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Russia pushes Syria to hold talks with opposition

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP-Getty Images

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, speaks with his visiting Egypt counterpart Mohamed Amr as they meet on the Syrian crisis in Moscow on Dec. 28.

By Reuters

Russia urged the Syrian government on Friday to act on its stated readiness for dialogue with its opponents, throwing its weight behind a diplomatic push to end a 21-month-old conflict in Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had urged Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad to emphasize his government's openness to dialogue with the opposition during talks in Moscow on Thursday.

"We actively encouraged ... the Syrian leadership to make as concrete as possible its declared readiness for dialogue with the opposition," Lavrov told reporters after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Kamel Amr in Moscow.


He said the Syrian government should stress its readiness for talks on the widest possible range of matters, in line with an international agreement in Geneva last June calling for a transitional government.

"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," added Lavrov, who last week said that neither side would win by force.

Putin says fate of Assad unimportant to him

Russia expects to meet a senior U.S. diplomat on Syria next month to discuss with international Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi his plans to end the civil war there, the Kremlin's envoy to the region said earlier on Friday.

Brahimi will visit Moscow on Saturday for talks on the results of his negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his opponents during a five-day trip to Damascus in which he called for political change to end the bloodshed.

"We will listen to what Lakhdar Brahimi has to say about the situation in Syria, and after that, probably, there will be a decision to hold a new meeting of the 'three Bs'," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the RIA news agency -- in a word play on the first letter of the diplomats' last names.

Bogdanov, U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns and Brahimi, the joint special representative of the United Nations and the Arab League, agreed that a political solution to the crisis was necessary and possible in talks earlier this month.

Bogdanov, the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East Affairs, said the three would meet again in January after the holidays.

Russia has also invited the head of the internationally-recognized, opposition Syrian National Council, Moaz al-Khatib, to talks, he said, in comments that appeared underline Moscow's commitment to helping Brahimi seek a way out of the crisis.

Brahimi, who has called for a transitional government to rule until elections, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power in Syria, where more than 44,000 people have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.

Past peace efforts have floundered as what began as peaceful protests in March 2011 turned into civil war. The conflict has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shiite-rooted Alawite minority.

Assad forces accused of using 'poisonous gases'

World powers think Russia, which has given Assad military and diplomatic aid during the uprising, has the ear of Syria's government and must be a central player in any peace talks.

Moscow has tried to distance itself from Assad in recent months and has denied it is propping him up. But it maintains Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for talks and has repeatedly said Western powers should not impose solutions on Syria.

Lavrov warned on Thursday that time was running out to find a peaceful solution to the conflict and halt a descent into "bloody chaos".

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/28/16209381-russia-pushes-syria-to-hold-talks-with-opposition?lite

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Business Spotlight ? Law Offices of Castillo and Camunez : Tempe ...

Posted on | December 28, 2012 | No Comments

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Business name: The Law Offices of Castillo & Camunez, PLLC

Year started: April 2010

Address, hours and phone number:

60 E. Rio Salado Parkway Ste. 900, Tempe, AZ 85281.?

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F or by appointment.?

Ph: 480-361-4223

Website: www.thecclaw.com

What does your company do? Our law firm provides a range of services with emphasis in business, real estate law, and estate planning.? Our attorneys provide advice to business owners, families, parents, employees, and consumers with legal questions.? Attorney Valentine Castillo is a licensed realtor to assist families with purchasing, selling, or shortselling their homes.

What makes you special? Our clients are important to us and we believe communication is one of the top priorities for our clients.? The attorneys in Castillo & Camunez work directly with our clients to resolve and overcome their legal concerns.? We pride ourselves in communicating with our clients during all stages of representation.?

What do you like most about doing business in the Valley? ?The Valley provides a lot of opportunity for our business clients to grow and be successful.? The Valley is diverse with many small, medium, and large businesses complimenting each other?s services for the consumer.? Many people come to Arizona for this type of opportunity.?

How do you support the community? Our attorneys serve the community on multiple levels.? Both attorneys are Arizona National Guard service members and volunteer for non-profit organizations such as Hospice of the Valley and the Arizona Children?s Heart Foundation.?? Our attorneys are also available to education the community through seminars on various areas of the law.

