Measles cases in south Wales outbreak climb to 942

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Measles cases in south Wales outbreak climb to 942
Figure for greater Swansea area rises by 56 as experts warn epidemic shows no sign of easingMeasles cases in south Wales have jumped by 56 in two days as experts warn the outbreak shows no sign of ending.

Source: TheGuardian
Posted on: Thursday, Apr 25, 2013, 11:26am
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127926/Measles_cases_in_south_Wales_outbreak_climb_to____

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Starting a small business from home - Business Insider

See more Small Business, Big Ideas >>

Daniel Barnett

Daniel Barnett, founder of WORK[etc], says that for him, "sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day literally brings a cold sweat."

The idea of remote work became controversial recently after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer ended the practice there, followed by the end of Best Buy's liberal "results only work environment."

Some managers and companies argue that having people in the office is essential, and that remote workers are harder to monitor and detract from company culture.

But for many small business owners outside of major population centers, remote work is a necessity in one way or another. And many others have family commitments or struggle to function well in an office environment.

For Daniel Barnett, the founder of WORK[etc], a company that's built a business management platform that facilitates remote work, both were true. His entire team of 16 works remotely, from Los Angeles to Essex, England, Australia, Kuala Lumpur, and beyond.

Not only did Barnett feel like he couldn't fully endorse a product he didn't live, his own experience at work inspired him to create it in the first place. "I've waged war with A.D.D. my whole life and the thought of sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day literally brings a cold sweat," Barnett told us. "Any meeting that goes over 30 minutes is like being locked in a prison cell and the concept of a half-day workshop is pure hell."

He started to develop software tools on his own to free him from having to go to an office for his marketing business, but his A.D.D. led him to go further.

"With A.D.D., starting and finishing routine tasks requires effort and focus. So into the software went simple methods to automate common systems and pull everything together," Barnett said. "For example, (I wanted it to) let me turn a sales lead into a quote, then into a project, and invoice and later a support ticket without having to think about it; manage progress each step of the way so I don't have too."

As the software took care of more and more things, Barnett started to turn it into a business, hoping to help other people work through the things that took so much effort for him.

Of course, there are challenges with running an entirely remote company, even if you're using specialized software. Hiring practices are especially important. You need people that you can trust, that will remain accountable, are comfortable working alone, but are confident enough to jump on a call or Skype to work through ideas or problems.

"Hire someone that thrives off being around people or someone that is shy on a call is going to cause friction," Barnett says.

The company has a very deliberate process to find out of someone's right for the company, and for a remote workplace. "Part of our trial process is for all new employees to set up a WORK[etc] account for an imaginary business, except we don't reveal to that person we are secretly rating their progress," Barnett said. "If they create rubbish names for sales leads, or set up a project with no content then odds are they won't make good remote workers."

And since they're being monitored, it's easy to see if they email their team every simple question rather than having the initiative to at least research the answer themselves, another warning sign.

As someone who constantly experiences and succeeds in a remote work environment, Barnett doesn't buy the arguments against them. "A strategically placed water-cooler, swiss-cheese cubicle walls and bean-bagged chill out rooms do not increase creativity and productivity. Engaged, motivated and inspired people increase productivity and creativity."

In fact, offices can be uniquely unproductive for some people. "I would argue that being politely coerced into small talk about the weather or not being able to avoid [the] latest gossip is a cancer on creativity and productivity," Barnett argues.

The absence of those daily interactions does require a bit of extra effort to keep people engaged, on task, and to build a company culture. To do that, the company asks everyone to spend the last 5 minutes of their day to answer and share their responses to five simple questions:

1. What did I work on today?
2. What were the challenges I encountered?
3. How did I overcome those challenges?
4. What I am working on tomorrow?

People respond about everything from work to personal lives, in an effort to create a culture where people not only share information, but care for and have concern for the other people on the team.

Beyond the challenges of working remotely, Barnett's trying to break into an incredibly crowded industry, with big enterprise software players like SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, and IBM, along with smaller challengers. "It is frustrating to constantly hear from new customers that they almost didn't sign up because they had never heard of WORK[etc]," Barnett said.

