UK calls for G8 financial aid for 'Arab Spring'

The UK is giving £110m over four years for political and economic development in North Africa and the Middle East.

At the two-day G8 summit in France, the UK and US are pushing for other pledges of financial support.

Mr Cameron said the summit should send a message to the countries of the Arab Spring that "we are on your side".

The £110m from the UK will come out of the existing Department for International Development budget.

The money constitutes the UK's contribution to calls for the G8 group of leading industrialised nations to do all they can to encourage the so-called Arab Spring.

China firmly opposes remarks against one-China principle: FM spokeswoman

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said late Tuesday that China firmly opposes remarks and actions against one-China principle.

There is only one China rift goldin the world and Taiwan is part of China's territory. "This is China's consistent and clear stance on the Taiwan issue, and is also a fact recognized by the international community including the United States," Jiang said in a statement.

"We firmly oppose remarks and actions of some Americans who ignore the fact while violating the one-China principle," Jiang added.

Jiang made the statement in response to a recent comment by Richard Bush, former chairman and managing director of the "American Institute in Taiwan."

Bush reportedly said at a seminar that the fact that the People's Republic of China governs the mainland could notera goldt defy the existence of "the Republic of China" since 1912.

According to media reports, Bush said if Beijing accepted it, the "two-China concept" raised by the United States decades ago could be applied to the relations across the Taiwan Strait.

Weather, earth and people

The major cold has already arrived in Beijing, and that means the New Year is coming. Traditional Chinese medical science pays attention to treatment focusing three factors—the weather, earth and people. People’s activities and body conditions are closely related with the weather and need to be adjurift goldsted according to the changes in weather. The twenty four solar terms are the treasure of Chinese culture. Major cold is the last solar term of one year, but it is the beginning of a new year’s circulation. Therefore, it is very important for people to pay attention to their health during the coldest time of the year.

The vitality—be in a happy mood

It is said that people can resist the frostiness of the severe winter only when they are in good moods and have healthy blood, pulse and energy. Therefore, people should keep good moods and avoid excessrift platinumive delight or sadness. Especially for the elderly, keeping smooth and mild moods can reduce the risk of heart and brain disease.

Mr. Zhu writes poetry to raise the generous birds

The roar of the spring thunder comes on the day of the Awakening of Insects, giving baby swallows quite a scare! These baby sparrows’ parents are flying out. In the sky I saw two adult sparrows with a worm in their beaks, darting through the air. They are looking for a perfect place to build a nest. I’m so sad that these two sparrows are not those baby sparrows’ parents In the evening the sparrow parents still have not returned, leaving their baby sparrows waiting alone for food. A weak chirping sound comes from the nest. The next morning I found that these two big sparrows didn’t return to their nest; instead they come here to find food for the abandoned baby sparrows. They fly about in the air to bring enough food. As time goes by, baby swallows grow up, flying out of the nest one after another, twittering happily in the sky. They must express thanks to the big sparrows. I feel touched by this scene; sparrows are tiny animals but have the same feelings as humans. Animals can’t speak out their feelings, but I can. I take out my pen and record this story.

About the poet: Jia Dao, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, known by his pen name, Liangxian, was born in Fanyan (now around Beijing city) in 779 and died in 843. In his early years, Jia Dao became a monk with the pen name Wuben. In the winter of the 5th year of Zhenguan period (810) in the Tang Dynasty, he went to Changan (capital of Tang Dynasty) and met Zhangji. In the next spring he went to Luoyang and in there he met Hanyu (a famous poet in Tang Dynasty). Jia Dao’s poetry was highly appreciated by Hanyu. After that, he resumed his secular life and took imperial examinations several times but never succeeded.

Putin to visit China, oil pipeline on agenda

Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the possibility of building an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to China, Russian Ambassador Sergei Razov said in Beijing Thursday morning.

Razov told a press conference that discussions on the feasibility of the construction of an oil pipeline extending from Russia's Skovorodino to the Russia-China border are underway between Transneft of Russia and China National Petroleum Corporation, which are to take charge of the pipeline construction.

The proposed pipeline will be a branch of a planned oil pipeline that runs from eastern Siberia to Russia's Pacific coast.

Lazov said Russia-China cooperation in the field of energy is "very important." He expressed the rift goldhope that during President Putin's visit to China from March 21 to 22, the heads of state of the two countries will reach new agreement on energy development.

Energy cooperation between Russia and China has a broad prospect and bright future, Lazov said.

Lazov andrift platinum Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui held a joint press conference on the Year of Russia to be held in China. Russian President Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao will jointly inaugurate the event in Beijing next week.

Lazov said Russia plans to supply 15 million tons of crude oil to China by railways in 2006. In addition, the two countries are discussing exports of natural gas to China.

Japan Promises to Shut Down Fukushima Reactors By Year's End

Japan says it will shut down reactors at the Fukushima-1 power plant by the end of the year. The announcement comes despite revelations that a natural disaster in March damaged the nuclear facility worse than earlier believed.

Serious troubles continue to beleaguer the operators of the Japanese nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture that was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami. But Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament Monday the damaged reactors will be shut down sometime this year.

Kan says the timeline for bringing the four damaged reactors into a state of cold shutdown will not be changed. He insists that will happen in six to nine months.

That timetable is consistent with a plan Tokyo Electric Power Company announced one month ago. But since then it has become apparent that the reactors suffered worse damage than earlier thought. The number one reactor, it is now acknowledged, suffered a meltdown soon after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan.

