Kerry sees Abbas and Netanyahu after Obama trip

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? U.S Secretary of State John Kerry met Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Saturday, following up on President Barack Obama's talks with each earlier in the week, but a return to negotiations did not appear to the main agenda item.

While making his first trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority as president, Obama pressed for a resumption in peace talks between the two sides, but a U.S. statement released after Kerry's meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mention the matter at all. Instead, the four-sentence statement focused on an agreement between Israel and Turkey to normalize strained relations that Obama brokered on Friday.

The White House championed the rapprochement as a major success of Obama's trip, a view Kerry echoed.

"The reconciliation between Israel and Turkey is a very important development that will help advance the cause of peace and stability in the region," Kerry said in the statement. He said Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodgan "deserve great credit for showing the leadership necessary to make this possible."

"As I discussed with Prime Minister Netanyahu this evening, this will help Israel meet the many challenges it faces in the region," Kerry said. "We look forward to an expeditious implementation of the agreement and the full normalization of relations so Israel and Turkey can work together to advance their common interests."

Once-strong ties between the Jewish state and NATO's only Muslim majority country have been badly strained since Israel's 2010 raid on a Turkish flotilla bound for Gaza that killed eight Turks. Israel had until Friday refused to apologize, drawing the ire of the Turks.

But with Obama listening in, Netanyahu called Erdogan from the tarmac of the airport in Tel Aviv on Friday to apologize for operational errors in the raid that led to the deaths. Erdogan accepted the apology and both said they would begin the work of restoring full relations.

Although Obama said that he had instructed Kerry to look into what would be needed to restart talks between Israelis and the Palestinians, Saturday's statement said nothing about peace talks. Nor did it even mention Kerry's Saturday meeting with Abbas, which took place in Amman, Jordan, before Kerry went to Jerusalem to see Netanyahu.

In Israel and the Palestinian Authority last week, Obama urged both sides to recognize the importance of restarting talks to end their decades-old conflict. But he rolled back earlier support for a Palestinian demand that Israel stop housing construction in disputed territory before negotiations begin. The new position has angered some in the Palestinian community who believe that Obama is biased in favor of Israel.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-sees-abbas-netanyahu-obama-trip-231814119--politics.html

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The Best Advice For Anyone Focused On Self Improvement ...

Remember that you are unique and you have to create a personal development strategy that corresponds to your goals. With that being said, you need to try and learn as much information as possible to help you in your self improvement. This article will address a few ways that you can start your self improvement journey.

For inspiration, read about the things others have done on their paths to success. You can build upon the trails they blazed and avoid mistakes they made by finding out how they reached fulfillment. Use the lessons of successful people to inform and inspire your own path to personal development.

Have specific personal development goals that you can succeed with. The more specific your goals, the easier it will be to chart a course from where you are now to where you want to be in the future. Specific goals give you a way to measure your progress.

Know what your strengths are, and be confident when promoting yourself. Everyone is good at something different, and that is what makes the world we live in such an interesting place. You should not bemoan skills you have yet to acquire and instead focus on the good the skills you already possess can bring.

Those who want to succeed often look to mentors for help. All champions have awesome coaches or mentors behind them, and this is very important. Everyone should be able to help others find the way. How can they expect to do their best without doing this? All achievers learned from someone else.

Keep your goals as realistic as possible so you can reach them. By working on your weaknesses, you will be able to become the person you have always wanted to be.

Do not push yourself over your physical limitations when trying to achieve a goal. While no one can argue the importance of giving 100 percent, you must nonetheless take care of yourself. If you push too hard to try and meet your goal too quickly, you may run the risk of injury. Your self improvement will suffer greatly if you sacrifice your health.

Figure out your goals in life, and go after them. You can put all the thought into it and devise a perfect plan for life but if you never put it into action, then you will not see results. Identify your goals and take the necessary actions to make it happen.

Reading books on the subject of self improvement or self-improvement is good for you. A good book can provide you with the information that you need to get started on your journey toward a new you. Try to pick a volume that has already been well-received by others because poorly done books in this category are fairly common.

Reading this article will not be helpful if you do not start applying these tips. You can?t succeed if you just sit there doing nothing. Use these tips in your life to start seeing your self improvement goals met.

Source: http://amidernia.unblog.fr/2013/03/23/the-best-advice-for-anyone-focused-on-self-improvement/

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Congress takes action on guns

The comprehensive gun package introduced in the Senate Thursday faces an uncertain future, with many Republicans and moderate Democrats quibbling over the universal background check requirement in the bill, but Congress has certainly already acted in some ways on guns, even passing a government spending bill that includes four gun provisions which actually loosen gun regulations.

