Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is hopeful Percy Harvin will return to team this season

RENTON ? Percy Harvin?s surgery went well Thursday, and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said the team is still hopeful he will return this season.

Carroll didn?t give a timetable for the return of Harvin, who had surgery on his injured hip in New York.

?With all the information that we got,? Carroll said, ?we?re more hopeful that he will have a chance to get back.?

Harvin announced on Tuesday via Twitter that his hip was going to require surgery. NFL.com?s Ian Rapoport reported earlier in the week that the Seahawks were hopeful Harvin would return by Thanksgiving.

Golden Tate wants to return kickoffs in Harvin?s absence, but Carroll said he?s concerned about overusing Tate. Carroll said he is concerned about Tate returning kicks and punts while also playing wide receiver. He said he would like to have another option to create a rotation.

Carroll said Tate, Jeremy Lane, Christine Michael and Bryan Walters are all options to return kicks.

Offensive lineman James Carpenter is still getting back in playing shape after a knee injury cut his season short last year. Carroll said Carpenter weighs 340 pounds ? he?s listed on the roster at 321 pounds ? but added he isn?t concerned with weight as much as conditioning.

Carpenter was Seattle?s first-round pick in 2011 but has battled injuries.

?He?s been away from ball so long so he?s got to get back up on the mental part,? offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said. ?In the meantime, he?s also trying to get better physically. There are times he looks outstanding, and then there are times when he still needs to get better. We hope he makes a big jump here in the next four weeks.?

Bevell said the Seahawks are trying to ease Carpenter back into playing shape. ?It?s one thing to be in condition,? he said. ?It?s another thing to be in football shape.?

The Seahawks signed former Washington State tight end Andrei Lintz and claimed wide receiver Perez Ashford off waivers from the New England Patriots. The team also waived running back Ray Holley and wide receiver Greg Herd. Lintz, who attended high school in Bellingham, played in 43 games and had 10 catches for 114 yards at Washington State. Ashford is an undrafted rookie out of Northern Illinois.

Jayson Jenks: 206-464-8277 or jjenks@seattletimes.com

Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/seahawks/2021521264_seahawksnotes02xml.html?syndication=rss

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Briefing: EU ends arms embargo on Syria. What does that mean for rebels?

The EU allowed the arms embargo to expire in June, but said it would not take action until August. That day is here.

By Tom A. Peter,?Correspondent / August 2, 2013

Free Syrian Army fighters try to contain civilians after gunfire was heard at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing, a passageway separating Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr, which is under the rebels' control and Al-Masharqa neighborhood, an area controlled by the regime, July 31, 2013.

Malek Alshemali/Reuters

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In May, the European Union agreed to let its embargo on giving arms to the Syrian rebels expire on?June 1. That made it possible for member states to create their own policies to send weapons to militants. The EU said it would not take action until August, to allow for discussion and possible peace talks. But the talks are on hold.Where do things stand now?

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By allowing the arms embargo to expire, the EU did not take ? or agree to take ? an active role supplying Syrian rebels with weapons. The lifting of the embargo made it possible for states to take action, but so far no EU members have taken substantive steps to send weapons.?

Why the hesitation?

When the EU allowed the arms embargo to expire, the Syrian opposition and government were set to hold peace talks in Geneva in June. Now the talks have been indefinitely postponed. Also, the United States has agreed to provide small arms to the Syrian opposition, and the military coup in Egypt has moved attention away from Syria. Russia and China, which support the Syrian government, have impeded UN efforts to end the violence or intervene.

?The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan certainly weighs heavily,? says David Butter, an expert on Syria and the Middle East at Chatham House, a London think tank. ?The military, particularly in the US, is going to marshal as many arguments they can to make it the least palatable option to get into a situation where you?re gradually getting involved.? It?s very difficult to identify a rebel faction to support, he adds, or ?realistic goals you can set without becoming very deeply involved and maybe getting stuck.?

Would providing weapons make a difference?

The Syrian opposition is in dire need of weapons and military support. But any weapons provided by the EU would likely be insufficient to give rebels a decisive advantage. Most military aid has been small arms, but the rebels need heavy weapons and antiaircraft weapons to gain the upper hand.

Now, military aid may be too little, too late. Last summer, it could have made a difference when the rebels had battlefield momentum and the government was suffering from manpower shortages. But Syrian government forces have regrouped and the opposition has become more fragmented and rife with extremists.

Who would get the weapons?

Many of those who oppose arming the rebels say that weapons could end up in the hands of extremist groups opposed to the West. There are at least 1,200 armed groups in the Syrian opposition, some of which have ties to groups like Al Qaeda. While those in support of arming the rebels say they can provide weapons only to moderate groups, it remains a strong possibility that some weapons would make their way to extremists.

How much would intervention cost??

