PC gaming is, on balance, better than console gaming. - Debate.org

Thank you for the response.

?Also, just because the game was made for consoles originally does not mean that the console itself is better. Since it can be emulated, this point is invalid.?

That is quite opinion based, if you contribute a system?s games to how good the system is, then you can make an argument that the N64 was superior because of its revolutionary games.

In fact my opponent did make this very same argument when he said earlier:

?The PC has a wide choice of games, as many games are multi-platform releases. With that, the PC also has many exclusive games such as MMO's like World of Warcraft, Tera Online, Eve Online, and Guild Wars 2. MOBA games are also fairly exclusive to PC's, such as League of Legends and DOTA 2. Also, many small indie titles are PC exclusive. ?

My opponent makes the point that small indie titles made for the PC are exclusive, and why else would have put that on the debate if he hadn?t meant that the PC was better because of the games it produces. My point was not that the OOT was better on the N64, just that the N64 (a console) has produced better games then the PC does. Playing a N64 game on an emulator is great, but you surely can?t make the case that this makes the PC better. Without the console, that game never would have existed.

?You could use an HDMI cable and a wired 360 controller to play PC games on a TV.?

Yes, you could. But a big factor in this debate is how the console entertains better then the PC, and convenience is a big factor of entertainment. While there are people who can set that up easily with an HDMI, there are more people who couldn?t figure it out. It?s sad, but true, consoles are more people friendly.

?Again, you can plug in any number of peripherals that you want on a PC.?

Again, which is more convenient, going to the trouble to figure out how to hook that stuff up, or just buying a console and sticking the cords into their designated slots? It?s so much easier.

"The power of a 400 dollar machine can't possibly match that of a 2000 dollar gaming rig. Sure, they'll help close the gap, but they won't be able to surpass PC's. Also, since PC's are constantly updated, the gap will have a lot of time to widen. After all, look at the current console generation: it's been going on for about eight years!?

This is when we ask ourselves a question. Do we want a $400 dollar piece of equipment that is very affordable, easy to use, and arguably just as fun. Or a $2,000 dollar piece of equipment that has slightly better graphics, is more complicated, and has a history of more technical problems than a console?"

"The question here is is the greater control you have over a PC worth the trouble that can bring? I say yes. Also, consoles can be afflicted by any number of problems. For example, two of my XBox 360's got an error related to overheating and died.?

X-Box?s are known for overheating, but as time went on, Microsoft came out with the touch sensor x-box?s that are much more cooperative, and hardly ever overheat. Whereas a PC may be advanced, but as soon as you push it to its limits they are prone to overheating, crashing, etc.

?PC's have family friendly games as well. I concede your last point, as PC's do not in fact have Wii Bowling.?

Exactly, PC?s aren?t advancing and developing new technologies that consoles are. With Wii motion plus, Kinect, and whatever you call it for PS3, the systems are finding new ways to entertain. You can even exercise with videogames. Higher graphics on the PC just aren?t anything special.

Source: http://www.debate.org/debates/PC-gaming-is-on-balance-better-than-console-gaming./

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Storm that buried Plains slams Great Lakes region

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A powerful winter storm that buried the U.S. Plains moved on Tuesday into the southern Great Lakes region, where it snarled the evening commute in Chicago and Milwaukee, created near-whiteout conditions and forced hundreds of flight cancellations.

Wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour (56 km per hour) hurled a potent blend of wet snow and sleet on north-central Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northern Indiana and Ohio, according to the National Weather Service.

More than 500 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway airports, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. Those flights that managed to take off or land faced delays of up to an hour.

The Illinois Tollway agency, which maintains nearly 300 miles of highway around Chicago, deployed its fleet of more than 180 snowplows to keep the roads clear.

As the afternoon rush hour began in Chicago, blowing snow reduced visibility and created treacherous driving conditions, doubling average travel times in and out of the city on major expressways, according to Traffic.com.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation warned that much of Interstate 94 between the Illinois state line and Milwaukee was ice covered.

In Chicago, the city's public school system, the third-largest school district in the country, canceled all after-school sporting events, including six state regional basketball games.

The snowstorm may have discouraged some voters in Chicago and its suburbs from voting in a special election primary to replace indicted Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who resigned the seat in November citing health concerns.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service said the storm would continue to move eastward, dumping 3 to 5 inches of wet snow on Detroit overnight and into Wednesday morning.

