-inclusively that it will mislabel one in six people with cancer and heart disease, one in four with irritable bowel syndrom and fibromyalgia, and one in 14 who are not even medically ill.

I hoped to be able to influence the DSM-5 work group to correct this in two ways: 1) by suggesting improvements in the wording of the SSD criteria set that would reduce mislabeling, and 2) by letting them know how much opposition they would face from concerned professionals and an outraged public if DSM-5 failed to slam on the brakes while there was still time.

And many of you tried to help by making clear just how important this issue is in people's lives. The blog post got many tens of thousands of views, was reposted on 70 additional sites, was widely tweeted and posted on Facebook, and elicited more than 400 extremely well-informed and often passionate comments, unanimously in strong opposition.

We have failed, and DSM-5 has failed us. For reasons that I can't begin to fathom, DSM-5 has decided to proceed on its mindless and irresponsible course. The sad result will be the mislabeling of potentially millions of people with a fake mental disorder that is unsupported by science and flies in the face of common sense.

I suggested simple wording changes in the DSM-5 definition of SSD that would have tightened it significantly and reduced confusion at the difficult boundary between medical and mental illness. Na?vely I thought that my suggestions were so obviously necessary that DSM-5 would find them easy to accept and impossible to refuse.

The new criteria set would have made it much clearer that the person's concern about physical symptoms had to be "excessive, maladaptive, pervasive, persistent, intrusive, extremely anxiety-provoking, disproportionate and consuming enough time to cause significant disruption and impairment in daily life."

And I also suggested adding these new items to the criteria set to reduce the most common sources of inappropriate overdiagnosis of SSD:

"If a diagnosed medical condition is present, the thoughts, feelings and behaviors must be grossly in excess of what would be expected given the nature of the medical condition."
"If no medical diagnosis has yet been made, a thorough medical work-up should be performed and be repeated again at suitable intervals to uncover possible medical conditions that may declare themselves with the passage of time."
"The concern about physical symptoms should not be not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g., anxiety, depressive or psychotic disorder)."

Many of you would argue that I didn't go nearly far enough, that there should be no "somatic symptom disorder" at all in DSM-5 because there is no substantial body of evidence to support either its reliability or its validity. People who are concerned about medical problems would either not be diagnosed with any mental disorder or, when necessary, would get a much more benign and nonspecific diagnosis of "adjustment disorder."

I am sympathetic to this view, but I realized that it would have no traction with the work group, so I chose instead to lobby for what seemed to be clearly essential and relatively easy changes that would solve most, if not all, of the problem.

My goal was to make it almost impossible for DSM-5 to say "no" to what are obviously needed improvements. My suggestions were no more than standard stuff, just the typical exclusionary wording that has always been used in DSM criteria sets to encourage careful differential diagnosis and to reduce inaccurate overdiagnosis. Making the changes so easy was intended to be the carrot.

And I also brandished a stick. My letter cautioned DSM-5 that it was invading dangerous territory. Here was my warning to the DSM-5 work group:

"Clearly you have paid close attention only to the need to reduce false negatives but have not protected sufficiently against the serious problem of creating false positives. You are not alone in this blind spot; in my experience, inattention to false positive risk is an endemic problem for all experts in any field. But your prior oversight needs urgent correction before you go to press with a criteria set that is so unbalanced that it will cause grave harms."
"When psychiatric problems are misdiagnosed in the medically ill, the patients are stigmatized as 'crocks,' and the possible underlying medical causes of their problems are much more likely to be missed."
"Continuing with your current loose wording will be bad for the patients who are mislabeled and will also be extremely harmful to DSM-5, to APA and to your own professional reputations."

I also raised the point that this could lead to a boycott of DSM-5. Pretty strong stuff, I thought. But it was totally ineffective. DSM-5 remained blind to dangers and deaf to entreaties. Its startling failure to correct this obvious and harmful mistake is breathtakingly wrongheaded and exceeds even my most pessimistic expectations about DSM-5's lack of competence and credibility.

Suzy Chapman is not surprised. For three years she has been engaged in a determined effort to educate professionals and the public about the problems in DSM-5 and has been doing her best to help correct them. Her website provides the most complete documentation of everything related to DSM-5 and ICD-11.

Ms Chapman writes:

Unfortunately, the DSM 5 invitation for comments from the field turned out to be no more than an empty public relations show. For the second stakeholder review of DSM 5 draft criteria, the SSD disorder section attracted more submissions than almost any other section. Yet still the Work Group barreled blindly on with suggestions that were roundly opposed as hurtful to the medically ill -- shrugging off criticism from professionals and remaining completely unreceptive to advocacy organization and patient concern.
For its third draft, rather than revise in favor of less inclusive criteria, the Work Group's response was to lower the threshold even further -- reducing the requirement for "at least two from the B type criteria" to just one -- placing even more medical patients at risk of attracting an inappropriate mental health diagnosis.
Many years ago, the late Thomas Szasz said: "In the days of the Malleus, if the physician could find no evidence of natural illness, he was expected to find evidence of witchcraft: today, if he cannot diagnose organic illness, he is expected to diagnose mental illness." DSM 5's loosely defined Somatic Symptom Disorder is Szasz worst fear come true.