Speaking to Congress, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined five options for a US intervention. The most minimal option would cost $500 million annually and entail training and assisting rebels. Establishing a no-fly zone would cost $500 million to initiate and $1 billion per month to maintain. The most complex option would establish a no-fly zone, get control of chemical weapons, and put thousands of troops on the ground. This would cost more than $1 billion a month to maintain. The general warned that any intervention would come with ?unintended consequences.?

What is the current situation in Syria?

The conflict is one of the worst in decades. Since it began in March 2011, more than 100,000 people have died ? three-quarters of them in the past year. According to United Nations figures, nearly 1 in 3 Syrians is either displaced inside the country or a refugee outside it; 6.8 million Syrians (out of a population of 21 million) are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. In the resulting power vacuum, crime, including rampant kidnapping for ransom, is on the rise. The war itself is at a stalemate, with neither side able to make significant gains.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/DhV_eoJPzc8/Briefing-EU-ends-arms-embargo-on-Syria.-What-does-that-mean-for-rebels

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Catching cancer early by chasing it: Portable diagnostic device that can travel to the patient

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reaching a clinic in time to receive an early diagnosis for cancer -- when the disease is most treatable -- is a global problem. Now a team of researchers proposes a global solution: have a user-friendly diagnostic device travel to the patient, anywhere in the world.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/L3UxXsIUZ1I/130801125135.htm

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Kazakh tycoon Ablyazov faces extradition from France

By Philippe Laurenson

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (Reuters) - Fugitive Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling around $6 billion, was told by a French judge on Thursday that he faced extradition, but his family vowed to fight an expulsion it said was politically motivated.

The 50-year-old businessman, in hiding since being handed a jail sentence for contempt of court by an English judge 18 months ago, has been in custody in France since his arrest on Wednesday near the Riviera resort of Cannes.

He was arrested after investigators for BTA, the Kazakh bank he once controlled and which brought the vast fraud case against him in England, traced him to a villa in the area and tipped off local authorities that he was wanted by Interpol.

Armed police wearing balaclavas surrounded and then stormed the villa at around 11 a.m. (0900 GMT / 5:00 a.m. EDT). He did not resist arrest in an operation that lasted around 30 seconds, a source familiar with the arrest said.

Ablyazov, who denies fraud charges he says are designed by strongman Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to silence him as a political opponent, was arrested under an order from Kiev and is likely to be sent to Ukraine, the local prosecutor said.

However, Russia's Interior Ministry said it also intended to seek his extradition on fraud and forgery charges linked to the BTA case.

Ablyazov cannot be extradited to Kazakhstan, because it is not part of a Council of Europe extradition convention.

A lawyer close to the family said he suspected Ablyazov would be sent from Ukraine to Kazakhstan, which are former Soviet republics that have maintained close ties.

Two of Ablyazov's children, Madina and Madiyar, urged France not to extradite their father.

"We beg the French authorities not to grant Kazakhstan our father," they said in the statement. "Kazakhstan's pursuit of him is purely political. We are afraid for his life."

PROCEEDINGS COULD TAKE MONTHS

The hearing in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence wrapped up by around 1 p.m. (1100 GMT / 7:00 a.m. EDT), and Ablyazov was placed in provisional custody, his lawyer Bruno Rebstock told Reuters.

French legal sources said the extradition proceedings could take several months as judges would require proof from Ukraine that it had grounds for filing charges against him.

The prosecutor general's office in Kazakhstan - ruled for more than two decades by Nazarbayev - said it had been informed of Ablyazov's arrest by Interpol, which had him on a "Red Notice".

An English High Court judge in March effectively declared Ablyazov guilty of committing one of the largest frauds ever tried in Britain - although Ablyazov's lawyers said later that judgment was based on "unproven assumptions".

Ablyazov, a former government minister in Kazakhstan, has been debarred from defending himself against BTA's fraud charges because he ignored court orders to turn himself in and fully declare his assets.

His lawyers have been working on bringing a claim against the UK in the European Court of Human Rights because the English judicial system "failed to protect his right to a fair trial".

Kazakhstan, together with Russia and Ukraine, brought charges against Ablyazov after BTA was seized by the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund in 2009 and declared insolvent.

Ablyazov fled to London and was granted political asylum in 2011, giving BTA the jurisdiction to bring a civil claim against him on British soil. However, after a judge tried to jail him for contempt of court in Feb 2012, he went into hiding.

His wife, Alma Shalabayeva, and their six-year-old daughter Alua, were deported from Rome to Kazakhstan in May in a case that caused a furor in Italian politics.

The move was seen by some as a favor to Nazarbayev, in whose country Italy's energy giant Eni has invested billions of dollars.