His response? To not worry as much about exposure, keep his head down, and just focus on building a great product. He argues that a major frustration for other small businesses, particularly ones that work remotely, is having to use multiple tools for different things, like sales, project management, invoicing and customer support. "(It's) inefficient and expensive, not to mention downright frustrating," Barnett says.

By offering a single product and a single license, he hopes to provide a cheaper and easier alternative, made by a small business for other small businesses.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/starting-a-small-business-from-home-2013-4

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Starting a small business from home - Business Insider

See more Small Business, Big Ideas >>

Daniel Barnett

Daniel Barnett, founder of WORK[etc], says that for him, "sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day literally brings a cold sweat."

The idea of remote work became controversial recently after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer ended the practice there, followed by the end of Best Buy's liberal "results only work environment."

Some managers and companies argue that having people in the office is essential, and that remote workers are harder to monitor and detract from company culture.

But for many small business owners outside of major population centers, remote work is a necessity in one way or another. And many others have family commitments or struggle to function well in an office environment.

For Daniel Barnett, the founder of WORK[etc], a company that's built a business management platform that facilitates remote work, both were true. His entire team of 16 works remotely, from Los Angeles to Essex, England, Australia, Kuala Lumpur, and beyond.

Not only did Barnett feel like he couldn't fully endorse a product he didn't live, his own experience at work inspired him to create it in the first place. "I've waged war with A.D.D. my whole life and the thought of sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day literally brings a cold sweat," Barnett told us. "Any meeting that goes over 30 minutes is like being locked in a prison cell and the concept of a half-day workshop is pure hell."

He started to develop software tools on his own to free him from having to go to an office for his marketing business, but his A.D.D. led him to go further.

"With A.D.D., starting and finishing routine tasks requires effort and focus. So into the software went simple methods to automate common systems and pull everything together," Barnett said. "For example, (I wanted it to) let me turn a sales lead into a quote, then into a project, and invoice and later a support ticket without having to think about it; manage progress each step of the way so I don't have too."

As the software took care of more and more things, Barnett started to turn it into a business, hoping to help other people work through the things that took so much effort for him.

Of course, there are challenges with running an entirely remote company, even if you're using specialized software. Hiring practices are especially important. You need people that you can trust, that will remain accountable, are comfortable working alone, but are confident enough to jump on a call or Skype to work through ideas or problems.

"Hire someone that thrives off being around people or someone that is shy on a call is going to cause friction," Barnett says.

The company has a very deliberate process to find out of someone's right for the company, and for a remote workplace. "Part of our trial process is for all new employees to set up a WORK[etc] account for an imaginary business, except we don't reveal to that person we are secretly rating their progress," Barnett said. "If they create rubbish names for sales leads, or set up a project with no content then odds are they won't make good remote workers."

And since they're being monitored, it's easy to see if they email their team every simple question rather than having the initiative to at least research the answer themselves, another warning sign.

As someone who constantly experiences and succeeds in a remote work environment, Barnett doesn't buy the arguments against them. "A strategically placed water-cooler, swiss-cheese cubicle walls and bean-bagged chill out rooms do not increase creativity and productivity. Engaged, motivated and inspired people increase productivity and creativity."

In fact, offices can be uniquely unproductive for some people. "I would argue that being politely coerced into small talk about the weather or not being able to avoid [the] latest gossip is a cancer on creativity and productivity," Barnett argues.

The absence of those daily interactions does require a bit of extra effort to keep people engaged, on task, and to build a company culture. To do that, the company asks everyone to spend the last 5 minutes of their day to answer and share their responses to five simple questions:

1. What did I work on today?
2. What were the challenges I encountered?
3. How did I overcome those challenges?
4. What I am working on tomorrow?

People respond about everything from work to personal lives, in an effort to create a culture where people not only share information, but care for and have concern for the other people on the team.

Beyond the challenges of working remotely, Barnett's trying to break into an incredibly crowded industry, with big enterprise software players like SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, and IBM, along with smaller challengers. "It is frustrating to constantly hear from new customers that they almost didn't sign up because they had never heard of WORK[etc]," Barnett said.