Thank you, Ms Chapman. I think Szasz' general critique of psychiatry was far too broad, but he certainly did hit the nail right on the head when it comes to DSM-5 and its cavalier treatment of the medically ill. The DSM-5 debacle is a sad moment in the history of psychiatry. Patients deserve better, and so does the profession of psychiatry.

The American Psychiatric Association has proven itself incompetent to produce a safe and scientifically sound diagnostic system. Psychiatric diagnosis has become too important in people's lives to be left in the hands of one small and insulated professional organization. It is time for a change. Toni Bernhard has interesting thoughts on this.

My heart goes out to all those who will be mislabeled with this misbegotten diagnosis. And I regret and apologize for my failure to be more effective.

Allen Frances is a professor emeritus at Duke University and was the chairman of the DSM-IV task force.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/terrible-news-dsm-5-refus_b_2473321.html

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Vision Of Career & Technical Education - Phd Dissertation Writing ...

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Source: http://botadorilao.blogspot.com/2013/01/vision-of-career-technical-education.html

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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Design Some Awesome Business Cards This Weekend

Design Some Awesome Business Cards This Weekend Whether business cards are irrelevant or not, they're definitely a cool way to express yourself and easily provide your information. If you're looking to make some cool cards, set aside a few hours this weekend and use these resources to help.

Design a Good Card

Design Some Awesome Business Cards This Weekend A well-designed business card doesn't take much. Ideally you want one that's clean and simple with enough white space, good font choices, and something specific to you. If you're not a designer, that's okay. We have a typeface and layout guide for non-designers to help you out. If you just can't get the design right, you can always consider using a service like Fiverr which has plenty of people offering to design your cards for $5. It might be harder to get something unique when it's not coming from you, but if your design skills are awful and you don't have the time to learn some new ones it'll be $5 well-spent.

Get Your Cards Printed

Design Some Awesome Business Cards This Weekend Even if you design a good card, it won't look so great if you don't take it to a good printer. Personally, I like Moo and so do you. They're great because you can get a shorter run (50 and up, so you're not stuck with hundreds of cards you don't need) and the quality is superb. Moo also offers a lot of free, really nice pre-made designs if you're just not happy with the one you came up with. Of course, you'll pay more per card with Moo so you might want to check out other options if you need a lot and want them for less. I've always gotten great results with 48 Hour Print, a place not on the list. Their digital printing leaves a lot to be desired, but if you order 500 cards their offset printing is very nice. They're also very quick and offer nice features like rounded corners for free. Regardless of what you pick, consider requesting samples first so you know what to expect. It sucks to order a bunch of cards with high hopes and end up with a big box of disappointments instead.

Set Up an Online Page to Pair with Your Cards

Design Some Awesome Business Cards This Weekend Although we're fond of Flavors.me or rolling your own personal landing page, About.me offers free printed business cards (you just pay shipping) that match and link to your page via QR code. Of course, there are many other options as well. The important thing is to have some kind of online presence along with your card. Not only does it help your search rankings, but it gives people a place to go when they want to find out more about the person behind the business card. If you want more resources to help you establish an online web presence to pair with your card, check out this guide.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/q1TqXKu9PGg/design-some-awesome-business-cards-this-weekend

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Algeria army takes hard line in militant battle

AIN AMENAS, Algeria (AP) ? The militants had filled five jeeps with hostages and begun to move when Algerian government attack helicopters opened up on them, leaving four in smoking ruins. The fifth vehicle crashed, allowing an Irish hostage inside to clamber out to safety with an explosive belt still strapped around his neck.

Three days into the crisis at a natural gas plant deep in the Sahara, it remained unclear how many had perished in the faceoff between Africa's most uncompromising militant group and the region's most ruthless military.

By Friday, around 100 of the 135 foreign workers on the site had been freed and 18 of an estimated 30 kidnappers had been slain, according to the Algerian government, still leaving a major hostage situation centered on the plant's main refinery.

The government said 12 workers, both foreign and Algerian, were confirmed dead. But the extremists have put the number at 35. And the government attack Thursday on the convoy ? as pieced together from official, witness and news media accounts ? suggested the death toll could go higher.

In Washington, U.S. officials said one American ? a Texan ? was known to have died.

Meanwhile, the al-Qaida-linked Masked Brigade behind the operation offered to trade two American hostages for two terrorists behind bars in the U.S., including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing ? a deal the U.S. rejected out of hand.

"The United States does not negotiate with terrorists," declared State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

The remote Ain Amenas plant, jointly run by BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's state-owned oil company, is deep in the featureless desert. The Algerian government has released few details about the continuing siege.

By Friday, however, the outlines of the takeover by Islamic militants were coming into focus. The attack had been in the works for two months, a member of the Masked Brigade told an online Mauritanian news outlet that often carries al-Qaida-related announcements. The band of attackers included militants from Algeria, Mali, Egypt, Niger, Mauritania and Canada, he said.