It is then expected to move slowly into the Northeast, largely avoiding the cities of New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., but bringing snow to parts of New York state, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"It's going to linger for a long time over portions of the Northeast," Korty said.

'POTPOURRI OF WINTRY WEATHER'

Parts of New York and Pennsylvania could get a "sloppy mix" of snow, ice and rain. Already, ice accumulations were causing sporadic power outages across higher terrains of western Maryland, eastern West Virginia and far western Virginia, said Erik Pindrock, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.

"It's a very multi-faceted storm," Pindrock said. "It's a whole potpourri of wintry weather."

In Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, where the storm hit earlier, residents were digging out.

Highways in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and parts of Kansas remained closed because of heavy and drifting snow.

Amarillo, Texas, saw 19 inches of snow Sunday night into Monday, the third-largest snowfall ever in that city, Pindrock said.

In Kansas, a woman died and three passengers were injured Monday night on Interstate 70 when their pickup truck rolled off the icy roadway in Ellis County, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said. Earlier Monday, a man was killed when his car veered off the interstate in Sherman County near the Colorado border, he said.

"We urge everyone to avoid travel and be extremely cautious if you must be on the roads," said Ernest Garcia, superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol.

A 58-year-old man and his 69-year-old sister died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Kansas City, Kansas, from a gas generator being used in their home because they lost power Tuesday in the snowstorm, said Deputy Fire Chief Craig Duke.

In northern Oklahoma, one person died when the roof of a home partially collapsed in the city of Woodward, said Matt Lehenbauer, the city's emergency management director.

"We have roofs collapsing all over town," said Woodward Mayor Roscoe Hill Jr. "We really have a mess on our hands."

Kansas City, Missouri, was also hard hit by the storm, which left snowfalls of 7 to 13 inches in the metro region on Tuesday, said Chris Bowman, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. Another 1 to 3 inches is forecast for Tuesday evening and nearly two-thirds of the flights at Kansas City International Airport Tuesday afternoon were canceled.

In addition to the winter storm, National Weather Service forecasters on Tuesday issued tornado watches across central Florida and up the eastern coast to South Carolina.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Missouri, David Bailey in Minneapolis, James B. Kelleher in Chicago and Corrie MacLaggan in Texas; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Barbara Goldberg, Nick Zieminski, Dan Grebler, Phil Berlowitz, Eric Walsh and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/storm-buried-plains-slams-great-lakes-region-025456755.html

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Hagel?s confirmation; the Republican scorecard, with particular attention to Rand Paul (Powerlineblog)

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Obama, Boehner to attend Rosa Parks statue unveiling

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Rosa Parks is famous for her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a city bus in Alabama to a white man, but there's plenty about the rest of her experiences that she deliberately withheld from her family.

While Parks and her husband, Raymond, were childless, her brother, the late Sylvester McCauley, had 13 children. They decided Parks' nieces and nephews didn't need to know the horrible details surrounding her civil rights activism, said Rhea McCauley, Parks' niece.

"They didn't talk about the lynchings and the Jim Crow laws," said McCauley, 61, of Orlando, Fla. "They didn't talk about that stuff to us kids. Everyone wanted to forget about it and sweep it under the rug."

Parks' descendants now have a chance to be first-hand witnesses as their late matriarch makes more history, this time becoming the first black woman to be honored with a full-length statue in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The statue of Parks joins a bust of another black woman, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, which sits in the Capitol Visitors Center.

President Barack Obama, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner are among the dignitaries taking part in the unveiling Wednesday. McCauley said more than 50 of Parks' relatives traveled to Washington for the ceremony.

In a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in segregated Montgomery, Ala. She was arrested, touching off a bus boycott that stretched over a year.

Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new biography "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks," said Parks was very much a full-fledged civil rights activist, yet her contributions have not been treated like those of other movement leaders, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Rosa Parks is typically honored as a woman of courage, but that honor focuses on the one act she made on the bus on Dec. 5, 1955," said Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College-City University of New York.

"That courage, that night was the product of decades of political work before that and continued ... decades after" in Detroit, she said.

Parks died Oct. 24, 2005, at age 92. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor on Feb. 4, which would have been her 100th birthday.

Parks was raised by her mother and grandparents who taught her that part of being respected was to demand respect, said Theoharis, who spent six years researching and writing the Parks biography.

She was an educated woman who recalled seeing her grandfather sitting on the porch steps with a gun during the height of white violence against blacks in post-World War I Alabama.

