Nidhruvi blog

Bahrain Shiite opposition urges Iran not to 'meddle'

Bahrain's Shiite opposition leader on Wednesday urged Shiite Iran to keep out of the Arab country's internal affairs, after government charges that Tehran had orchestrated month-long protests.

Ali Salman also warned against Bahrain being used for a proxy war between rival regional superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"We urge Iran not to meddle in Bahraini internal affairs," he told a press conference, also demanding the withdrawal of Saudi-led Gulf troops deployed in the kingdom in mid-March to help quash the protests.

"We demand Saudi Arabia withdraw the Peninsula Shield forces," he said. "We do not want Bahrain to turn into a battlefield for Saudi Arabia and Iran."

Twenty-four people, four of them police, were killed in a month of unrest, Bahrain's Interior Minister Rashed bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa said on Wednesday, linking the troubles to Lebanon's Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah.

Barbour defends use of state plane for DC events

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Friday defended his use of a state jet to fly to political events and conduct state business in Washington, saying he hadn't used the plane more than previous governors.

"I will tell you that compared to my predecessor, my hours on our state plane are almost exactly the same, less than 10 percent difference per year," Barbour told The Associated Press during a visit to Iowa.

Democrat Ronnie Musgrove served as Mississippi governor before Barbour was elected in 2003. The Republican governor was re-elected in 2007.

State finance records show Barbour billed taxpayers $7,020 to fly himself, his wife, two aides and two security guards to Washington, where Barbour spoke before the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. The trip was part of a weekend of politicking that also included an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

Time magazine first reported on its website that Barbour had billed taxpayers for the trip. The Associated Press obtained flight records Thursday that listed the purpose of the trip as "meeting with congressional members."

The flight has created an image problem for Barbour because it clashes with the tough-minded fiscal conservative message the prospective presidential candidate has offered on the campaign trail.

But Barbour said Friday he had state business in Washington, and his aides said that justified use of the Cessna Citation.

"The trip requests make it clear the governor was on official business, including meetings with members of Congress about issues ranging from economic development to energy policy and health care reform — all important to the people of Mississippi," spokeswoman Laura Hipp said.

Barbour has not released details of his schedule for that weekend.

Barbour spoke briefly to the AP before an event with a conservative group in suburban Des Moines. Reporters weren't allowed into that event, sponsored by a conservative group called the Iowa Renewal Society.

"I'm just glad to meet them and talk about what's going on in the country," Barbour said. "We've got foreign policy issues, we've got economic issues."

Barbour said he won't make a decision on seeking the Republican presidential nomination until next month. But, he will appear Saturday at a forum of potential Republican presidential candidates in Des Moines.

One of the people joining him will be former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spent part of Friday taping an episode of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program to air later in the weekend. Gingrich criticized President Barack Obama's handling of air assaults in Libya and accused him of going to war without having a real consultation with Congress.

"We're seeing a president flounder on Libya," Gingrich said. "This is nonsense. The American involvement is a mess."

But Gingrich himself has wavered on Libya. Two weeks ago, he criticized Obama for not being more forceful in leading an international campaign to destroy Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses and save rebels from defeat. Then Wednesday, he backtracked and said he wouldn't have intervened if he'd been president.

Gingrich said he'll likely announce a decision on running for president in the next five weeks but left little doubt that he's likely to seek the GOP nomination.

"I think it's fair to say we're a lot closer to running than not running," he said.

Gingrich and Barbour will be joined Saturday by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain at the event sponsored by U.S. Rep. Steve King, a conservative Republican from western Iowa.

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Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report from Jackson, Miss.

U.S., Global Health Care Leaders to Convene in Washington D.C., April 4-6, for 8th Annual World Health Care Congress

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, among 1,800 senior leaders from all sectors of health care industry to attend

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 8th Annual World Health Care Congress (WHCC)will convene next week, April 4-6, 2011 in Washington D.C. with more than 1,800 health care leaders to address the challenges of health reform, cost, quality and delivery. This event presents leading-edge news and insights from all industry sectors, including Fortune 500 companies, insurers, hospitals and health systems, pharmaceutical and biotech executives, academics, analysts and government officials.

