1 of 4. A still image taken from Venezuelan government TV broadcast shows Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro (C) talking to the media during a news conference next to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' daughter Rosa Virginia (L), Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza (2nd L) and Attorney General Cilia Flores (R) in Havana December 30, 2012. Chavez has suffered more complications following complex cancer surgery in Cuba and remains in a ''delicate'' condition, Maduro said on Sunday.

CARACAS | Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:03pm EST

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering more complications linked to a respiratory infection that hit him after his fourth cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president said in a somber broadcast on Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba to visit Chavez in the hospital as supporters' fears grew for the ailing 58-year-old socialist leader, who has not been seen in public nor heard from in three weeks.

Chavez had already suffered unexpected bleeding caused by the six-hour operation on December 11 for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area. Officials said doctors then had to fight a respiratory infection.

"Just a few minutes ago we were with President Chavez. He greeted us and he himself talked about these complications," Maduro said in the broadcast, adding that the third set of complications arose because of the respiratory infection.

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is confronting this difficult situation."

Maduro, flanked by his wife Attorney-General Cilia Flores, Chavez's daughter Rosa Virginia and her husband, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said he would remain in Havana while Chavez's condition evolved.

He said Chavez's condition remained "delicate" - a term he has used since the day after the surgery, when he warned Venezuelans to prepare for difficult times and urged them to keep the president in their prayers.

"We trust that the avalanche of love and solidarity with Comandante Chavez, together with his immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists, will help our president win this new battle," Maduro said.

A senior government official in Caracas said the New Year's Eve party in the capital's central Plaza Bolivar had been canceled. "Everyone pray for strength for our comandante to overcome this difficult moment," the official, Jacqueline Faria, added on Twitter after making the announcement.

OIL-FINANCED SOCIALISM

Chavez's resignation for health reasons, or his death, would upend politics in the OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

His condition is being closely watched around Latin America, especially in other nations run by leftist governments, from Cuba to Bolivia, which depend on subsidized fuel shipments and other aid from Venezuela for their fragile economies.

Chavez has not provided details of the cancer that was first diagnosed in June 2011, leading to speculation among Venezuela's 29 million people and criticism from opposition leaders.

Chavez's allies have openly discussed the possibility that he may not be able to return to Venezuela to be inaugurated for his third six-year term as president on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Senior "Chavista" officials have said the people's wishes were made clear when the president was re-elected in October, and that the constitution makes no provision for what happens if a president-elect cannot take office on January 10.

Opposition leaders say any postponement would be just the latest sign that Chavez is not in a fit state to govern and that new elections should be called to choose his replacement. If Chavez had to step down, new elections would be called within 30 days.

Opposition figures believe they have a better shot against Maduro, who was named earlier this month by Chavez as his heir apparent, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

Any constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era in the country that boasts the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Maduro has become the face of the government in Chavez's absence, imitating the president's bombastic style and sharp criticism of the United States and its "imperialist" policies.

In Sunday's broadcast, Maduro said Chavez sent New Year greetings to all Venezuelans, "especially the children, whom he carries in his heart always."

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Mario Naranjo; Editng by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

View the original article here

SEOUL | Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:14pm EST

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's parliament was expected to pass next year's government budget on Monday after slightly expanding welfare spending programs in line with President-elect Park Geun-hye's campaign pledges.

Media cited officials at the ruling and main opposition parties as saying they now aimed to put their agreed version up for vote later in the day after winding up debate on minor issues at sub-committee meetings.

The value of the 2013 budget bill is expected to rise to about 342.7 trillion won ($320.11 billion) from 342.5 trillion won, but there would be no big change in funding plans, media reports said.

The government's plan is to narrow the official fiscal deficit to 0.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 from a projected 1.1 percent deficit in 2012.

The fiscal year begins on January 1 but parliament has often delayed budget approval until after midnight on December 31 due to wrangling between the ruling and opposition parties.

The government had proposed to allocate 28 percent of total spending to health, welfare and labor but Park promised this month to increase welfare spending.

Park, from the ruling conservative Saenuri Party, does not take office until late February.

Technically, the ruling party holds 51.3 percent of the single-chamber National Assembly and can pass the bill alone but wants to reach agreement with the opposition first. The main opposition Democratic United Party holds 42.3 percent.