After she married Raymond Parks, she joined him in his work in trying to help nine young black men, ages 12 to 19, who were accused of raping two white women in 1931. The nine were later convicted by an all-white jury in Scottsboro, Ala., part of a long legal odyssey for the so-called Scottsboro Boys.

In the 1940s, Parks joined the NAACP and was elected secretary of its Montgomery, Ala., branch, working with civil rights activist Edgar Nixon to fight barriers to voting for blacks and investigate sexual violence against women, Theoharis said.

Just five months before refusing to give up her seat, Parks attended Highlander Folk School, which trained community organizers on issues of poverty but had begun turning its attention to civil rights.

After the bus boycott, Parks and her husband lost their jobs and were threatened. They left for Detroit, where Parks was an activist against the war in Vietnam and worked on poverty, housing and racial justice issues, Theoharis said.

Theoharis said that while she considers the 9-foot-statue of Parks in the Capitol an "incredible honor" for Parks, "I worry about putting this history in the past when the actual Rosa Parks was working on and calling on us to continue to work on racial injustice."

Parks has been honored previously in Washington with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, both during the Clinton administration.

But McCauley said the Statuary Hall honor is different.

"The medal you could take it, put it on a mantel," McCauley said. "But her being in the hall itself is permanent and children will be able to tour the (Capitol) and look up and see my aunt's face."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rosa-parks-statue-set-unveiled-capitol-085442523--politics.html

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Legal pot in Colo., Wash. poses growing dilemma

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) ? It may be called weed, but marijuana is legendarily hard to grow.

Now that the drug has been made legal in Washington and Colorado, growers face a dilemma. State-sanctioned gardening coaches can help folks cultivate tomatoes or zucchini, but both states have instructed them not to show people the best way to grow marijuana. The situation is similar in more than a dozen additional states that allow people to grow the drug with medical permission.

That's leaving some would-be marijuana gardeners looking to the private sector for help raising the temperamental plant.

"We can't go there," said Brian Clark, a spokesman for Washington State University in Pullman, which runs the state's extension services for gardening and agriculture. "It violates federal law, and we are a federally funded organization."

The issue came up because people are starting to ask master gardeners for help in growing cannabis, Clark said. Master gardeners are volunteers who work through state university systems to provide horticultural tips in their communities.

The situation is the same in Colorado, where Colorado State University in Fort Collins recently added a marijuana policy to its extension office, warning that any employee who provides growing assistance acts outside the scope of his or her job and "assumes personal liability for such action."

The growing predicament is just the latest quandary for these states that last year flouted federal drug law by removing criminal penalties for adults over 21 with small amounts of pot. In Washington, home-growing is banned, but it will be legal to grow pot commercially once state officials establish rules and regulations.

In Colorado, adults are allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants in their own homes, so long as they're in a locked location out of public view.

At least two Colorado entrepreneurs are taking advantage of that aspect of the law; they're offering growing classes that have attracted wannabe professional growers, current users looking to save money by growing their own pot and a few baby boomers who haven't grown pot in decades and don't feel comfortable going to a marijuana dispensary.

"We've been doing this on our own, but I wanted to learn to grow better," said Ginger Grinder, a medical marijuana patient from Portales, N.M., who drove to Denver for a "Marijuana 101" class she saw advertised online.

Grinder, a stay-at-home mom who suffers from lupus and fibromyalgia, joined about 20 other students earlier this month for a daylong crash course in growing the finicky marijuana plant.

Taught in a rented room at a public university, the course had students practicing on tomato plants because pot is prohibited on campus. The group took notes on fertilizer and fancy hydroponic growing systems, and snipped pieces of tomato plants to practice cloning, a common practice for nascent pot growers to start raising weed from a "mother" marijuana plant.

Ted Smith, a longtime instructor at an indoor gardening shop, led the class, and warned these gardeners that their task won't be easy. Marijuana is fickle, he said. It's prone to mildews and molds, picky about temperature and pH level, intolerant to tap water.

A precise schedule is also a must, Smith warned, with set light and dark cycles and watering at the same time each day. Unlike many house plants, Smith warned, marijuana left alone for a long weekend can curl and die.

"Just like the military ... they need to know when they're getting their water and chow," Smith said of the plants.

The class was the brainchild of Matt Jones, a 24-year-old Web developer who wanted to get into the marijuana business without raising or selling it himself. As a teenager, Jones once tried to grow pot himself in empty Home Depot paint buckets. He used tap water and overwatered, and the marijuana wilted and died.

