ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) ? African Union and Kenyan troops aim to squeeze Somali rebels linked to al Qaeda by pursuing a coordinated war on two fronts, the U.N. chief's special envoy in Somalia said Monday.
Under the plan, AU forces will push toward a Somali rebel stronghold outside the capital and Kenyan forces will focus on the Islamists' bastions in the south.
Augustine Mahiga, who relocated to Mogadishu from Nairobi to become the most senior U.N. official in Somalia for 17 years, cautioned it was hard to predict if the complex strategy would defeat the rebels given their sophisticated weaponry and ability to melt into the population.
African Union and U.N. officials at an AU summit in Addis Ababa are optimistic the twin track of a coordinated military campaign as well as a political roadmap, which envisions elections by August, means "the prospect for peace in Somalia has never been so real."
"AMISOM (the AU force) is (conducting) operations on the outskirts of Mogadishu and they'll be heading toward the Afgoye corridor. That is where al Shabaab has retreated to and has the highest concentration of its troops," Mahiga told Reuters on the summit's sidelines.
"They (Kenyan troops) take Kismayu and from there ... they'll progress northwards to Marka and the AMISOM troops from Mogadishu will also be going further south. It is a strategy that has been divided into sectors," he said.
It may not be that simple. The Ugandan and Burundian troops who make up the AMISOM force encountered fierce resistance in the battle for Mogadishu.
Equally, the advance of Kenyan soldiers toward the port city of Kismayu has been slower than anticipated since they crossed into Somalia in October.
Ethiopia, which has also deployed troops on Somali soil and seized some territory close to their shared border, said its force would stay put until AU troops replace them, to avoid a power vacuum.
Somalia has been in conflict for two decades with no single entity ever fully in control. Warlords and Islamist militants vie for control while drought has compounded hardship for many Somalis.
KISMAYU HEAVILY DEFENDED
Kismayu, the center of al Shabaab's operations, will be a tough battle but a necessary one to crush the militants, diplomats say.
Mahiga said the port served as an entry point for the foreign fighters in al Shabaab's ranks and accounted for about 90 percent of the rebels' revenues.
"(It's) the place where imports and exports have been taking place including arms and export of charcoal ... so this is heavily, heavily defended and it's going to be quite a battle," said Mahiga.
What's more, seizing control of Kismayu is the relatively easy part, counter-insurgency experts say. Holding on to the city will be tougher.
Kenya wants to integrate its troops inside Somalia into the AMISOM force as soon as the U.N. Security Council approves an increase in the force's current size from 12,000.
The AU wants to increase AMISOM's numbers to close to 18,000. Mahiga said he had met EU officials who said they would "consider seriously" funding the extra troops. Under the current structure, the European Union, particularly Italy, is in charge of paying wages.
Al Shabaab's growing recourse to al Qaeda-inspired suicide attacks makes quashing the five-year insurgency more difficult.
"They have always proven to be quite agile and they have over the years built a formidable arsenal of weapons," Mahiga said. "They have been training all these years (and) can retreat and regroup."
Twitter has posted a seriously awful/hilarious recruiting video to YouTube, which the company says was the product of last week's "Hack Week." During this time, employees were able to take time away from their day-to-day work to collaborate on new ideas. Although it was only posted on Friday, the video has already seen over 400,000 views at the time of writing. Why so viral? Because it's parodying the entire genre of startup recruiting videos by purposefully being bad. Really, really bad. So bad it's funny. Or at least that's the hope. The video has everything: amateurish effects, cheesy music, stilted speech, bad acting, poor production quality, and sayings like:?"Man this is a sweet job. But working at Twitter isn't just a sweet job, it's a way of life - a way of life that's like a sweet job." Yeah, you pretty much have to watch this one.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP rival Mitt Romney on Sunday for the steady stream of attacks he likened to "carpet-bombing," trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in Florida in the dwindling hours before Tuesday's pivotal presidential primary.
And despite surging ahead in polls, Romney wasn't letting up, relentlessly casting Gingrich as an influence peddler with a "record of failed leadership."
In what has become a wildly unpredictable race, the momentum has swung back to Romney, staggered last weekend by Gingrich's victory in South Carolina. Romney has begun advertising in Nevada ahead of that state's caucuses next Saturday, illustrating the challenges ahead for Gingrich, who has pledged to push ahead no matter what happens in Florida.
An NBC News/Marist poll published Sunday showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters, compared with 27 percent for Gingrich.
Romney's campaign has dogged Gingrich at his own campaign stops, sending surrogates to remind reporters of Gingrich's House ethics probe in the 1990s and other episodes in his career aimed at sowing doubt about his judgment.
Gingrich reacted defensively, accusing the former Massachusetts governor and a political committee that supports him of lying, and the GOP's establishment of allowing it.
"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."
Gingrich objected specifically to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline Gingrich, then speaker, for ethics charges.
Romney continued to paint Gingrich as part of the very Washington establishment he condemns and someone who had a role in the nation's economic problems.
"Your problem in Florida is that you worked for Freddie Mac at a time when Freddie Mac was not doing the right thing for the American people, and that you're selling influence in Washington at a time when we need people who will stand up for the truth in Washington," Romney told an audience in Naples.
Gingrich's consulting firm was paid more than $1.5 million by the federally-backed mortgage company over a period after he left Congress in 1999.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, stayed with his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who was hospitalized with pneumonia. Sunday night he told supporters, "She without a doubt has turned the corner," but he cautioned she "isn't out of the woods yet."
Aides said Santorum would resume campaigning Monday in Missouri and Minnesota.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has invested little in Florida, looked ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.
