Carcosa Seri Negara - Malaysia | Overseas Travel and Leisure - Otal

Carcosa Seri Negara ? Malaysia

Address:

The Dining Room, Carcosa Seri Negara, Taman Tasik Perdana, KL.

• Tel: 03 2295 0888.
• Opening times: Open daily, 12noon-3pm, 6-10.30p.

A historical heritage mansion from 1896, the Carcosa Seri Negara is in a stunning hilltop setting among more than 16 hectares of garden and lawns in the heart of Kuala Lumpur City, Malaysia. The only word to describe the five-star Carcosa Sri Negara is glamorous. One of Kuala Lumpur?s most opulent establishments, the hotel has ritzy rooms with high-tech comforts including flat screen TVs, DVD players and internet access; hotel facilities include function rooms and the manicured lawns play host to a flood-lit tennis court and pool. The luxurious Carcosa Seri Negara Hotel is a true gem with service and quality that is sure to surpass all expectations.

Rooms & Suites:

Each luxurious Carcosa Seri Negara suite is air-conditioned, tastefully furnished and spacious with king- or queen-sized beds, walk-in closets, an attached bathroom, sitting area and private veranda. Each suite differs in size and decor, some offering a large terrace and separate dining, dressing and living rooms, 24 hour butler service.

1. Stately Suites: The historical heritage mansion has a total of five Junior Suites ? Seri Tanjung, Seri Melaka, Seri Naim, Seri Iman and Seri Takzim.
2. Grand Makmur Suite: The lavish room features a colonial four-poster king-sized bed, walk-in closets, separate dressing room, a bathroom with its own Jacuzzi, separate living and dining areas and two private verandas.

Room Facilities:

• 24-hour Butler Service
• IDD Telephone
• CD/DVD System
• Satellite TV
• Mini Bar

Features:

Carcosa Seri Negara is one of Malaysia?s best luxury hotels with a tranquil setting that adds to its opulent environment. Carcosa Seri Negara features a restaurant. Room service is available during limited hours. This 5-star property has a business center and offers a meeting/conference room, audio-visual equipment, and business services. Complimentary wireless Internet access is available in public areas. Guest parking is complimentary. Additional property amenities include a rooftop terrace, a concierge desk, and multilingual staff.

Recreational Facilities:

Restaurants & Dining:

Dining:

The Dining Room features gourmet French cuisine accompanied by sweeping garden views in the restaurant, while fine Malay cuisine is served in the Gulai House, where verandah dining is available. Carcosa Seri Negara has a restaurant on site. Room service (during limited hours) is available.

• Food Awards 2009 : The Dining Room was shortlisted in the Best Fine Dining Restaurant and Best French Restaurant categories of the Time Out KL Food Awards 2009. Our food awards are 100% voted for by the people of KL.

Useful Info:

• Check Out Time : 12.00 noon.
• Check In Time : 2.00 pm.
• Rates are nett inclusive of 10% service charge and 6% government tax.
• Prior room reservation is required and is subject to room availability.
• Breakfast provided.

Child policy:

• Baby Cot are provided free-of-charge.
• No extra room charges for children 12 years and below sharing room with parent? existing bedding are FOC.
• Maximum of 1 extra bed will be provided free for child aged between 3yrs ? 12yrs.

Value added:

• Free WI-FI Internet.
• Daily newspaper.
• Homemade chocolate.
• Daily fresh fruits.
• Coffee & tea making facilities in suite.

Payment Types: Accepted at this hotel: American Express, Barclaycard, Carte Blanche, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard, Visa.

Pets: Pets not allowed.

Policies:

Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.

Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.

Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.

Related posts:

1. First World Hotel ? Genting Highlands Malaysia
2. Bonnington Jumeirah Lakes Towers ? UAE
3. Traders Hotel Dubai
4. Hilton Yaounde Hotel Cameroon
5. Ascott Park Place Dubai

Source: http://www.otal.com/asia-travel-and-leisure/carcosa-seri-negara-malaysia

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Facebook stock down after post-IPO lock-up expires

NEW YORK (AP) ? Facebook's stock price fell Wednesday, the day employees were eligible to start selling restricted stock in the company.

A lock-up period that had prevented such sales expired on Monday. U.S. stock markets opened on Wednesday for the first time since Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, so that's when employees could start selling.

In all, 234 million additional shares and stock options held by employees as of Oct. 15 became eligible to flood the market. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not selling. He has already said that he won't be selling stock until at least next September.

Lock-ups are common after initial public stock offerings and are designed to prevent a stock from experiencing the kind of volatility that might occur if too many shareholders decide to sell at once.

Facebook's stock hasn't done well since its IPO in May amid concerns about its ability to keep growing revenue. But it saw its biggest one-day gain last Wednesday after posting strong third-quarter results. The day before, Facebook detailed for the first time how much money it makes from mobile ads. Mobile had been a concern since before the Menlo Park., Calif., company's IPO.

The next lock-up expiration comes on Nov. 14, when 777 million shares and stock options will become eligible to be sold.

Facebook Inc.'s stock is down 78 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $21.16 in midday trading. The stock is still down 24 percent from its IPO price of $38.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-10-31-Facebook-Stock/id-f562cb8f4b7b4af499fb0ea80551e083

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News sites knocked out as data center floods

11 hrs.

Wilson Rothman , NBC News

At 4:21 p.m. ET Monday, the tech blog Gizmodo tweeted that its downed?site would "be back soon!?There was a data center battery failure after the power went down in Lower Manhattan. Generators powering up." But almost a day later, the site ? and its sister?sites in the Gawker network ? were still limping.

Gawker was not alone. The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed experienced outages and trouble publishing. CNET reported that Livestream, host of the live "Sandycam" video?feed, had a "major outage." And?MarketWatch, a property of the Wall Street Journal, was "?severely disrupted by Hurricane Sandy," according to a?post on its?Tumblr site.

When you see a website go down,?the blame usually falls on hackers or, more often, software bugs.?We don't often think of?the Web as having a physical existence, but sure enough, Sandy has shown that nature can impact websites with greater force than any team of malicious code wizards can summon up.

The problem was explained by BuzzFeed ? not in a post on its own site, but on a BuzzFeed channel on the Tumblr blogging network:

Datagram, the ISP whose Manhattan servers host BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Gawker, and other sites, has lost power, an official there told us via text this evening.

"Basement flooded, fuel pump off line ? we got people working on it now. 5 feet of water now," the official wrote.

Even Tuesday, Datagram was still struggling to recover. At 11:20 a.m. ET, the company's website reported: "We are still flooded, as soon as the basement is cleared we will be allowed to operate the generator and restore power." Then at 11:53 a.m. came the update: "The building has slowly begun to pump water out of the basement. They are unable to provide an ETA however."