"It was a disaster," he recalled. Jones organized the class and an online "THC University" for home growers, but his own thumb isn't green. Jones said he'll be buying his marijuana from professional growers.

The course showed would-be grower Cael Nodd, a 34-year-old stagehand in Denver, that marijuana gardening can be an intimidating prospect.

"It seems like there's going to be a sizable investment," he said. "I want something that really tastes good. Doesn't seem like it will be that easy."

___

Wyatt reported from Denver and can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/legal-pot-colo-wash-poses-growing-dilemma-083405301.html

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Controversial dam removals founded on value conflicts

Monday, February 25, 2013

Researchers at Ume? University in Sweden conclude that public opposition to dam removal is not based on knowledge deficiency, as is sometimes argued in dam removal science. It is instead a case of different understandings and valuation of the environment and the functions it provides. The findings are now published in the journal Ecology and Society.

Dam removal is an increasingly common practice as old splash dams and small hydropower dams have become obsolete. Although the removal of these dams has ecological benefits by restoring rivers to their former courses, local residents sometimes contest dam removals.

"We wanted to understand how the proponents and opponents of dam removal think about the function of two contrasting ecosystems ? an existing dam with a pond and a potential running stream without the pond. The local people who fight to have a dam remain in place have often been dismissed as unknowledgeable," says Dolly J?rgensen, environmental historian at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science.

Together with ecologist Birgitta Malm-Ren?f?lt, she investigated the types of arguments made for and against dam removal in newspaper articles about dams in the Swedish towns Alby, Hallstahammar, Orsa, and Tall?sen.

They found that those who want to remove the dam place a high value on the return of game fish to the ecosystem, recreational fishing, and restoration in general. Opponents want the dam to remain because of recreational opportunities for bathing and beaches, the aesthetics of the pond's still water, and the cultural heritage of the pond and the historic dam.

"The public opposition is not based on knowledge deficiency, where more information would lead to better ecological decision-making. The locals simply value different aspects of the environment than scientists or environmentalists that want the dam removed, " says Dolly J?rgensen.

As the number of dam removal projects continues to grow in Sweden and other places in the world, controversies are likely to become more common. Because a decision to remove or keep the dam will result in one side losing the ecosystem services they value, compromise solutions may be difficult to reach.

###

Jrgensen, D. and B. Malm Renflt. 2013. Damned If You Do, Dammed If You Don't: Debates on Dam Removal in the Swedish Media. Ecology and Society 18 (1): 18. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol18/iss1/art18/

Umea University: http://www.umu.se/umu/index_eng.html

Thanks to Umea University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 28 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126986/Controversial_dam_removals_founded_on_value_conflicts

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Looks like Pluto will have a moon named 'Vulcan'

The votes are in for the SETI Institute's Pluto Rocks Poll, and, thanks in part to William Shatner, Mr. Spock's home planet is a clear winner.?

By Jason Major,?Universe Today / February 25, 2013

This photo provided and annotated by NASA/Hubble Space Telescope shows the five moons in their orbits around Pluto. The smallest moons ? no more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) across ? were discovered in that past two years and are currently referred to as P4 and P5.

NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/AP

Enlarge

The votes have been tallied and the results are in from the SETI Institute?s?Pluto Rocks Poll: ?Vulcan? and ?Cerberus? have come out on top for names for Pluto?s most recently-discovered moons, P4 and P5.

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After 450,324 votes cast over the past two weeks, Vulcan is the clear winner with a landslide 174,062 votes? due in no small part to a little?Twitter intervention by Mr. William Shatner,?I?m sure.

In other words??yes,?the Trekkies have won.

During a Google+ Hangout today,?SETI Institute?senior scientist Mark Showalter ? who discovered the moons and opened up the poll ? talked with SETI astronomer Franck Marchis and MSNBC?s Alan Boyle about the voting results. Showalter admitted that he wasn?t quite sure how well the whole internet poll thing would work out, but he?s pleased with the results.

?I had no idea what to expect,? said Showalter. ?As we all know the internet can be an unruly place? but by and large this process has gone very smoothly. I feel the results are fair.?

As far as having a name from the Star Trek universe be used for an actual astronomical object?

?Vulcan works,? Showalter said. ?He?s got a family tie to the whole story. Pluto and Zeus were brothers, and Vulcan is a son of Pluto.?