Who are your ideal clients or customers? Our clients are diverse.? Whether a business owner needs to negotiate a contract dispute, a family ready to purchase residential property, or parents ready to create an estate plan to protect their legacy our ideal clients are those who have legal questions or concerns about their future.?

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Source: http://tempeaz.usachamber.com/blog/index.php/2012/12/business-spotlight-law-offices-of-castillo-and-camunez/

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Egypt transfers tons of building materials to Gaza

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) ? An Egyptian security official says that thousands of tons of building materials such as cement and steel are crossing into the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which had previously been under a strict blockade.

He said the move was made in consultation with Israeli officials, who were in Cairo Thursday to discuss security in the Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire signed by Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israel last month.

The Egyptian official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The director of Gaza's border authority, Maher Abu Sabha, confirmed to The Associated Press that 20 trucks of material are expected to enter the coastal strip on Saturday through the Rafah crossing. Qatar is paying for the raw materials, which were bought in Egypt.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-transfers-tons-building-materials-gaza-142354572.html

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Life Insurance - MS Estate Planning

Of course long term care expenses are just another form of living expense and the cash value build up in some permanent life insurance contracts could also be used to pay long term care costs, even without the long term care rider.

Because in each case, benefits (or cash) are being paid out in advance of the death of the insured, the advancement for long term care costs will have an impact on the death benefit ultimately received by your heirs. ?In some cases, the death benefit may be entirely gone. ?In others the death benefit may be greatly reduced.

Excerpt from The Complete Guide to Estate and Financial Planning in Turbulent Times (Collaborative Press, 2011) - Walt Dallas, Contributing Author

Click here to register for our eNewsletter.

For more information on Madison and Jackson MS Wills Trusts and other Estate Planning please visit our website.

For a Video on Health Care Directive please visit our website.

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Source: http://blog.estateplanning123.com/2012/12/life-insurance-i-am-more-worried-about-long-term-care-than-i-am-about-savings-or-death-benefit-is-li-1.html

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Insight: Under siege, Japan central bank wakes up to political reality

TOKYO (Reuters) - Within a day of Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party sweeping to power in elections this month, elite bureaucrats in Japan's central bank rushed to ready what amounted to a surrender offer.

Abe had run his campaign with a relentless focus on economic policy and had called on the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to take drastic steps to end the nation's long bout of deflation, or else face a radical makeover at the hands of parliament.

The vote had become an unexpected referendum on the BOJ itself, and the bank had lost.

Senior officials concluded that to preserve the BOJ's scope to act in a future crisis, it needed to move quickly to show it recognized reality, according to people familiar with the hurried deliberations. Abe had won a mandate for more forceful monetary easing, and Japanese taxpayers were frustrated with an economy slipping back into its third recession in five years.

In the early afternoon of December 18, two days after the vote, BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa was to pay a courtesy call on Abe. But even before then, a post-election plan had taken shape: the BOJ would consider the kind of ambitious 2 percent inflation target that Abe had insisted was needed to pull Japan out of nearly two decades of deflation and diminished expectations.

It was an about-face for Shirakawa who, since taking his post in 2008, had argued that by focusing too narrowly on consumer prices, the BOJ could miss signs of an asset price bubble like the one Japan experienced in the late 1980s.

But increasingly his own senior officials and members of the BOJ's policy-setting board were ready to take risks and test unorthodox and unproven measures that Shirakawa had long resisted, such as an unlimited debt-fuelled monetary expansion, officials familiar with their thinking say.

"The LDP's win was just too big, and it won an election calling for a 2 percent inflation target. If that's the will of the people, the BOJ must respect that," said a source familiar with the central bank's thinking. "Otherwise, the BOJ could lose everything, including its independence."

The central bank is now on track to pump 120 trillion yen ($1.4 trillion) into the economy - equivalent to the value of six Googles - even though skeptics argue that this tide of money cannot break Japan's real economic logjam: falling wages.

Instead, the skeptics say, the risk is that investors would end up concluding that Japan needed the central bank to cover its debts - a recipe for a selloff of government bonds, which already amount to twice the size of gross domestic product.

