2012 was in top ten warmest years

15 January 2013 Last updated at 16:56 ET By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

US scientists say that 2012 was among the 10 warmest years the world has experienced since 1880.

Nasa researchers said it was the ninth warmest year while experts from another American agency said it was the tenth.

Both teams said that temperatures would have been higher if it hadn't been for the La Nina weather pattern that brought cooling to some regions.

They were equally certain carbon dioxide had been the principal driver of the rise over the past 50 years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said that their analysis of temperature data from a global network of weather stations indicated that the average temperature for 2012 was 0.57C above the 20th century average.

The agency stated that all 12 years of the 21st Century rank among the 14 warmest in the 133-year period of record keeping.

"This past year, unlike the US they were not a record globally but they certainly were warm," said Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Centre.

"In fact it marks a persistent above average - every year has been above average since 1976."

Using the same data but carrying out a slightly different analysis, Nasa said it was the 9th warmest year with temperatures 0.6C warmer than the mid 20th century baseline.

Dr James Hansen, from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies acknowledged that even in a period of global warming some seasons will be cooler than the long term average.

"The perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet," he said.

According to both groups of researchers most areas of the world had higher than average temperatures in 2012 while the Arctic experienced a record breaking ice melt.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21033083#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Iraq frees prisoners in gesture to ease Sunni protests

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government has released more than 300 prisoners held under anti-terrorism laws as a goodwill gesture to try to appease Sunni Muslim demonstrators who are staging protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Three weeks of demonstrations, mainly in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, have evolved into a tough challenge for the Shi'ite premier, increasing worries that Iraq could slide back into the sectarian confrontation of its recent past.

Officials said a ministerial committee had freed 335 detainees whose jail terms had ended or whose cases had been dismissed for lack of evidence. Sunni leaders say security forces use terrorism laws to unfairly target their sect.

Dozens of prisoners in yellow Iraqi correctional department uniforms waited surrounded by guards as women in traditional robes and old men tried to catch a glance of detainees to see whether relatives were among those released.

"In name of the Iraqi State, I apologize to those who were arrested and jailed and were later proven to be innocent," said Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani, a senior Iraqi Shi'ite figure heading the committee.

Detainee releases are just one demand from Sunni protesters. Many are also calling for Maliki to step down, an end to a campaign to track down former members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, and for an amnesty law

Thousands of protesters are still camped out in Anbar, once the home of al-Qaeda's campaign against U.S. troops in Iraq, where they have blocked a main road to Jordan and Syria near the Sunni heartland city of Ramadi.

"This is not enough. We didn't ask for a gesture or a gift for the people. We want to give people their rights," said Jaber al-Jaberi, a lawmaker from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya block.

The turmoil erupted in late December after officials arrested members of a Sunni finance minister's security team on terrorism charges. Authorities denied that the case was political, but Sunni leaders rejected the arrests as part of a crackdown on their community.

A year after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, tension between Shi'ites and Sunnis is still raw. Thousands were killed in several years of sectarian violence that erupted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 to oust Sunni strongman Saddam.

Many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been sidelined by the country's Shi'ite majority leaders and the country's government, split among Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurds, is deadlocked over how to share power.

The protests are compounding worries about a sectarian confrontation igniting in Iraq which, along with the conflict in neighboring Syria, would deepen a regional confrontation between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab Gulf states.

More hard-line Sunni leaders in Iraq view the war between mostly Sunni rebels in Syria and President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, as an opportunity to strengthen their own position should Assad fall and a Sunni government come to power. (Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-frees-prisoners-gesture-end-sunni-protests-145919565.html

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StarNews: Corning cutting 100 salaried jobs in N.C.

Submitted by StarNewsOnline.com on Mon, 01/14/2013 - 6:47pm.READ MORE:

By Wayne Faulkner
StarNewsOnline.com

Corning Inc. is cutting a total of 100 salaried positions at its three North Carolina facilities, the company said Monday.

But the company would say how many of those would come at its Wilmington fiber optics plant on North College Road, which employs approximately 1,000. Corning also would not reveal specific cuts at the two other North Carolina locations, in Concord and Hickory.

?The actions will be taken at the Wilmington plant that fall in line with the announcement we made in late October involving workforce restructuring,? said Joe Dunning, supervisor for media relations for the Corning, N.Y.-based company.

In October, Corning had said it planned to lay off 500 employees worldwide as a result of the depressed economy.

To read the rest of this story, visit the StarNewsOnline.com.

Disclaimer: Comments posted on this, or any story are opinions of those people posting them, and not the views or opinions of WWAY NewsChannel 3, its management or employees. You can view our comment policy here.

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Source: http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/01/14/starnews-corning-cutting-100-salaried-jobs-nc

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Brits rate immigration as society's biggest issue ? poll ? RT

AFP Photo / Hugo Philpott

The British public views immigration as the biggest issue facing society, but UK citizens are basically tolerant to immigration, as long as new arrivals are in work and integrate into society, it was revealed in a poll reported in The Observer.

The poll found that one in three people believes tension between immigrants and UK citizens is a major cause of division, while over half those questioned believe it is one of the top three causes, a major new survey entitled ?State of the Nation: Where is Bittersweet Britain Heading?? found out, the British Sunday paper wrote.

