Egyptian leader told: Fear God, postpone referendum'

AFP - Getty Images file

Egyptian opposition leader and Nobel Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei leaves a press conference in Cairo on Nov. 22. In a televised message on Thursday, he warned that the divisive referendum on a draft constitution raises "the specter of civil war."

By NBC News and wire services

Egypt's most prominent democracy advocate has pleaded to President Mohammed Morsi to delay an upcoming vote on a draft constitution to avoid the "specter of civil war."?

In an emotional televised message on Thursday, Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei told the Islamist leader: "Fear God, Dr. Morsi and postpone the referendum."?

His message comes two days before the Dec. 15 vote on the highly contentious constitution. Morsi and his Islamists allies support the charter while a wide spectrum of liberals, youth groups and others see both the process and the draft as flawed.?


A day earlier,?Egypt's liberal and secular opposition said it would call off a boycott and instead back a "no" vote in the referendum as long as safeguards are in place for a fair vote.

The absence of a boycott could help ease confrontation on the streets.

But the danger that the vote will not be regarded as legitimate remained. On Thursday, the Carter Center announced that it would not deploy witnesses to observe the process. In a release, the center said it was unable to assess the referendum process as needed because of the late release of regulations for accrediting witnesses.

"The Carter Center hopes to witness the upcoming Peoples? Assembly elections if the circumstances are conducive to meaningful observation and urges the Egyptian electoral authorities to take steps to ensure early accreditation of domestic and international election witnessing organizations," the release said.

Egyptian rights groups have warned of possible election fraud, and expressed concern that a state-run human rights council has taken charge of issuing monitoring permits, in the past obtained directly from the elections committee.

"The undersigned organizations are deeply concerned about the potential of rigging during or after the referendum," said the statement from a coalition of rights groups.

NBC News' Ayman Mohyeldin and experts in Cairo talk about the Egyptian draft constitution in Google+ Hangout

Photoblog: Egyptian Copts father in cave cathedral ahead of vote on constitution

Meanwhile, the?army called off "unity" talks involving rival factions, dealing a blow to efforts to resolve a worsening political crisis over the referendum and rein in street protests that have turned violent.?

The latest convulsion in Egypt's transition to democracy was brought on by a decree last month from Morsi in which he awarded himself sweeping powers to push through the new constitution, a necessary prelude to parliamentary elections early next year.?

The move generated a huge controversy, dividing the Arab world's most populous state and bringing thousands of pro- and anti-government protesters onto the streets in the worst upheaval since the fall of Hosni Mubarak almost two years ago.

The unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition. The army has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the presidential palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.

Even as opposition hoped for a delay in the vote on Morsi's new basic law, some Egyptians abroad began voting on it at embassies.
?
The main opposition coalition says the draft constitution does not reflect the aspirations of all of Egypt's 83 million people because of provisions which could give Muslim clerics a role in shaping laws. It wants a new charter with more safeguards for minority rights, including for the 10 percent of Egyptians who are Christian.?

Morsi's supporters say the constitution is needed to continue the transition to democracy. Some deride their opponents as Mubarak-era "remnants" trying to cling to power.

"We will vote 'no'," opposition politician and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa told Reuters.

The opposition said that unless the referendum is held with full supervision by the judiciary, security guarantees and local and international monitoring, it would still call for a boycott. It also wants the vote held on one day rather than two.

Islamists have won parliamentary and presidential elections since the fall of Mubarak. They want the vote on the new constitution to go ahead and are confident it will pass, paving the way for them to win a new parliamentary election next year.

The opposition had argued that the chaotic protests and counter-protests of the last two weeks meant the referendum should be postponed. But large opposition rallies this week did not change Morsi's mind.

Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC News' Kari Huus contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/13/15888965-elbaradei-to-egyptian-leader-fear-god-postpone-the-referendum?lite

all star weekend lent undercover boss barbara walters tupelo honey limp bizkit stations of the cross

Detroit pays out nearly $500k in bonuses

9 hrs.

Detroit is dangling at the edge of insolvency, but the city reportedly has enough funds to?pay workers nearly $500,000 in bonuses, the Detroit News reported Thursday.