($1 = 1070.575 won)

(Reporting By Se Young Lee; Editing by Choonsik Yoo and Nick Macfie)

View the original article here

Policemen stand guard outside the cremation ground during the funeral of a rape victim after her body arrived from Singapore, in New Delhi December 30, 2012.

NEW DELHI | Mon Dec 31, 2012 1:35am EST

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - One of hundreds of attacks reported in New Delhi each year, the brutal gang rape and murder of a young medical student in a private bus this month caught authorities and political parties flat-footed, slow to appreciate it had become symbolic of all the others.

In the moments before the December 16 attack, the 23-year-old woman from India's urban middle class, who had recently qualified as a trainee physiotherapist in a private Delhi hospital, and her male friend, a software engineer, were walking home from a cinema at a shopping mall in south Delhi, according to a police reconstruction of events.

A bus, part of a fleet of privately owned vehicles used as public transport across the city of 16 million, and known as India's "rape capital", was at the same time heading toward them. Earlier that day, it had ferried school students but was now empty except for five men and a teenage boy, including its crew, police said. Most of the men were from the city's slums.

One of the six - all now charged with murder - lured the couple onto the bus, promising to drop the woman home, police have said, quoting from an initial statement that she gave from her hospital bed before her condition deteriorated rapidly.

A few minutes into the ride, her friend, 28, grew suspicious when the bus deviated from the supposed route and the men locked the door, according to her statement. They then taunted her for being out with a man late at night, prompting the friend to intervene and provoking an initial scuffle.

The attackers then beat him with a metal rod, knocking him unconscious, before turning on the woman who had tried to come to his defense. Police say the men admitted after their arrest to torturing and raping the student "to teach her a lesson".

At one point, the bus driver gave the wheel to another of the accused and dragged the woman by the neck to the back of the vehicle and forced himself upon her. The other five then took turns raping her and also driving the bus, keeping it circling through the busy streets of India's capital city, police said.

The woman was raped for nearly an hour before the men pushed a metal rod inside her, severely damaging her internal organs, and then dumped both her and her friend on the roadside, 8 km (5 miles) from where they had boarded it, police said.

Robbed of their clothes and belongings, they were found half naked, bleeding and unconscious later that night by a passerby, who alerted the police.

FAMILY ROLE MODEL

The woman, whose identity has been withheld by police, gave her statement to a sub-divisional magistrate on December 21 in the intensive care unit of Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, according to local media reports. She was undergoing multiple surgical procedures and her condition later began to rapidly worsen.

Ten days after the attack and still in a critical condition, she was flown to Singapore for specialist treatment. She died in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital two days later. Her body was flown back to Delhi and cremated there on Sunday in a private ceremony.

Family members who had accompanied her to Singapore declined to speak to reporters, but relatives told the Times of India newspaper she had been a role model to her two younger brothers.

Unlike most traditional Indian families who only send their sons to fee-paying colleges or universities, her parents pinned their hopes on the daughter and took loans to fund her studies.

She was born and brought up in a middle class Delhi neighborhood after her family moved to the city more than 20 years ago from India's northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Her male friend recorded his statement to a local court days after the attack and helped police identify the six accused. He left for his hometown in Uttar Pradesh late on Saturday, missing the woman's funeral, local media reported.

SHAME, ANGER IN SLUM

Four of the accused, all in custody, live in the narrow by-lanes of Ravi Das Camp, a slum about 17 km (11 miles) from the woman's home in southwest Delhi. Inside the slum - home to some 1,200 people who eke out a meager living as rickshaw pullers and tea hawkers - many demanded the death penalty for the accused.

"The incident has really shocked all of us. I don't know how I will get my children admitted to a school. The incident has earned a bad name to this place," said Pooja Kumari, a neighbor of one of the accused.

Girija Shankar, a student, said: "Our heads hang in shame because of the brutal act of these men. They must reap what they have sown."

The house of one of the accused was locked, with neighbors saying his family had left the city to escape the shame and anger. Meena, a 45-year-old neighbor, said she had wanted to join the protests that followed the rape, but was too scared.

"You never know when a mob may attack this slum and attack our houses. But we want to say we're as angry as the entire nation. We want them to be hanged," she said.

Two of the six alleged assailants come from outside Delhi, according to police. One is married with children and was arrested in his native village in Bihar state and the other, a juvenile, is a runaway from a broken home in Uttar Pradesh.

In India, murder is punishable by death by hanging, except in the case of offenders aged below 18.