He said militants targeted Algeria because they expected the country to support the international effort to root out extremists in neighboring Mali.

Instead of passing through Algeria's relatively well-patrolled deserts, the attackers came in from southern Libya, where there is little central government and smugglers have long reigned supreme, according to Algeria's Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila.

He said the attackers consisted of about 30 men armed with rocket launchers and machine guns and under the direct supervision of the Masked Brigade's founder himself, Moktar Belmoktar, a hardened, one-eyed Algerian militant who has battled the Algerian government for years and went on to build a Saharan smuggling and kidnapping empire linked to al-Qaida.

Early Wednesday morning, they crept across the border, 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the natural gas plant, and fell on a pair of buses taking foreign workers to the airport. The buses' military escort drove off the attackers in a blaze of gunfire that sent bullets zinging over the heads of the crouching workers. A Briton and an Algerian, probably a security guard, were killed.

Frustrated, the militants turned to the vast gas complex, divided between the workers' living quarters and the refinery itself, and seized hostages, the Algerian government said.

The takeover soon turned into a standoff as military units from a nearby base surrounded the complex.

Algerians interviewed by French radio described militants knocking down doors in the living quarters, saying they were looking for foreigners. The foreign workers, including Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians and Japanese, were separated from the Algerians and kept under close guard, wrapped with explosive belts. The Algerians for the most part were allowed to wander freely around the complex, and some were released, according to the state news agency.

Alexandre Berceaux, a Frenchman who was later rescued by Algerian soldiers, described two harrowing days of confusion hiding in his room as Algerian colleagues supplied him with food.

"I stayed hidden in my room for almost 40 hours," he told Europe 1 radio, saying he hid under the bed and didn't even realize when his ordeal was over.

The militants declared that the takeover was prompted by France's attacks on al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, and they demanded that the intervention end or the hostages would pay for it.

That night, Kabila, Algeria's top security official, announced that in accordance to Algeria's longstanding policy, "we reject all negotiations with the group." Despite regular elections, Algeria is run by a coterie of generals and ruling party leaders who got the country through a bloody, decade-long Islamist rebellion with brutal tactics that earned them the nickname "the eradicators."

On Thursday afternoon, Algerian military forces saw a five- jeep convoy moving from one part of the complex to another. Fearing the kidnappers were trying to make a break for it, they sent attack helicopters into action.

Irish electrician Stephen McFaul was in that convoy and made it out alive as the world exploded around him.

"Four of the jeeps were taken out and everybody in them was killed," McFaul's brother, Brian, told the Irish Times. "The jeep my brother was in crashed and my brother made break for it," with a belt of explosives strapped around his neck.

The kidnappers called the Mauritanian news service ANI to say that 35 hostages and 15 of their fighters had been killed in the bloodbath ? a figure that was impossible to confirm. The kidnappers told ANI that they were just trying to consolidate hostages into a single location when the Algerians attacked.

By Thursday night, the state news agency announced that the assault was over and that special forces had secured the plant, but the next day it would emerge that they had taken only the living quarters. The hostages and their kidnappers remained ensconced in the refinery.

An international outcry mounted over the Algerians' handling of the crisis. Experts noted that this is how they have always dealt with terrorists.

"It's the Russian training for dealing with terrorism," said Matieu Guidere, a longtime expert on al-Qaida and Algeria. "The message is: We will terrorize the terrorists. ... This is clear. The life of hostages is nothing in the balance."

The Algerian government insisted it had to intervene to prevent a catastrophe.

In Washington, the Obama administration said it was trying to secure the release of Americans held by the militants. It would not say how many there were.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended Algeria.

"Let's not forget: This is an act of terror," she said. "The perpetrators are the terrorists. They are the ones who have assaulted this facility, have taken hostage Algerians and others from around the world as they were going about their daily business."

____

Schemm reported from Rabat. Associated Press writers Sarah DiLorenzo and Elaine Ganley in Paris and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Ireland, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/algeria-army-takes-hard-line-militant-battle-233713380.html

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NBA to Seattle: Why no deal yet for the Kings?

by CHRIS DANIELS / KING 5 News

Bio | Email | Follow: @ChrisDaniels5

KING5.com

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 5:37 PM

Updated today at 6:04 PM

SEATTLE ?- It's been more than a week. Still no deal.

Chris Hansen, the man leading the charge to bring professional basketball back to Seattle, has not finalized a deal to buy the Sacramento Kings.

It appears no announcement is imminent, despite multiple reports that Hansen was close to acquiring the team, which would play in a new, $490 million arena complex to be built in Seattle's stadium district. The lack of new information about where negotiations stand has frustrated fans in Sacramento and Seattle alike.

But the situation may be clearer than it appears. Indications are that both sides are in an ?exclusive negotiating agreement,? which is a common practice in large transactions.

?It?s pretty common to do that, because you don?t want things to drag out, and go on and on,? said Joe Phillips, the Dean of Seattle University?s Albers Business School.? ?You don?t want to be (negotiating) in public, in the news media, no offense intended.?

Phillips said such an agreement ?means a deal is closer to being done, more viable. It?s more likely to get done. It?s not necessarily a final step, and doesn?t mean a deal will 100 percent get done.?