The intense effort by Romney to slow Gingrich is comparable to his strategy against Gingrich in the closing month before Iowa's leadoff caucuses Jan. 3. Gingrich led in Iowa polls, lifted by what were hailed as strong performances in televised debates, only to drop in the face of withering attacks by Romney, aided immensely by ads sponsored by a "super" political action committee run by former Romney aides.
But Romney aides say they made the mistake of assuming Gingrich could not rise again as he did in South Carolina. Romney appears determined not to let that happen again.
"His record is one of failed leadership," Romney told more than 700 people at a rally in Pompano Beach Sunday evening. "We don't need someone who can speak well perhaps, or can say things we agree with, but does not have the experience of being an effective leader."
Gingrich has responded by criticizing Romney's conservative credentials. Outside an evangelical Christian church in Lutz, Gingrich said he was the more loyal conservative on key social issues.
"This party is not going to nominate somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase liberal," Gingrich said. "It isn't going to happen."
But Gingrich, in appearances on Sunday news programs, returned to complaining about Romney's tactics. "It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," he said.
Romney and the political committee that supports him had combined to spend some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week. Gingrich and a super PAC that supports him were spending about one-third that amount.
Gingrich worked to portray himself as the insurgent outsider, collecting the endorsement of tea party favorite Herman Cain, whose own campaign for president foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.
It was unclear how aggressively Gingrich would be able to compete in states beyond Florida. The next televised debate, a format Gingrich has used to his advantage, is not until Feb. 22, more than three weeks away.
Romney already has campaigned in Nevada more than Gingrich, is advertising there, and stresses his business background in a state hard-hit by the economy. His campaign welcomed the Sunday endorsement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.
Michigan and Maine, where Romney won during his 2008 campaign, also hold their contests in February. Arizona, a strong tea-party state where Gingrich could do well, has its primary Feb. 28.
___
Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Naples and Shannon McCaffrey in Lutz contributed to this report.
TOKYO (Reuters) ? Canon Inc said on Monday its president Tsuneji Uchida would step down and his role would be taken on by chairman and chief executive Fujio Mitarai after the camera and printer maker forecast much weaker-than-expected earnings growth for this year.
Like other Japanese exporters, Canon, which makes 80 percent of its revenue overseas, has been buffeted by the strong yen, a weak economic outlook and the floods in Thailand, although it has been quite aggressive in countering these challenges by cutting costs and increasing automation.
"Owing to the historically high valuation of the yen combined with the effects of the earthquake and floods, all of Canon's businesses faced extremely demanding conditions throughout the year," the company said in a statement.
Canon said Uchida would resign effective March 29, to be replaced by Mitarai, who served as president from 1995 to 2006 but has since held the post of chairman.
Canon forecast a full-year operating profit of 390 billion yen ($5.1 billion) for the current year to December 2012, below expectations of a 470 billion yen profit based on the average of 20 estimates by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company also posted a slightly better-than-forecast 14 percent rise in fourth-quarter operating profit to 94.6 billion yen, in line with consensus expectations.
Operating profit for the full year to December was 378.1 billion yen, down from 387.5 billion yen in the previous year but beating the average of 20 analyst forecasts for a profit of 372 billion yen.
Canon, which competes with Xerox in printers and Nikon and Sony Corp in cameras, aims to sell 9.2 million interchangeable lens cameras and 22 million compact cameras in the year to December, compared with 7.2 million and 18.7 million, respectively, last year.
Its shares have fallen about 18 percent since the start of last year, slightly worse than the benchmark Nikkei average's 14 percent drop.
Xerox lowered its outlook for 2012 this month, on expectations that the debt crisis in Europe would hurt its business.
($1 = 76.67 yen)
(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Edwina Gibbs)
AUSTIN (KXAN) - If this week's driving rain, high winds and pounding thunder left you a little rattled, imagine what it must have been like for the dogs and cats.
Since then, more than 60 dogs and cats have been rescued by the Austin Animal Center .
"A lot of dogs have serious anxiety about storms," said Sarah Hammond, the center's foster director. "And they'll do things you don't think they could do, like jump a fence or dig out of the yard."
If you need to report or find your lost pet, call 512-978-0500. If you are outside the Austin City limits call 512-974-2000
The shelter has offered to give free identification tags and microchips for the pets to owners who come to reclaim their lost pets.
Unfortunately, most of the rescued pets will not be reunited with their previous owners. After three days in the shelter pets are available for adoption.
Volunteer Lisa Sandbert said she has noticed the huge influx of dogs and cats from the storm.
"What Austin has done with no-kill is amazing but we are running out of room," she said.
Some owners have been searching the cages looking for their lost pets.
Santiago Galvan was searching for a blue heeler who broke the leash in a frenzy during the storm.
"Unfortunately, he's my brothers dog," said Santiago, who was dog-sitting while his brother and wife were on vacation. "The last word his wife told me is, 'Don't let me down, Santiago.' So I'm looking for this dog."
The Austin Animal Center is already at maximum capacity but staff is expecting more strays to come in from the storm.
"If there's a lost dog in the county, this is where they would be," Hammond said.
The ?Tigertails? took off from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. NBC?s Brian Williams reports.
>>>we want to make note of a history-making flight this week for the
u.s. navy
. the first all-female
combat mission
. the five took off in an e-2-c hawkeye aircraft from the
aircraft carrier
uss carl vincent. there is your crew. the navy says this is a significant achievement given that the number of female pilots in the fleet, less than 5%. though the number of female officers is growing.
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks at a campaign stop, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks at a campaign stop, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, campaigns in Bangor, Maine, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, campaigns in Bangor, Maine, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks at a campaign stop, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas waits to be introduced behind a partition at campaign stop, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) ? Ron Paul braved Maine's snow and ice Friday in a quest to pick up delegates, vowing he and his loyal band of supporters would be a factor in the Republican nominating contest for weeks to come.
