Campaign against illegal immigrants strains coalition

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) - An advertising campaign designed to get illegal immigrants to leave Britain opened up a rift in the government on Monday when Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said it was working but his coalition partner said the idea was "offensive".

The trial campaign saw two vans drive around six London boroughs in the last week displaying billboards telling illegal immigrants to "Go Home or Face Arrest", part of a wider government crackdown aimed at reducing net migration - the numerical difference between people coming in and out of the country.

Urging people to contact the authorities "for free advice, and help with travel documents", the posters carried a big picture of a pair of handcuffs and reported how many illegal immigrants had been arrested in the last week.

Voluntary immigrant returns were the "most cost-effective" way of reducing illegal migration, officials said.

Immigration is a hot button issue in Britain, where Cameron is trying to stop an exodus of voters from his ruling Conservatives to a populist anti-immigration party before a parliamentary election in two years' time.

Conservative strategists believe the campaign will be popular with many voters, but the topic is an uncomfortable one for Cameron's junior coalition partner, the left-leaning Lib Dems.

Keen to distance themselves from the Conservatives in voters' minds before the next election, they have abandoned ideas for an amnesty for illegal immigrants and now advocate a tougher approach.

But they have bridled at the ad campaign.

'STUPID AND OFFENSIVE'

Business Secretary Vince Cable, a Lib Dem, called it "stupid and offensive", saying he thought it very unlikely to be continued.

"It is designed, apparently, to sort of create a sense of fear in the British population that we have a vast problem of illegal immigration. We have a problem, but it's not a vast one," Cable told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.

He said the Lib Dems had not been consulted about the initiative.

But a spokesman for Cameron, who is on holiday in Portugal, said on Monday that the prime minister didn't agree with Cable's criticism. "No is the short answer," the spokesman told reporters when asked whether he agreed the campaign was "stupid and offensive".

"The pilot is already working. The pilot is about targeting people who are here illegally and giving them the opportunity to leave the country voluntarily rather than be arrested, detained and removed."

The government would review the pilot's success and examine how and whether the campaign could be continued, he added, saying there had been "a great deal of interest" from illegal immigrants in the scheme.

Cameron has ruled with the Lib Dems since 2010, but the two have taken increasingly different positions on issues such as Britain's role in Europe and on reform of Britain's unelected upper house of parliament.

Many traditional supporters of the Lib Dems felt alienated when they struck a coalition deal with the Conservatives, a centre-right party, and have been further disenchanted by what they see as the coalition's "lurch to the right" on immigration and welfare policy.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-numbers-pose-political-problem-cameron-023824742.html

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Emerging problem for Chinese airports - mobs of raging passengers

BEIJING, China - Violent attacks have erupted at airports across China, with passengers venting their rage on hapless staff over a summer of grinding delays.

China has spent billions on building some of the largest and most modern airports in the world, but, much to everyone's embarrassment, it seems unable to get planes to fly between them on time.

Last month, only 18 per cent of the 22,000 flights out of Beijing's Capital airport departed on schedule, according to the aviation research company FlightStats, making it the world's worst major airport for punctuality. Not one Chinese airport managed to get even half of its flights to leave on time.

The delays have seen mobs of angry passengers mount at least eight large protests at departure gates in the past two months, during two of which staff were attacked. There is even a new Chinese phrase for the rampaging hordes: the "kong nu zu", or "air rage tribe".

On Thursday July 18, more than 30 passengers broke through security and stormed the runway at Nanchang airport after being delayed for seven hours by bad weather.

The weekend before, passengers in Shanghai tried to rip off an attendant's name badge before hitting her. In the subsequent fracas, two airport staff were injured and three passengers arrested. "The passengers were very emotional and unstable," Ni Xuying, one of the injured employees, told state television.

At the end of June, a primary school teacher lost control when her flight from Wenzhou to Beijing was cancelled, slapping and kicking an Air China attendant to the ground. "I waited there for such a long time. Nobody served me a bottle of water or a piece of cake or anything," Liu Weiwei said in her defence.

In March, Graham Fewkes, a British businessman based in Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post he had witnessed cheers when a passenger assaulted a stewardess on a delayed flight to the island of Sanya.

