SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – India has accused China of dispatching soldiers far into its territory in the western part of the Ladakh region of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Indian Defense Secretary Shashikant Sharma and other military officials said in a report, which was presented to a parliamentary watchdog on Friday, that Chinese troops advanced nearly 19 kilometers into Indian territory on April 15, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

The Indian defense secretary also told MPs attending the meeting that New Delhi has deployed troops in the disputed region to “keep a close watch on the border.”

"The officials told the committee that Indian army patrols reported on April 16 the presence of Chinese People's Liberation Army pitching tents 19 kilometers inside the LAC (Line of Actual Control)," PTI quoted a source as saying.

The LAC is the de facto boundary between China and India that runs across the Himalayas.

On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said he would visit China on May 8, adding that New Delhi and Beijing had a mutual interest in not allowing the row to "destroy" long-term progress in relations.

Meanwhile, an Indian Foreign Ministry official stated on Friday that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang would travel to New Delhi in late May.

Talks between the two countries have so far failed to resolve the dispute in the western part of the Ladakh region of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials claimed that a platoon of Chinese troops set up a camp inside Indian territory on April 15.

India demanded the Chinese soldiers pull out, but several meetings between local army commanders and diplomats from both sides have failed to break the impasse. China has denied any wrongdoing.

India and China have had uneasy relations since 1962, when they fought a war in the Himalayan regions of Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.

China claims about 90,000 square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh, but New Delhi says Beijing is occupying 38,000 square kilometers of Indian territory on the Aksai Chin plateau.

India and China have held 15 rounds of talks to resolve their border dispute since 1962 but have been unable to resolve the issue.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has said that the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square.

Speaking at a joint press conference on Thursday with Police Commissioner Raymon Kelly, Bloomberg said that the Tsarnaev brothers had a pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs they intended to set off.

"Last night we were informed by the FBI that the surviving attacker revealed that New York City was next on their list of targets," Bloomberg said at New York City Hall.

"He and his older brother intended to drive to New York and detonate those explosives in Times Square."

The mayor said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the captured suspect, told Boston investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother Tamerlan had discussed about "spontaneously" going to New York to detonate their remaining explosives.

Miriam Conrad, Tsarnaev's lawyer, declined to comment on Thursday on whether her client was still talking with investigators.

'Different light'

On Wednesday, two US officials, speaking anonymously to the AP news agency, revealed that the federal government had added Tamerlan to a terrorist database 18 months before the deadly explosions.

Five days after the US determined who was allegedly behind the deadly Boston marathon terror attacks, Washington is attempting to piece together what happened and whether there were any unconnected dots buried in the US government files that, if connected, could have prevented the bombings.

"It's now clear that both the FBI and the CIA were aware of Tamerlan Tsarnaev for more than a year," said Al Jazeera reporter Dominic Kane.

"When the hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers concluded last week, police and law enforcement agencies spoke of it as a victory.

"But now the revelation that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on a watchlist of potential terror suspects might put that in a different light."

Tsarnaev, 19, told authorities that his older brother, 26, had only recently recruited him to be part of the attack, the US officials said on Wednesday.

Dzhokhar is said to have told the FBI that he and his brother were angry about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the killing of Muslims there, officials said. How much of those conversations will end up in court is unclear.

Unanswered questions

The CIA added Tamerlan to a huge, classified database of known and suspected terrorists a year and a half ago, officials said, an acknowledgment that will undoubtedly prompt a congressional inquiry about whether the Obama administration adequately investigated tips from Russia that Tsarnaev had posed a security threat.

Shortly after the bombings, US officials said the intelligence community had no information about threats to the marathon before the April 15 explosions.

The US officials who spoke to AP were close to the investigation, but insisted on anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case with reporters.

Investigators have said the brothers appeared to have been radicalised through materials on the internet and have found no evidence tying them to any one group.

Tamerlan, whom authorities have described as the driving force behind the plot, was killed in a shootout with police.

The CIA made the request to add Tamerlan's name to the terrorist database after the Russian government contacted the agency with concerns that he had become a follower of extremism.

About six months earlier, the FBI had separately investigated Tsarnaev, also at Russia's request, but the FBI found no ties to terrorism, officials said.

Captured unarmed

Officials say they never found the type of information on Tsarnaev that would have elevated his profile among counterterrorism investigators and placed him on the terrorist watch list.