Nationally, the picture was not so grim. Most of the country's?top websites "appear to have weathered the storm remarkably well," wrote Aaron Rudger, senior?marketing manager of Web performance for Keynote, a mobile and website monitoring and testing service, in an email to NBC News. "Overall performance slowed by about 7 percent, with average availability of 98 percent."

Rudger said that only one of 40 biggest websites tracked by Keynote had an outage in the timeframe?of?Sandy's impact, job site Monster.com. "That site experienced major failures at around 8?p.m. Pacific Time last night, persisting throughout the evening and into the morning. The site appears to have recovered now."

Gawker founder and publisher Nick Denton "was among Internet honchos who engages a data center in downtown Manhattan, which, unshockingly to anyone who's read a weather report in the last five days, didn't make it," wrote The Awl's Choire Sicha, who added, "The rest of us made data center preparations; even then, some of us went down after midnight."

But given the scope of the outage, it's not clear what quick preparations could have been made to avoid the problems, especially for sites that are hosted in a single physical?location.?

"We had plans for a second data center in 2013 which we will now be moving up," Scott Kidder, Gawker's?executive director of operations, told NBC News in an email. "We ? as other publishers ? had counted on Datagram's ability to withstand anticipated natural disasters, which seems to have been misplaced."

Like other sites facing data failures in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Gawker turned to alternative publishing. (You can now?find Gawker sites at updates.gawker.com,?updates.gizmodo.com, updates.kotaku.com, updates.jalopnik.com, and so on). Denton urged his staff to turn to Facebook and Twitter as well.

"While we're obviously disappointed with Datagram," said Kidder, "our priority has been getting back online for our readers with an alternate publishing platform, which we've now done with all sites thanks to Tumblr."

"Elements of BuzzFeed?s site and many story pages are back online, thanks to a Content Delivery Network, Akamai, which hosts the content at servers distributed around the world," said BuzzFeed's Tumblr page. "We aren?t able to update the site right now, however," so the site provided its Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook info for readers.

During its outage, The Huffington Post was able to redirect traffic to an alternate server at status.huffingtonpost.com, but appeared to have recovered sooner than the?others.?

Re-directing readers to social channels and new Web addresses is a messy proposition, but in today's twitterfied news world, it's not as crazy as it sounds. At least not for BuzzFeed, according the site's tech editor, Matt Buchanan.

"I think BuzzFeed is in a unique position because it's a social publisher at its core ? so it's totally natural for us to move to these other media," Buchanan told NBC News. "I think a lot of our readers are totally comfortable following us as natives of the social Web. Also, it helps that we had strong presences on Twitter and Tumblr to begin with."

Despite intermittent Tumblr outages, Buchanan said traffic was "picking up" on BuzzFeed's alternatives, particularly buzzfeedpolitics.tumblr.com.

But?getting BuzzFeed's main?site back on track has taken more Herculean efforts: It is rebuilding the whole operation on a cloud-based server run by Amazon.?"The team have been working non-stop since we went down yesterday," said BuzzFeed's Ben Smith.?One of BuzzFeed's New York-based?developers who coded through the night for the emergency site?transplant did so with a tree smashed through the roof of his home.

Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/news-sites-knocked-out-nyc-data-center-floods-1C6759330

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Technician Fired Over Mighty River Random Drug Test... | Stuff.co.nz

A geothermal technician who was stood down from his job at Mighty River Power's (MRP) Kawerau power station for refusing to undergo a drug test will have to keep fighting the company for reinstatement.

Dean Cowell was suspended from work on August 31, only a week after MRP introduced an amendment to the company's random drug and alcohol testing policy via email.

His union, the Electrical Union, took the view that the policy amounted to a unilateral variation of the terms of the collective agreement and was "not lawful and reasonable". Cowell is also seeking compensation for injury to his feelings caused by the duress of the attempted drug test.

However the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has delivered a preliminary ruling based only on whether MRP was entitled to deem Cowell's position "safety sensitive", meaning he was eligible to be tested, with the other issues to be decided later in November.

Cowell asserted there was nothing in his role that had any features that were safety sensitive, his role was not listed on the register of hazards at the site and there was no public safety risk because health and safety rules were followed.

However ERA member Rosemary Monaghan decided MRP did have the right to designate Cowell's job a "safety sensitive" one. She did not accept the submission that Cowell's job was not listed among the hazards for the worksite and was therefore not safety sensitive in itself.

"[The submission] does not address the role of drug and alcohol testing as one of the measures available to manage hazards, rather it asserts such testing is not necessary because sufficient measures are already in place."

Monaghan said that Cowell's argument did not preclude drug and alcohol testing because such measures were no different to those existing safety measures that he relied on in his workplace.

The ERA decision said MRP witnesses had set out the "substantial safety risks" associated with running a geothermal plant ? including the extraction of high temperature steam from deep underground, the use of inflammable compounds, and the creation and transmission of extremely high voltages.

- ? Fairfax NZ News

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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7887317/Worker-loses-first-round-in-drug-test-fight

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Agriculture and food production contribute up to 29 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2012) ? Feeding the world releases up to 17,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, according to a new analysis released October 30 by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). But while the emissions "footprint" of food production needs to be reduced, a companion policy brief by CCAFS lays out how climate change will require a complete recalibration of where specific crops are grown and livestock are raised.

Together, Climate Change and Food Systems (published in the 2012 Annual Review of Environment and Resources) and Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World: Global Warming Will Change More Than Just the Climate (published by CCAFS), shed new light on the intertwining evolutions of climate change and the world's food system and their potential impact on humanity's relationship with food.

"Climate Change mitigation and adaptation are critical priorities. Farmers around the world, especially smallholder farmers in developing countries, need access to the latest science, more resources and advanced technology. This research serves as an urgent call for negotiators at the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha," said Bruce Campbell, CCAFS's program director.

"We are coming to terms with the fact that agriculture is a critical player in climate change. Not only are emissions from agriculture much larger than previously estimated, but with weather records being set every month as regional climates adjust and reset, there is an urgent need for research that helps smallholder farmers adapt to the new normal." said Frank Rijsberman, the CEO of the CGIAR Consortium.

While previous studies have looked at the contribution of agriculture to emissions, Climate Change and Food Systems assesses the entire food system's emissions "footprint" -- in total somewhere between a fifth and third of the greenhouse gases emitted by people on this planet. This figure accounts for every aspect of food production and distribution -- including growing crops and raising livestock, manufacturing fertilizer, and storing, transporting and refrigerating food. Agriculture accounts for around 80 percent of these emissions, but the combined contribution of transport, refrigeration, consumer practices and waste management is growing.