"The other passengers were applauding as the man was hitting her," he said.

Hong Kong Airlines last year said it had an average of three incidents involving disruptive passengers every week and has introduced training in wing chun, a form of kung fu, for its cabin crew.

The situation at China's airports is now so volatile that staff have been told not to announce any major delays.

The problems have been caused by a sudden surge in air traffic, flowing into skies that are tightly controlled by the People's Liberation Army. With only a few permitted routes, issues such as bad weather often force airlines to hold back flights rather than divert them.

The heavy delays are exacting an economic cost. Marco Pearman-Parish at Corporation China, a consultancy that helps companies establish a presence in China, said some 60 per cent of his clients at a recent meeting were considering moving their operations away from Beijing because of the constant problems at the airport. "The delays are making it impossible to do business," he said.

Source: http://www.eturbonews.com/36566/emerging-problem-chinese-airports-mobs-raging-passengers

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Troicki appeals ban for skipping blood-doping test

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ? Serbian tennis player Victor Troicki will appeal to sports' highest court to fight his 18-month suspension for failing to provide a blood test.

Troicki says he will trust the Court of Arbitration for Sport to recognize "a clear mistake from the on-site doping control officer."

The 2010 Davis Cup winner says he declined to give blood at the Monte Carlo Masters in April because he felt ill.

Troicki insists the doping control officer advised he could "skip the test if I wrote an explanation letter" to the International Tennis Federation.

The ITF suspended Troicki on Thursday after its tribunal said his explanation "did not constitute compelling justification."

Troicki says of the doping control officer, "once she found out that she didn't follow the procedures, she turned her back on me."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/troicki-appeals-ban-skipping-blood-doping-test-151130368.html

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Facebook shares soar 30 percent on big 2Q

Originally published July 25, 2013 at 9:34 AM | Page modified July 25, 2013 at 3:58 PM

Facebook shares soared 30 percent Thursday after the social media giant pushed aggressively into mobile advertising and reported much-improved second-quarter revenue and profit.

The stock is trading at levels not seen since shortly after Facebook's initial public offering last year. The IPO was plagued by nagging questions about whether the world's biggest social network could follow users on to the mobile phones and tablets that have upended the technology sector.

Facebook began showing mobile advertisements for the first time last spring. It reported after the market closed Wednesday that those ads accounted for 41 percent of its total advertising revenue in the most-recent quarter.

Overall revenue jumped 53 percent to $1.81 billion for the period. It also reversed a year-ago loss.

Those numbers evaporated doubts about Facebook's ability to capitalize on the mobile market, and trading volume in the company's shares rocketed Thursday.

Facebook's stock jumped 30 percent in Thursday's trading to close at $34.36.

Facebook Inc., based in Menlo, Calif., priced its stock at $38 when it went public in May 2012.

Goldman Sachs said Thursday that with concern about the company's growth prospects compounding monthly, everyone had been waiting for a breakout quarter.

The recent quarter, Goldman believes, should help mitigate those fears.

In addition to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, BMO Capital Markets, Jefferies & Co. and Wedbush raised their price targets for the stock.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter called Facebook a "new king of phones," and said he expects revenue growth to be supplemented next year, as Facebook starts making money from its Instagram photo and video-sharing service.

Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021469766_apusfacebookstock.html?syndication=rss

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What's Snooki's Dream Wedding Dress? A Leopard Print Gown!

UPDATE: In response to her wedding dress rumors, Snooki?tweeted?this afternoon:?"LOL at this story of wanting a leopard print gown. Your source is wrong again, I haven't even looked yet. #TryAgain."

??

Apparently, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi wants her walk down the aisle to be a walk on the wild side as well.

For her nuptials to baby daddy Jionni LaValle, the former Jersey Shore star is considering an animal-print wedding dress.

That's right, a source tells E! News that while shopping for her bridal gown: "Snooki was saying she wanted either a leopard- or a tiger-striped wedding dress. Everyone around her was like, ?You've got to be kidding.' But she wasn't. She was dead serious."