The CR, Washington speak for continuing resolution, approved Thursday that will keep the government funded for the next six months included four gun measures that have long been in the CR's base bill but were made permanent by the CR passed this week.

One measure prevents the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from requiring firearms dealers to maintain inventories to ensure weapons haven't been stolen, while another provision prevents the ATF from denying licenses to firearms dealers who report no business activity.

A third provision prevents the government from changing the definition of antique guns, and a fourth measure requires the ATF to include disclaimer language in its research data saying the information can't be used to make conclusions about gun crimes.

These measures, tucked away in the CR, seem to loosen gun regulations as the Senate is introducing legislation it's spent months cultivating.

Next month the Senate will consider a comprehensive gun package, which includes universal background checks and a gun trafficking measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the gun legislation Thursday evening, and it will face a vote when the Senate returns from recess in April.

"I hope negotiations will continue over the upcoming break to reach a bipartisan compromise on background checks, and I am hopeful that they will succeed," Reid said in a statement. "If a compromise is reached, I am open to including it in the base bill. But I want to be clear: in order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks."

But the comprehensive gun package will face an uphill battle due to the universal background check portion of the bill, originally introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., which Republicans worry will lead to a national registry of guns.

And stripped from the comprehensive bill is the controversial assault weapons ban, which will be voted on as an amendment to the bill instead of as part of the full package. The assault weapons ban proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., drew heated debate between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month.

"Once debate begins, I will ensure that a ban on assault weapons, limits to high-capacity magazines, and mental health provisions receive votes, along with other amendments. In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for all of these provisions to receive votes, and I will ensure that they do," Reid said in the statement.

Vice President Joe Biden, who has led the administration's gun reform initiatives, called on Congress to show "courage" Thursday as they deliberate over the gun proposals next month and made the case for banning high capacity magazines, a proposal that's not included in the comprehensive gun package.

"For all those who say we shouldn't or couldn't ban high-capacity magazines, I just ask them one question: Think about Newtown. Think about Newtown. Think about how many of these children may, or teachers may be alive today had [Adam Lanza] had to reload three times as many times as he did," Biden said in a news conference at New York City Hall with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and families of Newtown victims Thursday.

"Even though restrictions on military-style weapons will not be part of the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate, it will get a vote ? by the full Senate as an amendment to the bill. And everyone's going to have to stand up and say yea or nay, and then the rest of us have to decide just how we feel about people and their stance," Bloomberg said. "We will do everything to win support for it, and I know the White House will be doing everything that they can too."

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congress-done-guns-whats-come-132605275.html

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FAA to close 149 air traffic control towers to meet required budget cut

Jim Urquhart / REUTERS

Annette Abplanalp, an air traffic control specialist who works for Serco Inc., watches plane traffic from the control tower at the Ogden-Hinckley Airport in Ogden, Utah, in this file photo taken March 11. The Federal Aviation Administration will close 149 federal contract air traffic control towers, including Ogden, beginning April 7.

By Jason Keyser, The Associated Press

CHICAGO --?Under orders to trim hundreds of millions of dollars from its budget, the Federal Aviation Administration released a final list Friday of 149 air traffic control facilities that it will close at small airports around the country starting early next month.

The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers under procedures that all pilots are trained to carry out.

The plan has raised concerns since a preliminary list of facilities was released a month ago. Those worries include the impact on safety and the potential financial effect on communities that rely on airports as key economic engines for attracting businesses and tourists.

"We will work with the airports and the operators to ensure the procedures are in place to maintain the high level of non-towered airports," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement.

The FAA is being forced to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities at small airports with lighter traffic. The changes are part of the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect March 1.

All of the airports targeted for tower shutdowns have fewer than 150,000 total flight operations per year. Of those, fewer than 10,000 are commercial flights by passenger airlines.

Airport directors, pilots and others in the aviation sector have argued that stripping away an extra layer of safety during the most critical stages of flight will elevate risks and at the very least slow years of progress in making the U.S. aviation network the safest in the world.

Airlines have yet to say whether they will continue offering service to airports that lose tower staff. Any scaling back of passenger service could have major economic impact for communities.

Mark Hanna, director of the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield, Ill., says without ground controllers as backup the risk to operate "goes up exponentially," especially at airports like his, which have such a broad mix of aircraft types: everything from privately operated Piper Cubs to the larger passenger planes of United and American airlines.