Politicians who were briefed by the FBI said they had more questions than answers about the investigation of Tsarnaev.

The Senate is due to be briefed on the investigation on Thursday.

Officials said on Wednesday that Dzhokhar acknowledged to the FBI his role in the attacks but did so before he was advised of his constitutional rights to remain silent and seek a lawyer.

It is unclear whether those statements would be admissible in a criminal trial and, if not, whether prosecutors would need them to win a conviction.

Officials said physical evidence, including a 9mm handgun and pieces of a remote-control device commonly used in toys, was recovered from the scene.

Authorities had previously said Dzhokhar exchanged gunfire with them for more than an hour on Friday night before they captured him inside a boat covered by a tarp in a suburban Boston neighbourhood backyard.

But the two US officials said on Wednesday that he was unarmed when captured, raising questions about the gunfire and how he was injured.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Despite being chronically sleep-deprived and frequently hungover, not to mention regularly stressed by the 13-hour days he puts in as a banker in Manhattan, Nick (not his real name) looks remarkably well-rested and considerably younger than his 31 years.

His secret? Six months ago, Nick went to New York City–based plastic surgeon Dr. Stafford R. Broumand for neck liposuction, a half-hour procedure that yields a more dramatic jawline.

"If you work hard and play hard, it's impossible to keep your neck as tight as you want," Nick says. "I was already busting my butt working out four days a week, but nothing was happening there, so I figured why not?"

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Nick's desire for more masculine facial definition represents the new front line of cosmetic surgery for men.

'What's hot, changes'

In faces, as in fashion, what's hot changes. Square jaws (think Jon Hamm, Michael Fassbender, Daniel Craig) are in, replacing yesterday's pert-nose-and-dainty-chin combo (Leonardo DiCaprio, Zac Efron, Tobey Maguire).

"There's less of a desire now for a conventionally beautiful white-bread face," says Dr. Steven Teitelbaum, an associate professor of plastic surgery at UCLA School of Medicine. "People are embracing strong features like ethnic, non-traditional noses."

For example, in lieu of full-on rhinoplasty, many men are balancing their naturally big noses with chin implants (which have recently spiked by 71 percent, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons) or opting to have their noses trimmed back. (Doctors can shave down the bone and cartilage with a file.)

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"I did a rhinoplasty and a chin implant on a famous actor who had a monster nose and no chin. We left a bit of a bump in the nose, so it still looked like his, just a better version," says Dr. Darrick Antell, assistant clinical professor of surgery at Columbia University. "No one, including the producer on his next project, noticed he'd had a nose job."

Fortunately for the time-strapped power player, facial surgery can now be fit into the tightest of schedules.

"Instruments have gotten smaller, which means incisions are smaller and heal faster," Antell says.

The Healthiest Snack Foods You Can Buy

Micro-liposuction can clean up the jawline—which can become slack when you're in your 30s because of excess fat or sun exposure—in half an hour under mild sedation, with no sutures and only minor bruising. Some new procedures don't require any slicing—Ultherapy, a nonsurgical face-lift, uses ultrasound technology to heat the skin, causing collagen (the fibrous protein that gives skin its elasticity) to contract while stimulating the production of new, tighter tissue.

"This is an ideal procedure for guys in their 30s who are starting to see some skin laxity. The results are subtle but significant, and patients can go back to work the next day," says Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a cosmetic dermatologist in New York City.

Addicted to surgery?

The only downside to these subtler, more convenient procedures is that they can become addictive—it's easy to get hooked.

"Some men have one procedure, find they still don't feel great about themselves, and go in for another, and another," says Dr. Deborah Schooler, an assistant professor of psychology at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. But the benefits of these procedures go beyond physicality: Research from the University of Texas shows that good-looking people get hired sooner, land promotions faster, and earn an average of 3 to 4 percent more than those with below-average looks.

"Your appearance impacts what happens to you in the workplace, which is becoming leaner, meaner, and younger, so some men see plastic surgery as a strategy to boost their company's bottom line and their own salary," says Dr. David B. Sarwer, an associate professor of psychology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

5 Food That Will Make You Look Younger

When it comes to the face, a dollar spent may be a dollar earned. "Looking like I did five years ago definitely affects how I feel about myself, even at work," says one 38-year-old fashion-company owner who lives in New York City and has had his jawline tightened. "It's empowering."-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: FoxNews

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Tunisia’s deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was given a five-year jail term in absentia and fined 3.5 million euros for corruption, adding to two life sentences he has already received, judicial sources said on Tuesday.