WHAT: The 8th Annual World Health Care Congress

WHEN: April 4-6, 2011

WHERE: Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, MD

For a more detailed Congress agenda, keynote sessions and key speakers available for interview, please visit .

The faculty of 200 speakers includes:

John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market

Mark Bertolini, CEO and President, Aetna

David Cordani, CEO, CIGNA

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana)

Douglas Elmendorf, Director, Congressional Budget Office

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Chair, Clinical Center Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health

Toby Cosgrove, CEO and President, Cleveland Clinic

George Halvorson, Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Permanente

Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Phil Bredesen, 48th Governor, Tennessee

Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, President, Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer, HCA

New focuses for 2011 include:

The Status of health reform after one yearAccountable Care OrganizationsState health policy issuesStrategies for prevention, wellness and health promotionNext generation health IT and mHealthThe World Health Innovation SummitThe 8th Annual World Health Care Congress (WHCC) is World Congress' flagship event in which more than 1,800 health care, government and corporate leaders formulate solutions to the challenges of health care cost, quality and delivery. WHCC convenes the major sectors in health care to determine actionable goals and implementation strategies to demonstrate quality, consumer choice, cost-effectiveness and transparency. The 8th Annual World Health Care Congress is organized with support from: Presidential Sponsor Alere, Official Well-Being Sponsor Healthways, Official Healthcare Decisions Sponsors Health Dialog, Official Innovation Series Sponsor UnitedHealth Group, and educational underwriters, McKessson, VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, Kaiser Permanente, Cisco, TriZetto, Accretive Health, Booz & Company, GE healthymagination, Alcatel-Lucent, Healthstat, Access MediQuip, Allscripts, VSP Vision Care, Eliza, Aetna, AmericanWell, Thomson Reuters, Companion Data Services, CareLogistics, Ortho-McNeil, HealthHub powered by PayFlex, and Healthwise.

Contact: Patrick Golden, Director of Communications, World Congress

SOURCEWorld Health Care Congress

4 Ur Love .Alexander Robotnick | Electronation (23 february 2008) .Relaxation - Various Artists .Mai | Princess Candy .Various Artists | Kaos One Hundred sampler

Western DIY outlets retreat in China

At a near-empty B&Q home improvement outlet in Beijing, much of the foot traffic is due to the location of a public toilet next to the entrance -- not the store's patio furniture or circular saws.

It's a sign of how foreign "do-it-yourself" big-box chains have struggled to attract customers in China, where homeowners have little experience in renovating apartments and prefer to pay low-wage decorators to do it for them.

"Do-it-yourself is not popular in China," Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, told AFP.

"The feeling in China is that if you do it yourself that means you are a peasant -- not the sturdy, manly image DIY chains have crafted in the US."

Despite China's booming property sales and a home-improvement market growing 15 percent a year and worth $100 billion in 2009, such chains have been forced to pare back operations in China -- or leave the country altogether.

UK-based B&Q, whose website describes it as "the market leader in China," entered the Chinese market in 1999, but in 2009 abruptly closed 22 of its 63 stores.

Meanwhile US giant Home Depot, which entered China in 2006, has shuttered nearly half its outlets, leaving it with just seven.

The latest casualty of the tough Chinese home-decorating market is French construction group Saint-Gobain, which said this month it had closed all of its La Maison building material stores.

Analysts said overseas executives mistakenly assumed they could replicate the Western big-box model in China, where many people are renovating for the first time and have little experience using power tools.

"A lot of apartments in China are concrete boxes and have to be decorated from scratch -- very few homeowners know how to do that themselves," Zhou Wei, chief financial officer of advertising agency Charm Communications, told AFP.

These foreign retailers have also stocked products such as garden hoses, picnic tables and barbecues -- poor sellers in a country where people live largely in apartments with no balconies.

Rein said that on some of the few DIY items that do sell in China, both B&Q and Home Depot priced themselves out of the local market by charging much more than Chinese competitors.

In the Beijing B&Q store, bored sales assistants far outnumbered customers. An employee said this was normal for a weekday but it was busier at the weekends -- thanks to the smelly public toilet.

One of the shop's few customers, a man surnamed Ding, said he wanted to buy "important items" like pipe fittings for an apartment he was renovating, as he believed they would be better quality at a foreign outlet, albeit more expensive.