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Ian Geoghegan)

View the original article here

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participate in a transfer ceremony of the remains of U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed this week in Benghazi, at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, September 14, 2012. Ambassador Stevens and the other Americans died after gunmen attacked the lightly fortified U.S. consulate and a safe house refuge in Benghazi on Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:35am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has some "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador in September, President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the United States would carry out all of the recommendations put forward in an independent review of the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed.

"We're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. This was a huge problem. And we're going to implement every single recommendation that's been put forward," Obama said in the interview, referring to security issues identified in the review.

"With respect to who carried it out, that's an ongoing investigation. The FBI has sent individuals to Libya repeatedly. We have some very good leads, but this is not something that I'm going to be at liberty to talk about right now," he said.

The interview was conducted on Saturday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Will Dunham)

View the original article here

DUBAI | Mon Dec 31, 2012 1:10am EST

DUBAI (Reuters) - The Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda has offered a bounty for anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador to Yemen or an American soldier in the impoverished Arab state, a group that monitors Islamist websites said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said it was offering three kilograms of gold for the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa, Gerald Feierstein, the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said, citing an audio released by militants.

AQAP will also pay 5 million rials ($23,350) to whoever kills any American soldier in Yemen, it said.

The offer, valid for six months, was made "to encourage our Muslim Ummah (nation), and to expand the circle of the jihad (holy war) by the masses," SITE said, citing the audio.

AQAP, mostly militants from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, is regarded by the United States as the most dangerous branch of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

In September, AQAP urged Muslims to step up protests and kill U.S. diplomats in Muslim countries over a film denigrating the Prophet Mohammad, which it said was another chapter in the "crusader wars" against Islam.

The film provoked an outcry among Muslims, who deem any depiction of the Prophet as blasphemous and triggered violent attacks on embassies in countries in Asia and the Middle East.

Four U.S. officials including the ambassador to Libya were killed in the aftermath. The Pentagon said it had sent a platoon of Marines to Yemen after demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa.

A U.S. ally, Yemen is struggling against challenges on many fronts since mass protests forced veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in February after decades in power.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government is trying to re-establish order and unify the army.

Washington, which has pursued a campaign of assassination by drone and missile against suspected al Qaeda members, backed a military offensive in May to recapture areas of Abyan province. But militants have struck back with a series of bombings and killings.

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; editing by Todd Eastham)

View the original article here

International peace envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi attends a meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby (unseen) at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo December 30, 2012. The international mediator touting a peace plan for Syria warned on Saturday of ''hell'' if the warring sides shun talks, and Moscow accused enemies of President Bashar al-Assad of blocking negotiations.

AZAZ, Syria/CAIRO | Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:58pm EST

AZAZ, Syria/CAIRO (Reuters) - The international peace negotiator for Syria pleaded with outside countries on Sunday to push the warring parties to the table for talks, warning that the country would become a failed state ruled by warlords unless diplomacy is given a chance.

Lakhdar Brahimi, who inherited the seemingly impossible task of bringing an end to the war after his predecessor Kofi Annan resigned in frustration in July, has launched an intensified diplomatic campaign to win backing for a peace plan.

He spent five days this week in Damascus, where he met President Bashar al-Assad. On Saturday he visited Assad's main international backers in Moscow, and on Sunday he travelled to Cairo, where President Mohamed Mursi has emerged as one of Assad's most vocal Arab opponents.

"The problem is that both sides aren't speaking to one another," he said. "This is where help is needed from outside."

Brahimi's peace plan - inherited from Annan and agreed to in principle in Geneva in June by countries that both oppose and support Assad - has the seemingly fatal flaw of making no mention of whether Assad would leave power.

The Syrian leader's opponents - who have seized much of the north and east of the country in the past six months - say they will not cease fire or join any talks unless Assad goes and have largely dismissed Brahimi's initiative.

But Brahimi says the plan is the only one on the table, and predicts "hell" if countries do not push both sides to talk.

"The situation in Syria is bad, very, very bad, and it is getting worse, and the pace of deterioration is increasing," Brahimi told reporters.

"People are talking about Syria being split into a number of small states ... This is not what will happen. What will happen is Somalization: warlords." Somalia has been without effective central government since civil war broke out there in 1991.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in Syria's 21-month war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began sweeping the Arab world two years ago.

The rebels are mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, fighting against Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect, giving the war a dangerous sectarian dimension.