The Texas congressman attracted a packed house in Bangor despite a powerful winter storm that shuttered schools and brought traffic to a virtual standstill.
Feisty and defiant, Paul said he had watched a television segment that morning in which pundits debated how Republicans should try to manage Paul and his fervent backers.
"They want us to go away, but they don't want to offend us. How are they going to manage that?" Paul said to boos. "I'll tell you what ? we'll just hang around for a while longer."
Paul is all but skipping Florida, whose primary is Jan. 31, to focus on Maine and other states holding caucuses, including Nevada, Colorado and Minnesota. Nevada's caucuses are Feb. 4 and Colorado and Minnesota's follow on Feb. 7.
Paul's campaign is following President Barack Obama's 2008 model, hoping a similarly young, Internet-savvy fan base will organize themselves and attend caucuses for Paul. The caucus states also yield a large number of delegates for far less money than many primary states.
The comparison to Obama's 2008 campaign has its limits, however. Obama had racked up at least one major victory ? a huge win in the Iowa caucuses ? before turning to the smaller-state caucus strategy. Paul has yet to win a single contest.
His best showing was in the New Hampshire primary, where he placed second behind Mitt Romney. But he came in third in Iowa behind Romney and Rick Santorum and placed a dismal fourth last Saturday in South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary.
Paul was spending two days in Maine, campaigning on or near college campuses, which have typically been receptive to his libertarian-leaning message.
At Colby College in Waterville, he emphasized his support for bringing U.S. troops home from overseas engagements and railed against what he called government's efforts to regulate lifestyle choices.
"When it comes to putting anything into your body, or your mouth, in your lungs, you can't do it without permission of the government," Paul said.
Maine's caucuses begin Feb. 4 and wrapping up on Feb. 11, when the GOP will announce the results of what is essentially a nonbinding straw poll.
The gatherings in schools, Grange halls, fire stations and town halls are the first step to selecting 24 delegates from the state to the Republican National Convention in Tampa next summer.
Charles Welles, 34, a Waterville resident and Navy veteran, said he supports Paul's views on ending military engagements and wants to vote for him. But Welles said he was still a bit confused by the caucus process.
"I'm from Ohio, so this is all new to me," Welles said.
Paul and Romney were both on the ballot in Maine's 2008 caucuses and have maintained active organizations in the state. The former Massachusetts governor finished first that year. Paul came in third, behind Arizona Sen. John McCain, who went on to win the GOP nomination.
Maine, often an afterthought compared to its next-door neighbor, New Hampshire, tends to reward candidates who are organized and make an effort to show up to court voters, Colby political science professor Sandy Maisel said.
Maisel noted that Gov. Jerry Brown of California, who was out of office at the time, won Maine's Democratic caucuses in 1992 after making frequent trips to the state.
The enthusiasm among Paul's supporters could help him prevail in Maine, Maisel added.
"The GOP has a very low turnout and it tends to be the most ideological people, which favors Ron Paul," he said.
Paul state chairman Paul Madore was guarded about setting expectations, saying GOP officials in the state would press for a more traditional candidate like Romney.
We have a rank-and-file Republican leadership in Maine, and they don't budge easily," Madore said. "We have to get in there and make our presence heard."
___
Sharp reported from Portland, Maine.
___
Follow Beth Fouhy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bfouhy
Commentary in Nature: Can economy bear what oil prices have in store?Public release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sandra Hines shines@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy.
That's the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the current issue of the journal Nature (Jan. 26) that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels.
"Given our fossil-fuel dependent economies, this is more urgent and has a shorter time frame than global climate change," says James W. Murray, UW professor of oceanography, who wrote the Nature commentary with David King, director of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The "tipping point" for oil supply appears to have occurred around 2005, says Murray, who compared world crude oil production with world prices going back to 1998. Before 2005, supply of regular crude oil was elastic and increased in response to price increases. Since then, production appears to have hit a wall at 75 million barrels per day in spite of price increases of 15 percent each year.
"As a result, prices swing wildly in response to small changes in demand," the co-authors wrote. "Others have remarked on this step change in the economies of oil around the year 2005, but the point needs to be lodged more firmly in the minds of policy makers."
For those who argue that oil reserves have been increasing, that more crude oil will be available in the future, the co-authors wrote: "The true volume of global proved reserves is clouded by secrecy; forecasts by state oil companies are not audited and appear to be exaggerated. More importantly, reserves often take 6 - 10 years to drill and develop before they become part of the supply, by which time older fields have become depleted." Production at oil fields around the world is declining between 4.5 percent and 6.7 percent per year, they wrote.
"For the economy, it's production that matters, not how much oil might be in the ground," Murray says. In the U.S., for example, production as a percentage of total reserves went from 9 percent to 6 percent in the last 30 years.
"We've already gotten the easy oil, the oil that can be produced cheaply," he says. "It used to be we'd drill a well and the oil would flow out, now we have to go through all these complicated and expensive procedures to produce the oil."
The same is true of alternative sources such as tar sands or "fracking" for shale gas, Murray says, where supplies may be exaggerated and production is expensive. Take the promise of shale gas and oil: A New York Times investigative piece last June reported that "the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells."
Production at shale gas wells can drop 60 to 90 percent in the first year of operation, according to a world expert on shale gas who was one of the sources for the commentary piece. Murray and King built their commentary using data and information from more than 15 international and U.S. government reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, reports from groups such as the National Research Council and Brookings Institution and association findings.