And what can you say when even?Mr. Spock agrees?

The other winning name, Cerberus, is currently used for an asteroid. So because the IAU typically tries to avoid confusion with two objects sharing the same exact name, Showalter said he will use the Greek version of the spelling: Kerberos.

The next step will be to submit these names to the International Astronomical Union for official approval, a process that could take 1?2 months.

(Although who knows? maybe Bill can help move that process along as well?)

Read more about the names on the Pluto Rocks ballot?here.

Jason Major is a graphic artist from?Rhode Island?now living and working in?Dallas, Texas. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blog?Lights In The Dark, on Universe Today and also on?Discovery?News.

This story originally appeared in?Universe Today.

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow?@universetoday?on?Twitter

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/5AH7txsgPWw/Looks-like-Pluto-will-have-a-moon-named-Vulcan

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Forecast is for more snow in polar regions, less for the rest of us

Monday, February 25, 2013

A new climate model predicts an increase in snowfall for the Earth's polar regions and highest altitudes, but an overall drop in snowfall for the globe, as carbon dioxide levels rise over the next century.

The decline in snowfall could spell trouble for regions such as the western United States that rely on snowmelt as a source of fresh water.

The projections are the result of a new climate model developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and analyzed by scientists at GFDL and Princeton University. The study was published in the Journal of Climate.

The model indicates that the majority of the planet would experience less snowfall as a result of warming due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Observations show that atmospheric carbon dioxide has already increased by 40 percent from values in the mid-19th century, and, given projected trends, could exceed twice those values later this century. In North America, the greatest reductions in snowfall will occur along the northeast coast, in the mountainous west, and in the Pacific Northwest. Coastal regions from Virginia to Maine, as well as coastal Oregon and Washington, will get less than half the amount of snow currently received.

In very cold regions of the globe, however, snowfall will rise because as air warms it can hold more moisture, leading to increased precipitation in the form of snow. The researchers found that regions in and around the Arctic and Antarctica will get more snow than they now receive.

The highest mountain peaks in the northwestern Himalayas, the Andes and the Yukon region will also receive greater amounts of snowfall after carbon dioxide doubles. This finding clashes with other models which predicted declines in snowfall for these high-altitude regions. However, the new model's prediction is consistent with current snowfall observations in these regions.

The model is an improvement over previous models in that it utilizes greater detail about the world's topography ? the mountains, valleys and other features. This new "high-resolution" model is analogous to having a high-definition model of the planet's climate instead of a blurred picture.

###

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126989/Forecast_is_for_more_snow_in_polar_regions__less_for_the_rest_of_us

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Investing in social media takes time to get right | Stuff.co.nz

Q: Should my business have a presence on social media?

A: This is a question many companies are asking, and the default answer to "just be there" is a bad one.

Social media is like any communication channel. To make it work you have to invest in it, and the nature of social media means it is a constant investment. You have to have time and mental resources to contribute to the channel.

A frank assessment of where your clients and potential clients are looking for services and products like yours is important. If your customers are farmers, you might want to ask whether Twitter is a forum you want to be on. The rural markets will no doubt be on social media somewhere, but define where and target those channels consciously.

You'll need to weigh up whether the investment is worthwhile too. Are you looking to gain sales through social media? Or simply build profile? Is it a channel to communicate to your membership only? These goals will define whether social media (and what channels) are appropriate for your business.

If you do this assessment and decide you're going to do it, ask the next question. What do you have to say? The social media space is so crowded that you have to appraise whether you have compelling content to populate social media broadcasts with.

Having something your audience thinks is worth hearing (ie, instructive, informative, controversial or humorous are some characteristics that underpin online cut-through) is critical or your investment is effectively social media white noise.

Social media consultancies abound, and many charge chronic fees for advice you can Google for free. But getting someone who knows their stuff to critique your social media footprint is invaluable. Ask around, look at what your competitors are doing, and build a picture of what you think you need and then ask someone to check it out.

The true test, though, is whether it works. Under all circumstances, test and measure what you do, and match it against what your business needs. Social media takes time, and that's the one resource we can't buy more of.

Nick Churchouse is the venture manger at Creative HQ, Wellington's start-up hub and entrepreneurship centre. CreativeHQ.co.nz

A: Social media is not for every business. Social media is about customer engagement not company broadcast.

Check whether your current customers frequent social media forums and use them for discussion about your type of product or service.

