China estuda permitir mais investimento de seus cidadãos no exterior

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El euro recupera terreno frente al dólar

De la redacción

El euro ha recuperado terreno en los últimos días en momentos en que los funcionarios europeos se esfuerzan por resolver la crisis de la deuda soberana en el bloque de 17 países que comparten la divisa.

La moneda europea cerró el miércoles a US$1,326, su nivel más alto desde principios de diciembre. El euro había caído a US$1,266 el 16 de enero debido a los temores de que los problemas del viejo continente pudieran conducir a una crisis financiera y socavar la economía mundial.

El gobierno griego y los partidos de la oposición negociaban el miércoles una serie de reformas económicas monetarias exigidas por los acreedores internacionales. Grecia debe llegar a un acuerdo para comienzos de marzo o se arriesga a caer en una cesación de pagos.

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Abused men in Kenya meals boycott

A Kenyan men's lobby group has called for a six-day food boycott to highlight what it says is increasing domestic violence against men.

The organisation, Maendeleo Ya Wanaume, wants Kenyan men to stop eating meals cooked at home by wives and partners.

It says men should instead eat together outside the home, and share experiences of emotional and physical abuse.

Kenya's government does not take domestic violence against men seriously and may be fuelling it, the group says.

Maendeleo Ya Wanaume's leader Ndiritu Njoka told the BBC's Network Africa programme that he called for the nationwide boycott to try to stop women beating up or emotionally abusing their husbands and spouses.

Correspondents say most meals in Kenyan homes are cooked by women – and culturally it is important for men to eat at home in order to show their appreciation for women.

Maendeleo Ya Wanaume – which means Development for Men – was set up to try to encourage men to speak out in a society that often ridicules as weak, men who are subjected to domestic violence.

The group says the problem is growing as Kenyan women become more economically independent – in part, it says, because of government initiatives to improve the status of women.

Last year, the group conducted its own survey of Central and Nairobi provinces and found that up to 460,000 men said they had been subjected to some sort of domestic abuse.

These figures have not been independently confirmed.

The two provinces have a combined population of more than seven million people.

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Alzheimer’s cells made in the lab

Dementia has been described as a "time bomb" in society. As more people are living longer, more are being affected by the illness which slowly but surely annihilates brain function.

Last month, a group of US scientists used stem cell technology to make Alzheimer's brain cells both from patients at high risk of the disease and from those who with no family history of the condition.

The idea is that doing experiments on human brain cells, which will develop Alzheimer's, will provide another avenue of research.

Dr Rick Livesey said his cells in the lab formed destructive ameloid plaques and eventually died, two key characteristics of Alzheimer's, when grown in a laboratory.

"What it allows us to do is study the disease progression in real time allowing us to test possible drug treatments. It accelerates the whole process," he said.

Prof Goldstein told the BBC his lab were already using the cells for "understanding mechanisms of disease development, testing drugs and probing the role of genetic variation in disease development".

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said progress had been "hampered by lack of a really good model" and that drug development had been "dogged by failure".

"Post mortem tissue has probably contributed more than anything else to understanding Alzheimer's," he said.

However, he cautioned that stem cell models were "not a panacea" as they cannot demonstrate brain function. Whereas "Alzheimer's mice" can perform memory and cognitive function tests.

Alzheimer's stem cells will be a "very useful and important tool in the armoury," he said.

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Dozens die in Mexico prison fight

At least 44 people have died in a prison fight in northern Mexico.

Security officials said members of rival drug cartels confronted each other with stones and home-made weapons in the jail north of the city of Monterrey.

Some victims were strangled.

An investigation is under way to establish if some of the prison guards colluded in the fight by unlocking the doors separating two wings of the prison.

Deadly fights between rival gangs are not uncommon in Mexico's notoriously overcrowded and corrupt prison system.

Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said the fight was sparked by the bitter rivalry between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas drug gang.

The two groups are fighting a brutal war for control of the drug smuggling routes to the United States.

That violent rivalry is mirrored in the region's prisons, where rival gang members live cheek-by-jowl.

Anxious wait

"We've confirmed 44 dead, all from the prison's "D" wing, Prison Director Gilberto Cesena said.

The number of those injured in the fight, which started at 02:00 local time, has not yet been given.

Mr Cesena said the security forces were now in control of the situation.

Relatives of the prisoners have gathered outside the jail to find out news about who has been killed and injured.

Mr Domene asked them to be patient.

"We have more than 3,000 inmates in this penitentiary and we have to account for all of them first," he said.

The prison was built to hold around 1,500 inmates. Mexican jails are notorious for overcrowding, corruption and rioting.

In January, 31 inmates were killed at a prison in Altamira, in Tamaulipas state, when rival gangs confronted each other with homemade weapons and knives.