The former strongman was convicted of having exploited his position “to provide for himself or a third party unfair advantages, causing harm to the administration,” according to a Tunis court ruling.

Ben Ali currently lives in gilded exile in Jeddah, having fled to Saudi Arabia with his wife during the mass uprising against his regime in January 2011.

For his part in the same case, Khaled Kobbi, a businessman detained in July 2011, was sentenced to two years in jail and also fined seven million dinars (3.5 million euros).

The case relates to the acquisition of more than 20 hectares of land to build an industrial zone with public funds, before it was sold on in controversial circumstances.

Ben Ali has already been sentenced twice to life in prison for presiding over the bloody crackdown on the uprising that eventually unseated him and ignited the Arab Spring.

He has also separately been sentenced to decades in prison along with his wife Leila Trabelsi for embezzlement, illegal possession of narcotics, housing fraud and abuse of power.

Ben Ali’s clan, and his wife’s family in particular, had a stranglehold on business in Tunisia, and are accused of having run a mafia-style state.

The couple regularly claim they are the victims of post-revolution score settling.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Every week, a group of teenagers and 20-somethings dressed in hoodies gets together in a tiny room on a college campus and plug in their laptops. They turn up pulsing electronic funk music, order pizza and begin furiously hacking into computer networks.

But they’re not shadowy criminals: They’re students training to become “white-hat” hackers, experts to help business and government agencies protect their data from cyberattacks that have become an almost daily occurrence.

“It’s the new espionage. Spies operate from behind keyboards now,” says Evan Jensen, a senior at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and one of the leaders of the Hack Night events where about two dozen students hone their hacking skills.’

Since actual hacking is illegal, the students can’t just sneak into a webpage and poke around for learning’s sake. So industry experts, professors and the school’s very own “Hacker In Residence,” Dan Guido, collaborate to create exercises that expose the students to real-world hacking scenarios.

Guido, who runs his own cybersecurity firm, will walk students through one of the most common means hackers use to gain access to a computer network — attacks on the software of a browser like Internet Explorer. In June 2011, Google said it had traced to China a cyberattack that attempted to access hundreds of Google email accounts.

Guido uses the case, much of which has been made public, to recreate the exploit, having students map out step by step how the hacker was able to access a desktop computer and infiltrate the company’s network.

While bigger schools such as Georgia Tech, Purdue and Carnegie Mellon are known for their cybersecurity programs, experts say Brooklyn-based NYU-Poly is now considered among the best schools for training students with hands on, mission-critical cybersecurity skills. That’s due in part to Hack Night, an active cybersecurity club and an annual hacking competition each fall that the school bills as the largest in the country.

“Every one of the faculty, every one of the undergraduates and every one of the graduate students is engaged in real-world exercises,” says Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity training organization. “They come out having actually developed and tested their skills.”

Paller says the need for cybersecurity experts with real world training is severe — a 2012 report he co-authored found that the Department of Homeland Security alone needs 600 such experts. Last month, the Defence Department announced it is establishing a series of cyber teams charged with carrying out offensive operations to combat threats of cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the country’s vital infrastructure.

And just this week, the House Intelligence Committee voted in favour of a bill proposing a new data-sharing program that would give the federal government a broader role in helping banks, manufacturers and other businesses protect themselves against cyberattacks.

“The only defence against these things are skills,” Paller says. “We have too many people in the cybersecurity field that don’t have the hands-on skills. We call them frequent fliers. We don’t have enough pilots.”

In the last few years, some companies have staged “bug bounty” programs, paying cash or other prizes to cybersecurity researchers in controlled situations who are able to breach their systems and expose flaws in their software. Though they haven’t yet won a major cash prize, NYU-Poly students are currently participating in “bug bounty” programs for companies like eBay, PayPal, Google Chrome and Samsung. A few months ago, one student received a bag full of random gifts such as T-shirts, a board game and a handwritten note after he identified a security flaw in the software of online merchandise seller Woot.com.

NYU-Poly professor Nasir Memon, director of the Information Systems and Internet Security laboratory, says the goal is to teach aggressive tactics beyond the classroom, while staying inside the boundaries of the law.