As a business owner you should acquaint yourself with social media tools and listen to start with. Only commit to creating Facebook and the like if it's relevant to your target market.

Mark Robotham is an SME business adviser. Website: growthmanagement.co.nz

If you want to ask a question of either of our experts, email rebecca.stevenson@fairfaxmedia.co.nz

- ? Fairfax NZ News

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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/8347070/Investing-in-social-media-takes-time-to-get-right

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Kidnapped Austrian says his captors demand ransom

CAIRO (AP) ? An Austrian man held hostage in Yemen for two months has appealed to his government to save his life, saying his captors would kill him in a week if their ransom demand was not met. The Austrian Foreign Ministry said a government crisis group met Sunday to discuss the case.

Dominik Neubauer, who was kidnapped with a Finnish couple on Dec. 21, said in a video posted on the Internet Saturday and monitored in Cairo, that he was kidnapped by a Yemeni tribe "which is asking for some money." He spoke on the video with a rifle pointed at his head.

He did not say how much his captors were seeking.

Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Weiss said Neubauer had been studying Arabic in Yemen. "We consider it (the video) to be authentic," he said. "This is the first proof of life."

Weiss said Austrian authorities were in contact with their Finnish counterparts.

On the video, Neubauer, seen wearing a black shirt and sporting a thick brown beard and mustache, spoke first in English and then in German. He identified himself, the date of his capture and appealed to the Yemeni and the Austrian governments and the European Union to pay his abductors the ransom.

Tears streamed down his face as he addressed his relatives in German, saying "Mum, dad, Lukas, Angela, I love you more than anything. So far I'm in good health."

Kidnaping foreigners is not uncommon in Yemen, an impoverished Arab nation. Almost all of the kidnappings are carried out by tribesmen who use the captives as bargaining chips to force authorities to provide their areas with services and jobs. They mostly end with the release of the hostages unharmed.

___

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kidnapped-austrian-says-captors-demand-ransom-185329296.html

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Japan to raise $10 billion through Japan Tobacco share sale

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government will sell around a third of its stake in Japan Tobacco Inc , the world's No.3 tobacco company, to raise about $10.4 billion for reconstruction of areas devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Ministry of Finance, which owns just over 50 percent of the $62 billion former state monopoly, is selling 333 million shares, according to a regulatory filing on Monday, with the deal to be priced between March 11-13.

The offering, the largest such deal since the U.S. Treasury's $20.7 billion sale of American International Group Inc shares in September, comes as Japanese equities scale their highest levels in more than four years.

Japan's parliament in 2011 passed a set of bills including tax hikes and government share sales in state-owned companies to help finance the roughly $270 billion it expects to spend to rebuild the northeast coast after the quake in March that year.

Reuters reported early last week that the stake sale would be launched within days.

Conditions for a sell-down in the government's stake in Japan Tobacco have improved in recent months, with the benchmark Nikkei share average <.n225> hitting a 53-month high on Monday. A broad market rally began in mid-November after the calling of an early election that put Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in power a month later. Abe has promised aggressive monetary and fiscal policies to tackle prolonged deflation.

Prior to the stake sale, Japan Tobacco, whose cigarette brands include Winston, Camel, Benson & Hedges and Mild Seven, will buy back as much as 250 billion yen ($2.7 billion) worth of its own shares, Monday's filing showed.

GROWTH PROSPECTS

Shares in Japan Tobacco have outperformed rival Philip Morris International Inc and British American Tobacco Plc since the bill approving the sell-down was approved in 2011, Thomson Reuters data shows, with investors welcoming reduced state control. http://r.reuters.com/guz26t

"We see ample room for JT to increase their share buybacks and dividends going forward as they have no net debt," Oscar Veldhuijzen, a London-based fund manager with The Children's Investment Fund Management (UK) LLP and a holder of Japan Tobacco stock, said before Monday's filing. "JT has the best growth prospects amongst the three major tobacco companies, as two-thirds of their profits come from Japan and Russia, where tobacco prices remain far below other countries on a PPP (purchasing price parity) basis."

Debt holders are also optimistic about the firm's ability to generate free cashflow after the share buy back is completed. Yields on its 2014 eurobond have tumbled 18 basis points this month and are currently at 0.60 percent.

Shares in Japan Tobacco closed on Monday at 2,901 yen, up 1.4 percent on the day. At that price, the share sale would be valued at about 967 billion yen.