Stagnant oil supplies and volatile prices take a toll on the world economy. Of the 11 recessions in the U.S. since World War II, ten were preceded by a spike in oil prices, the commentary noted.
"Historically, there has been a tight link between oil production and global economic growth," the co-authors wrote. "If oil production can't grow, the implication is that the economy can't grow either."
Calculations from the International Monetary Fund, for example, say that to achieve a 4 percent growth in the global economy in the next five years, oil production must increase about 3 percent a year.
"Yet to achieve that will require either an heroic increase in oil production, ... increased efficiency of oil use, more energy-efficient growth or rapid substitution of other fuel sources," according to the commentary. "Economists and politicians continually debate policies that will lead to a return to economic growth. But because they have failed to recognize that the high price of energy is a central problem, they haven't identified the necessary solutions: weaning society off fossil fuel."
The commentary concludes: "This will be a decades-long transformation and we need to start immediately. Emphasizing the short-term economic imperative from oil prices must be enough to push governments into action now."
###
For more information:
Murray, 206-543-4730, jmurray@uw.edu
King
http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/who-we-are/professor-sir-david-king/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Commentary in Nature: Can economy bear what oil prices have in store?Public release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sandra Hines shines@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy.
That's the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the current issue of the journal Nature (Jan. 26) that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels.
"Given our fossil-fuel dependent economies, this is more urgent and has a shorter time frame than global climate change," says James W. Murray, UW professor of oceanography, who wrote the Nature commentary with David King, director of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The "tipping point" for oil supply appears to have occurred around 2005, says Murray, who compared world crude oil production with world prices going back to 1998. Before 2005, supply of regular crude oil was elastic and increased in response to price increases. Since then, production appears to have hit a wall at 75 million barrels per day in spite of price increases of 15 percent each year.
"As a result, prices swing wildly in response to small changes in demand," the co-authors wrote. "Others have remarked on this step change in the economies of oil around the year 2005, but the point needs to be lodged more firmly in the minds of policy makers."
For those who argue that oil reserves have been increasing, that more crude oil will be available in the future, the co-authors wrote: "The true volume of global proved reserves is clouded by secrecy; forecasts by state oil companies are not audited and appear to be exaggerated. More importantly, reserves often take 6 - 10 years to drill and develop before they become part of the supply, by which time older fields have become depleted." Production at oil fields around the world is declining between 4.5 percent and 6.7 percent per year, they wrote.
"For the economy, it's production that matters, not how much oil might be in the ground," Murray says. In the U.S., for example, production as a percentage of total reserves went from 9 percent to 6 percent in the last 30 years.
"We've already gotten the easy oil, the oil that can be produced cheaply," he says. "It used to be we'd drill a well and the oil would flow out, now we have to go through all these complicated and expensive procedures to produce the oil."
The same is true of alternative sources such as tar sands or "fracking" for shale gas, Murray says, where supplies may be exaggerated and production is expensive. Take the promise of shale gas and oil: A New York Times investigative piece last June reported that "the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells."
Production at shale gas wells can drop 60 to 90 percent in the first year of operation, according to a world expert on shale gas who was one of the sources for the commentary piece. Murray and King built their commentary using data and information from more than 15 international and U.S. government reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, reports from groups such as the National Research Council and Brookings Institution and association findings.
Stagnant oil supplies and volatile prices take a toll on the world economy. Of the 11 recessions in the U.S. since World War II, ten were preceded by a spike in oil prices, the commentary noted.
"Historically, there has been a tight link between oil production and global economic growth," the co-authors wrote. "If oil production can't grow, the implication is that the economy can't grow either."
Calculations from the International Monetary Fund, for example, say that to achieve a 4 percent growth in the global economy in the next five years, oil production must increase about 3 percent a year.
"Yet to achieve that will require either an heroic increase in oil production, ... increased efficiency of oil use, more energy-efficient growth or rapid substitution of other fuel sources," according to the commentary. "Economists and politicians continually debate policies that will lead to a return to economic growth. But because they have failed to recognize that the high price of energy is a central problem, they haven't identified the necessary solutions: weaning society off fossil fuel."
The commentary concludes: "This will be a decades-long transformation and we need to start immediately. Emphasizing the short-term economic imperative from oil prices must be enough to push governments into action now."
###
For more information:
Murray, 206-543-4730, jmurray@uw.edu
King
http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/who-we-are/professor-sir-david-king/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Gardasil, the human papillomavirus vaccine that is now recommended for male and female adolescents and young adults, does not trigger autoimmune conditions such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes or multiple sclerosis after vaccination in young women, according to a new study in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Kaiser Permanente researchers used electronic health records to conduct an observational safety study of 189,629 females aged 9 to 26 years old in California who were followed for six months after receiving each dose of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine in 2006-2008. Researchers found no increase in 16 pre-specified autoimmune conditions in the vaccinated population compared to a matched group of unvaccinated girls and women.
The quadrivalent HPV vaccine was licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and recommended for young women and girls to protect against genital warts, which infects 6.2 million people annually, is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, and can lead to cervical cancer in women. But autoimmune reactions have been a longstanding concern surrounding vaccination and many parents withhold the vaccine from their children because of perceived safety concerns. However, most speculated associations have stemmed from case reports that have not been confirmed by large, controlled epidemiologic studies. This study presents findings from a well-designed, post-licensure safety study of the vaccine on a large, ethnically diverse population, researchers said.
"This kind of safety information may help parents with vaccination decisions," said study lead author Chun Chao, PhD, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif. "These findings offer some assurance that among a large and generalizable female population, no safety signal for autoimmune conditions was found following HPV4 vaccination in routine clinical use."