The newspaper said the annual longevity bonuses, which went out last Friday to?1,148 workers, ranged from $150 to $750, depending on how long a worker had been?employed.

The city, which has fewer than 10,000 employees, eliminated longevity bonuses for?union employees three years ago, the Detroit News added. But a statement emailed to NBCNews by Mayor Dave Bing?s spokesman Anthony Neely said the majority of workers ? 697 of them ? who got the payments were union members. Neely did not immediately respond to a request for clarification or say which union or unions had members who received payments.

The City Council?s pro tempore president Gary Brown told the Detroit News, ?We need?to get to the bottom of whether it was intentional or an accident of some sort."

Bing?s statement blamed the council, with which he has clashed as the city?s fiscal crisis?deepened. ?Mayor Bing?s Administration brought the resolution to end longevity bonus?payments... to City Council twice this summer," the statement said. "City Council rejected the resolution in?July. A second attempt was approved in September.?

The Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the statement, Bing also blamed ?antiquated? policymaking processes for the failure?to implement the decision to eliminate the payments. ?The length of time needed to bring?about change is often inefficient and counterproductive,? he said. ?I expect that once?the appropriate ordinance amendment is received by City Council, the longevity bonus?payments will end for non-union employees.?

Last Friday, Bing announced at a news conference that the city would lay off 400 to?500?workers over the next few months. The city is struggling to fix its troubled finances and?stave off a possible Chapter 9 bankruptcy

If Detroit can't get its financial house in order, it could become the largest U.S. city -- at?a population of 700,000 -- to file for bankruptcy protection. Earlier this year, two mid-sized California cities -- Stockton and San Bernardino -- filed for bankruptcy.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/awash-red-ink-detroit-pays-out-nearly-500k-bonuses-1C7596292

redskins Heisman watch John McAfee Jenny Rivera Pacquiao vs Marquez 4 kobe bryant pacquiao

Get Free Fast Food by Providing Feedback

Get Free Fast Food by Providing FeedbackFast food generally costs very little, which is one of the perks, but that doesn't mean a free pizza or burger isn't enticing if all you have to do is fill out a feedback form. According to Redditor princesskiki, it's that easy to receive coupons in person and in the mail:

Many restaurants will give out coupons for free food in return for feedback on their restaurant. They are desperate for feedback and have customer suppiort departments that will take care of people who give them the feedback they need. To get ahold of these coupons, you simply go online to their website and look for the "contact" or "feedback" links that most of them have. Fill out the forms with the true details of your experience, and take a minute and give them good solid feedback. Usually you will be required to enter personal information including your address and/or phone number and this is how you will receive your free food coupons. Sometimes they WILL call you to talk to you about your experience. Don't worry..they don't bite!

Whether or not giving feedback is worth your time is up to you, but princesskiki says she's received a stack of free burger coupons from Carl's Jr., a free pizza from Pizza Hut, free value meals from In and Out, and much more just for filling out a comment card. In some cases, it even worked at regular chain restaurants. It's worth a shot if you don't want to pay.

How to get free food to chain restaurants | Reddit

Photo by Olga Dogadina (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/NbK2tUkiO3U/get-free-fast-food-by-providing-feedback

randy travis arrested dickens greg kelly cujo karen handel hangout todd haley

ASUS ??????????? AiCloud ? ?????? ? ?????? ??? ???? ? ??????? ...

Просмотр сообщенияsayser (12 ??????? 2012 - 17:06) ?????:

? ????? ?? ????? ??????????


????? ?????? ????????????? ?????, ?? ???? ??? ?? "???????" ??????, ? ?????? ? ????? ???????????? ????? ????????

Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53498

autoimmune disease westboro baptist church news channel 9 insanity workout mass effect 3 launch trailer yelp huntsville al

Prepare for the New Cameras-Everywhere World

Google Glasses. Google Glasses.

Courtesy Google.

Some questions can never be answered. A prominent recent example is whether photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who captured the now-(in)famous image of a man about to be killed by a New York City subway train, could have saved Ki-Suck Han if he hadn't stopped to take the photo of the train bearing down on the victim. Abbasi has insisted that he was too far away, and in the absence of proof one way or the other, we should take his word for it.