The rebels increasingly believe that their military successes of the past half year are bringing victory within reach. But Assad's forces still hold the densely-populated southwest of the country, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast in the northwest.

The government also holds airbases scattered throughout the country, and has an arsenal including jets, helicopters, missiles and artillery that the fighters cannot match.

ASSAD FORCES SEIZE HOMS DISTRICT

Government troops scored a victory on Saturday after several days of fighting, seizing a Sunni district in Homs, a central town that controls the vital road linking Damascus to the coast.

Opposition activists said on Sunday that many people had been killed in the Deir Baalbeh district after it was captured, although it was not immediately possible to verify claims that a "massacre" had taken place. The opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights said it documented the summary execution of 17 men.

"They were young and old, mostly refugees who had fled to Deir Baalbeh from central parts of Homs," it said in a statement. Footage taken by activists showed the bodies of eight men with what appeared to be bullet wounds in the face and head.

With severe restrictions by Syrian authorities on independent media in place since the revolt broke out in March last year, the footage could not be confirmed.

Najati Tayyara, a veteran opposition campaigner from Homs in contact with the city, told Reuters residents believed the death toll was as high as 260, although the area was sealed off by government forces and allied militia.

"I am afraid that we have seen a massacre in Deir Baalbeh and a military setback for the rebels because of their lack of organization. They have been in need of ammunition for a long time and it finally ran out," he said.

"Communications are difficult and we are trying to piece together what happened in Deir Baalbeh. We so far know that regime forces went in after the rebels retreated and summarily executed dozens of people, including civilians."

Tayyara said the fall of Deir Baalbeh undermined supply lines to rebel held areas inside the city.

Bilal al-Homsi, an opposition activist in Old Homs, said MiG warplanes bombarded the area overnight and medium range rockets and hit the area of al-Khalidiya, a rebel-held Sunni district.

In the north, opposition activists said fighters had surrounded an air defense base near Aleppo airport, south of the contested city. Fighting raged in the area and warplanes bombed rebel positions near the base to try and break the siege.

In the northern city of Azaz, where activists said 11 people were killed when air strikes destroyed six homes, gravediggers were already digging graves for whichever victims will be next.

"We know the plane is coming to hit us, so we're being prepared," said Abu Sulaiman, one of a few men digging at the Sheikh Saad cemetery.

"Massacres are happening. We're putting every two or three bodies together. We've been working and digging since 6 in the morning. We're going to dig 10 new graves today," he said.

"We're preparing them. Maybe we'll be buried in them."

Fida, a 15-year-old girl in a green scarf and purple coat looked on as her father shoveled dirt from the gravesite. The dead from the previous day's attacks included friends she recognized when their shrouds were pulled back.

"Yesterday was the first time I uncovered blankets to discover that my friends had died," she said, as young children near the cemetery played hopscotch on the streets and kicked stones about.

"I was just about to go visit them about a half hour before the strike hit," she said. "In the end I visited them when they were dead."

(Adiditional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Ayman Samir and Tom Perry in Cairo and Peter Graff in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

View the original article here

n">(Reuters) - Senate leaders have not yet been able to reach a deal to a avert a "fiscal cliff," and with time running out, it is uncertain if they will get one, a senior Senate aide said on Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been aiming to reach an agreement by 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) so that they can present it to previously scheduled closed-door meetings of their respective Democratic and Republican colleagues in an attempt to beat a New Year's Day deadline.

However, at this point, they still do not have an agreement, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. (Writing by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

View the original article here

WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:19pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Farm-state lawmakers have agreed to a one-year extension of the expiring U.S. farm law that, if enacted, would head off a possible doubling of retail milk prices to $7 or more a gallon in early 2013.

The extension would end a 32-month attempt to update farm subsidies dating from the Depression era, when farmers were crushed by low prices and huge crop surpluses, to meet today's high-wire challenges of tight food supplies, high operating costs and volatile markets.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican, said on Sunday he hoped the legislation would be passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama by Tuesday to avoid higher prices for milk in grocery stores.

The bill was listed among measures that could be called for a vote on Monday in the House of Representatives although action was not guaranteed.

Despite consensus on the need to extend the farm bill, lawmakers continue to discuss how long the extension should be.

Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, told reporters late on Sunday a nine-month farm bill extension was being considered as part of deal being crafted in the Senate to stave off the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that begin kicking in on January 1.