"The food-related emissions and, conversely, the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the food system, will profoundly alter the way we grow and produce food. This will affect different parts of the world in radically different ways, but all regions will have to change their current approach to what they grow and eat," said Sonja Vermeulen, the head of research at CCAFS and the lead author of Climate Change and Food Security.

Determining what crops grow in which places

Yields of the three biggest crops in terms of calories provided -- maize, rice and wheat -- will decrease in many developing countries as temperatures rise and rainfall becomes more unpredictable, according to Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World. The analysis, which studies the potential effects of climate change on 22 of the world's most important commodities, highlights the impending transformations of the agricultural landscape.

By 2050, climate change could cause irrigated wheat yields in developing countries to fall by 13 percent. Irrigated rice is these same countries could tumble 15 percent. In Africa, many farmers of maize, which is not that well suited to increased temperatures, could lose 10 to 20 percent of their yields.

Additional calorie and protein sources will also suffer in many places. The cost of feeding livestock with maize and grain will become more expensive. And the availability of fish -- which are particularly susceptible to higher temperatures and higher ocean salinity -- will become increasingly constrained.

Vegetable sources of protein will not fare much better. Soybeans have great difficulty withstanding higher temperatures. Even heartier crops, such as millet, lentils and cowpea -- "the poor man's meat" -- can wither under too much heat stress.

Higher temperatures and unpredictable rainfall impact more than just crop yields. These changes also alter the underlying ecosystems that support agriculture. Freshwater resources, already strained is several regions across the globe, will become even less reliable as rain becomes less predictable.

"Ecosystem changes due to climate change may spawn shifts in the intensity of pests and diseases, including potato blight and beetles, that will further limit food production. Indeed, even if crops could withstand increased temperatures and decreased rainfall, their yields could drop because of these scourges," said Philip Thornton, the author of Recalibrating Food Production and a theme leader at CCAFS.

Climate impacts beyond the farm

The impact of climate change also hits before and after harvest. Every step of the food chain -- from the seed to the farm to the cooking pot -- is at risk. Increased temperatures and flooding, which exacerbate challenges to food storage and distribution, may cause more outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. This spread of diarrheal diseases, which already kill 1.9 million people a year, and livestock-related diseases, which include zoonoses, infectious diseases transmitted from livestock and other animals to humans, will hit the poor in low-income countries hardest.

"So far, the climate change discussion has focused on the need to reduce emissions and sustainably boost crop yields, but it is crucial also to include food safety in our foresight and planning," said Vermeulen.

As farmers and food producers adapt and recalibrate their responses to climate change and its many challenges, the culture of food and what is eaten will need to adjust or change completely as different crops are raised to compensate for new growing conditions.

"The problems that climate change produces in the fields will be tackled in industrialized countries. It is the smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia and the urban poor who spend too much of their wages on food; these are the people who will have less to eat in the near future unless we adapt at a much faster pace," said Robert Zougmor?, CCAFS' regional program leader for West Africa.

The challenges laid out in these research papers -- lowering the emissions footprint of food production and adapting food systems to changing climates -- must be confronted as the world population grows to an estimated nine to ten billion people by 2050. Feeding this many new people -- the equivalent of two additional Indias -- will not only require substantial increases in production, but better access to a nutritious diet as well.

"The good news is that if farmers and food producers start to adapt now, they can stave off some of the dour food production and distribution scenarios laid out in this research. But they can't face these complex, interrelated problems, which vary from crop to crop and region to region, alone. They need support from the highest levels," Thornton said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Burness Communications, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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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/C1zp2xUWIk8/121030210343.htm

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Movie Review: A Secret Affair ? The Birth of Damnation

Mistress-themed films are the current fad in local pop culture. There is nothing original in the idea ? like most fads; it is experiencing some sort of renaissance. Older movies dealing with infidelities feature the usual trifecta: the patient (or stupid) wife, the caring (or opportunistic) mistress and the misunderstood (or as*hole) husband. The current crop of movies still includes the same set of classic characters. Some people are complaining though that the torrent of mistress-themed films nibble on the moral fibers of our social relations. I am not a self-righteous moralistic nagger so am not one to believe their fire-and-brim sermons. However, I do think filmmakers should place a quota on the number of mistress-themed film releases, not for moral reasons, but for creative purposes. The dearth of imagination continues to pervade mainstream filmdom. This movie just might push it closer to creative blackhole.

I think CRISTINE REYES did not make the cast because she has a full schedule. Good for her.

I think DEREK RAMSAY makes movies to flaunt his tattoos. His recent career choices make him Eddie Rodriguez 2.0 ? the original King of Love Triangles ? but with lesser dramatic skill set.

I think ANNE CURTIS has proven that she has had enough of cute roles and out to make more mature stuff. But please be advised that mature characters do not NECESSARILY mean spiteful wives and scheming mistresses.

I think ANDI EIGENMANN is fortunate to still receive project offers despite the controversies she figured in the recent past. I also think she is a sensible enough to charter the course of her career better. In a manner of speaking, her role in this movie announces her departure from sweet roles. We heard it loud and clear so please take a different one next time.

I think JACKLYN JOSE deserves something better ? much better ? in her next screen project. (She figured in one of the b*tchiest and funniest scene in the film. The fact that she was still able to make this screen clutter a wee bit watchable is a testament to her enormous talent.)

I think JACKIELOU BLANCO is a forgotten actress and this film does not help her cause.

I think the movie features the MOST IRKSOME SET OF BARKADA ever. The combination of overdone colegiala accents and obvious hair relaxation procedures is a full-on aural and visual assault.

I think the scenes depicting the SOCIAL MEDIA TUSSLE of the lead characters are futile attempts to make commentaries on the destructive effects of social networking sites to human relationships.

I think A SECRET AFFAIR aspires to replicate the success of NO OTHER WOMAN and even if the intention was not verbalized, it is apparent as each scene unfolds. It is not improper to follow movie trends for box-office purposes; after all, movie-making is also a business. But filmmakers should at least make an effort to improve the trend. (Or start another trend.) Some people think A SECRET AFFAIR is better than NO OTHER WOMAN ? not true. First, NO OTHER WOMAN is not a first-rate film. The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is ridiculous and the ending is terrible. A SECRET AFFAIR has the same elements that made NO OTHER WOMAN successful (b*tchiness and campiness) and dreadful (one-dimensional characters, ridiculous plot) but with a more subdued conclusion. Second, A SECRET AFFAIR is the clone in this equation and second-rate materials are seldom decent. A second-rate duplicate of a substandard original portends dire results.?? ?

?RATING: C

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Source: http://jowanabueser.com/2012/10/30/movie-review-a-secret-affair/

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The TRUTH About Motherhood Autumn Pasquale, Dante Robinson ...

?