It won't be all that long, however, before such questions can be answered. The growing presence of video cameras in public places assures that?and we need to think a lot harder about the implications.

Governments and businesses are mounting closed-circuit video cameras just about everywhere. Surveillance drones, including ones the size of tiny insects, are going to be flying over and around us soon. That's Big Brother. Little Brother is burgeoning, too. More and more people are carrying cameras with them. Typically, these come in the form of mobile phones, but wearable cameras are growing in numbers and shrinking in size. Not too many years from now, lots of people will be wearing ?heads-up? camera/display combos (such as Google Glass) that capture videos of pretty much everything they see. Unless we turn from the course we've set as a society, we'll soon arrive at a day when every square foot of every subway station?of just about every place, really?is being recorded at all times, and probably from multiple views. And all of these devices, capturing higher and higher resolution images plus audio, will be connected at high speeds to digital networks.

When that happens, at least a few things will be predictable.

For example, the choices made by editors will still matter. Mass media are not going to disappear entirely. Even if we witness the demise of bottom-feeders (like the New York Post, which in this case put the subway picture on Page One with a lurid headline), we'll still have media organizations with reach and clout. Interestingly, there's been no outcry about the New York Times' decision to post a surveillance-camera shot of a man who's about to murder another man. The key differences are a) a passer-by didn't take the picture; b) the police are trying to find the murderer; and c) the Times didn't troll for readers with a seamy headline.

Over time, the more important choices will be made by the audience. Even if ?mainstream media? (whatever that means) choose to behave with common decency, there will be no shortage of other outlets for gruesome pictures and videos that aren't legally obscene or (like child porn) just plain criminal. Not long after the 2001 terrorist attacks, major media outlets made the lockstep decision to stop airing videos of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center or people jumping from the burning towers. But these are easy enough to find online. With more and more videos, it will increasingly be up to you and me to make our own decisions.

Meanwhile, the role of the professional spot-news photographer won't merely change. It'll just about end. People in that business should be looking for new ways to make a living. As I wrote in my book Mediactive several years ago, a cameras-everywhere world makes it much more likely that an ?amateur? will get the most newsworthy images. But because tabloid-style media will always have an audience, probably a big one, new kinds of content marketplaces are sure to emerge, giving non-pros a way to sell and license the most newsworthy material. Look for bidding wars will erupt for items that are sufficiently interesting or ugly or titillating.

Like Emily Yoffe's Dear Prudence Column on Facebook:

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=3012b1641007379cd2522d962b143a9d

al sharpton actuary elon musk fox mole manson bubba watson recent earthquakes

12122012 ? Why are back up offers so important in today's Santa ...

Good Day ? Wednesday, December 12, 2012. This is your Santa Clarita real estate daily show with Connor MacIvor your host with the most :)

We are with REMAX of Santa Clarita?s Paris911 Team of Realtor Associates and are here to help you. The real estate market has become strange during the past few years ? with most transactions not closing if the agents merely set them and forget them. ?This is a change where most agents, that are working with both buyers and sellers, have to be on top of their game. ?They have to be continually within new knowledge building real estate courses. They have to be on-top of the local and national real estate news. ?They also have to be in touch with what buyers and sellers are looking for in today?s real estate market.

By The Paris911 Team at REMAX of Santa Clarita CAThe only way that the agent of today is going to keep on top of the Real Estate market is to work, themselves, directly with buyers and sellers of real estate. ?They may have a team in place and delegate showings of homes to their Santa Clarita buyers agents, but they need to keep close so they can press their ear to the tracks and do it often.

Today?s show ? is about Back up offers on Santa Clarita real estate. ?Once upon a time, the back up offer status was just a way for the home, condo or town-home that was being sold to have show up as ?active? when it really wasn?t. ?This happened on the major real estate syndication websites. ?This is due to the real estate syndication sites selling the real estate searchers personal and private information to the highest real estate agent bidder. ?So, instead of a Santa Clarita real estate listing showing up as having an offer written on it and accepted by the seller (back up position), that Santa Clarita real estate listing shows up as being fully ?active and available?.