"There's good chance that if there is a package out of the Senate, it will include something on the farm bill. The easiest thing to get done would be nine months of current law," Cole said.

A second Republican, Representative Steven LaTourette, said a nine-month extension could be part of the fiscal cliff package or could move separately if the fiscal talks fail.

House Republican leaders refused to call a vote during the fall on a full-scale, $500 billion farm bill on grounds it might fail because it did not cut spending enough.

Grain, soybean and cotton growers would get another round of the $5 billion "direct payment" subsidy that all sides agreed to kill in a new farm bill. The payments are made regardless of need. Reformers say the payments are unjustified when crop prices and farm income are at near-record levels.

DISASTER MONEY AND A NEW DAIRY PROGRAM

Also in the extension, lawmakers would revive agricultural disaster-relief programs that ran out of money a year ago and create a new dairy subsidy program. It would compensate dairy farmers whenever milk prices are low and feed prices are high. The so-called margin protection program would require farmers to limit production to avert a long run of low dairy prices.

Traditionally, the dairy program sets a minimum price for milk through government purchase of butter, cheese and dry milk. If Congress does not act, the dairy support price will revert on Tuesday to the level dictated by an outmoded 1949 law and which is roughly double the price now paid to farmers.

The potential retail milk price has been estimated at $6 to $8 a gallon versus current levels near $3.50.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during an interview broadcast by CNN, said higher milk prices - if it comes to that - would ripple throughout all commodities "if this thing goes on for an extended period of time."

Senator Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the "responsible short-term farm bill extension ... not only stops milk prices from spiking, but also prevents eventual damage to our entire agriculture economy."

TWO FALLBACKS IF EXTENSION FALTERS

House Republican leaders readied two alternatives, if needed, to the one-year extension. One was a one-month extension of the now-expired 2008 farm law without disaster funds or the new dairy program and the other was a one-month suspension of the dairy provisions of the 1949 law.

It was not clear which bill would be called for debate, a farm lobbyist said on Sunday. A small-farm activist said any package passed by Congress must include rural economic development funds and money for soil conservation on "working lands," the largest of USDA's conservation programs.

"If a new farm bill doesn't pass this Congress, we'll soon hold another mark-up and just keep working until one is enacted next year," said Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat.

It would be the first time on record that Congress began drafting a farm bill during a two-year session and had to carry it into the following session, congressional researchers said. Hearings on the new farm bill began April 21, 2010.

HOUSE, SENATE DISPUTE ON BIG CUTS

While dairy producers generally support the so-called margin-protection program as the answer to high feed costs, processors and foodmakers oppose it. They say it is wrong-minded in its premise of curtailing production when prices are low, and it will destroy a healthy export market for dairy products.

The rejuvenated disaster programs would cover losses from this year's widespread drought, especially for livestock producers, although tree farmers, honey bees and farm-raised fish are also covered. Maximum payment would be $100,000.

Senators passed a farm bill in June estimated to save $23 billion over 10 years, with most of the cuts in crop subsidies and conservation programs. The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill with $35 billion in cuts in July, half of it in food stamps for the poor - the biggest cut in food stamps in a generation.

Fiscally conservative House Republicans have called for larger cuts in farm subsidies and food stamps while some House Democrats opposed any food stamp cuts.

(Additional reporting by Charles Abbott, David Lawder and Richard Cowan; Editing by Ros Krasny, Maureen Bavdek, Jan Paschal and Eric Walsh)