Two teenage brothers, Justin,15, and Dante, 17,? Robinson, have been charged with allegedly murdering of 12-year-old, Autumn Pasquale, who disappeared while riding her BMX bike. After a 48-hour search for Autumn Pasquale, investigators found her body stuffed into a recycling bin behind a vacant house next to the one where the boys lived with their family. These sociopaths beat her, strangled her and stuffed her into the bin like a piece of garbage. This was someone?s little girl.

A tip from the boys? mother is what led police to the little girl?s body. She contacted the authorities when she was alarmed by one of the boy?s Facebook postings. It?s not been released what exactly the post was but it must have been outrageous to cause a mother to turn her own children in. Can you imagine how hard that must have been?

When crime scene investigators went through the family?s home, they found Autumn Pasquale ?s BMX bike, her backpack and other belongings.

Several people in Autumn Pasquale?s small hometown of Clayton, New Jersey said they saw both boys at the vigil held Monday night for Autumn. They had the balls to stand among her friends and family and al the people who were praying for her safe return, all the while knowing that she was never coming home because she was dead. Autumn was in the recycling bin, because those little sick fucks put her there.

Justin Robinson lured her to their house with the promise of trading BMX parts, where Justin and Dante Robinson strangled a little girl for her bike, stole her from all the people who loved her and then they tossed her out trash.

Both boys turned themselves in Tuesday and have been charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, disposing of a body, tampering with evidence and theft. The younger boy is also charged with luring.

The brothers, who are 15 and 17, are charged as juveniles. But Prosecutor Sean Dalton said it?s likely he?ll ask that their case be moved to adult court.

As the mother of little girls, I can?t imagine what her parents are going through. I?d imagine they are beside themselves with grief and anger. The mother of the boys, my heart breaks for her because it could not have been an easy choice to turn her sons in but she did what was right. This case has left two families broken and one little girl dead.

These boys are monsters and need to be locked away from society. They are obviously dangerous if they can be so cold and commit such a heinous crime at such a young age with no remorse and have the gall to not only throw Autumn Pasquale in the garbage but to attend her vigil and look her parents in the eyes knowing what they did. They are deviants. A throat punch is too good for these boys.

My heart goes out to their mother and the parents of Autumn Pasquale.

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Deborah Cruz, aka Truthful Mommy, is a wife, writer, semi-crunchy Ninja Mommy, tech junkie and shoe whore. "Are you there Louboutin, it's me,Debi?" Spends her days in suburbia drinking coffee, shuttling kids and planning social media world domination.

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Source: http://www.motherhoodthetruth.com/autumn-pasquale-murdered-dante-justin-robinson/

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Imprisoned detective may pose risk to star clients

FILE - In this June 19, 2009 file photo, former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano appears in court in Los Angeles. Four years after Pellicano went to prison for wiretapping phones of the rich and famous on behalf of celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, his clients face hefty bills for his skullduggery. A Los Angeles County jury awarded nearly $4 million in the first of several lawsuits against Pellicano?s well-heeled clients, in finding that the ex-wife of a billionaire philanthropist invaded the privacy of her three adult step-children and a former personal assistant. The verdict could spell trouble for other former clients who have been sued, such as Paramount studio head Brad Grey and one-time superagent Michael Ovitz. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

FILE - In this June 19, 2009 file photo, former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano appears in court in Los Angeles. Four years after Pellicano went to prison for wiretapping phones of the rich and famous on behalf of celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, his clients face hefty bills for his skullduggery. A Los Angeles County jury awarded nearly $4 million in the first of several lawsuits against Pellicano?s well-heeled clients, in finding that the ex-wife of a billionaire philanthropist invaded the privacy of her three adult step-children and a former personal assistant. The verdict could spell trouble for other former clients who have been sued, such as Paramount studio head Brad Grey and one-time superagent Michael Ovitz. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

FILE - This Oct. 3, 2011 file photo shows Paramount Pictures executive Brad Grey at the premiere of "Footloose" in Los Angeles. Four years after Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano went to prison for wiretapping phones of the rich and famous on behalf of celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, his clients face hefty bills for his skullduggery. A Los Angeles County jury awarded nearly $4 million in the first of several lawsuits against Pellicano?s well-heeled clients, in finding that the ex-wife of a billionaire philanthropist invaded the privacy of her three adult step-children and a former personal assistant. The verdict could spell trouble for other former clients who have been sued, such as Grey and one-time superagent Michael Ovitz. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 1, 2004 file photo, former president of Disney Michael Ovitz arrives at Chancery Court in Georgetown, Del. Four years after Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano went to prison for wiretapping phones of the rich and famous on behalf of celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, his clients face hefty bills for his skullduggery. A Los Angeles County jury awarded nearly $4 million in the first of several lawsuits against Pellicano?s well-heeled clients, in finding that the ex-wife of a billionaire philanthropist invaded the privacy of her three adult step-children and a former personal assistant. The verdict could spell trouble for other former clients who have been sued, such as Paramount studio head Brad Grey and one-time superagent Michael Ovitz. (AP Photo/Chris Gardner, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Four years after a private eye went to prison for wiretapping phones of the rich and famous on behalf of celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights, his clients are facing hefty bills for his skullduggery.

In the first of more than a dozen lawsuits against Anthony Pellicano's well-heeled clients, a jury last week ruled against the ex-wife of a billionaire philanthropist, awarding $4 million to his three adult children and former personal assistant after she violated their privacy.

The verdict could spell trouble for other former clients who have been sued, such as Paramount studio head Brad Grey and one-time superagent Michael Ovitz.

The case against the ex-wife, Jacqueline Colburn, is the first to be tried before a jury stemming from a criminal probe that ensnared Pellicano for targeting Sylvester Stallone, Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon and for work he did for others like Chris Rock and an attorney who represented MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian in a child custody battle.

Pellicano, 68, is now serving 15 years in a federal prison in Texas after being convicted in 2008 of racketeering and more than six dozen other counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud and wiretapping. He is scheduled to be released in March 2019.

The trial billed as a blockbuster that would reveal the seedier side of Hollywood fizzled in the end as Pellicano kept silent, acting as his own lawyer.

The evidence showed he dug up dirt on clients' rivals by bribing phone company employees to install wiretapping software and had rogue police officers search databases for personal information. The information was used in hardball negotiations for business disputes, divorces and lawsuits.

Clients such as Grey, Ovitz and comedian Rock were never charged in the case and they insisted they didn't know about Pellicano's tactics. Kerkorian also has said that he had no knowledge of any wiretapping being used.

Grey and Ovitz are now facing lawsuits that could be costly and where the evidence is potentially stronger than the Colburn case, which relied largely on testimony and not on FBI reports or damning audio tapes made by Pellicano.