(Additional reporting by Jean-Francois Rosnoblet in Marseille, Kirstin Ridley in London, Jason Bush in Moscow,; Natalie Huet and Alexandria Sage in Paris,; Raushan Nurshayeva in Astana, Dmitry Solovyov and Mariya Gordeyeva in Almaty and Olzhas Auyezov in Kiev; Writing by Catherine Bremer; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kazakh-tycoon-ablyazov-faces-extradition-france-155253484.html

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Cuba reports highest outflow of citizens since 1994

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) - The number of Cubans leaving their country has increased steadily in recent years, the government reported on Wednesday, reaching levels not seen since 1994 when tens of thousands took to the sea in makeshift rafts and rickety boats.

Separately, the U.S. State Department on Wednesday announced it is lengthening most visitor visas for Cubans from six months to five years, allowing them to make multiple U.S. visits over the five-year period instead of repeatedly applying and paying the $160 fee for the privilege.

Cuba liberalized travel restrictions in January, making it much easier and less expensive for residents to travel and to return after they emigrate, and eliminating the confiscation of property of migrants, perhaps in hopes of slowing the outflow.

The new Cuban travel measures extend to 24 months the amount of time Cubans can be out of the country without losing rights and they can seek an extension of up to 24 months more.

In theory, the changes on both sides of the Florida Straits should make it easier for Cubans not only to travel but to work in the United States and return home when they want.

According to Cuba's annual demographic report for 2012 (http://www.onei.cu/anuariodemografico2012.htm), 46,662 Cubans migrated permanently in 2012, the largest annual figure since more than 47,000 left the communist-ruled island in 1994 after what international observers dubbed the "Rafter Crisis."

Over the last five years, Cubans have been emigrating at an average annual rate of more than 39,000, the report said, higher than in any other five-year period since the earliest years of the revolution.

The figures are not good news for a government facing a demographic crisis similar to some developed countries where fewer young people must support a growing elderly population.

The report did not break down migration by age, but it is common knowledge that many leaving the country are young and educated and a large proportion eventually wind up in the United States where they are quickly granted residency even if they entered illegally.

The U.S. announcement followed the resumption of immigration talks earlier this month after a two-year suspension.

The Obama administration believes the visa extension "will increase people-to-people contact, support civil society in Cuba; and enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people," a State Department spokesperson said.

It would also help to further reduce the wait time for visa interview appointments at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Since 1994 when the last mass immigration wave increased tensions between the two ideological foes, on-again-off-again immigration talks have led to a more orderly, safe and legal flow of Cubans to the United States, though thousands still arrive by crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders and some still perish at sea.

Over the past half century, thousands of Cubans have died trying to cross the treacherous Florida Straits in flimsy boats and homemade rafts, while hundreds of thousands more have completed the journey, many of them in the mass migrations in 1965, 1980 and 1994.

The United States now accepts about 20,000 Cubans annually via legal immigration, as well as family members seeking reunification, and also takes in those who manage to reach U.S. shores without being intercepted.

Under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, it turns back Cubans picked up at sea. Almost 1,300 Cubans were repatriated to Cuba in 2012 after failing to make it to U.S. soil.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Ken Wills)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-reports-highest-outflow-citizens-since-1994-222049650.html

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New type of protein modification may play a role in cancer and diabetes

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Source: www.sciencedaily.com --- Thursday, August 01, 2013
Scientists have discovered a new type of chemical modification that affects numerous proteins within mammalian cells. The modification appears to work as a regulator of important cellular processes including the metabolism of glucose. Further study of this modification could provide insights into the causes of diabetes, Cancer and other disorders. ...

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/~3/uS0ZTQj2ye0/130801155716.htm

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News: (@Adrienne_Bailon) Adrienne Bailon Set For 'In Love With A Church Girl' Role, Release Date Set

Njai Joszor 7/31/2013 6:55:05 AM

"The Real" co-host and recording artist Adrienne Bailon is headed to the big screen via?"I'm In Love With A Church Girl."

Starring alongside Ja Rule, Bailon appears as Vanessa Leon, a woman who is different?than any other woman Miles Montego (Ja Rule), a former high-level drug trafficker, has?met in his life.

"He is drawn to her beauty and her faith. She is a ?church girl? in every-sense of the?word. Increasingly, he is torn between a life that he knows and a love that he feels. As?Vanessa experiences his lavish lifestyle, mobster-type friends, gun play, and?encounters with past women, Vanessa must reconcile her faith in God and her growing?love for Miles," reports Reverence Gospel Media.

Also starring Toby Mac, Stephen Baldwin, T-Bone, Michael Madsen, Victor Pastore and?more, "I'm In Love With A Church Girl" was co-produced by award-winning?Gospel/Inspirational Music recording artist Israel Houghton.

Watch the trailer for "I'm In Love With A Church Girl" in video below. The movie is due?to open in theaters October 18.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Lets_talk/~3/dq5BezKSulg/

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