“Becoming good at security involves doing these challenges, exercises that put you in the context even if it’s artificial and made up,” he says. “There’s something in front of you that you have to overcome and reach your goal — very much like athletes or military soldiers.

Memon says he hasn’t yet had a student get busted for hacking illegally but every time the FBI calls to recruit a student his heart skips a beat.

“We try and create that culture of no messing around. If we find they’ve done anything we throw them out of the lab,” says Memon, adding that he knows of no students who have crossed the line.

Many of the 270 NYU-Poly cybersecurity students are already starting to line up jobs earning lucrative salaries at private cybersecurity consulting firms or big banks in need of people able to identify and correct vulnerabilities in their networks.

Others, especially those with graduate degrees, will go on to careers in law enforcement working for the National Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies in need of hackers with special computer skills, such as advanced programming and digital forensics.

Because they are in such demand, cybersecurity students can pick and choose where they want to work.

“You see all the time a lot of job descriptions for people who are trying to hire guys like us say things like, business casual is not acceptable here,” says Julian Cohen, 22, a senior and a founder of the weekly Wednesday evening Hack Night. “No one wants to go to work in a button-down shirt and slacks.”-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Financialpost

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Every week, a group of teenagers and 20-somethings dressed in hoodies gets together in a tiny room on a college campus and plug in their laptops. They turn up pulsing electronic funk music, order pizza and begin furiously hacking into computer networks.

But they’re not shadowy criminals: They’re students training to become “white-hat” hackers, experts to help business and government agencies protect their data from cyberattacks that have become an almost daily occurrence.

“It’s the new espionage. Spies operate from behind keyboards now,” says Evan Jensen, a senior at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and one of the leaders of the Hack Night events where about two dozen students hone their hacking skills.’

Since actual hacking is illegal, the students can’t just sneak into a webpage and poke around for learning’s sake. So industry experts, professors and the school’s very own “Hacker In Residence,” Dan Guido, collaborate to create exercises that expose the students to real-world hacking scenarios.

Guido, who runs his own cybersecurity firm, will walk students through one of the most common means hackers use to gain access to a computer network — attacks on the software of a browser like Internet Explorer. In June 2011, Google said it had traced to China a cyberattack that attempted to access hundreds of Google email accounts.

Guido uses the case, much of which has been made public, to recreate the exploit, having students map out step by step how the hacker was able to access a desktop computer and infiltrate the company’s network.

While bigger schools such as Georgia Tech, Purdue and Carnegie Mellon are known for their cybersecurity programs, experts say Brooklyn-based NYU-Poly is now considered among the best schools for training students with hands on, mission-critical cybersecurity skills. That’s due in part to Hack Night, an active cybersecurity club and an annual hacking competition each fall that the school bills as the largest in the country.

“Every one of the faculty, every one of the undergraduates and every one of the graduate students is engaged in real-world exercises,” says Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity training organization. “They come out having actually developed and tested their skills.”

Paller says the need for cybersecurity experts with real world training is severe — a 2012 report he co-authored found that the Department of Homeland Security alone needs 600 such experts. Last month, the Defence Department announced it is establishing a series of cyber teams charged with carrying out offensive operations to combat threats of cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the country’s vital infrastructure.

And just this week, the House Intelligence Committee voted in favour of a bill proposing a new data-sharing program that would give the federal government a broader role in helping banks, manufacturers and other businesses protect themselves against cyberattacks.

“The only defence against these things are skills,” Paller says. “We have too many people in the cybersecurity field that don’t have the hands-on skills. We call them frequent fliers. We don’t have enough pilots.”

In the last few years, some companies have staged “bug bounty” programs, paying cash or other prizes to cybersecurity researchers in controlled situations who are able to breach their systems and expose flaws in their software. Though they haven’t yet won a major cash prize, NYU-Poly students are currently participating in “bug bounty” programs for companies like eBay, PayPal, Google Chrome and Samsung. A few months ago, one student received a bag full of random gifts such as T-shirts, a board game and a handwritten note after he identified a security flaw in the software of online merchandise seller Woot.com.

NYU-Poly professor Nasir Memon, director of the Information Systems and Internet Security laboratory, says the goal is to teach aggressive tactics beyond the classroom, while staying inside the boundaries of the law.