"I would think people will think long and hard about their exposure," said attorney Lawrence Segal, who represented Richard Colburn's children. "A lot of defendants may be thinking that in the absence of actual recordings they stand a decent chance of a defense. But we were able to prevail on a largely circumstantial case."

About a dozen lawsuits have moved slowly through the legal system alleging wiretapping and privacy invasion. Among the other defendants are AT&T and the cities of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, where the police officers who provided information to Pellicano worked.

Most of the lawsuits are pending before a judge but have been mired by appeals in the criminal case, which allows Pellicano and others to preserve their right against self-incrimination, and the exchange of documents between attorneys was put on hold for many months. No trial dates have even been set.

A settlement in some of the lawsuits has been reached, said attorney Brian Kabateck, who represents several Pellicano victims, but a deal hasn't been finalized. He said the Colburn verdict provides some reassurance to his clients.

"It shows that juries are still outraged about this behavior even though it was many years ago," he said. "I think it sends a message to the defendants that they are going to have to pay real money."

The verdict in the Colburn case is a fraction of the fortune billionaire philanthropist left behind when he died in 2004 at age 92.

Evidence showed that his eighth wife, Jacqueline, who was nearly 50 years younger, paid Pellicano at least $115,000 to snoop on her husband after he was caught having phone sex with another woman, according to the lawsuit.

Ex-Pellicano employee Richard Campau testified that Colburn was in the private eye's office regularly listening to audio tapes of calls to and from the family home. Physical therapist David Powers also testified that Colburn bragged to him that she had hired the best private investigator in Los Angeles and he was using wiretaps.

There were an estimated 500 calls that were wiretapped by Pellicano over a 10-month period which captured numerous personal, medical and business matters involving the three adult children from a prior marriage and the ex-personal assistant, all of whom believed their conversations were private.

They "never knew of the surreptitious eavesdropping and certainly never agreed to put their personal lives on public display," said plaintiffs' attorney Wayne Skigen.

The lawsuit focused solely on the ex-wife and Pellicano and wasn't bogged down by suing large entities, such as the phone company or any cities. Segal and Skigen are seeking a default judgment against Pellicano because he hasn't responded to their claims.

Attempts to reach Jacqueline Colburn's attorney, Stanley McKiernan, were unsuccessful Wednesday. McKiernan has said there isn't any evidence showing Pellicano wiretapped on his client's behalf.

Federal authorities started investigating Pellicano after former Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch found a dead fish with a rose in its mouth on her car along with a sign reading "stop" in June 2002.

Busch testified at the criminal trial that she believed Ovitz and Pellicano had orchestrated the threat because she co-wrote articles about the agent's alleged financial troubles while his talent agency was in talks to be acquired.

Ovitz is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Busch. He has yet to give a deposition.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-10-25-Hollywood%20Wiretaps/id-d0e0a8e7ae424aa18b252947f72dbe51

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sales teleselling: The Difference Between Telemarketing and ...

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What's the difference between B2B telemarketing and telesales?

These two terms are often misunderstood and are always interchanged. But bear in mind that the intention and plan of B2B telemarketing is really different from telesales. The unfavorable impression related to telemarketing is oftentimes due to its misunderstanding with telesales. The latter, as a matter of fact, is a form of telemarketing.

B2B telemarketing is very dissimilar in the sense that its purpose is to generate interest, foster additional contact, so that in the process, it can establish strong connections and calls are usually made directly to the decision makers within the likely or the present client's organization. Telesales call is normally utilized in the world of business to sell a product or service-or basically, to close a sale. Telesales will not be successful if the sale is not materialized and accomplished during the call.

Depending on the preferred results of your B2B telemarketing campaign, outbound phone marketing callers can try to attract the call recipients into wanting to hear and know more about the products and/or services they offer to the public. Or, these telemarketers also try to schedule a follow up visit with a firm representative in order to talk about the needs of the prospects, as they relate to the business, but in more details.

B2B telemarketing agents typically call and communicate in order to collect data from their clients or prospective clients to perk up their own processes and systems. These kinds of calls are regarded to as telemarketing surveys. The outcome of these telemarketing surveys are influential when it comes to developing strategic decisions, company procedures and policies.

And if you are seriously taking into consideration using a B2B telemarketing company, then, why not? There are plenty of services given by B2B telemarketing service providers to facilitate you if your company is not doing very well in the market these days. They can aid you in identifying business opportunities, build favorable leads, raise revenues, and more.

Building favorable business-to-business leads is by far one of the greatest advantages of a B2B telemarketing service provider. They could assist you on how to identify your audience and how to efficiently target them so that you would accumulate more sales and probably long-term clients. When you make use of a B2B telemarketing agency, it can help you in identifying opportunities that you may have possibly overlooked before. The significance of being always on the lookout for each opportunity as you possibly can cannot be overemphasized. They could aid you in identifying every opportunity and to go after it properly.

The, B2B telemarketing firms can help you in filling your pipeline right away so that you could speed up your sales cycle. The end goal would have to be improving your business by way of maximizing profit. There are actually several reasons as to why you should consider getting the services of the business to business telemarketing service providers. They serve to help you when it comes to your issues concerning with sales, identifying opportunities and the problems which may cause your business to fail.

Jayden Chu helps companies in Singapore and in other Asia Pacific countries increase their business revenue through lead generation and appointment setting services. He is a professional consultant for telemarketing services. To find out how you can increase your business revenue, go to http://www.callbox.com.sg/

Source: http://bestsalesteleselling.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-difference-between-telemarketing.html

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Source: http://sdfsada.posterous.com/sales-teleselling-the-difference-between-tele

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Nokia seeks $1 billion from bonds to help drive fightback

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Mobile phone maker Nokia plans to raise 750 million euros ($980 million) by issuing bonds that can be converted into shares, seeking a cheap way to bolster its fragile finances as it battles to claw back market share lost to Apple and Samsung.

Once the world's biggest mobile phone maker, the Finnish firm has fallen far behind Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy phones in the lucrative smartphone market, and is pinning its hopes for recovery on new models that go on sale next month.

With its cash reserves falling and its credit ratings cut to junk over the past year, analysts have said Nokia needs to show a turnaround in the next several months if it is to survive.

Its shares fell over 7 percent to around 2 euros in Tuesday afternoon trade as investors worried the eventual conversion of the new bonds into stock would reduce earnings per share.

But analysts said the choice of convertible bonds - which normally pay lower interest rates than normal bonds because they offer investors the chance of making money when they are converted into shares - was a smart one.

"It is a rather cheap way to get extra financing," said Evli analyst Mikko Ervasti. "They need buffers (and) their 2014 bond also requires financing."