His response? To not worry as much about exposure, keep his head down, and just focus on building a great product. He argues that a major frustration for other small businesses, particularly ones that work remotely, is having to use multiple tools for different things, like sales, project management, invoicing and customer support. "(It's) inefficient and expensive, not to mention downright frustrating," Barnett says.

By offering a single product and a single license, he hopes to provide a cheaper and easier alternative, made by a small business for other small businesses.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/starting-a-small-business-from-home-2013-4

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You say you don?t want it, again and again, but you don?t, you don?t really mean it (Unqualified Offerings)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301608484?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Rethinking early atmospheric oxygen: Possibility of more dynamic biological oxygen cycle on early Earth than previously supposed

Apr. 24, 2013 ? A research team of biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has provided a new view on the relationship between the earliest accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, arguably the most important biological event in Earth history, and its relationship to the sulfur cycle.

A general consensus exists that appreciable oxygen first accumulated in Earth's atmosphere around 2.4 to 2.3 billion years ago. Though this paradigm is built upon a wide range of geological and geochemical observations, the famous "smoking gun" for what has come to be known as the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE) comes from the disappearance of anomalous fractionations in rare sulfur isotopes.

"These isotope fractionations, often referred to as 'mass-independent fractionations,' or 'MIF' signals, require both the destruction of sulfur dioxide by ultraviolet energy from the sun in an atmosphere without ozone and very low atmospheric oxygen levels in order to be transported and deposited in marine sediments," said Christopher T. Reinhard, the lead author of the research paper and a former UC Riverside graduate student. "As a result, their presence in ancient rocks is interpreted to reflect vanishingly low atmospheric oxygen levels continuously for the first ~2 billion years of Earth's history."

However, diverse types of data are emerging that point to the presence of atmospheric oxygen, and, by inference, the early emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis hundreds of millions of years before these MIF signals disappear from the rock record. These observations motivated Reinhard and colleagues to explore the possible conditions under which inherited MIF signatures may have persisted in the rock record long after oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere.

Using a simple quantitative model describing how sulfur and its isotopes cycle through Earth's crust, the researchers discovered that under certain conditions these MIF signatures can persist within the ocean and marine sediments long after O₂ increases in the atmosphere. Simply put, the weathering of rocks on the continents can transfer the MIF signal to the oceans and their sediments long after production of this fingerprint has ceased in an oxygenated atmosphere.

"This lag would blur our ability to date the timing of the GOE and would allow for dynamic rising and falling oxygen levels during a protracted transition from an atmosphere without oxygen to one rich in this life-giving gas," Reinhard said.

Study results appear in Nature's advanced online publication on April 24.

Reinhard explained that once MIF signals formed in an oxygen-poor atmosphere are captured in pyrite and other minerals in sedimentary rocks, they are recycled when those rocks are later uplifted as mountain ranges and the pyrite is oxidized.

"Under certain conditions, this will create a sort of 'memory effect' of these MIF signatures, providing a decoupling in time between the burial of MIF in sediments and oxygen accumulation at Earth's surface," he said.

According to the researchers, the key here is burying a distinct MIF signal in deep sea sediments, which are then subducted and removed from Earth's surface.

"This would create a complementary signal in minerals that are weathered and delivered to the oceans, something that we actually see evidence of in the rock record," said Noah Planavsky, the second author of the research paper and a former UC Riverside graduate student now at Caltech. "This signal can then be perpetuated through time without the need to generate it within the atmosphere contemporaneously."

Reinhard, now a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and soon to be an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, explained that although the researchers' new model provides a plausible mechanism for reconciling recent conflicting data, this can only occur when certain key conditions are met -- and these conditions are likely to have changed through time during Earth's long early history.

"There is obviously much further work to do, but we hope that our model is one step toward a more integrated view of how Earth's crust, mantle and atmosphere interact in the global sulfur cycle," he said.

Timothy W. Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at UCR and the principal investigator of the research project noted that this is a fundamentally new and potentially very important way of looking at the sulfur isotope record and its relationship to biospheric oxygenation.