Both sides are likely under a non-disclosure agreement, which prevent the dealmakers from shedding light on the status of the negotiations.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, appearing in London prior to a league game on Thursday, also claimed the deal was not done.

?The one thing we do know is that no purchase and sale agreement has been submitted to us, and we assume if one were going to be executed, the next thing they would do is submit it to us,? Stern said, as he also suggested Sacramento would get a shot to match any deal.

?There's been lots of speculation. The mayor of Sacramento has asked me, 'Well, if it comes to pass because we've been reading it in the newspapers' -- and he knows that anything he reads in the newspapers is likely to be accurate -- 'could I come in and address the Board of Governors or the relocation committee?' And I said, 'Always. The communities have supported us and many that haven't, but Sacramento has been particularly supportive, are always welcome to present.'?

Stern also admitted he?s had several conversations with Hansen and Seattle leaders.

?The mayor of Seattle came in some time ago and told us that he was in favor of having a team, and we always entertain mayors, even for cities that don't have teams. (Hansen) ... has been in to have talks with us. So we've been ... more or less in a series of communications, but right now we don't know anything in terms of actionable plans.?

The NBA?s relocation filing deadline is March 1, and any deal would likely need to wrapped up well before then.

Source: http://www.king5.com/home/NBA-to-Seattle-Why-no-deal-yet-for-the-Kings-187385961.html

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Friday, January 18, 2013

Bernal hits Sundance to share tragic border story

Actor Gael Garcia Bernal, left, and director Marc Silver are interviewed at the premiere of "Who Is Dayani Cristal?" during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)

Actor Gael Garcia Bernal is interviewed at the premiere of "Who Is Dayani Cristal?" during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)

This undated publicity photo released by the Sundance Institute shows a scene from the film, "Who is Dayani Cristal," included in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. (AP Photo/Sundance Institute, Marc Silver)

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ? Gael Garcia Bernal has journeyed north to the Sundance Film Festival to share the tragic story of another traveler.

The Mexican actor is a producer on the immigration documentary "Who Is Dayani Cristal?", in which Bernal also appears on-screen to dramatize the path that the film's subject took to the United States.

Bernal and director Marc Silver sought to unravel the mystery of a body found rotting in the Arizona desert in August 2010. The man bore the tattoo "Dayani Cristal" across his chest.

The films blends interviews and conventional documentary segments with Bernal's travels through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to reveal the circumstances that led the man on a 2,000-mile trek that ended in the desert. And it provides a tearful answer for its title when it reveals the identity of Dayani Cristal.

Bernal and Silver said the intent was to put a human face on one of the anonymous hundreds who have died in the Arizona desert seeking better lives in the United States.

Americans often think the trail of illegal immigration begins in Mexico just south of the border, but the film recounts a perilous journey on rafts, along remote trails and on the top of trains. Migrants can fall asleep and tumble off train cars to their deaths. Gangs might rob, abduct or kill them. And they face the constant chance of being caught and sent back home ? where, as one migrant along the way tells Bernal, they simply start all over again.

"We hear about this or we see it from a distance, but it's very rare you get to see it from firsthand experience," Bernal told the film's audience after a Friday screening, the day after it premiered as part of the 11-day festival's opening-night lineup.

The film reveals the story of a man with a wife and three young children, a hard worker who toiled in corn and bean fields but had made repeated trips across the border to find better work to support his family.

The documentary also captures a cruel irony: once it's been identified, the body is sent by plane back home at the Honduran government's expense, a trip of a few hours compared to the 58-day trek it took to reach Arizona.

"Who Is Dayani Cristal?" is one of 16 entries in the 11-day festival's world documentary competition.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-01-18-Film-Sundance-Dayani%20Cristal/id-6f648044b9ed48498119e04fb7788714

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Lessons from Rwanda: Talking about genocide in church

From my time in Rwanda, I saw that people don't like to talk about the genocide in their recent past. Then I heard a church sermon there whose universal message of 'life after mass death' seemed perfectly fitted for a country full of one-time perpetrators and families of the murdered.

By William Collins Donahue / January 18, 2013

Christine Uwimana stands inside the home that she shares with her mother, Madamu Theresa (seated), in Kigali, Rwanda, March 21, 2009. Uwimana is a survivor of the 1994 genocide. Op-ed contributor William Collins Donahue worked at the Shoah Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the stories of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators. He asks: 'Why is no such project underway in Rwanda now, while the memory is still fresh??

Mary Knox Merril/The Christian Science Monitor

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Officially, I?m here to study genocide memorials. Unofficially, I?m here to visit my wife, who is on a one-year assignment with a USAID-funded project run by the Rwandan Ministry of Health. She, along with dozens of other nurses, doctors, and health-care educators, is valiantly attempting to raise the level of health care in a country that largely lacks the infrastructure necessary to make good use of their high-level skills. But they all keep trying. Every day my wife makes her way to one of the many under-served hospitals in this beautiful ?land of a thousand hills,? each with a murderous past.

