IBLOG SPACE

Faced with a looming self-imposed deadline, U.S. lawmakers launched a crucial week of debt-reduction talks on Tuesday seeking to break through differences on taxes and healthcare. Vice President Joe Biden met on Capitol Hill with a group of six Democratic and Republican lawmakers looking for trillions of dollars in savings. That would allow Congress to cover the country's borrowing needs through 2012 elections. "It's crunch time in those meetings. We have hit the point at which we are at some really tough stuff," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, one of two Republicans in the talks. "Big numbers, big changes to popular programs." After their Thursday meeting, Biden said negotiators had tentatively agreed on a number of cuts but they had hard work ahead to breach the stark divide over taxes and health benefits. Members of the Biden group, who have scheduled meetings for up to four days this week, said they hope to make substantial progress by the en

Key sectors of the Gulf Arab emirate of Dubai's economy grew in the first half of the year, top officials said on Tuesday. One of the seven United Arab Emirates, the OPEC producer's trade and business hub is recovering from last year's $25 billion debt restructuring in its flagship company, Dubai World, after its 2009 standstill sent global markets reeling. "The core business of Dubai is doing very well," Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Dubai's Supreme Fiscal Committee, told a news conference held to announce an upcoming financial forum. He declined to say whether the emirate planned to inject more money into the Dubai Financial Support Fund, which was set up to support state-linked firms. Dubai, which lacks the oil wealth of neighbouring Abu Dhabi, said in its updated government debt issuance programme earlier this month that $1.55 billion was left in the support fund. The emirate, which is facing around $30 billion in debt repayments over

Norway and Iceland joined a U.S. and European Union "open skies" deal on Tuesday amid a trans-Altantic dispute about Europe's plans to impose carbon emissions permits on all flights from 2012. Under the deal, airlines in non-EU members Norway and Iceland will be able to fly to the United States from anywhere in the 27-nation EU rather than just from domestic airports. And EU carriers, for instance, will be able to open routes to the United States from Oslo or Reykjavik. "Joining this agreement is...in line with our policy to open up markets and create a level playing field," Norwegian Transport Minister Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa told Reuters. She said it would help harmonise regulations on both sides of the Atlantic and bring about safer travel. A half-yearly meeting of European and U.S. officials on Wednesday in Oslo is set to discuss a dispute about EU plans to widen penalties for carbon emissions to aviation from Jan. 1, 2012, to help slow global warming. A se

The U.S. securities industry is studying ways to avoid lengthy trading halts of U.S.-listed Chinese securities that have been suspected of accounting problems, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) said. SIFMA, U.S. securities regulators and exchanges all held talks, according to a separate source, to deal with halts of shares that have stretched for several months while exchanges wait for delayed regulatory filings or resolutions to audit probes. "I can confirm for you that SIFMA is exploring this issue and studying possible solutions," said SIFMA spokeswoman Katrina Cavali said. Numerous U.S.-listed Chinese companies, many of which first listed on U.S. exchanges through reverse takeovers, have been hit with charges of accounting fraud. When companies respond to allegations, shares are often halted for weeks. But the trading halts created a skid row of sorts of Chinese companies languishing on exchanges without trading for several months. Ther

Brain cancer patients who are able to exercise live significantly longer than patients who are not able to do so, says a new study. The study by scientists at the Duke Cancer Institute in North Carolina, US, says exercise improves how cancer patients feel during and after treatment, and may also extend their lives, Xinhua reports. It enrolled 243 patients with advanced recurrent gliomas - lethal brain malignancies that typically result in a life expectancy of less than six months. The patients who participated in regular, brisk exercise five days a week for 30 minutes had significantly prolonged survival, living a median 21.84 months versus 13.03 months for the most sedentary patients. 'This provides some initial evidence that we need to look at the effects of exercise interventions, not only to ease symptoms but also to impact progression and survival,' said Lee Jones, associate professor and senior author of the study. The finding has been published online in the Journal

Somali pirates must be prosecuted and imprisoned, and 'adequate structures' need to be established to reach that goal, the deputy permanent representative of Germany to the UN has said. Miguel Berger said this while addressing a Security Council meeting on piracy off the coast of Somalia, Xinhua reported. The German ambassador said his country wants to assist the Somali justice system to prosecute piracy suspects in accordance with international standards. He called for neighbouring countries to contribute to the efforts to prosecute piracy suspects. Pirates have recently intensified their activities in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.

Two men have died after being hit by a metro train in Chicago, officials said. Police officials said the train hit the men late Monday night near Cicero station in the city's west, Xinhua reported citing the Chicago Tribune. It was, however, unclear what the two men were doing on the rail tracks, police said. Police officer Ron Gaines said a 30-year-old man was confirmed dead on the spot while a 53-year-old man died after being taken to a hospital. The train was stopped at the scene for at least an hour and eventually cancelled.

Apple has outed its updated Time Capsule, and as expected the storage has been boosted to up to 3TB. Two models are now available, an entry-level Time Capsule with a 2TB SATA drive, or a new 3TB version. Both support WiFi a/b/g/n with simultaneous use on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. They each have a gigabit WAN port, too, for hooking up to your cable or DSL modem, along with three gigabit ethernet ports for wired computers. A USB port allows you to hook up external storage or a printer, and share it across the network. Other specifications are broadly in-line with the first-gen Time Capsule. You get native Time Machine support for backing up your Macs, along with MAC address filtering, NAS firewall, and WEP/WPA/WP2 wireless encryption. There’s also support for time-based access control, to allow guests temporary access to your network. So, no integrated iCloud functionality, unless Apple has some surprises up its sleeve when iSO 5 arrives. Pricing is yet to be confirmed for the new model

Even if we don’t all wear watches around here, we can all appreciate the geeky and difficult to read watches from Tokyoflash that proclaim in strange lights just how geeky you are. The latest watch to come from the maker of weird is the Rogue SR2. The watch comes with only a black band with red, green, orange, or blue faces. The watch also has a light for viewing in the dark.