Have a listen to our most recent Santa Clarita real estate podcast. ?Let us know when you are ready to meet with us and attend our Crash Course on Real Estate. ?We will be here when you are ready.

Have a look at our Main Santa Clarita real estate website. We are not lead generators ? we are real and local real estate agents that represent buyers and sellers within the cities that compose the Santa Clarita Valley. ?Be Safe and have a look at our Homes for Sale in the Santa Clarita Valley ? the information will keep you safe ? Happy Searching and Selling!

Santa Clarita real estate and community events written about by Connor and Paris MacIvor with REMAX of Santa Clarita CA.? Turning to the most current real estate and housing market trends and news ? they release that information in the form of a Daily Santa Clarita real estate news update. They are also recognized authors on Google Plus and within the Santa Clarita real estate community.

Source: http://blog.paris911.com/2012/12/12/12122012-why-are-back-up-offers-so-important-in-todays-santa-clarita-real-estate-market/

hugo hugo nfl combine 84th annual academy awards beginners 2012 oscars the shore

Microsoft increases Surface tablet production

(AP) ? Microsoft says it's increasing production of its Surface tablets and will sell them in more stores. Staples says it will start carrying them starting Wednesday.

The Surface is the first tablet Microsoft Corp. is selling under its own brand, and the company is promoting it heavily after its late-October launch. But reviews have been mixed, and there have been few signs that the tablet is flying off the shelves. So far, Microsoft has been selling it online and through its own stores.

Microsoft says other stores in the U.S. and Australia will now carry the Surface, and more countries will be added within months. Microsoft's holiday stores will stay in operation into the new year.

Staples says it will sell the Surface in two configurations, starting at $499. Both run Windows RT, a version of Windows 8 designed to run on tablet-style chips.

"Our plan has been to expand the retail presence for Surface after the first of the year. Based on interest from retailers, we are giving them the option to carry Surface with Windows RT even earlier," said Steve Schueler, Microsoft's head of retail sales and marketing.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-12-11-Microsoft-Surface/id-0bfba54fce0e438a8e5e3fb467f268d9

bay bridge downton abbey season 3 presidents day band of brothers presidents george washington russell westbrook

Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet - but something went wrong.

Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn't work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent right away. So, he needed a little help from his friends.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli of the Vatican's communications department showed the pontiff how to do it, but the pope hesitated. Celli touched the screen lightly himself and off went the papal tweet.

"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart," he said in his introduction to the brave new world of Twitter.

The tweet was sent at the end of weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The pope already had just over a million followers in all of the languages combined minutes before he sent his first tweet and the number was growing.

PAPAL Q AND A

Later on Wednesday after the audience was over and the television cameras turned off, the pontiff answered the first of three questions sent to him at #askpontifex.

The first question answered by the pope was: "How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?"

His answer: "By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need."

The pope, who, as leader of the Roman Catholic Church already has 1.2 billion followers in the standard sense of the word, won't be following anyone else, the Vatican has said.

After his first splash into the brave new world of Twitter on Wednesday, the contents of future tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays.

They are also expected to include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

The Vatican says papal tweets will be little "pearls of wisdom", which is understandable since his thoughts will have to be condensed to 140 characters, while papal documents often top 140 pages.

The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope's certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican's secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

After Wednesday, Benedict won't be pushing the button on his tweets himself. They will be sent by aides but he will sign off on them.

The pope's Twitter page is designed in yellow and white - the colours of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

The pope has given a qualified welcome to social media.

In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered "a great opportunity", but warned of the risks of depersonalisation, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called "The pope meets you on Facebook", and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff's speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-benedict-offers-blessings-first-tweet-104042221.html

adele NBA draft 2012 alicia sacramone Don Grady ann curry euro 2012 Colorado Springs

WebMD to cut 14 percent of workforce to reduce expenses

(Reuters) - Health information website WebMD Health Corp said it will cut around 250 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs.