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I?ve spent a lot of my scholarly career examining how Germans have come to terms with the Holocaust. In ?Germany Confronts the Holocaust,? a course I teach at Duke University, I always tell my students it is important to know what is to be commemorated before thinking about the how. Moving too quickly to aesthetic or ideological considerations of remembrance can distract from the underlying crime against humanity. So I always take them first to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. I want them to get the ?what? straight first.

Following my own advice, then, I made a visit with my daughter to the Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda?s capital, Kigali. It is built, like so much else here, into the side of beautiful rolling foothills and is stunning for reasons I didn?t expect. It doesn?t add a whole lot to the horrific story many already know about the 1994 genocide in which almost 1 million Tutsis were murdered by the majority Hutu population. No one knows exactly how many were murdered; the Hutus were not as into record-keeping as the German SS.

What strikes you when you exit the cramped, dark exhibit is an opening to beautiful terraced gardens, complete with a gift shop and caf?. You are actually standing at the site of mass graves, but the adjoining wall features just a few names. Was it, like so much else in Kigali, still under construction, we wondered? But then we felt it, the jarring weight of the large blank spaces where the names of the dead should have been. Nobody knows their names.

When I was a graduate student, I worked for a short time with the Shoah Foundation, the documentary group inspired by Steven Spielberg in the wake of his unforgettable 1993 film ?Shindler?s List? (1993) dedicated to preserving the stories of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators.

Why is no such project underway in Rwanda now, while the memory is still fresh? What I hear again and again here is that Rwandans are still (and understandably) deeply traumatized; they don?t want to talk about it, and certainly not with a strange Mzungu (white person). Kigali is overrun with do-good Mzungu nongovernmental organizations, and I?ve met with many dedicated, hard working, and sometimes despairing expats. None has anything conclusive to say about how Rwandans are coming to terms with the genocide. You get plenty of anecdotes and speculation, but answers are hard to come by. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/pHYKvsf2Eqc/Lessons-from-Rwanda-Talking-about-genocide-in-church

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Business Center and Serviced Office News, Tips and Articles ...

Published Thursday, January 17th, 2013, by Mike Sullivan.

Workspace design at The Office Group, London

Workplace trends come and go ? but many of them impact business centers as they do. Savvy business center operators are keeping tabs on workplace trends and seeking ways to leverage them to better serve clients.

With that in mind, Officing Today is kicking off a series of articles looking at some of the most relevant workplace trends for 2013 and how your business center can tap onto those trends to build your business.

In part one of this series, we?re looking at a key trend Sodexo, a world leader in quality of daily life solutions, identified: the built environment?s crucial role in organization performance.

The Crucial Role of Office Space
According to Sodexo, employers increasingly recognize the importance of the built environment in promoting better health, quality of life, and work-related engagement among their employees.

Sodexo interviewed two leaders in the field about the impact that environmental factors can have on employee health and engagement, and the role these outcomes play in supporting organizational performance. In those discussions, both LuAnn Heinen, vice president at National Business Group on Health and Richard Kadzis, vice president of Strategic Communications at CoreNet, concluded that environmental changes could strongly support employers? efforts to improve employees? health behaviors.

?Specifically, tactics that enhance the physical environment of the workplace, ensure its safety, and provide a wide range of programs that help employees manage work-life balance issues have a positive impact on employee health and engagement,? Sodexo says. ?These outcomes bring about improved employee performance and effectiveness, which ultimately translates into long-term organizational success.?

Enhancing the Physical Environment
Business center operators that want to tap into the built environment?s crucial role in organizational performance should study up on ways to enhance the physical environment. That may mean including more open space, moving toward green offices, or redesigning the traffic flow of the interior. It could also mean updating old furniture and equipment or providing ergonomic accessories.

Business center operators can also invest in educating companies on how alternative workspace can help facilitate work-life balance. There are plenty of studies out there to validate the claim ? and we?ve covered many of them. Savvy business centers roll those data points into their marketing messages and actively reach out to prospects with clear messages on how executive office suites, alternative office space, day offices, and meeting rooms can help employees achieve greater work-life balance.

Stay tuned for part two of this series on workplace trends and how they can benefit your business center.

Image shows interior of The Office Group?s Warnford Court, City of London

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan is an entrepreneur and marketing professional who tries to keep things humming along as best as possible. From time to time, he updates Officing Today, but mostly he can be found on Skype talking with someone about virtual offices. Connect with Mike Sullivan on LinkedIn.

Source: http://www.officingtoday.com/2013/01/how-your-business-center-design-can-drive-productivity/

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Choice of partner affects health

Jan. 16, 2013 ? Individuals tend to choose partners of equal socio-economic status. This factor may also be significant in terms of health.

"Married and common-law couples often share similar attitudes, behaviour and levels of education. Our study revealed that this tendency can exacerbate social inequality related to health," explains doctoral fellow, Sara Marie Nilsen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.

Sara Marie Nilsen has examined the significance of differences in education and how this relates to the individual's subjective perception of his or her own health in general, and of anxiety and depression in particular, among the nearly 19,000 Norwegian couples who participated in the Nord-Tr?ndelag health study (HUNT). HUNT is a very large longitudinal population health study carried out in Norway. Ms Nilsen's doctoral research project is funded under the Research Programme on Public Health (FOLKEHELSE) at the Research Council of Norway.