Nokia's net cash fell to 3.6 billion euros in September from 4.2 billion in June. It also finished the third quarter with 3.8 billion euros in interest-bearing liabilities, with 1.75 billion in bonds and loans maturing in 2014.

Additionally, the company owns half of network equipment venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which finished the quarter with 1.4 billion euros in liabilities.

The convertible bonds will be due in 2017 and will pay a coupon between 4.25 percent and 5.00 percent. The initial price for conversion into ordinary shares is expected to be 28-33 percent above the average price of Nokia shares between the launch and pricing of the offering.

PINNING HOPES ON LUMIA

Nokia's fortunes hinge on its top-of-the-range Lumia 820 and 920 models, which run on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 software. The phones, which come in vivid colors and have high-resolution cameras, will hit the stores in November.

On Tuesday, the group unveiled the lower price Lumia 510, which is an update of the Lumia 610 but does not use the newest version of Windows software. The 510 has a larger screen and will be sold for around $199, excluding taxes and subsidies.

ING analysts welcomed the convertible bonds plan as reducing uncertainty around Nokia's short-term debt maturities and bolstering its capital.

"It also shows that the company is taking the question marks around its credit quality seriously and is willing to take the steps necessary to improve this," they said in a research note.

Nokia's five-year credit default swaps were trading around 2.8 percent tighter in earlier trading, meaning lower costs of insuring the company against default.

The final terms of the convertible bonds, including the conversion price and maximum number of shares which may be issued upon conversion, will be announced later in the day. Trading in the bonds are due to start around October 26.

BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi and Deutsche are the joint bookrunners.

(Additional reporting by Jussi Rosendahl and Tarmo Virki in Helsinki and Josephine Cox in London; Editing by Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nokia-seeks-1-billion-bonds-help-power-fightback-093924937--finance.html

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Obama, Romney in final sprint to Election Day

Vice President Joe Biden listens at right as President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Vice President Joe Biden listens at right as President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, and his vice presidential running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., takes the stage at a campaign stop, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, in Henderson, Nev. It was the first joint appearance after Monday's last presidential debate between Romney and President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A silhouetted President Barack Obama gestures while speaking at a campaign event at Delray Beach Tennis Center, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012 in Delray Beach, Fla., the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The president is making campaign stops in Florida and Ohio today. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves as he speaks to the crowd during a campaign event Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, in Henderson, Nev. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

President Barack Obama stops to waves to supporters as he takes the stage during a campaign event at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) ? The endgame at hand, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney plunged into the final two weeks of an excruciatingly close race for the White House Tuesday with TV advertising nearing an astronomical $1 billion and millions of Americans casting early ballots in all regions of the country.

Increasingly, Ohio looms as ground zero in a campaign waged in tough economic times. The state's unemployment rate of 7 percent is well below the national average of 7.8 percent, Obama has campaigned here more than in any other state and Romney has booked a heavy schedule of appearances in hopes of a breakthrough.

The economy was the theme Tuesday as the two rivals put their final, foreign policy-focused debate behind.

Obama brandished a new 20-page summary of his second-term agenda and told a campaign crowd in Florida his rival's blueprint "doesn't really create jobs. His deficit plan doesn't reduce the deficit; it adds to it."

More than that, he said Romney changes his positions so often that he can't be trusted.

In Dayton, Obama said of his rival: "In the closing weeks of the campaign, he's doing everything he can to hide his true positions. He is terrific at making presentations about stuff he thinks is wrong with America, but he sure can't give you an answer about what will make it right. And that's not leadership you can trust."

Before flying to Ohio for his 17th trip of the election year, Obama also said with a hint of humility: "It doesn't mean that every candidate is going to get everything done all at once perfectly, but you want somebody to be able to look you in the eye and say, here's what I believe."

Romney countered in an appearance before a large, cheering crowd in Henderson, Nev. He said Obama wants a new term for the same policies that have produced slow economic growth and high unemployment for four long years. "He is a status quo candidate. ... That's why his campaign is slipping and ours is gaining so much steam," he said.

Romney's aides dismissed Obama's 20-page booklet as nothing new, and the former Massachusetts governor said of the president: "His vision for the future is a repeat of the past."

There seemed to be no end to the television advertising in a season when voters report they are heartily sick of it.

If anything, it was expanding in the race's final days. Restore Our Future, which supports Romney, launched ads aimed at one of the two congressional districts in Maine in an attempt to peel one electoral vote away from Obama.

Material collected by ad trackers showed the two candidates and allied groups have spent or reserved nearly $950 million so far on television commercials, much of it negative, some of it harshly so. Romney and GOP groups had a $100 million advantage over Obama and his supporters, although variations in the purchase price made it difficult to compare the number of ads each side had run.

Increasingly, the two campaigns were focused on turning out their supporters in early balloting under way in more than half the states.

"Every single day right now is Election Day," Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, told reporters. On that, at least, Republicans offered no rebuttal.

About 5 million voters have already cast ballots according to data collected by the United States Elections Project at George Mason University, and about 35 million are expected to do so before Nov. 6.

While no votes will be counted until Election Day, the group said Democrats have cast more ballots than Republicans in the battleground states of North Carolina and Iowa by about 20 percentage points, while in Nevada, about 121,000 people have voted ? 49 percent Democrats and 35 percent Republicans.

Republicans have an early edge in Colorado, where Republicans have cast 43 percent of the 25,000 ballots to date, to 34 percent for Democrats.

Romney's camp projected confidence as the race entered its final phase, still riding an October surge in the polls that began after the challenger's dominant performance in the first presidential debate on Oct. 3 in Denver.

The Electoral College math made clear neither man had sealed a victory.

Wins in Ohio and in Wisconsin ? a state that Democrats have carried in the past six presidential elections ? would leave Obama only five electoral votes short of the 270 needed for victory.

That placed a premium on Ohio ? readily apparent from the candidates' campaign schedules and the millions in television advertising flooding the state.

Romney arrives in Cincinnati on Wednesday night after a Western swing, and is expected to spend all day Thursday and part of Friday campaigning across the state.

His running mate, Paul Ryan, is to deliver a speech on the economy Wednesday at Cleveland State University, something of an unusual event in a campaign with only two weeks to run.

Obama intends to fly into the state Thursday at the end of a two-day, cross-country trip into a half-dozen battlegrounds.

Vice President Joe Biden was in Toledo during the day before heading to Dayton to join Obama for a rally, mid-way through Biden's three-day tour of the state.

Barring a last-minute change, Obama appears on course to win states and the District of Columbia that account for 237 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Romney has a firm hold on states with 191 electoral votes.

The battlegrounds account for the remaining 110 electoral votes: Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4), Iowa (6), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), Ohio (18) and Wisconsin (10).