The study looked for autoimmune conditions such as immune thrombocytopenia, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, Hashimoto's disease, Graves' disease, multiple sclerosis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, other demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system, vaccine-associated demyelination, Guillain-Barr? syndrome, neuromyelitis optica, optic neuritis and uveitis.
Previous safety data on the HPV vaccine has been collected in clinical trials, as well as through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Both have important limitations in assessing the safety profile of the vaccine. Clinical trials often include a highly selected population, with sample sizes too small, and follow-up too short, to observe rare safety events such as autoimmune conditions. The VAERS reports are often hard to interpret due to the lack of a proper comparison group and limited ability to determine whether the onset of the condition really preceded vaccination.
On the other hand, the present study, conducted at Kaiser Permanente in California, employed methods that involved in-depth medical-chart review to ensure the accuracy of diagnosis and that onset of disease was after vaccination. In addition, disease incidence in the vaccinated group was compared with a comparable unvaccinated group. As a result, this study offers important complementary safety information for the HPV vaccine.
###
Kaiser Permanente: http://www.dor.kaiser.org
Thanks to Kaiser Permanente for this article.
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MOGADISHU (Reuters) ? U.S. helicopters swooped into central Somalia on Wednesday and rescued two hostages, an American and a Dane, from pirates in a rare raid into the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives.
American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted were working for the Danish Demining Group (DDG) when they were kidnapped from the town of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region in October.
"The Danish Refugee Council hereby confirms that Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted have been rescued earlier today during an operation in Somalia," the aid group said in a statement.
"The two aid workers from the Danish Refugee Council's demining unit, DDG, are both unharmed and at a safe location," it said.
Galmudug's president, Mohamed Ahmed Alim, told Reuters nine pirates were killed and five captured during the rescue operation near the pirate haven of Haradheere.
Alim was speaking from Hobyo, another major pirate base north of Haradheere, where he said he was negotiating to secure the release of an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.
"About 12 U.S. helicopters are now at Galkayo. We thank the U.S. Pirates have spoilt the whole region's peace and ethics. They are mafia," Alim said.
While U.S. and French forces have intervened to rescue pirate hostages at sea before now, attacks on pirate bases are very rare. The only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa is in neighboring Djibouti.
NBC News, citing U.S. officials, reported that two teams of U.S. Navy SEALs landed by helicopter and rescued the hostages after a gun battle with the kidnappers. The freed hostages were taken by helicopter to an undisclosed location, NBC reported.
President Barack Obama was overheard congratulating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, apparently for the success of the rescue operation, as Obama entered the House of Representatives chamber on Tuesday night to give his annual State of the Union speech.
"Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight," Obama said. He did not mention the rescue during his speech.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, John Acher in Copenhagen, David Clarke in Nairobi and Eric Beech in Washington; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by David Clarke)
KYOTO, Japan ? They no longer speak the same language, but two brothers separated nearly 60 years each think the other hasn't changed a bit.
Japanese-American Minoru Ohye celebrate his 86th birthday Monday with his only brother after traveling to Japan for a reunion with him.
The brothers were born in Sacramento, California, but were separated as children after their father died in a fishing accident. They were sent to live with relatives in Japan and ended up in different homes.
The reunited brothers hugged in a hotel room and exchanged gifts of California chocolate and Japanese sake. The American brother wore his trademark baseball cap and jeans. The Japanese bother wore a suit and tie.
But the same bright eyes and square jaws were a dead giveaway that they were brothers. They both loved golf and had back pains. They thought the other hadn't changed a bit.
"If we miss this chance, we may never meet. You never know," said Ohye, energetic except for a sore knee. "Either he may die, or I may die."
Separated across the Pacific, their only prior meeting had been a brief one in the mid-1950s when Ohye stopped by Japan while serving in the U.S. Army in the demilitarized zone on the Korean peninsula.
His brother, Hiroshi Kamimura, 84, was adopted by a Japanese family, grew up in the ancient capital of Kyoto and became a tax accountant. He married and had three sons.
Ohye joined the youth group of the Japanese Imperial Army at 13 and went to Russia, where he was sent to a Siberian coal mine when Japan surrendered. He returned to be with his mother in Yuba City, California, in 1951, and worked as a bookbinder and a gardener.
He became homeless when he failed to collect payment for a restaurant he ran and later sold in the late 1950s.
About 10 years ago, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a welfare service organization for U.S. veterans, found him a spot in the Eskaton Wilson Manor home for the elderly.
It was Eskaton's program to grant a wish called "Thrill of a Lifetime" that got Ohye back to Japan.
While others wished for rafting trips and football game tickets, the only thing Ohye wanted was to see his brother again. Eskaton administrator Debbie Reynolds put together a fundraiser for Ohye's trip.
Kamimura acknowledged it had been difficult to communicate with his brother through telephone calls because he didn't understand English. They would exchange a lot of "hellos" and then their conversations ended, he said.
"I am happy. He is the only brother I have," Kamimura said after watching Ohye blow out the candles on a birthday cake at a restaurant. "This may be our last time together."
Brian Berry, a graduate student at the University of Tokyo who was approached by Reynolds to help with the reunion and got Ohye from the Tokyo airport to Kyoto, was relieved the brothers were together at last.
"Even over time, with all that has been gone through, still the only thing you are thinking about is your family," he said. "Right when you're near the end of your life, you are still thinking about your family."
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Chemistry is a messy business. The elements are so diverse that their interactions can be unpredictable and sometimes bizarre. Often, chemists rely on nothing more than intuition to tell them what may or may not be possible.
Sometimes that leads them astray. History is littered with ideas that were derided or dismissed at first, but eventually changed the rules of the game. Philip Ball tells five stories of chemistry they said could never happen
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TAMPA, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich's presidential hopes may rest among the pews of Florida's ministries and megachurches.