PHOTOS: Stars' Vera Wang wedding gowns

Snooki wouldn't be the first start to skip the traditional white hue. Jessica Biel and Anne Hathaway wore pink on their big days and most recently Tina Turner donned a green Giorgio Armani when she tied the knot to longtime love Erwin Bach in Switzerland over the weekend.

Mind you, a big cat patterned wedding dress might be a first for Hollywood. Then again, Snooki was never much of a fashion follower?just take a look at? her unique sunglasses line for kids!

PHOTOS: What Hollywood brides-to-be should wear

?

Luckily fans will get to see her wedding dress from all angles when her "I Dos" are featured on the upcoming third season of Snooki & JWoww.

PHOTOS: Celebs brides who didn't wear white

Source: http://feeds.eonline.com/~r/eonline/au/topstories/~3/51-SGKh7Dy4/what-s-snooki-s-dream-wedding-dress-a-leopard-print-gown

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NASA's IRIS telescope offers first glimpse of sun's mysterious atmosphere

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The moment when a telescope first opens its doors represents the culmination of years of work and planning -- while simultaneously laying the groundwork for a wealth of research and answers yet to come. It is a moment of excitement and perhaps even a little uncertainty. On July 17, 2013, the international team of scientists and engineers who supported and built NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, all lived through that moment. As the spacecraft orbited around Earth, the door of the telescope opened to view the mysterious lowest layers of the sun's atmosphere and the results thus far are nothing short of amazing. The data is crisp and clear, showing unprecedented detail of this little-observed region.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/6Pi4CxE_QB8/130725141642.htm

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Royal Baby Name Is Classic and Boring

The London bookmakers were spot on: The royal baby will be called George Alexander Louis.

Kate Middleton and Prince William's child will be given the formal title of His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.

The little prince's name is unsurprising, according to a baby name expert, following the steadfast tradition of the British monarchy.

"George and Alexander were the two names with the shortest odds," Laura Wattenberg, baby name expert and creator of babynamewizard.com, told LiveScience. "It is precisely what everyone thought they would do." [The Most Popular and Unique Baby Names]

However, what Prince George's friends and future subjects will call him may not be the name his parents gave him.

Tradition key

All of the royal baby's names are nods to tradition and family heritage, with Queen Elizabeth's father and grandfather both going by the moniker King George. It's also a quintessential British appellation.

"George is the ultimate English name, thanks to St. George, the patron saint of England," Wattenberg said.

Queen Victoria's given name was Alexandrina, and her daughter was Alexandra, Queen of Denmark. And the name Louis has cropped up in several royal families, Wattenberg said.

It was unlikely the royals would go for anything other than the most traditional name, Wattenberg said. Tradition is key, because although Queen Elizabeth is technically the head of Parliament, the royal family no longer plays a key role in political intrigues or the day-to-day running of the country.

"Tradition is what they're all about ? it's what keeps them going, and it's important to honor that in this situation," Wattenberg said. "There's a branding of the monarchy that they had to maintain." [7 Crazy Ways the Royal Baby's Birth is Unique]

Copycats unlikely

Celebrity names often spur a rash of copycats, Wattenberg said. The fame factor is important for rare baby names, such as Jaden, which rose in the ranks after actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith gave that name to their son.

But though the little Prince George of Cambridge may be the most famous baby in the world, his name probably won't be sweeping the United States, anyway.

With a commonplace name such as George, "it's hard to see the needle move because it's already so saturated in the populations," Wattenberg said.

"We've had two president Georges in recent years and it had absolutely no impact on the name," Wattenberg said. "Even if you don't think George Bush would have been a likely candidate to make it stylish, George Clooney didn't help it either. You have to wonder in this country how much another George can do."

Princely nickname?

And though the prince may be named George, there's no guarantee that he'll eventually become King George or even be called George in the popular press. Queen Victoria took up her middle name when she ascended to the throne, and Prince Harry's given name is actually Henry.

Even little George's namesake, Queen Elizabeth's father, King George VI, was actually named Albert. He took up the more classically English name around the time of World War II, worried that the name Albert sounded too German.

"The name they rule under isn't always the name they were given," Wattenberg said.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+.?Follow?LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/royal-baby-name-classic-boring-184357047.html

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