____

Espo reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt in Nevada and Stephen Ohlemacher, Beth Fouhy and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-23-Presidential%20Campaign/id-c6bf7a9299004968b8023da62c651284

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African-led security force to Mali leads AU talks

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Auschwitz prisoner and photographer dies at 95

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2006 photo Wilhelm Brasse speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Zywiec, Poland. Brasse, a former Auschwitz prisoner who survived the camp after the Nazis discovered he was a professional photographer and put him to work taking pictures of other prisoners, has died. He was 95. Brasse was a political prisoner for five years in the Nazi run death camp during World War II, where he took prisoner identity photos and later pictures of SS doctor Josef Mengele's "medical experiments" on camp prisoners. Brasse returned to his hometown after the war, but never worked as a photographer again. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2006 photo Wilhelm Brasse speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Zywiec, Poland. Brasse, a former Auschwitz prisoner who survived the camp after the Nazis discovered he was a professional photographer and put him to work taking pictures of other prisoners, has died. He was 95. Brasse was a political prisoner for five years in the Nazi run death camp during World War II, where he took prisoner identity photos and later pictures of SS doctor Josef Mengele's "medical experiments" on camp prisoners. Brasse returned to his hometown after the war, but never worked as a photographer again. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

FILE - This is a prisoner identity photo provided by the Auschwitz Museum, taken by Wilhelm Brasse while working in the photography department at Auschwitz, the Nazi-run death camp. Brasse, a former Auschwitz prisoner who survived the camp after the Nazis discovered he was a professional photographer and put him to work taking pictures of other prisoners, has died. He was 95. The Nazis sent Brasse to the camp as a Polish political prisoner in 1940, where he estimates that he took some 40,000 to 50,000 such identity pictures for the Nazis. (AP Photo/Auschwitz Museum)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? The images are haunting: naked and emaciated children at Auschwitz standing shoulder-to-shoulder, adult prisoners in striped garb posing for police-style mug shots.

One of several photographers to capture such images, Wilhelm Brasse, has died at the age of 95. A Polish photographer who was arrested and sent to Auschwitz early in World War II, he was put to work documenting his fellow prisoners, an emotionally devastating task that tormented him long after his liberation.

Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, said that Brasse died on Tuesday in Zywiec, a town in southern Poland.

Brasse, who was born in 1917 and was not Jewish, was sent to Auschwitz at 22 as a political prisoner for trying to sneak out of German-occupied Poland in the spring of 1940. Because he had worked before the war in a photography studio in Katowice, in southern Poland, he was put to work in the camp's photography and identification department.

The job helped to save his life, enabling him to get better treatment and food than many others. Because he worked with the SS, the elite Nazi force, he was also kept cleaner "so as not to offend the SS men," he recalled in an Associated Press interview in 2006.

After the war, he had nightmares for years of the Nazi victims he was forced to photograph. Among them were emaciated Jewish girls who were about to undergo cruel medical experiments under the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele.

"I didn't return to my profession, because those Jewish kids, and the naked Jewish girls, constantly flashed before my eyes," he said. "Even more so because I knew that later, after taking their pictures, they would just go to the gas."

In the AP interview, Brasse said believed he took about 40,000 to 50,000 of the identity photographs that the Nazis used to register their prisoners ? part of the Nazi obsession with documenting their work. These pictures are among some of the notorious images associated with the camp.

Brasse was not alone in documenting prisoners. Mensfelt said there were other photographers as well and that an estimated 200,000 such pictures were probably taken. Most were destroyed.

Now it's difficult to say which of the surviving photos were Brasses's because they generally did not carry the photographer's name. Some he remembered and was able to identify later.

At the war's end, with the Soviet army about to liberate Auschwitz, the Germans ordered the photos destroyed. Brasse and others refused the order and managed to save about 40,000 of them.

Though Brasse early on in his captivity was the only professional photographer in the SS documentation office, eventually some other prisoners took over taking ID photos. Brasse was given new assignments, including taking the pictures of prisoner tattoos and pictures for Mengele.

Mengele ordered pictures of various prisoners he planned to perform his experiments on, including Jewish twins, dwarfs, stunted people and people with noma, a disease common in the malnourished that can result in the loss of flesh.

"I had to take close-ups. He said sometimes you will be able to see the whole bone of the jaw, and that I have to do close-ups of it. I did the close-ups, in harsh light, and you could see to the bone," Brasse said. "Later, my boss called me in, and Dr. Mengele expressed his happiness with the pictures I'd taken, that I'd taken them just as he had needed them to be done."

Brasse said he never had the right to refuse what Mengele or the other Germans demanded.

"It was an order, and prisoners didn't have the right to disagree. I couldn't say 'I won't do that,'" he recalled in 2006. "I only listened to what I had to do and because I didn't harm anyone by what I was doing, I tried to address them politely."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-24-Poland-Obit-Brasse/id-2c9a3eae49864ac98a331465fd163510

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Flu Vaccines in Grade Schools Significantly Curb Illness

Public health officials have been trying to drum up support for flu vaccination for all kids ages six months and older for several years now. Vaccination rates have crept up, but half of all kids still don't get a yearly flu shot. A new study suggests that schools may be the best place to immunize kids, especially schools in lower-socioeconomic areas where annual flu vaccine rates are low.

Getting kids immunized is no small matter. About 24,000 people, adults and children, die each year from the flu. Moreover, studies in recent years have pointed to preschool and grade-school aged children as robust carriers of the virus that then spreads throughout all age groups. If those kids are immunized, the thinking goes, then flu rates would be lower throughout communities.

"Children are very capable of spreading the flu," Dr. Pia Pannaraj, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told Take Part. "They spread the virus very easily to each other. They go home and bring the flu virus to grandma and grandpa and baby brother or baby sister who could become severely ill? with this virus."

RELATED: Have an Egg Allergy? Flu Shots are Likely OK

In data presented last week, Pannaraj makes a strong case for vaccinating kids in schools. The study was comprised of almost 4,500 kids in grades kindergarten through six at eight schools in Los Angeles County during the 2010-2011 flu season. In four of the schools, information and permission slips for a school-based, free flu vaccine program were sent home to parents. The other four schools were used as a comparison group. In schools with the vaccine program, parents could choose which type of vaccine their child received -- shot or nasal spray. The parents did not have to be present when the child received the vaccine.

To accurately assess flu rates, the researchers ran lab tests on any student who came down with a respiratory symptom, such as a cough, sneezing or sore throat.

Pannaraj found that vaccinated kids were three times less likely to get the flu and missed half the number of school days compared to unvaccinated children.

Reducing absenteeism means fewer missed days of work for parents and more money for schools. Public schools receive funding based on daily attendance of students, says Pannaraj. And flu often translates to several days of missed school.