The former House speaker is looking to Florida's religious conservatives to counter rival Mitt Romney's organizational and financial might in a state where so-called "values voters" could constitute more than a third of the Republican electorate in the Jan. 31 primary.
"There's no question Gov. Romney will always have more money," Gingrich says when asked about his Florida campaign. But he's quick to add that his team has between 5,000 and 6,000 volunteers. Aides say many of them are evangelicals.
Thrice-married, Gingrich may not be the obvious pick for church-goers here. But the network of religious activists he's assembling has far greater concerns about Romney's inconsistent history on abortion and gay rights than they seemingly do about Gingrich's two divorces and acknowledged marital infidelity.
And that gives Gingrich an opening as he challenges Romney in the aftermath of Saturday's primary in South Carolina, where the polls suggest Gingrich may end up winning.
Seeking to capitalize on Gingrich's burst of momentum, one of his top evangelical backers in Florida planned to lead a conference call in the coming days with 1,000 pastors. Others are spreading Gingrich's message in the state's many churches and Baptist publications. And Gingrich has already lined up appearances with the religious community for next week.
"The evangelicals are not going to wrap their arms around Romney in this primary or the general election," says John Grant, a Baptist leader and one of Gingrich's Florida evangelical chairmen. "Gingrich is pulling these people together quite nicely."
The power of Florida's evangelicals depends on their ability to unite. And while they're nearly united against Romney, they're not wholly united behind Gingrich. Some prominent religious conservatives are rallying around Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator long known for passionate social conservatism, but generally considered a longshot in the race to challenge President Barack Obama in the fall.
Santorum is showing no signs of bowing out, especially after the final tally suggested he edged Romney in the Iowa caucuses even though there is no officially declared winner.
The continued division leaves the political power of Florida's evangelicals fractured, just as anti-Romney conservatives have been in other early voting states all year.
"We have to figure out how we're going to come together," said John Stemberger, a Santorum supporter who led the 2008 push to amend Florida's constitution to ban gay marriage.
Stemberger hoped a recent meeting of national evangelical leaders in Texas would do just that. The group held a nonbinding vote that showed overwhelming support for Santorum. But in Florida, there are serious questions about the viability of Santorum, who hired a Florida staff just last week.
Gingrich's organization pales when compared to Romney's, which has been years in the making. But Gingrich's team is working to capitalize on doubts about Santorum, as well as on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent exit.
Gingrich's Florida operation is led by Jose Mallea, who managed Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's 2010 race.
Even before Perry's exit, Gingrich's team had been quietly courting key staff and supporters from both the Perry and Santorum camps to boost an organization that was stood up in December.
Underscoring the challenge Gingrich faces, he has yet to run any television ads in Florida, where Romney and his allies have had the airwaves to themselves since mid-December. Mallea said Gingrich will advertise in Spanish and English soon.
Gingrich also faces renewed attention on flaws in his personal life that could turn off evangelicals here.
In an ABC News interview broadcast Thursday, Gingrich's second wife said he sought an "open marriage" arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife. Asked about his ex-wife's assertions during a debate that night, Gingrich said it was false and lashed out at the media.
"I wish he didn't have that background, but I honestly believe he's had a real renaissance experience," said Grant, the Gingrich supporter.
In recent years, Gingrich has publicly acknowledged mistakes, converted to Catholicism and says prayer is an important part of his life.
Gingrich's team estimates evangelicals will represent between 25 percent and 40 percent of the Florida GOP primary electorate.
Exit polling from the 2008 GOP primary shows that approximately 39 percent of voters identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. They were almost evenly split that year, with 30 percent for Sen. John McCain, 29 percent for Romney, 29 percent for Mike Huckabee and 7 percent for Rudy Giuliani.
Romney would be happy with a repeat performance. His team has organized weekly conference calls with a group of social conservative leaders it hopes will produce at least some of the evangelical vote.
But Romney is not going out of his way to appease this group. He recently declined to respond to the Florida Family Policy Council voter guide, which Stemberger organized. The guide highlights Romney's non-answers on key social issues prominently and was emailed to 100,000 Florida evangelicals this week. It also is expected to be faxed and emailed to about 8,000 churches.
While Stemberger and Grant don't agree on a Romney alternative, they share deep concerns about him.
"I hear that if it's Obama and Romney, evangelicals have no place to go. But there's a third choice: It's called home," Grant said.
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan ? On Jan. 14 at 8:12 p.m., Khushal Khan's wife got a call on her cell phone.
"Your son has been martyred," the voice said at the other end of the line. The man then hung up.
The end for Khan's youngest son, Aslam Awan, came when a drone piloted remotely from the United States fired a missile at a house along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Awan was among four people killed, U.S. officials said this week, describing Awan as an "external operations planner" for al-Qaida. British authorities say he was a member of a militant cell in northern England who had fought in Afghanistan.
The Jan. 10 strike in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan that killed Awan was a victory for the CIA-led drone program at time when relations between Washington and Islamabad are very strained, in part by the missile strikes. It was one of the first drone attacks after a hiatus of some six weeks following a friendly fire incident in which U.S. forces killed 24 Pakistani border troops, nearly leading to a severing of ties with Islamabad.
The drone attacks generate anti-American sentiment inside Pakistan, but have been credited with significantly weakening al-Qaida in one of its global hubs.
For his family, the call came as a final curt word about the fate of a son they had heard little from in over a year.
Awan grew up in the northwestern Pakistani town of Abbottabad, a few kilometers away from the house where Osama bin Laden was slain. His father worked in a bank in Britain in the 70s and then in Abbottabad until he retired a few years ago. His four other sons remain in Britain, where they have prospered ? one is a surgeon, another is a doctor, the third an engineer and the fourth is a banker.