But after Abe's landslide election victory - and years of limited money-printing having failed to revive growth - senior BOJ officials wanted it understood they were ready to join the experiment in what media and investors called "Abenomics", a potentially high-octane mix of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Abe's victory seemed to establish that millions of Japanese shared his views, people in the bank came to believe.

They felt he now held the trump card in any future standoff with the BOJ over monetary policy - a mandate to amend the BOJ Law in a way that would give the government power to impose a binding target on the central bank, or fire its governor.

BLIND EYE

In a symbol of the political significance of his monetary policy push, Abe scheduled a one-on-one meeting with Shirakawa just hours after setting up a first phone call as prime-minister-elect with the U.S. President Barack Obama.

Two days after the election, the central bank governor visited Abe at the fortress-like headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Abe reminded Shirakawa of his campaign promises. He wanted to see the BOJ sign a "policy accord" that would oblige it to support Abe's reflationary agenda and commit to a 2 percent inflation target, Abe told reporters later.

After the meeting, Shirakawa rushed through a scrum of reporters into his waiting car and declined to say what was discussed. However Abe, in another break with protocol, gave an unusually detailed recounting of the 15-minute meeting.

"The governor just listened," he said.

The next day, the BOJ began a scheduled two-day policy board meeting. The central bank announced its third shot of monetary stimulus in four months by adding another 10 trillion yen to its asset-buying program - essentially committing to create more money to buy government debt.

It marked the fifth time this year that the central bank had expanded asset purchases - its most active year in terms of monetary expansion in a decade.

More significantly, the BOJ also made a direct concession to Abe and pledged to review its existing inflation target of 1 percent at its next scheduled meeting in January.

The BOJ was retreating from the cautious stance of its classically trained boss, Shirakawa, and essentially turning a blind eye to the potential, long-term drawbacks of excessive money printing that he had long warned about.

Only a month earlier, many BOJ officials had preferred to hold off on taking action until the January meeting, according to sources familiar with the deliberations.

Shirakawa, in particular, had been in no mood to act again in 2012, let alone commit to studying a higher inflation target. He had been convinced that the BOJ's monetary easing steps in September and October were enough to stave off risks to the economy for now, the sources said.

LONG & WINDING ROAD

Shirakawa's five-year term ends in April and people close to him say he has no interest in staying on. But decisions taken under his watch over the next few months could influence the central bank's credibility well beyond his departure.

A fan of the Beatles, Shirakawa, 63, has often warned against the risk of an overly loose monetary policy.

He once described Japan's struggle to recover from its late 1980s asset bubble as "The Long And Winding Road", a reference to the plaintive Beatles song. He said rich economies risked repeating Japan's "lost decade" of slow growth if they kept ultra-easy monetary policy in place for too long.

But for the past year, a tight-knit group of officials in the BOJ's Monetary Affairs Department has been nudging the bank in the opposite direction. They favor more aggressive easing, such as a big increase in government bond buying, according to officials with knowledge of those discussions and former central bank officials who remain in close contact with policymakers.

Among the actions now under consideration at the BOJ is an open-ended commitment to buy government bonds or an expansion in the type of assets it purchases, the officials said.

Another idea, floated by board member Koji Ishida, is to nudge rates to zero by scrapping a 0.1 percent interest rate the BOJ pays on excess reserves parked with the central bank.

Proponents argue that such steps would hold down interest rates on bank and corporate borrowing, encourage money to flow to private investors and help weaken the yen.

Anticipation of BOJ action has already pushed the yen to a two-year low against the dollar. Tokyo stock prices have climbed to a 21-month high on the expectation for higher earnings for currency-sensitive exporters like automaker Toyota Motor Corp.

"Markets already expect the BOJ to set a 2 percent inflation target, so the question now is what the central bank would do to achieve it," said Masaaki Kanno, a former central banker and now chief economist at JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo.

"If it wants to influence currency rates, it needs to give markets the impression it is easing aggressively."

Abe has said he will choose a successor to Shirakawa whose views are closer to his own. He has not made up his mind yet on his favored candidate but aides say he may prefer someone with negotiation and management skills, rather than an academic, to oversee the BOJ as it pushes into unknown territory.