"The message is that sulfur isotope records, when viewed through the filter of sedimentary recycling, may challenge efforts to precisely date the GOE and its relationship to early life, while opening the door to the wonderful unknowns we should expect and embrace," he said.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Christopher T. Reinhard, Noah J. Planavsky, Timothy W. Lyons. Long-term sedimentary recycling of rare sulphur isotope anomalies. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12021

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/YRepc-uxACM/130424185213.htm

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Iran offers to be West's "reliable partner" in Middle East

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday it would be a "reliable partner" in the Middle East if Western countries would take a more cooperative approach in talks on its nuclear program.

Western powers blame tension with Iran in part on its refusal to fully cooperate with United Nations calls for curbs on its nuclear activity to ensure it is for peaceful purposes only, and to open up to investigations by U.N. inspectors.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said U.S. and European policies, including extensive sanctions on the Islamic Republic, were bound to fail.

"Western countries are advised to change gear from confrontation to cooperation, the window of opportunity to enter into negotiation for long-term strategic cooperation with Iran, the most reliable, strong and stable partner in the region, is still open," Soltanieh told a meeting in Geneva on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Soltanieh offered no specifics on how Iran could move to a cooperative dialogue with the West, which has demanded concrete Iranian action to allay international concern that it is trying to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons.

Thomas Countryman, chief U.S. delegate to the NPT talks, said on Monday that Iran's nuclear program poses the greatest threat to the credibility of the NPT, which aims to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

Soltanieh said Iran was determined to pursue "all legal areas of nuclear technology, including fuel cycle and enrichment technology, exclusively for peaceful purposes" and this would be carried out under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision.

"Hostile policies of Western countries, including dual track, carrot and stick, sanctions-and-talks policies are doomed to failure," he said.

The IAEA said on Tuesday it will hold a meeting with Iran on May 15 aimed at enabling its inspectors to resume a stalled investigation into suspected nuclear bomb research.

Israel suggested on Monday it would be patient before taking any military action against Iran's nuclear program, saying during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel there was still time for other options.

Israel has long hinted at possible military strikes to deny its arch-adversary any means to make a nuclear bomb, while efforts by six world powers to find a negotiated solution with Iran have proved unsuccessful so far.

NUCLEAR-FREE ZONE

Iran and its ally Syria called for a conference aimed at banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East and urged major powers to stop helping Israel to acquire nuclear technology.

The talks, which were supposed to be held last December in Helsinki after being agreed at a 2010 NPT conference, were postponed without a new date being set.

Israel is widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power but neither confirms nor denies having such weapons.

Soltanieh, in an apparent reference to Israel which has not joined the NPT regime, said: "Iran is paying a heavy price for its membership and full commitment to the NPT while others outside the treaty are exempted from any inspection and sanctions, but receiving full nuclear cooperation of western countries, specifically the U.S. and Canada."

Syria's Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui said: "The Israeli nuclear arsenals increase tension in an already explosive situation."

"We call on states, parties, especially nuclear states, to stop their support to Israel in developing its nuclear capabilities and prohibit providing it with nuclear technology. This should help pave the way for a zone free of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in the Middle East," he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-offers-wests-reliable-partner-mideast-131919179.html

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How to Get the New Facebook Newsfeed Early

Facebook just showed of its vision for the future of your newsfeed, and we have to see it's beautiful. Facebook will start rolling it out to people today. If you want to get on the waiting list for an early look, the sign up page is here. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/zMDZyE9QqMQ/how-to-get-the-new-facebook-newsfeed-early

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Chavez body to be put on permanent display

A large image of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is on display where mourners line up to view his body lying in state at the military academy in Caracas, Thursday, March 7, 2013. While Venezuela remains deeply divided over the country's future, the multitudes weeping and crossing themselves as they reached the president's coffin early Thursday were united in grief and admiration for a man many considered a father figure. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