The company, which had about 1700 employees according to Thomson Reuters data, said it would take a charge of about $6 million to $8 million in the fourth quarter, primarily on severance and other restructuring-related costs.

WebMD, which is a popular and long-trusted destination for checking health and disease related information, has lost its sheen for investors in recent times as it struggled to convert its growing user base into a steady revenue stream.

The company named a former Pfizer Inc executive Cavan Redmond as CEO earlier this year, entrusting the industry veteran with the task of reviving the website's flagging business.

Its previous CEO, Wayne Gattinella, resigned after the company took itself off the auction block in January.

WebMD also said on Tuesday that it plans to streamline its operations and focus resources on increasing user engagement, customer satisfaction and innovation, and expects these efforts to reduce annualized operating expenses by about $45 million.

While most of the job cuts will be effective at the end of the year, other cost saving actions will be implemented in the first quarter of 2013, the company said in a statement.

The company reported a third-quarter loss in November, compared with a profit in the year-ago quarter, and said revenue fell 13 percent.

WebMD's shares, which have lost nearly 40 percent of their value over the past six months, were down about 2 percent in premarket trade. They closed at $13.85 on Monday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/webmd-cut-250-jobs-reduce-expenses-124201450--sector.html

deion sanders creutzfeldt jakob disease the lone ranger yu darvish mad cow pennsylvania primary jerome simpson

Comments - The Source For NAR Commercial Real Estate

Sunrise Senior Living - Church Road, Edgbaston...

Sunrise Senior Living (Photo credit: Ell Brown)

The senior living sector is a major growth area in commercial real estate. The reasons for this boil down to classic supply and demand driven by demographics. Longer life expectancy in the United States mean steady growth in age cohorts that move into senior living facilities. ? The over-85 segment of the population is growing at three times the rest of the population. ?In 25 years, it is set to double. Further, a?great number of existing facilities are older product, so new unit development is being spurred in most markets.

REITS stepping up

This population growth meeting a 7%?penetration?rate ?- the rate at which seniors become residents in senior living facilities ? means the requirement over the next 15 years is to build 375,000 new units of assisted living and senior living facilities. ?This requirement comes with a $57 billion capital cost. ?Yet the investment dollars for this sector have not come from mainstream sources. ?Financing of projects and acquiring equity has until recently been largely the domain of local banks, producing a highly fragmented and some would say eccentric financing picture. ?Only recently has the REIT industry stepped up its acquisitions in the senior living space. ?Speaking at the recent Real Estate Journal?Senior Living Conference in Chicago, Manisha Bathija, Senior Investment Officer of Ventas, a REIT working the senior living space, said the portfolio she leads has picked up $18 billion in senior living property?acquisitions?the last 10 ?years and expects to continue the trend.

REITs are only one of the classic capital sources in our industry. ?What about pension funds and insurance companies? ?Here?s where it gets odd, and suggests a greater change.

The Missing Usual Suspects

Speaking at the conference, Jacob Gehl, VP Investments of MArcus & Millichap pointed out a surprising observation: Even though insurance giants once financed this space decades ago, in his experience, insurance companies and pension funds today ?don?t like to invest in anything with a bed in it?. ? Why the shyness around senior living and multifamily? ?Because one aspect of ownership of such properties is evictions, and pensions and insurance companies are in the business of paying out to millions of beneficiaries. ?There is a perception of a potential public relations disaster for a pension who is on one hand financially supporting a pensioner, and on the other hand, kicking that pensioner ? their own beneficiary ? out of his or her apartment. ?Therein lies an institutional bias, one that may take some work to overcome.

Operations vs. Equity

Similar to hospitality properties of all kinds, the business of senior living property ownership is a mix of equity and operations. ?It?s operations that drive performance, particularly in properties where cost controls and rent caps associated with government?affordability?programs are part of the picture. ?If there was a theme at the conference, it was a reverence for skilled operators of senior living facilities, as they hold the key to performance.

?

Source: http://blog.commercialsource.com/finance-in-the-senior-living-sector/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=finance-in-the-senior-living-sector

j lo j lo sacha baron cohen ryan seacrest octavia spencer meryl streep oscars school shooting ohio billy crystal