That an aviation sector as sensitive as air traffic control could become subject to political brinkmanship in Washington was especially frustrating, he said.

Hoping to escape the final cut, he and other airport directors were left to argue with the FAA about whether the closure of their facilities would adversely affect what the agency described in a letter as the "national interest."?

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/29e28f28/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C220C174186280Efaa0Eto0Eclose0E1490Eair0Etraffic0Econtrol0Etowers0Eto0Emeet0Erequired0Ebudget0Ecut0Dlite/story01.htm

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Kiva Piloting Microlending For U.S. Small Biz, Clinton Says It's ?A Very Big Deal'

Do you have a favorite coffee shop or dressmaker in your neighborhood? Now you can do a lot more than simply rave about your favorite local business to a friend: microloan giant, Kiva, is bringing crowdfunding to U.S. businesses. Normally reserved for struggling, developing-world entrepreneurs, Kiva is piloting a new project, called Zip, to allow small business owners to solicit micro-investments from their neighbors. “This is a very big deal,” said President Bill Clinton, announcing the Zip pilot project in his hometown of Little Rock, Ark. “We have gotten ourselves in a situation now where the only people who can get real money are the people who don’t need to borrow it.” Mass online investing has been an entrepreneurial dream for years, but political hangups at the Securities and Exchange Commission have delayed progress on so-called “crowdfunding”. To this day, there are still regulations about the number of investors a business can have and their minimum personal wealth. Zip cleverly skirts regulation: “Kiva is a nonprofit and makes no money from the loans we facilitate, instead we depend upon optional donations,” explains co-founder Premal Shah. “Kiva lenders make no money from the money they lend, they only expect the money they put in as a loan to be paid back. Because of this model Kiva?s crowdfunding platform falls outside of SEC rules.” Lending money, regardless of regulation, so Kiva requires that small businesses have the confidence of a “Trustee,” on organizations or individuals who vouch for the credibility of the borrowers. Trustees function like any other noteworthy investor in a startup, but in a more public way that permits the masses to invest confidently without an elite network of established investors. To give microlending some viral flare, “When borrowers successfully repay their loan, they too can become Trustees and endorse other small business owners in their community.” Ideally, success begets more success, facilitating a cascade of local consumption and investing. Zip caters especially to local businesses with a social good edge. At Old Skool Cafe, at-risk youth serve piping hot Java, to give them a better future outside the prison system. Mandela Foods Cooperative specializes in cooking up healthy desserts. Loans start out as low as $25. You can check out Kiva’s pilot project?here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BZgWFUQy5jU/

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Zynga relaunches gaming site; no Facebook sign-in needed ...

Gerry Shih , Reuters ? ? ? 18 hrs.

Online game publisher Zynga relaunched its website on Thursday, allowing users to play its games without first signing on to Facebook, a significant step toward establishing its independence from Facebook.

The relaunch of Zynga.com is the latest step in the slow dissolution of a special partnership that once bound two of the most influential players in the social Internet industry.

Tim Catlin, general manager of Zynga.com, told Reuters he believed Zynga's players wanted to create unique player names that were not tied to their Facebook accounts, which displays their real names.

"You had to use your Facebook account to play previously, but this is going to change going forward," said Catlin, who added that existing players will still be able to log in with their Facebook accounts.

New players, however, will be able to easily sign up without using Facebook credentials ? long a hallmark of many Zynga games.

"We've been able to greatly streamline that process," Catlin said of the new Zynga.com website, which has been in the works for the past year.

Founded in 2007, Zynga achieved a searing growth rate in its early years by exclusively tapping Facebook's network to gain new users while offering games directly within Facebook.com web pages.

For several years the companies enjoyed a lucrative and symbiotic relationship, with Zynga deriving close to 90 percent of its revenues from Facebook games, while Facebook received roughly 15 percent of its income in the form of fees from Zynga.

But Zynga's competitive advantage on the world's largest social network gradually shrank as other publishers entered the market, and the company's leadership has been faulted for not diversifying away from Facebook's platform earlier.

Last year, Facebook and Zynga announced that they agreed to amend a longstanding deal that had given Zynga special privileges on the Facebook platform.

Rather than relying on Facebook's communications features, Zynga has focused on building out features of its own such as its "social stream," a bar that is displayed within games to connect players to each other.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/zynga-relaunches-gaming-site-no-facebook-sign-needed-1C9008770

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Amanda Bynes Claims She Coined "LOLOLOL," Drake is Hot

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/amanda-bynes-claims-she-coined-lololol-drake-is-hot/

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