Japanese law requires the government to hold at least one-third of Japan Tobacco's 2 billion shares outstanding.

Japan's large and liquid stock market is used to digesting big offerings, such as the $8.5 billion IPO of Japan Airlines Co Ltd in September and a $2.3 billion follow-on deal by All Nippon Airways Co .

Last month, U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP raised about $1.7 billion by selling shares in Japan's Aozora Bank Ltd .

Overall, equity issuance in Japan rose 16.8 percent last year to $26.4 billion, driven by large IPOs and a flurry of activity that made 2012 the busiest year for deals since 2008, Thomson Reuters data showed.

The ministry last June selected JPMorgan Chase & Co , Daiwa Securities Group Inc , Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Mizuho Securities as underwriters for the Japan Tobacco offering.

Nomura Holdings Inc was not selected as an underwriter after its involvement in an insider trading scandal. But a source familiar with the details said on Monday that Japan's largest investment bank had been given a lesser role in the sale, along with SMBC Nikko Securities, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, Merrill Lynch and UBS AG .

Japan also plans to sell shares of Japan Post Holdings Co, which runs the nation's biggest savings institution, to raise money for post-quake reconstruction.

($1 = 93.2200 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Umesh Desai in Hong Kong; Writing by Junko Fujita and Alex Richardson; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-raise-10-billion-japan-tobacco-share-sale-083724953--business.html

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Kurdish militant leader signals Turkish prisoners may be freed

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The jailed leader of Turkey's Kurdish rebellion on Saturday signaled that his followers could release captives and further a fledgling peace process that may be the best hope in years of ending the decades-long conflict.

The call by Abdullah Ocalan, the head of the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came after a rare meeting with members of parliament's only pro-Kurdish party at his prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara south of Istanbul.

It fell short of a new ceasefire declaration, which Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would like to see to boost an initiative that includes state officials' negotiations with Ocalan and aims to end a war that has claimed 40,000 lives since 1984.

Reading a short statement by Ocalan, Pervin Buldan, a member of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) who visited Ocalan with two other lawmakers, said upon their return that the rebel leader would like to see captives held by the PKK freed.

"A historic process is under way. All sides should be very careful and sensitive," Buldan cited Ocalan as saying.

"The state and the PKK both have prisoners. The PKK should treat prisoners well, and I hope they return to their families."

Ocalan may be referring to both captured soldiers and government employees kidnapped by the PKK in recent years.

Thousands of militants and their suspected supporters are in jail, many of them awaiting verdicts in trials that last years.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist group.

REBELS' WITHDRAWAL SOUGHT

Earlier, Erdogan reiterated that the PKK must leave Turkey.

"We have repeatedly said weapons should be given up and members of this terrorist organization withdraw from the country," Erdogan said at a news conference that was aired live.

"As for the withdrawal, we have said we will take measures to avoid the kind of unfortunate developments that occurred in the past," Erdogan said, possibly referring to military attacks on the PKK when they have declared ceasefires in the past.

The PKK says it keeps about half of its 7,000 fighters in Turkey and half in northern Iraq, where it maintains its main camps in remote, nearly impassable mountains.

Turkey estimates the number of rebels to be lower.

Erdogan has said he wants to end one of Europe's deadliest insurgencies. A sharp rise in violence since June 2011 has killed more than 800 soldiers and PKK guerrillas. Fighting has tapered off since October, as it does most years due to the weather.

The conflict has stunted economic growth, wrecked Turkey's human rights record and made EU membership elusive.

The war in neighboring Syria, where Kurdish groups linked to the PKK were fighting opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, has given the peace process some urgency.

Buldan and the others' meeting with Ocalan was the second since January by the BDP, which Erdogan has called the "PKK's extension," and he also met his brother. Until recently, the 64-year-old rebel commander was kept in seclusion since June 2011.

Ocalan is serving a life sentence for treason. In jail since 1999, he still holds sway over the PKK and is considered a hero by nationalist Kurds. Ethnic Kurds make up about 20 percent of Turkey's population of 75 million people.

There are also large numbers of Kurds living in Iraq, Syria and Iran, and Kurds are frequently described as the world's largest ethnic group without its own state.

The PKK, which once sought an independent Kurdish homeland, has scaled back its demands to limited self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and greater cultural rights.

(Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kurdish-militant-leader-signals-turkish-prisoners-may-freed-205421764.html

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