Lower education, poorer health

"Our findings show that spouses and partners often have a similar perception of their health status. Sharing the same level of education may be a factor behind this correlation. The highly educated are often healthier than people with lower levels of education," states Ms Nilsen.

However, her thesis also indicates that the individual's health is directly affected by the education of the partner. For example, individuals with a lower level of education will feel healthier if they live together with someone with a higher education.

"It is also turns out that partners with different levels of education share a fairly similar perception of their health," Sara Marie Nilsen explains.

Social inequality as a health factor

Social inequality is one of the FOLKEHELSE programme's four thematic priority areas. Research activities take as their point of departure the fact that the higher our social status, the better our health, and vice-versa. Factors such as income, occupation and education play a pivotal role in whether a person will develop cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic illness or the like.

Ms Nilsen has chosen education as a measure of socio-economic standing since educational background forms the basis for an individual's work life and subsequent level of income, and is also the key to social status.

Her findings indicate that the higher a couple's combined status, the healthier each of them will be. The opposite also holds true; the lower their combined status, the poorer their individual health.

Research on couples provides new insight

Two out of three Norwegians live together in relationships. It can be difficult to explain social inequality in health, especially for women, without taking into consideration the impact partners have on each other. Social position can also affect children's health.

Previously, health research has primarily focused on individual risk. Examining partners and spouses as a unit is a relatively new approach in this context.

"Health researchers would benefit from focusing more attention on the social contexts we live in, as couples, families and households. This is precisely where the majority of us spend most of our time," Ms Nilsen points out.

"Social inequalities in health have been, and remain, a sensitive topic. Researchers are apprehensive about amplifying the feeling of failure among those who are struggling to begin with," says Steinar Westin, professor of social medicine at NTNU.

"But it doesn't help to stick your head in the sand. We have to learn more about how these factors really play out in order to be able to address our problems and subsequently do something about it," he believes.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Research Council of Norway.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Sara Marie Nilsen, Johan H?kon Bj?rngaard, Linda Ernstsen, Steinar Krokstad, Steinar Westin. Education-based health inequalities in 18,000 Norwegian couples:the Nord-Tr[latin small letter o with stroke]ndelag health study. BMC Public Health, 2012; 12 (1): 998 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-998

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/1HnvHvrjjF4/130116090132.htm

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Algerian hostage crisis heightens as scores are reported dead

According to Algerian news sources, some 30 Algerians and 15 foreigners have escaped the natural gas field, and another 35 hostages have reportedly died in an airstrike.

By Arthur Bright,?Staff writer / January 17, 2013

This undated image, released Jan. 16, 2013, by British Petroleum, shows the Amenas natural gas field in the eastern central region of Algeria, where Islamist militants raided and took hostages Wednesday.

BP/AP

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? A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Skip to next paragraph Arthur Bright

Europe Editor

Arthur Bright is the Europe Editor at The Christian Science Monitor.? He has worked for the Monitor in various capacities since 2004, including as the Online News Editor and a regular contributor to the Monitor's Terrorism & Security blog.? He is also a licensed Massachusetts attorney.

MARTIN LUTHER King Jr. Parade

When:

January 21, 2013
02:00 PM to 04:00 PM

Description:

MARTIN LUTHER King Jr. Parade will be held Jan. 21 at 2 p.m. in downtown Statesboro. The Community Service Program will immediately follow at Tabernacle Baptist Church, Bulloch Street, with Jonathan McCollar as speaker. For more information call Pearl Brown at (912) 839-3321.

Source: http://community.statesboroherald.com/events/detail/23377/

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year

This undated photo provided by the family shows Max Schwolert. The 6-foot-4, 17-year-old Texas high school senior grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29, 2012. Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004. (AP Photo)

NEW YORK (AP) ? How bad is this flu season, exactly? Look to the children.

Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004.

But while such a tally is tragic, that does not mean this year will turn out to be unusually bad. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not yet clear the nation will reach that total.

The deaths this year have included a 6-year-old girl in Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high school senior Max Schwolert, who grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays.

"He was kind of a gentle giant" whose death has had a huge impact on his hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil Schwolert, the Texas boy's uncle.

Health officials only started tracking pediatric flu deaths nine years ago, after media reports called attention to children's deaths. That was in 2003-04 when the primary flu germ was the same dangerous flu bug as the one dominating this year. It also was an earlier than normal flu season.

The government ultimately received reports of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from 40 states, and most of them had occurred by the beginning of January. But the reporting was scattershot. So in October 2004, the government started requiring all states to report flu-related deaths in kids.

Other things changed, most notably a broad expansion of who should get flu shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season, flu shots were only advised for children ages 6 months to 2 years.

That didn't help 4-year-old Amanda Kanowitz, who one day in late February 2004 came home from preschool with a cough and died less than three days later. Amanda was found dead in her bed that terrible Monday morning, by her mother.