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2 killed as Syrians protest near palace

Are you there? Send us your images or video

CNN’s Salma Abdelaziz, Yousuf Basil, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Kevin Flower, Samira Said and Eunice Yoon contributed to this report

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Businessman acquitted of issuing bad cheques

Dubai A businessman was yesterday acquitted of issuing five cheques worth Dh122.5 million that bounced, to an Islamic housing finance company for the purchase of 20 land plots.

The Dubai Appeal Court overruled the primary judgement against the Emirati businessman, A.T., and absolved him of any malicious intention when he signed the cheques.

"The court cancelled the primary judgement and acquitted A.T. The court also rejected the prosecutors’ appeal and dismissed the civil lawsuit lodged by the claimant in civil right [the Islamic housing finance company]," Presiding Judge Mahmoud Fahmi Sultan said in Courtroom 17 Tuesday.

A.T.’s acquittal came after his lawyer Samir Jaafar argued before the court that his client did not have any criminal intention when he issued the cheques.

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Google cookies ‘bypassed Safari’

Google has been accused of bypassing the privacy settings of users of the Safari web-browser.

She added: "To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google's servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalisation."

Ms Whetsone said the company had created new systems to make sure the information it collected was anonymous, but this had led to unintended consequences:

"The Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser.

"We didn't anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It's important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information."

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google "disabled the code after being contacted by the paper".

Google declined to provide further comment to the BBC.

Online privacy advocates were highly critical of Google's actions.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote: "It's time for Google to acknowledge that it can do a better job of respecting the privacy of web users."

Although much of the criticism has been directed at the search giant, the Wall Street Journal said that in addition to Google, a number of advertising companies had been using the work-around which had been known about for some time.

An Apple spokesman said in a statement: "We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari's privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it."

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Polish athlete emerges strongest man in world

Abu Dhabi: As the moment of announcing the winner of the World’s Strongest Man (WSM) approached, spectators were on their feet chanting for their favourites.

The three-day competition of strength and power brought forth Krysztof Radzikowski, a 30-year-old Polish man, as the 2012 World’s Strongest Man.

The competition began last Sunday with 25 contenders from 22 countries vying for the top title and the trophy.

All 25 super strongmen lined up for the announcement, only eight of whom competed on the third and final day of the competition. Expectations were very high among the finalists, each hoping to be awarded the title. As the top rankings were being announced in reverse order, excitement was heightened as the unannounced names remained hopeful of being named the title winner.

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Israel links Quds Force with attacks

By DAN WILLIAMS | REUTERS

Published: Feb 17, 2012 20:58
Updated: Feb 17, 2012 20:58

JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli official accused Iran’s shadowy Quds Force on Friday of masterminding a string of attacks on Israeli diplomats abroad this week, fleshing out allegations denied by Tehran.

Monday’s apparently coordinated attempts to bomb staff at Israel’s embassies in New Delhi and Tbilisi killed nobody but left the wife of the defense attaché to India wounded.

Georgian police defused the bomb in Tbilisi, while Thailand said it had uncovered an Iranian squad of saboteurs who had plotted an attack on Israeli interests Tuesday.

Iran has denied involvement but Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon named Brig.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, a covert arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, as the mastermind. “We see what is happening in India, Georgia and Thailand. It is the same pattern. The same bomb, the same lab, the same factory,” Yaalon said in a newspaper interview.

“Soleimani is subordinate to the Iranian leaders and is responsible for the special force and for subversive activity against everybody,” Yaalon told the Maariv daily, adding that the Iranian general had coordinated operations with Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas.

The United States blamed the Quds Force last year for an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran rejected that as baseless.

US officials have previously also charged Quds proxies with carrying out attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, while a European government source said in October that Britain was looking into possible new Quds plots.

The Netanyahu government was quick to accuse Iran over the attacks, but some analysts have puzzled over why Tehran might risk what say saw as inept and rash actions — especially on the territory of its big oil client India.

Yaalon said Iran was “under economic and political pressure,” a reference to the stiffening of international sanctions meant to curb its controversial nuclear program, and the domestic tensions that they have helped stoke.

Despite Iran denying involvement in this week’s bombings, it has repeatedly vowed to avenge Israel’s alleged assassinations of several of its nuclear scientists in car bombings.

While Israel has neither confirmed nor denied having a role in the covert killings, Yaalon acknowledged that the Jewish state was seen as being responsible.

“This is their answer,” he said, referring to the embassy bombings. “They want to create deterrence, or to take revenge.”

He said Israel feared more attacks, potentially large-scale, on its interests abroad.

A counter-terrorism adviser in Netanyahu’s office warned Israelis to exercise caution while traveling, but in a briefing to the media on Friday provided no details about any geographically specific threats.

“We have generalized information that reflects mounting intentions to carry out terrorist attacks,” said the adviser, who would not be named given the sensitivity of the subject.

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