“Becoming good at security involves doing these challenges, exercises that put you in the context even if it’s artificial and made up,” he says. “There’s something in front of you that you have to overcome and reach your goal — very much like athletes or military soldiers.

Memon says he hasn’t yet had a student get busted for hacking illegally but every time the FBI calls to recruit a student his heart skips a beat.

“We try and create that culture of no messing around. If we find they’ve done anything we throw them out of the lab,” says Memon, adding that he knows of no students who have crossed the line.

Many of the 270 NYU-Poly cybersecurity students are already starting to line up jobs earning lucrative salaries at private cybersecurity consulting firms or big banks in need of people able to identify and correct vulnerabilities in their networks.

Others, especially those with graduate degrees, will go on to careers in law enforcement working for the National Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies in need of hackers with special computer skills, such as advanced programming and digital forensics.

Because they are in such demand, cybersecurity students can pick and choose where they want to work.

“You see all the time a lot of job descriptions for people who are trying to hire guys like us say things like, business casual is not acceptable here,” says Julian Cohen, 22, a senior and a founder of the weekly Wednesday evening Hack Night. “No one wants to go to work in a button-down shirt and slacks.”-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Financialpost

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday published new rule for passengers arriving in the U.S. – the standard Form I-94, which serves as the arrival and departure record and is stapled to passengers’ passports, will soon be automated and in electronic form only.

From April 26, 2013, Form I-94, which essentially provides “non-immigrants” with evidence that they have been lawfully admitted to the U.S., will no longer be in paper form and hence obviates the need to complete this paperwork prior to landing at a U.S. airport or seaport, according to a CBP notification.

The CBP however clarified that individuals who go through “secondary inspection,” which is a closer examination of personal effects and travel circumstances, “will be provided a paper copy of Form I-94 by a CBP officer.” This would apply to such as asylees, refugees, and parolees, as typical examples. This change, which is an “interim final rule,” in the arrivals procedures, is aimed at streamlining the admissions process for non-immigrants arriving in the U.S.

Until now, typically, arriving non-immigrants, known in U.S. immigration parlance as “aliens,” present the completed I-94 form to the CBP Officer at primary inspection. The officer stamps the Form I-94 and the passenger’s passport, detaches the bottom portion of the form, which is the departure portion, and returns it to them along with the passport. The admission stamp contains the port of arrival and date of arrival, is annotated with the class of admission and admitted-to date.

The top, arrival portion of the form would usually be sent to a data entry facility, where the information on the form is entered into CBP’s computer systems and the lower, departure portion of the Form I-94 retained by the passenger may be shown to government or other stakeholders when required.

However with the implementation of what is called the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) CBP now collects information on “aliens travelling by air or sea to the U.S. electronically from carriers in advance of arrival.” Since nearly all the information collected on the Form I-94 is collected electronically via APIS, CBP also now uses the electronic system to document an alien's arrival and departure in advance.

The few fields on the Form I-94 that are not collected via APIS are either already collected by the Department of State and transmitted to CBP or will be collected by the CBP Officer from the individual at the time of inspection, the CBP clarified.

While the change may not make any difference to the actual numbers of arriving non-immigrants into the U.S. the streamlining of the process is likely to make the entire experience simpler less time-consuming. The change comes even as the federal government continues to debate comprehensive immigration reform, likely to be pushed for passage into law during this second Obama administration.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Thehindu

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Everybody knows "Lucy." For nearly four decades, this famous partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, dated to 3.2 million years ago, has been an ambassador for our prehistoric past, and her species has stood as the most likely immediate ancestor of our own genus—Homo.

But in a spate of new studies, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, and a team of collaborators have put forward a controversial claim that another hominin—Australopithecus sediba—might be even closer to the origin of our lineage, possibly bumping Lucy from the critical evolutionary junction she has occupied for so long.

Berger and colleagues named Australopithecus sediba in 2010. The 1.98-million-year-old hominin, known from partial skeletons of an adult female and a juvenile male, along with an isolated tibia, was discovered two years earlier at the South African cave site of Malapa.

Since that initial announcement, Berger and coauthors have been further analyzing the anatomy and geological context of the fossils, with their studies culminating in a series of six papers published Thursday in Science.

Together, the papers on the teeth, jaw, limbs, and spine of Australopithecus sediba highlight the fact that this early human possessed a strange mixture of traits seen in both early australopithecines and Homo. These findings make the fossils a significant point of contention among those devoted to understanding where and when our genus evolved.