"The worst day of our lives," said her father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan attorney who went on to found a vaccine-promoting group called Families Fighting Flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gradually expanded its flu shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6 months and older were urged to get the vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate for kids grew from under 10 percent back then to around 40 percent today.

Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful. Roughly 130 million doses have been distributed this season, compared to 83 million back then. Public education seems to be better, too, Kanowitz observed.

The last unusually bad flu season for children, was 2009-10 ? the year of the new swine flu, which hit young people especially hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flu-related deaths of kids had been reported since the previous August.

It's been difficult to compare the current flu season to those of other winters because this one started about a month earlier than usual.

Look at it this way: The nation is currently about five weeks into flu season, as measured by the first time flu case reports cross above a certain threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn't five weeks into its flu season until early February, and at that point there were 30 pediatric flu deaths ? or 10 more than have been reported at about the same point this year. That suggests that when the dust settles, this season may not be as bad as the one only two years ago.

But for some families, it will be remembered as the worst ever.

In Maine, 6-year-old Avery Lane ? a first-grader in Benton who had recently received student-of-the-week honors ? died in December following a case of the flu, according to press reports. She was Maine's first pediatric flu death in about two years, a Maine health official said.

In Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School student was the state's fourth pediatric flu death this year, according to published reports.

And in Texas, the town of Flower Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy, lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and taught Sunday school at the church where his father was a youth pastor.

Late last month, he and his family drove 16 hours to spend the holidays with his grandparents in Amery, Wis., a small town near the Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.

He'd been accepted to Oklahoma State University before the Christmas trip. And an acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota arrived in Texas while Max was sick in Minnesota, his uncle said.

Nearly 1,400 people attended a memorial service for Max two weeks ago in Texas.

"He exuded care and love for other people," Phil Schwolert said.

"The bottom line is take care of your kids, be close to your kids," he said.

On average, an estimated 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who are elderly and with certain chronic health conditions are generally at greatest risk from flu and its complications.

The current vaccine is about 60 percent effective, and is considered the best protection available. Max Schwolert had not been vaccinated, nor had the majority of the other pediatric deaths.

Even if kids are vaccinated, parents should be watchful for unusually severe symptoms, said Lyn Finelli of the CDC.

"If they have influenza-like illness and are lethargic, or not eating, or look punky ? or if a parent's intuition is the kid doesn't look right and they're alarmed ? they need to call the doctor and take them to the doctor," she advised.

___

CDC advice on kids: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-01-15-Flu-Children's%20Deaths/id-39081b9f7de34d62959899b167e2f2af

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JG Wentworth Means Quality Customer Service | Hakeshet Business ...

Only companies that know how to handle customer concerns well are granted with the highest Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating of A+. This means companies with such remark have been maintaining flawless customer service and assuring client satisfaction.

There are at least five factors BBB consider in giving ratings to businesses, and these are:

The Length of time the business has been operating
The volume of complaints filed with BBB for the business of particular size
Ability to respond to complaints
Ability to resolve complaints
Background information on the business

Many financial services company in the United States are accredited by BBB but not all have favorable remarks. One of the few companies with outstanding record is JG Wentworth. According to BBB, this financial services company has an A+ rating because of its exceptional customer relations and service. According to the BBB, the company received such high remark because it ?meets BBB accreditation standards, which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints. BBB Accredited Businesses pay a fee for accreditation review/monitoring and for support of BBB services to the public.?

Having a solid BBB score is not only the advantage of JG from its competitors. The unmatched services of the company are first and foremost its banner. For years, the company has maintained fluid and seamless services to structured settlement payments and annuities sellers. It is the trusted partner of thousands of Americans selling their structure settlement because it never fails to cope with the challenges and demands of the market, and of course ? its clients.

The company has had a humble beginning. It started in 1991 as a merchant bank and shifted to purchasing structured settlement payments and annuities in the later part of the decade. It became a staple player in the industry after producing unique and witty television commercials. A JG Wentworth commercial is renowned for providing straightforward and simple information that viewers and consumers should know of. Because of this, many interested clients easily learned the services of the company; thus, making it an important player in the financial services industry.

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Source: http://www.hakeshet.org/business-news/jg-wentworth-means-quality-customer-service-780.html

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U.S. troops might be sent to Mali and surrounding countries - Defense officials

January 15, 2013 by legitgov

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U.S. troops might be sent to Mali and surrounding countries - Defense officials --U.S. moves to bolster French military campaign in Mali 14 Jan 2013 The Obama administration is preparing to ferry hundreds of additional French troops to the North African country of Mali, bolstering a rapidly evolving military campaign in the latest conflict with Al Qaeda affiliates. U.S. officials said they also were making plans to send drones or other surveillance aircraft and provide help with aerial refueling of French fighter jets, which bombed columns of Al Qaeda[al-CIAduh]-allied militants in northern Mali for a fourth straight day Monday. Defense officials said small numbers of U.S. troops might be sent to Mali and surrounding countries but that they would be limited to a support role.