It seems doubtful Awan had any contact with bin Laden in the town. But Awan's background here reinforces a striking association between this well-ordered, wealthy Pakistani army town and al-Qaida militants, which began before bin Laden was killed here in May last year when a team of American commandos flew in from Afghanistan.
Now 75 and recovering from a heart operation, Khushal Khan answered questions Saturday from an Associated Press reporter in the garden of his house, making the most of some winter sun. He defended his son's memory against charges of militancy.
"I don't believe this is true, my son was not indulging in these things," he said. "It can't be correct."
Khan said Awan followed his brothers' footsteps and went to Britain in 2002 on a student visa.
Awan lived in Manchester for four years, during which time he joined a militant cell that aimed to bring Muslims to Pakistan for militant training, according to prosecutors at the time and a British media report. He told his father he was studying at Manchester University, but it's unclear whether he ever graduated.
The cell was headed by a British al-Qaida commander called Rangzieb Ahmed who was captured in Pakistan in 2006 and sent for trial in Britain, where he was sentenced to life in prison for directing terrorism, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph.
A letter he wrote a to a longtime friend and fellow Pakistani, Abdul Rahman, rhapsodized over the "fragrance of blood" from the battlefield of jihad and his commitment to militancy, according to prosecutors in the trial of Rahman, who was sentenced to six years in jail in 2007 for spreading terrorist propaganda in Manchester. It apparently referred to a stint fighting jihad in Afghanistan, but when that occurred is not known.
The judge said then Awan was believed to have left England for Afghanistan.
"Awan was very well connected to known extremists in the UK. It highlights that the threat is still there," said Valentina Soria, a terrorism researcher at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. "This group were not just wannabes, they were active and with links to al-Qaida central."
There are thought to be about 900,000 Pakistani Muslims in England ? many of them living in London and in northern cities. British authorities have said nearly all the plots and attacks on British soil have some connection to Pakistan.
Awan returned to Abbottabad in 2007, around the time that bin Laden was settling in to his large house, though that doesn't mean Awan was in touch with him or any of his couriers. U.S. officials have previously said the al-Qaida leader was cut off from the rest of his network and wasn't meeting other militants for security reasons.
Awan began to associate with Sipah-e-Sahaba, an extremist group that has a political wing as well links to al-Qaida, according to a police officer in the town who knows the family. The officer didn't give his name because he didn't want to be seen as adding to Khan's pain.
Khan said he last saw his son or heard his voice in 2010, when Awan asked for funds to build a house and they fought over the fact he wasn't working.
"That was the point when I had to forcefully ask him to go out earn some money," he said. "But my words hurt him, and he left home with only the clothes he was wearing."
Khan said he initially feared his son had been kidnapped when he didn't return or contact him. But after a few months, Awan called his wife and told her he was in Miran Shah, the largest town in North Waziristan. He said he was running a general store and dealing in second-hand clothes.
Local intelligence officials said Awan was known by the nom de guerre Abdullah Khurasani, and was highly prized in al-Qaida circles because of his education, computer skills and foreign contacts.
Al-Qaida, Taliban and other militants from around the world congregate for training and networking in North Waziristan, and Miran Shah is a key logistical base. The town is too dangerous for reporters to visit, but locals who have traveled there say hundreds of Pakistan and foreign militants live there openly, unmolested other than by the U.S. missile attacks on its outskirts. The Pakistani army says it doesn't have enough resources to launch an operation in the region.
The missile strike program began in earnest in 2009 and has been stepped up by the Obama administration.
Abbottabad is home to the Pakistan army's top military academy and hundreds of officers and soldiers live in what is one of the country's more secure towns. The fact that bin Laden hid there for so long in plain sight triggered intense international suspicions that the military was sheltering him.
Al-Qaida's No. 3, Abu Faraj al-Libi, lived in Abbottabad before his arrest in 2005 elsewhere in northwest Pakistan, American and Pakistani officials have said. Five months prior to the bin Laden raid, Indonesian al-Qaida operative Umar Patek was arrested in the town following the arrest of an al-Qaida courier who worked at the post office.
U.S. officials have said Patek's arrest in Abbottabad was a coincidence.
_____
Brummitt reported from Islamabad. Associated Press reporters Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this story.
ANKARA (Reuters) ? Iran's foreign minister warned Arab neighbors on Thursday not to put themselves in a "dangerous position" by aligning themselves too closely with the United States in the escalating dispute over Tehran's nuclear activity.
Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, used for a third of the world's seaborne oil trade, if pending Western moves to ban Iranian crude exports cripple its lifeblood energy sector, fanning fears of a slide into wider Middle East war.
European Union foreign ministers are expected at a meeting on Monday to agree an oil embargo against Iran and a freeze on the assets of its central bank, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said, confirming diplomatic leaks.
Saudi Arabia, the world's No. 1 oil exporter, riled Iran earlier this week when it said it could swiftly raise oil output for key customers if needed, a scenario that could transpire if Iranian exports were embargoed.
"We want peace and tranquility in the region. But some of the countries in our region, they want to direct other countries 12,000 miles away from this region," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in English during a visit to Turkey.
The remark was an apparent reference to the alliance of Iran's Arab neighbors with Washington, which maintains a big naval force in the Gulf and says it will keep the waterway open.
"I am calling to all countries in the region, please don't let yourselves be dragged into a dangerous position," Salehi told Turkey's NTV broadcaster.
He added the United States should make clear that it was open for negotiations with Tehran without conditions. He referred to a letter Iran says it received from U.S. President Barack Obama about the situation in the Straight of Hormuz, the contents of which have not been made public.