PRESSURE REMAINS ON

With the LDP's coalition partner, the New Komeito, Abe has enough votes in the lower house to overrule the upper house on key votes, including a potential revision of the 1998 BOJ Law that gave the 130-year-old bank its long-awaited independence.

Under this law, the central bank is guaranteed independence to guide monetary policy without political interference and is mandated to pursue price stability. Abe has discussed a law revision to impose a price target on the central bank and add a requirement to maximize job growth to its mandate.

Abe is already using threats of a BOJ Law revision to nudge the central bank into meeting his demands.

Koichi Hamada, a Yale University professor whom Abe admires, said the BOJ would have to accept more legal accountability to achieve its price target and beat deflation.

"Generally speaking, the BOJ is making an effort. But there is hardly any change to its pace of 'too little, too late'," said Hamada, 76, who was appointed a special adviser to Abe's cabinet and also taught Shirakawa at the University of Tokyo.

"It is necessary to amend the BOJ law," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

'A TOUGH SPOT'

One challenge now for the BOJ is setting a higher inflation target that is seen as credible. In February, the BOJ said that it would aim to achieve 1 percent price growth.

But Shirakawa, who joined the BOJ during Japan's high inflation years of the early 1970s, and many other officials in the bank have resisted calls for a higher target. For one, Japan has not seen 2 percent inflation in the past two decades. The last time it did was during the real estate and stock market bubble of the late 1980s to early 1990s, when the BOJ was criticized for missing signs of an overheating economy.

Some officials share Shirakawa's doubts over whether further monetary easing will work. Two key metrics - the BOJ's holdings of government debt and the balance of deposits parked with the central bank - are already at record highs, yet the BOJ's pump-priming measures have failed to put an end to deflation.

Nationwide core consumer prices slid 0.1 percent in November from a year earlier after flat growth in October, which followed five straight month of declines.

Another concern for the cautionary wing of the BOJ centers on the unusual structure of Japan's economy. Japan's jobless rate - at 4 percent - is half that of the United States. But wages remain on the decline, down 1.1 percent in November from a year earlier to mark the third straight month of falls.

Unable to fire workers in mass layoffs because of rigid labour rules, Japanese firms are unwilling to raise salaries. Without a rise in wages, the only practical way overall prices could go up would be through higher commodity and fuel costs which would curb consumption, not boost it, the BOJ has argued.

Setting a 2 percent inflation target next month would require the BOJ to awkwardly steer around the arguments that Shirakawa and other officials have long made.

"If the BOJ contradicts too much of what it's been saying all along, that would put its credibility on the line. People will no longer believe what the BOJ says anymore," said Izuru Kato, chief economist at Totan Research Institute in Tokyo.

The BOJ also worries about a potential bond-market backlash. Its ultra-easy policy has pushed down five-year bond yields below 0.2 percent. But some investors balk at buying too many 20-year and 30-year bonds, concerned that Abe's pledge of big fiscal spending would strain Japan's already worsening finances.

Much will depend on Shirakawa's successor and how well the central bank communicates its policy target to investors - an area where Shirakawa has struggled by his own admission.

After the December 20 easing, his aides convinced him to try the kind of visual aid often used on Japanese television - a large flip chart - and to aim his presentation at the TV cameras. An economist suspicious of sound bites, he looked uncomfortable.

"The BOJ is pumping huge amounts of money and easing very aggressively. But that fact isn't understood well perhaps because of our restrained character. There's a huge perception gap," Shirakawa said.

"I hope this chart is broadcast on television and helps more people understand our point," he added.

($1 = 85.9250 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Sumio Ito and Yoshifumi Takemoto; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-under-siege-japan-central-bank-wakes-political-084520566--business.html

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Deal reached to avert U.S. port strike for now

(Reuters) - A union representing dockworkers on the U.S. East Coast and an alliance of shippers have reached a labor agreement that will avert a strike that threatened to wreak havoc on the United States' economy.

The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which represents 14,500 workers at 15 container ports in the eastern United States, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) of shippers, terminal operators and port authorities, have agreed to extend their current contract by 30 days to finalize details, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said in a statement on Friday.

Both sides have agreed "in principle" on the contentious issue of royalty payments for shipping containers, payments to ILA workers based on the tons of container cargo that move through a port.