A large image of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is on display where mourners line up to view his body lying in state at the military academy in Caracas, Thursday, March 7, 2013. While Venezuela remains deeply divided over the country's future, the multitudes weeping and crossing themselves as they reached the president's coffin early Thursday were united in grief and admiration for a man many considered a father figure. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro speaks to the crowd at the military academy where the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, March 7, 2013. Maduro, Venezuela's acting president, said Chavez's remains will be put on permanent display at the Museum of the Revolution, close to the presidential palace where Chavez ruled for 14 years. A state funeral for Chavez attended by some 33 heads of government is scheduled to begin Friday morning. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this photo provided by Miraflores Presidential Press Office, mourners pay their respects as they file past the glass-topped casket containing the remains of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez lying in state at the military academy in Caracas, Thursday, March 7, 2013. Chavez died of a massive heart attack Tuuesday after great suffering and inaudibly mouthed his desire to live, the head of Venezuela's presidential guard said late Wednesday. (AP Photo/Miraflores Presidential Press Office)

Mourners walk over a barrier outside the military academy where Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez's body lies in state at the military academy in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, March 7, 2013. While Venezuela remains deeply divided over the country's future, the multitudes who reached the president's coffin early Thursday were united in grief and admiration for a man many considered a father figure. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

A woman cries as she waits to see the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez at the military academy where his body is lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, March 7, 2013. While Venezuela remains deeply divided over the country's future, the multitudes who reached the president's coffin were united in grief and admiration for a man many considered a father figure. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? Hugo Chavez's body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for "at least" seven more days before the museum becomes his permanent home. It was not clear when exactly he would be moved from the military academy where his body has been since Wednesday.

Later Thursday, the National Assembly speaker announced that Maduro would be sworn in Friday night as acting president following a state funeral and would call elections within 30 days. That enables him, as the designated governing party candidate, to run for president as Chavez desired. Legal scholars say that under the constitution, the legislature's speaker should instead be sworn in and organize the vote.

More than 30 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are to attend the funeral. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will represent the United States, which Chavez often portrayed as a great global evil even as he sent the country billions of dollars in oil each year.

Maduro said the ceremony would begin at 11 a.m., but did not say where.

"We have decided to prepare the body of our 'Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.

He said the body would be held in a "crystal urn" at the Museum of the Revolution, a mile from Miraflores presidential palace.

The announcement followed two emotional days in which Chavez's supporters compared him to Jesus Christ, and accused his national and international critics of seeking to undermine his "revolution."

A sea of sobbing, heartbroken humanity jammed Venezuela's main military academy Thursday to see Chavez's body, some waiting 10 hours under the twinkling stars and the searing Caribbean sun to file past his coffin.

On Thursday night, Castro, Presidents Jose Mujica of Uruguay and and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil viewed the open casket along with former Brazilian president Inacio Lula da Silva.

But even as his supporters attempted to immortalize the dead president, a country exhausted from round-the-clock mourning began to look toward the future. Some worried openly whether the nation's anointed leaders are up to filling his shoes, and others said they were anxious for news on when elections will be held. The constitution mandates they be called within 30 days, but the government has yet to address the matter.

"People are beginning to get back to their lives. One must keep working," said 40-year-old Caracas resident Laura Guerra, a Chavez supporter who said she was not yet sold on Maduro. "I don't think he will be the same. I don't think he has the same strength that the 'comandante' had."

At the military academy, Chavez lay in a glass-covered coffin wearing the olive-green military uniform and red beret of his paratrooper days and looking gaunt and pale, his lips pressed together. In a nod to the insecurity that plagues this country, mourners had to submit to a pat down, pass through a metal detector and remove the batteries from their mobile phones before they entered.

As they reached the coffin, many placed a hand on their heart or stiffly saluted. Some held up children so they could see Chavez's face.

"I waited 10 hours to see him, but I am very happy, proud to have seen my comandante," said 46-year-old Yudeth Hurtado, sobbing. "He is planted in our heart."

Government leaders had been largely incommunicado Wednesday as they marched in a seven-hour procession that brought Chavez's body from a military hospital to the academy. They finally emerged before the cameras Thursday but offered no answers.

Asked when an election would be held, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said only that the constitution would be followed.