Over the past two decades immigration has increased to historically high levels, with 100,000 more people entering than leaving the country every year since 1998.

Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, the think tank which carried out the survey, said it showed that there was a national anxiety about immigration which politicians needed to address.

However, he pointed out that the results suggested that there was very little relation between the geographical distribution of immigrants and the levels of people?s concern. For example, immigration was regarded as a divisive issue by 19 per cent of people in the north-east of England and 20 per cent of people in Wales. In both areas a 2011 census showed that one in 20 people were born abroad. But in London, where one in three people are immigrants, the number of people who regarded immigration as divisive, still stood at 20 per cent.

?People are obviously very anxious about immigration. But I was struck by how much it was driven by a national rather than a local tension. And I don?t think anyone has any confidence in how it is managed as a system. Also there is concern around national cohesion, identity and ability to cope with the scale of change,? said Katwala.

Other issues considered the three essential traits of a Briton were respect for the law, freedom of speech of others, and an ability to speak English. These came out as the top criteria among all ages and social classes in the survey, which polled 2,515 people aged between 16 and 75. Treating women and men equally and respect for people of all ethnic backgrounds and faiths came fourth, fifth and sixth on the list respectively.

The release of the poll?s results coincides with an upcoming speech by Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, in which he hopes to aid efforts of integration into society. He is expected to stress that knowledge of English is vital to social mobility and for the economy as a whole.

The survey also found that three in four people think that the UK is in a housing crisis, an issue that has been on the political agenda of all parties for a number of years. Current Housing Minister Nick Boles is proposing that green field sites, currently protected by planning law, should be built upon in order to provide much needed new housing stock. All age groups surveyed said that owning your own property is better than renting.

When asked what made people proud to be British, the NHS came top, with 45 per cent of people saying it was the institution they were most proud of. The armed forces came second, with 40 per cent of people saying they made them feel proud to be British, while in light of the Olympics and the Paralympics, 38 per cent said ?Team GB?.

When people were asked if being born in Britain was important to being British, two thirds said as long as someone has worked here for up to 15 years, they should be allowed access to the welfare state, regardless of where they were born.

Finally, roughly two thirds said they would rather be British than any other nationality in the world, while around 15 per cent said they would rather not be British and 20 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed.

Source: http://rt.com/news/britain-immigration-society-issue-912/

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Alibaba Group?s Taobao Removed From ?Notorious Markets? List By US

The US announced on Thursday that Taobao Marketplace, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has been removed from its yearly list of the world's most "notorious markets," so-called because they are rampant with pirated and counterfeit goods.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/tsmczElvncw/

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The Ins And Outs Of Pay-Per-Click Advertising | Ebay Success Secrets

Generating traffic is one of the key procedures associated with internet marketing. One of, if not the most captivating web traffic technique available at the moment is Pay-Per-Click advertising or PPC for short.

Essentially, PPC is an in internet advertising model, where advertisers pay the website owner when the ad on their site is clicked.

Most businesses locate their pay-per-click advertisement campaigns on search engine pages, online directories and popular social network sites. You want it on sites that have millions of users every day, so that the PPC advertising campaign can reach its full potential.

Furthermore, the PPC advertisement is placed on pages that contain related content and keywords, because let?s be honest, having an advertisement a suit tailor is pointless when the keyword the user uses is web design. Being placed amongst closely related content allows a process called sponsored match to take place. Sponsored is when a business can efficiently target potential customers searching for their niche, these types of customer are more likely to purchase also.

PPC advertising can be set up very quickly and provides a great deal of information to measure campaign performance. You only pay for ?click-throughs? so it can be a highly cost-effective form of advertising when implemented correctly. In order for your PPC Campaign to be successful, it requires strategic thinking, cutting-edge analysis and persistent management throughout. By continually assessing and adopting your tactics you can ensure that your campaign is optimized; maximizing your return on investment.

The literature within your PPC advertisement must be accurate and effective as this is the most vital component of your PPC campaign. Clearly, the aim of the advert is to attract targeted leads, however you barely have 100 characters to do this in, therefore your ad needs to be compelling in order to attract buyers.

Listed below are a few key pointers that should help you when writing your PPC advert:

??? ?Keep your content simple.
??? ?Include only the best keywords.
??? ?If you only target a certain geographical area such as London, ensure that you specify this within your PPC advert.
??? ?If you have a time-related benefit, ensure that you mention it. This will form a sense of pressure on the viewer to buy.

All being well, PPC does pose a possible threat.

The primary determinant when it comes to the costing of your PPC advert? is based on the popularity of the key word that you are trying to use. Evidentially, the more the key word is sought after, the higher the cost of using it will be. If this is the case, it is basically impossible for a business to utilize the targeted keywords that would yield the best results for their business.

Source: http://www.ebay-success-secrets.com/the-ins-and-outs-of-pay-per-click-advertising/

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Gift Guide: Ten One Design Pogo Connect iPad Stylus

The number of options out there for iPad stylii at this point is almost crazy. But Ten One Design has always made solid ones, and the Pogo Connect also adds pressure sensitivity via Bluetooth 4.0. It's a slightly different take than others in this space, and one that benefits immensely from extremely low power consumption.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/rXrmqKC6L44/

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