View the original article here

Vomiting Larry gets to work. A humanoid simulated vomiting system, Larry helps scientists analyse contagion. He's particularly useful in the case of Norovirus, a nasty bug which can live for 12 days on contaminated surfaces. Larry was designed by Catherine Makison-Booth of Britain's Health and Safety Laboratory. SOUNDBITE (English) HEALTH AND SAFETY LABORATORY (HSL) RESEARCHER AND DESIGNER OR VOMITING LARRY, CATHERINE MAKISON-BOOTH, SAYING: "Larry is comprised of a mannequin head, which is known as 'Airway Larry', and he's what medical students use to practise things like laryngoscopies on the incubation, so he's very realistic. He has a real tongue and teeth in there that are different material types. His oesophagus is then linked to a cylinder which contains the fluid, so that's essentially his stomach. A piston or push-rod then pushes the fluid up via a pneumatic ram which forces air under the piston, pushes the fluid up and out of Larry's mouth." With little previous research done on the speed and reach of vomiting, Makison-Booth devised a series of calculations to make Larry anatomically accurate. 15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEALTH AND SAFETY LABORATORY (HSL) RESEARCHER AND DESIGNER FO VOMITING LARRY, CATHERINE MAKISON-BOOTH, SAYING: "The amount of pressure then was based on the amount of fluid that we had in the stomach and the distance that it would travel for the main bulk of fluid to land on the floor, i.e. 1.2 metres, and that then took 800 kilopascals in order to exert that pressure through the system and enter onto the floor." Larry's mechanical stomach is loaded with water and fluorescent marker. Then it's time to stand well back...... Cleaning up the mess is all part of the research. And it soon becomes clear why fluorescent dye is used. UPSOT: MAKISON-BOOTH SAYING: "So we'll switch the lights off and see just how well I've done." Despite her best efforts at decontamination, remnants of Larry's vomit remain up to three metres away from his mouth. At least a million Britons have had Norovirus this winter. A bug spread largely through projectile vomiting, it's easy to see why infection rates are so high. It takes just 20 Norovirus particles to infect a healthy individual. Larry's inventor thinks he'll prove invaluable for medical students and cleaners on cruise ships and oil rigs, where outbreaks can spread like wildfire. But her advice to the rest of us is to wash our hands thoroughly if we want to avoid feeling as off-colour as Larry.....

Jan. 11 - A robot that vomits on command is the latest weapon in Britain's war on norovirus, a disease currently affecting more than a million people throughout the country. Called ''Vomiting Larry'' by its developer, the humanoid simulated vomiting system is designed to help scientists analyze contagion by simulating the retching process at the same speed and range as a human. Jim Drury went to meet him.

View the original article here

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (R) shares a laugh with Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) at the Amman Citadel in Amman July 22, 2008.

WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:12pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama offered strong support for former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as the potential next U.S. defense secretary but said in remarks aired on Sunday that he had not yet decided on a nominee for the Pentagon post.

Hagel is considered a leading candidate to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, but the former Nebraska lawmaker has come under criticism for his record on Israel and for a comment that being gay was an inhibiting factor for being an ambassador.

"I've served with Chuck Hagel. I know him. He is a patriot. He is somebody who has done extraordinary work both in the United States Senate, somebody who served this country with valor in Vietnam," Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview taped on Saturday and broadcast on Sunday.

Any nomination for defense secretary must be approved by the Senate where some lawmakers have voiced criticism about their former colleague.

"I think a lot of Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about Chuck Hagel's positions on Iran sanctions, his views toward Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, and that there is wide and deep concern about his policies. All of us like him as a person," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said.

"There would be very little Republican support for his nomination, at the end of the day, there will be very few votes," Graham said on Fox News Sunday.

Republican Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma said bluntly: "I cannot vote for Chuck Hagel."

Aside from his controversial statements, "he does not have the experience to manage a very large organization like the Pentagon," Coburn said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If there's a place that we need great management it's the Pentagon."

Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said on the same television show that Hagel deserved "respect for the service he's given our country in the military and in the Senate" and should be given consideration. "He at least deserves a hearing and an opportunity," he said.

Obama said he had seen nothing that would disqualify Hagel.

The president said Hagel had apologized for his comments related to homosexuality, referred to by NBC's David Gregory in the interview.

"With respect to the particular comment that you quoted, he apologized for it," Obama said.

"And I think it's a testimony to what has been a positive change over the last decade in terms of people's attitudes about gays and lesbians serving our country. And that's something that I'm very proud to have led," he said.

Obama came out in favor of gay marriage in the middle of his re-election bid this year. Earlier in his term he presided over the end of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibited gay men and women from serving openly in the U.S. military.

Hagel, who left the Senate in 2008, has faced questions about his record on Israel.

Some of Israel's leading U.S. supporters contend that Hagel at times opposed Israel's interests, voting several times against U.S. sanctions on Iran, and made disparaging remarks about the influence of what he called a "Jewish lobby" in Washington.

Obama, who has strained relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has faced questions of his own from the American Jewish community about his approach to the U.S. ally.

Obama said Hagel was doing an "outstanding job" serving on an intelligence advisory board and gave no indication on when he would make his final decision about the defense chief job.

The president has already backed down once from a contentious nomination, choosing Democratic Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state rather than going with his presumed first choice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, whom many Republicans opposed after she made controversial remarks about the September 11 attacks on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

View the original article here