"Mr Obama sent a letter to Iranian officials, but America has to make clear that it has good intentions and should express that it's ready for talks without conditions," he said.
"Out in the open they show their muscles but behind the curtains they plead to us to sit down and talk. America has to pursue a safe and honest strategy so we can get the notion that America this time is serious and ready."
The United States, like other Western countries, says it is prepared to talk to Iran but only if Tehran agrees to discuss halting its enrichment of uranium. Western officials say Iran has been asking for talks "without conditions" as a stalling tactic while refusing to put its nuclear program on the table.
IAEA CHIEF SAYS MUST ALERT WORLD ABOUT IRAN
The International Atomic Energy Agency chief said it was his duty to alert the world about possible military aspects to Iran's nuclear campaign, keeping the heat on Tehran ahead of a rare visit by senior IAEA officials for talks on January 29-31.
"What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons," he was quoted as saying in comments published in the Financial Times Deutschland on Thursday. "We want to check over everything that could have a military dimension."
An IAEA delegation, to be headed by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, is expected to seek explanations for intelligence information indicating Iran has engaged in research and development applicable to nuclear weapons.
Tehran denies wanting bombs, saying it is refining uranium only for electricity generation and medical applications.
Salehi said on Wednesday that Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, was in touch with world powers to reopen talks that he expected to be held soon.
Washington and the EU quickly denied this, saying they are still waiting for Iran to show it wanted serious negotiations addressing fears that it trying to master ways to build atom bombs behind the facade of a civilian nuclear energy program.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said after meeting Salehi that all sides were willing to resume talks but the time and place need to be settled. "I will tell Ms. Ashton about the talks today," he told reporters, referring to the EU foreign policy chief who represents the powers on Iran.
"We have always said we are ready for dialogue," France's Juppe told reporters in Paris. "Ashton has made concrete offers, but sadly until today Iran has not committed transparently or cooperatively to this discussion process."
He added: "It's for this reason that to avoid an irreparable military option we have to strengthen sanctions."
Iran has wanted to discuss only broader international security issues, not its nuclear program, in meetings with the powers held sporadically over the past five years.
"RED LINE"
Iranian politicians said Obama had expressed readiness to negotiate in a letter to Iran's clerical supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"In this letter it was said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is our (U.S.) 'red line' and also asked for direct negotiations," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted lawmaker Ali Mottahari as saying.
Washington declined to comment on whether Obama had written to Khamenei.
The stage was set for international oil sanctions against Iran when Obama signed legislation on December 31 that would freeze out any institution dealing with Iran's central bank, making it impossible for most countries to buy Iranian crude.
Diplomats said the EU's 27 member states were still mulling details such as when an embargo would start. They were looking into a grace period that would end in July to help some debt-ridden EU states that rely on Iranian oil to adjust to a ban.
"On the central bank, things have been moving in the right direction...," an EU diplomat said. "There is now wide agreement on the principle. Discussions continue on the details."
CHINA DEFENDS OIL TRADE WITH IRAN
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended his country's extensive oil trade with Iran against Western sanctions pressure in comments published on Thursday. Nevertheless, he said, Beijing firmly opposes any Iranian effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
The last talks between Iran and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - along with Germany stalled in Istanbul a year ago, with the parties unable to agree even on an agenda.
The six have also failed to agree on a common line in their approach to Iran, a lack of unity that led to a watering down of four earlier rounds of U.N. sanctions adopted since 2006.
An IAEA report in November lent weight to concerns that Iran has worked on designing a nuclear weapon, and Tehran is shifting enrichment to an underground bunker in a mountain fortified against air attack.
Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal but sees Iran's nuclear ambitions as a mortal threat, and the United States have not ruled out military action as a last resort to prevent an atomic "breakout" by Tehran.
However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday that any decision about an Israeli assault on Iran was "very far off."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the last-ditch military option mooted by U.S. and Israeli leaders would ignite a disastrous, widespread Middle East war. Russia also opposes the new push for oil sanctions, calling it counterproductive.
(Additional reporting by Ramin Mostafavi in Tehran, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Phil Stewart in Washington, Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Peter Graff)
Georgia Tech and the ACC are in talks to potentially move the Jackets' game against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to Labor Day Monday.
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Jan 18, 2012 - Georgia Tech and the Atlantic Coast Conference are in talks to move the Yellow Jackets' game against Coastal Division rival Virginia Tech to the Monday night of Labor Day weekend, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Both schools would need to agree to make the move to a September 3 kickoff, replicating the ACC's former Labor Day match-up between Florida State and Miami. Last year the Hurricanes played at Maryland on Labor Day, a game lacking the traditional luster of a big-time ACC match-up. The winner of the Georgia Tech / Virginia Tech game has represented the Coastal Division in the last seven ACC Championship games.
The Jackets usually schedule non-conference and/or FCS teams to open their schedule with, and already have a Sept. 8 game with Middle Tennessee State scheduled. Both Miami and Maryland had a bye week following this past season's Labor Day game.
The Chick-Fil-A Kickoff in Atlanta will feature two ACC teams the same weekend - Clemson (facing Auburn) and NC State (against Tennessee) - and would complicate any kind of move by the conference to establish a permanent Labor Day game between to two conference foes. Making such a move would ostensibly eliminate those schools from consideration for the Kickoff, which features national publicity and a bowl-like payout for each school.
For more on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, visit From The Rumble Seat. For Virginia Tech news, go to Gobbler Country. For college football info from across the country, check out SB Nation's college football news hub.
Twitter has posted a seriously awful/hilarious recruiting video to YouTube, which the company says was the product of last week's "
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012
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