"It's in the schools' best interests to protect their children against influenza," she says. "Many people think the flu is similar to the common cold. Those children who had the flu missed double the number of days compared to children who had respiratory viruses that cause the common cold."

The study -- presented at the annual ID Week, a joint meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and other organizations focused on infectious disease -- ?also showed that vaccinating kids at school can offer protection for a larger community. In one school, where 47% of the kids were vaccinated, flu rates were down overall. That means "herd immunity" can be achieved at schools without everyone getting immunized.

RELATED: Flu Shot Holdouts: Care to Reconsider?

About half of all U.S. kids, ages six months to 18, now receive an annual flu vaccine. However in lower-socioeconomic neighborhoods, such as the region in Pannaraj's study, flu vaccine rates are often as low as two percent to five percent. It's difficult for working parents to get their children vaccinated, she notes.

"The school-based vaccination offers a solution to that," she says. "We can basically line these children up to vaccinate them so they are protected against influenza."

It may take some convincing to get more parents to consent to school-based vaccination, however.? Vaccination rates in the four schools that offered the program ranged from 27.8 percent to 47 percent. Few parents expressed a fear that the vaccines would cause autism -- a theory that has been debunked. However, some said they worried that the vaccine would cause the flu. Vaccines, however, do not cause the flu.

Schools that reached out to parents, providing information and support for the program, had the highest vaccination rates, says Pannaraj. Decades ago, schools were key places for child vaccination, such as the polio vaccine programs of the 1960s, notes Dr. David Kimberlin, an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

"It's worked before," he says. "These studies show why we need it."

Flu is not just an inconvenience, adds Dr. Karen K. Wong, an epidemic intelligence service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wong presented data at IDWeek showing that almost half of the children who died from the flu over the past decade had been previously healthy. Children with underlying health problems, such as asthma or diabetes, are at higher risk for complications from flu. But healthy children can become critically ill, too.

"It shows that really any child can be at risk, not just those with medical conditions," Wong says. "Prevention is really the best defense."

Question: Would you allow your child to receive the flu vaccine at school? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

?

---

Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flu-vaccines-grade-schools-significantly-curb-illness-191101186.html

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Buster Posey leads Giants back to World Series

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? On a team known for stellar pitching, bushy beards and quirky personalities, the unquestioned leader of the San Francisco Giants is their understated catcher, Buster Posey.

From his prowess behind the plate, shepherding the staff through its ups and downs, to the bat that won the National League batting title, Posey is the biggest reason the Giants are back in the World Series for the second time in his three big league seasons.

"I'd hate to think where we would be without him," manager Bruce Bochy said. "The numbers, they speak for themselves. But also his leadership on this club. We saw what life was without him last year. ... I don't know a player that's made a bigger impact on a club than what he has on our club. He's just a tremendous talent. We're lucky to have him."

Posey has returned from a horrific, season-ending injury in 2011 to the top of the sport this year: starting All-Star catcher, batting champion, likely NL Most Valuable Player and World Series trip.

It's a remarkable story that Posey even made it back on the field this year, much less performed the way he did. It was his devastating injury that derailed the Giants' repeat hopes a year ago and led many to question whether Posey should ever catch again.

In May 2011, Posey broke a bone in his left leg and tore three ankle ligaments when bowled over at the plate by the Florida Marlins' Scott Cousins.

"I was excited just to be back on the field at the start of the season," Posey said Tuesday. "I definitely appreciate this year just as much if not more. When I was here in 2010 it seemed like everything happened really, really fast. This year I had the chance to understand the difficulty of a long season and the ups and downs you have over the course of the year. It's something you want to enjoy while you're doing it and soak up every minute of it."

Sam Francisco never really recovered from that blow and was unable to make it back to the postseason last year without its star catcher.

But his presence at the start of spring training this year set the tone for the entire season in San Francisco. He batted .336 to become the first catcher to win the NL batting title since the Boston Braves' Ernie Lombardi in 1942.

"For what he has been doing behind the plate for us has been tremendous all year," ace Matt Cain said. "He has done such a great job from coming back from last year's injury to doing what he's doing this year. I don't think you can really put it into words what he's done. Not a lot of guys could do what he's done. That's a special talent."

Posey added 24 homers, 39 doubles and 103 RBIs while managing the pitching staff and dealing with the wear and tear of crouching each night behind the plate and absorbing the foul tips and balls in the dirt that making catching such an arduous chore.

Bochy spelled Posey a bit by giving him 29 starts at first base, but both the Giants and Posey are adamant his future is behind the plate.

"We really treated him with kid gloves there early, and as we got deeper into the spring training I got more and more comfortable with how much he could catch," Bochy said. "This game is not that easy, especially when you miss as much time as he did last year and yet it didn't take him long to get into the flow of the game, get his timing at the plate and get back to handling the pitching staff."

Posey has been far from his best this postseason as teams have often tried to pitch around him in key spots to face his less dangerous teammates. He batted .178 the first two rounds with two homers and six RBIs, but it was his grand slam that broke open the clinching Game 5 of the division series.

And now he's back in the World Series.

With his boyish looks and supreme talent, Posey is almost a Bay Area version of New York Yankees great Derek Jeter, both heralded first-round picks who helped restore tradition-rich franchises to greatness.

They both won Rookies of the Year and World Series titles in their first seasons, quickly earning the respect of their veteran teammates. Both made it back to the Fall Classic in year three. Each manage to avoid controversy while being his team spokesman.

"Buster is so professional about how he goes about his business," Bochy said. "There is a calmness about him, about the way he plays, very well prepared. He has the ability to slow down the game, and I think he leads by example on how he prepares and how he plays, and how he handles himself. So he's definitely a leader in this ballclub and guys feed off him."

Posey is the face of the franchise and far different from the last position player to hold that title in San Francisco. He is quintessential anti-Barry Bonds, quickly turning any praise toward him to his teammates even if they may be less deserving. He was even one of the most outspoken Giants criticizing teammate Melky Cabrera this summer when the outfielder got suspended for testing positive for testosterone.

"The more you've played it's a little bit easier to be a leader," Posey said. "I try to help guys any way I can. I want to contribute whether it's pointing something out you might see that somebody is doing or whatever."

When he was called up as a rookie, there were questions about how he called a game compared to veteran Bengie Molina. But he quickly earned the trust of most of the staff, although Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito threw primarily to backup Hector Sanchez this season.

"We work really well together," starter Ryan Vogelsong said. "He's real easy to work with. He's got a good idea of what he wants to do back there, and he's got a pretty good idea what I want to do on my end. He's great. He's one of the best I've ever thrown to."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/buster-posey-leads-giants-back-world-series-190626788--mlb.html

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