Source: http://www.legitgov.org/US-troops-might-be-sent-Mali-and-surrounding-countries-Defense-officials

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Silver Lake reportedly in buyout talks with Dell

8 hrs.

Nadia Damouni and Poornima Gupta

Talks to take Dell Inc private are at an advanced stage with at least four major banks lined up to provide financing, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, propelling shares of the No. 3 computer maker 7 percent higher.?

Buyout firm Silver Lake Partners, which is leading the deal, tapped Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays and RBC late last year to finance a potential deal, the sources said on condition of anonymity, because details have not been made public.?

JPMorgan is advising Dell on a potential buyout of the $19 billion company, which would be one of the largest deals since the global recession. It will also allow Dell, which has been trying to become a one-stop shop for corporate technology needs as the PC market shrinks, to conduct that difficult makeover away from public scrutiny.?

Silver Lake is working with one of its major investors, known as limited partners, the sources said. Its involvement was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.?

The sources cautioned that a deal could come soon but that the situation was still fluid.?

Dell, Bank of America, RBC, Barclays and Credit Suisse declined to comment. JP Morgan and Silver Lake did not immediately return calls seeking comment.?

Dell, which has been in talks with private equity firms on a potential buyout, has had on and off discussions with the firms but talks heated up late last year, they said.?

A deal involves equity investment from billionaire CEO Michael Dell, who owns 14 percent of the world's No. 3 PC maker. Dell, America's 22nd richest person according to Forbes, invests and manages his fortune through MSD Capital.?

Michael Dell now owns 244 million shares in the company, according to Thomson Reuters data, and last year was ranked the 22nd richest American with a fortune of $14.6 billion.?

Dell's stock closed up 7.2 percent at $13.17 on Nasdaq.?

News of a potential deal caught many industry participants by surprise, many of whom find it difficult to understand the investment thesis of the private equity investors behind such a move.?

Dell has lost 40 percent of its value since last year's peak. It has embarked on an aggressive investment strategy to diversify away from its core PC business.?

It may be easier to pull off acquisitions as a private company and away from Wall Street scrutiny, said one private equity executive with experience in buyouts but not involved in the Dell deal.?

Having a private equity investor could also facilitate access to debt markets, with Dell also benefiting from all the contacts a major private equity outfit could bring to the table, the person said.?

Beyond that, many analysts and executives said that the potential deal is mainly one based on Dell's low valuation.?

Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi had speculated that Dell was worth $12 a share on a sum-of-parts basis, of which the PC business was worth about $4.70.?

Still, any deal is challenging mostly because of its sheer size and lackluster prospects for a PC market that's dwindling with the advent of tablets such as Apple Inc's iPad, according to analysts.?

The odds of a buyout "are probably low, given its size and our expectation that it may require about $4 billion in equity," Sacconaghi said.?

"We see the rationale for a Dell (leveraged buyout) as being largely opportunistic given low valuation and interest rates, as we don't see any obvious restructuring opportunities or unique exit strategy," he said.?

Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes said going private would also mean Dell would increase its already large debt load, which currently stands at approximately $9 billion, making it tougher to acquire smaller companies. Such a move made sense only "if Dell's earnings power was stable - and backed by real recurring revenues."?

"Obviously, with Michael Dell's ownership of $3 billion and net worth of about $14.6 billion the possibility of a go-private transaction cannot be ruled out," he said.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/silver-lake-reportedly-advanced-talks-dell-1B7986180

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A Rough Estimate Of Taking Dell Private - Business Insider

Now that the Street knows that Dell Computers is considering taking itself private, it's time to consider what a big deal like that could look like.

Bloomberg broke the news that the struggling hardware company is talking to banks and private equity firms about possibly going private.

In Q3, it missed analyst estimates that it would generate $13.9 billion in revenue, coming in at $13.7 billion. According to Gartner, PC sales were down 5% over the holidays.

So how would the doctors of Wall Street deal with this patient? To buy the company from shareholders, they would do a standard private equity leveraged buyout ? a deal in which the purchasing price of a company is financed by equity and debt.

Industry folks told Business Insider that the deal would likely require two big players in the private equity space (Think: KKR, Blackstone, TPG) going in on the deal together ? a "club deal."

What PE investors see when they look at Dell is a cheap company with $11 billion in cash and good cash flow.

"The question is 'how fast is the decline?'" one analyst told Business Insider. "People aren't buying PCs anymore... You would need to write a $5 billion equity check."

That check would lever the company 4 times and puts the purchasing price at $13.00 per share (it's currently trading at $12.60).

Michael Dell owns 16% of the company, and that could make the deal easier for PE firms, but currently the company is levered 2x ? it's holding some debt that would require refinancing ? so the deal would need to include that.

"It's a stable business with great cash flow... would de-lever pretty quickly," the analyst continued. "Plus PE firms bring leaner management and operations so you could cut costs. I think someone would buy it and spin it out into two divisions. A lot of companies like Oracle and Cisco could want the server and storage business. Maybe Microsoft wants the PC business."

In short, start your engines.

And below, check out the quick math a PE analyst did for Business Insider:

math for dell deal

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-rough-estimate-of-taking-dell-private-2013-1

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