For everything else, he said he would get an interior designer to buy at Chinese stores where prices would be cheaper.

Home Depot spokesman Ron DeFeo admitted the company had made mistakes since entering the Chinese market more than four years ago and had since "learned a lot".

"Our stores were modelled after the US market and its DIY format, but China is more of a DIFM (do-it-for-me) market," DeFeo told AFP.

Another problem, according to Saint-Gobain spokesman Nicolas Nie, is that more and more homes sold in major cities such as Shanghai were already decorated, reducing the "prospect to serve individual customers".

B&Q did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Foreign home-improvement stores are not alone in their struggle to find the right formula for consumers in the country of more than 1.3 billion people.

US toy maker Mattel this month shut the world's first and only Barbie concept store in Shanghai, while US consumer electronics giant Best Buy abruptly closed its self-branded stores last month.

Analysts said some overseas companies have been left in the dust by Chinese rivals who have opened more outlets across the country, secured better locations and enjoy stronger bargaining power with local manufacturers.

But some firms such as Swedish furniture giant Ikea appear to have found the right mix -- it plans to more than double its number of stores in China from the current eight by 2015.

Zhou said Ikea had adapted to the local market by giving novice home decorators examples in its stores of living room, bedroom and kitchen styles suited to Chinese apartments.

India, Pakistan waiting for their W.Cup semi clash

With their World Cup semi-final hailed as a diplomatic game-changer, as well as the mother of all cricket battles, India and Pakistan were on Monday just desperate to get the game underway.

But in keeping with an occasion mired in sub-plots and off-field distractions, it was the role of Pakistan strike bowler Shoaib Akhtar, destined to miss Wednesday's encounter, who was the centre of discussion in Mohali.

The man once nicknamed the Rawalpindi Express before a series of injury and disciplinary problems derailed his career will retire once the tournament ends.

The 35-year-old was clobbered to all points of the Pallekele ground in Sri Lanka by New Zealand's batsmen in a group match and has been surplus to requirements ever since.

Team manager Intikhab Alam hit back at claims that Shoaib, with little chance of featuring in the match, was lacking motivation.

"Shoaib has been fully involved in match practice, and is available for selection," Alam told the pakpassion website.

"He's very much part of the squad and there is no question about his motivation or enthusiasm to play in this important game. Akhtar is ready for the semi final.

"The rumours about Shoaib no longer focussing on cricket after announcing his retirement are false."

Teammate Misbah-ul-Haq also defended his teammate who has featured in just three games at the tournament.

"Shoaib Akhtar is a class bowler," said Misbah. "He has performed for Pakistan on a number of occasions including the 1999 World Cup (when the team lost to Australia in the final)."

And Misbah said that, at the very least, he would help Pakistan's batsmen get ready for the challenge of facing India's seamers.

"Batsmen get to prepare well against pace bowling when they face him at the nets. If he does play in the coming matches, I feel it will give us a psychological advantage."

Both sides, who are sharing the same hotel in Chandigarh, trained at Mohali's Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium on Monday - at opposite sides of the ground.

The hype over the India-Pakistan game has completely overshadowed Tuesday's first semi-final between 1996 champions Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Colombo.

Sri Lanka defeated the Black Caps by 81 runs in the 2007 semi-finals in the Caribbean and then coasted to a 112-run win in the group stages of this edition 10 days ago in Mumbai.

"New Zealand are always a competitive side, they are very balanced, so we will never take them lightly. We know that it's a big challenge to beat them again," said Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara.

"It's nice that at least one sub-continent team has been in the final since 1992, but we can't take anything for granted. We have to work hard and shouldn't think too far ahead."

Meanwhile, under-fire Australia captain Ricky Ponting has been given just over two days to decide his future as selectors said the next one-day squad would be announced on Wednesday.

Ponting, who let slip Australia's 12-year grasp on the World Cup last week -- just three months after their heavy Ashes defeat -- has already hinted that he may step down.

Cricket Australia said a squad for next month's three-match one-day tour of Bangladesh was expected to be announced on Wednesday, effectively setting a deadline for the veteran skipper.

One man who will definitely not be in that squad is fast bowler Shaun Tait who on Monday announced his retirement from one-day cricket to concentrate on the Twenty20 form of the game.