The statement on Friday was light on details of the actual agreement, and the USMX declined to comment further.

The new contract does not eliminate the royalty payments, according to Benny Holland, an executive vice president for the ILA.

"The royalty will stay intact. We have worked out a formula for it," he said in an interview.

Established in 1960, the royalty payments to ILA workers are based on the tons of container cargo that move through a port. That tonnage has risen from 50 million tons in 1996 to 110 million last year, according to the alliance. Total payments last year were $211 million, according to the USMX, or an average of $15,500 per worker.

The original idea of the royalty payments was to protect longshoremen from wage losses expected as a result of "containerization," in which more and more goods are packed in the now-familiar 20- and 40-foot long boxes. Those take less manpower to off-load than the less-standardized containers they replaced.

Both sides also fought over the guaranteed eight-hour workday in the current contract and the seven-man "lashing gang." Lashing crews, or gangs, secure the cargo containers to the vessel using metal lashing rods to keep them from moving while the vessel is at sea. The maritime alliance wanted to eliminate each.

A long-term agreement has an 80 percent chance of happening by January 28, Capital Alpha Partners analyst Loren Smith said in a research note.

The agreement comes as union forces felt emboldened by recent victories by other unions across the United States. At the same time, shipping companies and port operators have been using more automation, and have seen profits shrink. The Baltic Dry index, which tracks the cost to ship materials overseas, is down 55 percent in the past year and currently at levels it hasn't been in a decade.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder, additional reporting by Kevin Gray in Miami; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bob Burgdorfer, Andrew Hay and Richard Chang)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mediator-says-deal-reached-avert-port-strike-now-171126727.html

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Top 25 Best Xbox 360 Games of 2012 - Video Games Blogger

The Top 25 best Xbox 360 games of 2012 have been revealed! Is your favorite Xbox 360 game part of the list of the greatest the Xbox 360 console had to offer in 2012? The year is almost over, so we?ve compiled this list of the top-quality AAA must-own titles of the year!

Is there a game that didn?t make the list, that you think deserves a spot? Leave a comment and let us know your own list!

Runners-Up:

Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Sine Mora, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, The Pinball Arcade, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, SSX, and Joe Danger 2: The Movie.

#25 ? Street Fighter X Tekken
#24 ? Persona 4 Arena
#23 ? Darksiders II
#22 ? NHL 13
#21 ? F1 2012
#20 ? Assassin?s Creed III
#19 ? Need for Speed: Most Wanted
#18 ? UFC Undisputed 3
#17 ? Forza Horizon (Xbox 360 Exclusive)
#16 ? Max Payne 3
#15 ? Dance Central 3 (Xbox 360 Kinect Exclusive)
#14 ? Spelunky
#13 ? Halo 4 (Xbox 360 Exclusive)
#12 ? NBA 2K13
#11 ? The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Xbox 360 Version)

#10 ? Dishonored

#9 ? Fez (Xbox 360 Exclusive)

#8 ? Borderlands 2

#7 ? XCOM: Enemy Unknown

#6 ? FIFA Soccer 13

Find out which Xbox 360 game is #1 in 2012 as our countdown continues on the next page?

Continue Reading on: Page 1 Page 2

About the author

Ferry GroenendijkBy Ferry Groenendijk: He is the founder and editor of Video Games Blogger. He loved gaming from the moment he got a Nintendo with Super Mario Bros. on his 8th birthday. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and at Google+.


Source: http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2012/12/27/top-25-best-xbox-360-games-of-2012.htm

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AP source: US out of Central African Republic

(AP) ? The State Department is closing its embassy in the Central African Republic and ordering its diplomatic team to leave as rebels there continue to advance and violence escalates.

U.S. officials said the U.S. ambassador and about 40 others, including a number of Americans, were flown out of Bangui (bahn-GEE') on a U.S. Air Force C-40 headed to Kenya. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.

Rebels have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the impoverished country, and residents in the capital of 600,000 people fear insurgents could attack at any time.

On Sunday, the State Department issued a warning recommending against travel to the country and authorized non-emergency personnel in Bangui to leave.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-12-27-US-Central%20African%20Republic/id-5ff425e4f61c4c9bb75ee125fa57cef0

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