Jaua also struck the defiant, us-against-the-world tone that the government has projected, which some critics fear could incite passions in a country that remains on edge.

"They couldn't defeat him electorally, they couldn't assassinate him, they couldn't beat him militarily," Jaua declared. "Chavez died as president ... Chavez died the leader of his people."

Just hours before the 58-year-old president's death on Tuesday, Maduro expelled two U.S. diplomats and lashed out at opponents at home and abroad. He implied that the cancer that ultimately killed Chavez was somehow injected into him by his enemies, a charge echoed by Ahmadinejad.

While Maduro is the clear favorite over likely opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, the nation is polarized between Chavez supporters and critics who hold him responsible for soaring inflation, a growing national debt and a jump in violent crime.

Opponents have also questioned the government's allegiance to the rule of law, arguing that Maduro is not entitled to become interim president under the 1999 constitution. They have also criticized the defense minister, Adm. Diego Molero, for pledging support for Maduro's candidacy despite a ban on the military taking political sides.

Ana Teresa Sifontes, a 71-year-old housewife and opposition sympathizer, said Chavez did some good for the nation's poor. But she said he had bungled the economy, exhibiting more interest in regional grandstanding than governing.

She said she hoped his death would bring change.

"Why do we have to pay for Cuba?" she asked, referring to the billions in Venezuelan oil Chavez sent to Havana each year in return for Cuban doctors and other experts. "Why do we need them here?"

Venezuelan officials have yet to say what type of cancer he suffered from, but details were emerging of the former paratrooper's final hours.

The head of Venezuela's presidential guard, Gen. Jose Ornella, told the AP late Wednesday that Chavez died of a massive heart attack after great suffering.

"He couldn't speak but he said it with his lips ... 'I don't want to die. Please don't let me die,' because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country," said Ornella, who said he was with the socialist president at the moment of his death Tuesday.

In Washington, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. hoped the upcoming vote would be held on a level playing field, and lamented the expulsion of the American officials.

"We are obviously disappointed by these false accusations levied against our embassy officials," Nuland said. "This is part of a tired playbook of alleging foreign interference as a political football in internal Venezuelan politics."

___

Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez, Frank Bajak and Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

___

Paul Haven on Twitter: www.twitter.com/paulhaven

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-07-Venezuela-Chavez/id-3676c360ca8b4e65afc98c1c613182f9

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Iran arrests political editor of reformist paper

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran arrested the managing director and political editor of a pro-reform daily on Wednesday, with the semi-official Fars news agency saying their detentions were linked to the publication of a letter from a former president about media freedom.

With a presidential election three months away, Iran's clerical leadership appears to be tightening its grip on the media to avoid a repeat of the protests that erupted after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

Fars agency quoted the daily Maghreb's editor, Amir Mousa Kazemi, as saying that the arrests "can be related to the publication of Mohammad Khatami's letter" on Tuesday.

In the letter, the moderate former president, succeeded by Ahmadinejad, said he hoped Maghreb would continue to work alongside the "few remaining independent" publications in the country.

Khatami publicly backed defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi during the 2009 presidential election, which reformists said was rigged. Iran denied the accusation and has put Mousavi under house arrest for more than two years, along with fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi.

With Iran's main reform leaders detained, Khatami has sometimes been the voice of the moderate opposition movement. The paper said on its website it had sought his opinion about its work, which resulted in his letter's publication.

ISNA, the Iranian Students' News Agency, said managing director Mohammad Mehdi Emami Nasseri and political editor Alireza Aghaeirad were detained by agents from Tehran prosecutor's office.

Iran's pro-reform publications have often reported on an economy struggling under Western sanctions imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program, and feature criticism of Iranian government policies.

Iran arrested dozen of journalists in January over their links to "anti-revolutionary" media. Some of them have been released in recent days.

The Iranian leadership regularly accuses Western governments of trying to foment social unrest through subversive media activities but says that such plans will never succeed.

Many moderate journalists were detained following the mass street protests that were crushed by security forces after the last election.

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-arrests-political-editor-reformist-paper-211839337.html

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