What Teeth and Bones Say

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Australopithecus sediba's closest relative appears to be Australopithecus africanus, a species that also lived in South Africa from around three million to two million years ago.

In a paper examining 22 discrete traits on sediba's teeth, Joel Irish of Liverpool John Moores University and colleagues found that the species more closely resembles A. africanus than other early hominins. But the teeth also show some features shared with early members of our own genus, such as Homo habilis.

Analysis of jawbone by Darryl de Ruiter of Texas A&M University and colleagues also argues for a distinct species status for sediba,countering earlier claims that the fossils may represent simply a late form of africanus. According to Berger, the dental features makeAustralopithecus sediba "the best candidate" for the ancestor of the Homo lineage, although he notes that this connection is contingent on finding more complete fossils of other hominins.

Other aspects of the skeleton retain a more archaic anatomy. The upper arms of Australopithecus sediba, anthropologist Steven Churchillof Duke University and collaborators report, had the anatomy and proportions of a limb still suited to climbing through the trees.

Australopithecus sediba was probably a climber "of some sort," Berger says, but he notes that "climbing trees is not the only option available to a hominin living on karstic terrain," or landscape pocked by limestone gullies and caves. (Exactly how the hominin got around and what the environment was like 2 million years ago is part of the next phase of research, Berger says.)

Additionally, University of Zurich anthropologist Peter Schmid and co-authors report that the chest of Australopithecus sediba retained the funnel-like, flared shape of other early australopithecines. Compared with the living skeletal extremes of chimpanzees and our species, the upper body of Australopithecus sediba was still much like that of the nonhuman apes.

Curiously, less-well-preserved parts of the lower rib cage have a much more human-like appearance. Scott Williams of New York University and colleagues report that the spine of Australopithecus sediba was also human-like, with a relatively long and flexible lower back that shares more in common with the spines of Homo erectus than with those of other australopithecines, including the curvature of the spine that is a hallmark of upright walking.

But while sediba was clearly a biped, it did not walk at all like we do. According to Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University and his co-authors, the heel bone of the female skeleton of Australopithecus sediba suggests she would have turned her foot inward as she stepped, with the outside edge of the foot contacting the ground along with the heel.

"Contacting the ground on the outside edge of a twisted-in foot causes the foot to rapidly and excessively rotate so that the inside of the foot is driven into the ground," Berger says, which begins a "chain reaction" of rotation of the shin, femur, and torso to keep balance.

No other known hominin walked like this, hinting that the way humans walk isn't the outcome of an ever-improving evolutionary trajectory, but one result out of several possible alternatives that evolved among our ancient relatives.

Sediba's odd mode of walking, Berger says, "might be a compromise locomotion of a hominin that had features of the foot that are adaptive for both upright walking and tree climbing."

An Enduring Controversy

Because of all these varied skeletal clues, Australopithecus sediba is said to possess a "mosaic" of traits that mix the archaic and the derived. But are the ways that Australopithecus sediba resembles early Homo species true indicators of a close evolutionary relationship—or are they traits that evolved independently in both lineages?

Few scientists believe this question has even begun to be settled. Berger himself has more confidence.

"My stance is that [Australopithecus] sediba exhibits so many derived, Homo-like traits across the whole of the body that it must be considered as, at the very least, a possible ancestor of the genus Homo," he says.

This hypothesis faces difficulties, Berger says, because of a "nostalgia" for previous hypotheses and because sediba's remarkably informative skeletons are being compared "with a fragmentary and disassociated record of a small number of bits and pieces, many of which have simply been cobbled together into the basket we call early Homo."

Berger also discounts the record of possible earlier Homo fossils—such as a 2.33-million-year-old jaw found in Ethiopia—as "shockingly bad" and therefore argues that such fragmentary finds do not rule out Australopithecus sediba as a Homo ancestor.

Most other researchers, however, concur that the Ethiopian jaw is indeed Homo and that the trail of our own genus significantly precedes the Malapa finds.

Berger doubts that the new papers will convince those who disagree with him, but affirms that "across the body, head to toe, sediba has a remarkable number of shared derived characters with definitive members of the genus Homo, including H. erectus, Neanderthals, and humans," thus underscoring a possible evolutionary connection.

Paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison points out that the dental details are the best evidence for a possible connection between the Malapa hominins and early Homo. "The new papers really spell out the shared features in the mandibles and teeth in a way that supports their position with A. africanus as a sister taxon to Homo."

A Complex Picture

Still, Hawks cautions, "I think the story could be more complicated." Relatively little is known of early Homo species, Hawks points out, and "knowing what we do about the mixture of later humans—including Neanderthals—it's possible that early Homo and later australopithecine relationships included widespread mixture also."

Regardless of what Australopithecus sediba turns out to be, however, the fossils offer an important caution about interpreting more fragmentary human remains found elsewhere.

"That mosaic of anatomy is the most important insight from this site. It says that when you find a fragment that looks like Homo, you can't expect the rest of the skeleton will look like Homo," Hawks says. "No single fragment can look more like Homo than these skeletons do overall, yet these skeletons have many features that don't look like Homo. And that's what we expect from an evolving lineage."

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History paleoanthropologist Rick Potts is uncertain of how Australopithecus sediba might be relevant to the origin of Homo, especially since the earliest Homo fossils are hundreds of thousands of years older, but notes that the combination of features in Australopithecus sediba "is astonishing."

That's what makes the placement of the hominins so difficult. "From what we know so far," Potts says, "I think Australopithecus sediba is best seen as a compelling example of the highly experimental nature of evolution in the several hundred thousand years around the time of the origin of Homo."

Ultimately, he says, determining the place of Australopithecus sediba will hinge upon "debates about whether it is the overall morphological pattern that is key to assessing where something like Australopithecus sediba sits in human evolution or [whether] it is the discovery of isolated traits in each area of the skeleton."

The hominin "is so curious in its totality," Potts says, "it might lead to some rethinking of how we classify fossil humans and place them in our evolutionary tree."-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Nationalgeographic

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –In a display of the modesty that seems to be marking the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has decided not to move to lavish papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace—at least not for now.

Instead, the pope intends to stay in the Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican City guesthouse that hosted him and the other Catholic cardinals during the recent conclave, the meeting that ended in Francis's election.

"He is experimenting with this type of living arrangement, which is simple," Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, announced this week. Lombardi said the setup allows Francis "to live in community with others."

The pope has moved out of the room he drew by lot before the conclave and into Casa Santa Marta's suite 201, a room that has slightly more elegant furnishings and a larger living room where he can receive guests.

The guesthouse was built in 1996 on the site of an ancient hospice for the poor. The five-story building has 106 suites, 22 single rooms, and one apartment and sits on the edge of Vatican City. It is regularly inhabited by a few dozen priests and bishops who work in the Vatican. Half the rooms are available for cardinals and bishops visiting Rome for audiences or other official occasions.

Casa Santa Marta's Roots

Regulations for the conclave demand that cardinals live together, separated from the outside world, until a pope is elected. In the past, they'd slept on cots in small rooms adjacent to the Sistine Chapel.

It was Pope John Paul II who called for the construction of a residence where cardinal electors—the cardinals who can cast votes in papal elections—could live during the papal election.

From the Casa Santa Marta, they can reach the Sistine Chapel by shuttle bus or by a short walk inside the Vatican gardens. After the election, the regular occupants return to the guesthouse.

Italian newspaper blog Vatican Insider reported that some objected to the pope staying on after the regular inhabitants returned. "I am used to being with my priests," Francis reportedly replied.

Lombardi added that he does not know how long the Pope will be staying in the guesthouse. Francis is also using the Apostolic Palace, including offices in his papal apartments, to hold meetings and audiences.

Like all of his predecessors since John XXIII in the 1960s, the new pope will appear at the window of his private study on the third floor of the palace every Sunday at noon to address pilgrims in St. Peter's Square and recite the Angelus prayer.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Nationalgeographic

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Suzuki Canada Inc. (SCI) today announced in a press release that it will stop selling new automobiles after the 2014 model year. However, all of SCI’s warranties will be honoured. Moreover, automobile parts and service will continue to be provided to customers without interruption through SCI’s warranty and service dealer network.

SCI will realign its business operations to focus on the long-term growth of its Motorcycle, ATV & Marine division in Canada. The transition is expected to take at least 12 months.

South of the border, American Suzuki Motor Corporation (ASMC) made a similar announcement back in November 2012.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Auto123