African Agency Helps Provide Support Necessary for Economic Growth

Africtera golda has been making increasing strides in economic growth over the past two decades. Part of the credit goes to donors and agencies that work to strengthen the governmental and economic structures needed to build modern economies.

Among them is the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), a 20-year-old agency whose board of governors includes representatives of African governments, the World Bank and IMF, the UN Develorift platinumpment Program and the African Development Bank.

The executive secretary of the foundation, Frannie Leautier, says the ACBF works with universities to help train specialists in the public and private sector.

Custer’s Last Stand

The most famous Indian battle in American history was a final flourish to the Indians’ hopelessly valiant war dance. The battle itself was simply the result of the actions of one vain, headstrong—some have suggested mad—soldier,rift platinum George Armstrong Custer. The Indian victory at the Little Bighorn merely hastened the inevitable: the brutal end of Indian resistance and extinction for their singular way of life.

While the white men wearing blue and gray uniforms fought one another to the death, there were about 300,000 American Indians left in the West. They had been pushed and pressed inward from both coasts by the War of 1812, Manifest Destiny, the Mexican War, the California and Colorado gold rushes, and all the other reasons that whites had for stripping the Indians of their hunting lands. The “permanent Indian frontier” pledged by Andrew Jackson tera gold during the removals earlier in the century had long been breached by private and public enterprises, as had every treaty in the sad history of the Indians. When the Civil War ended, the politicians, prospectors, farmers, railroad builders, and cattlemen were ready to take up where they had left off when the war interrupted.

The most powerful and numerous of the surviving tribes were the Sioux, divided into several smaller groupings: the Santee Sioux rift gold of western Minnesota, who had tried to accept white ways; the Teton Sioux, those extraordinary horse warriors of the Great Plains, led by the Oglala chief Red Cloud; the Hunkpapa, who would produce Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse; and the Tetons’ allies, the Cheyenne of Wyoming and Colorado. Farther south were other tribes: the Arapaho of Colorado; the Comanche of Texas; the Apache, Navajo, and Pueblo of New Mexico.

Was George Washington killed by his doctors?

With a last hurrah, Washington led troops once more in 1794 to suppress the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in the frontier of western Pennsylvania. Like Shays’s Rebellion, it was a revolt of backwoods farmers against the establishment,rift platinum this time over a stiff excise tax placed on whiskey. With 13,000 troops—more men than he had led during the war—Washington rode out in uniform, with Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton by his side, to put down the uprising with ease. In September 1796, setting aside requests that he take a third term, Washington made the last of his many retirement speeches in his Farewell Address, warning against political parties and “passionate attachments” to foreign nations. He was basically ignored on both counts. Washington’s retirement to Mount Vernon was interrupted by the near outbreak of a war with France, which was basically kidnapping American sailors to man its ships in its wars against England. In 1798, Congress asked him to lead the army once more, and Washington agreed. He asked Alexander Hamilton to be his second-in-command, but the disagreement with France was settled, and Washington returned to tera gold Mount Vernon.

After a winter ride in December 1799, Washington fell ill with a throat infection, then called “quinsy” (most likely what is now called strep throat). With his throat badly swollen, Washington had difficulty breathing. Following standard medical practice of the day, Washington was first given a mixture of tea and vinegar. This was followed by calomel,rift gold a commonly used laxative also called “blue mass,” which was intended to flush out sickness. Finally, he was bled by his doctors, a total of four times, taking over half the blood in his body. While the bleeding did not kill him, it certainly didn’t help Washington’s cause. “I die hard,” he said on his deathbed, “but I am not afraid to go.” Washington died on December 14, 1799, two months before his sixty-eighth birthday.

Google to Appeal Street View Ruling in Switzerland

Internet search giant Google says it will lodge an appeal with Switzerland's highest court after a lower court ruled the company's rift gold Street View service must obscure all of the faces and auto license plates before making its pictures available.

Google says if tera gold the ruling is not overturned, it will be forced to close down Switzerland's Street View service, which provides panoramic views of the world's streets.

The ruling by the Federal Administrative Court in Bern followed a complaint by Switzerland's data protection commissioner, Hanspeter Thuer. Google says it must rely on an automatic blurring system, which Thuer says is not completely reliable.

The Street View rift platinum service has sparked similar privacy complaints and legal challenges across Europe and around the world.

What was the House of Burgesses?

Despite the tobacco profits,rift gold controlled in London by a monopoly, Jamestown limped along near extinction. Survival remained a day-today affair while political intrigues back in London reshaped the colony’s destiny. Virginia Company shareholders were angry that their investment was turning out to be a bust, and believed that the “Magazine,” a small group of Virginia Company members who exclusively supplied the colony’s provisions, were draining off profits. A series of reforms was instituted, the most important of which meant settlers could own their land, rather than just working for the company. And the arbitrary tera gold rule of the governor was replaced by English common law.

In 1619, new management was brought to the Virginia Company, and Governor Yeardley of Virginia summoned an elected legislative assembly—the House of Burgesses—which met in Jamestown that year. (A burgess is a person invested with all the privileges of a citizen, and comes from the same root as the French bourgeois.) Besides the governor, there were six councilors appointed by the governor, and two elected representatives from each private estate and two from each of the company’s four estates or tracts. (Landowning males over seventeen years old were eligible to vote.) Their first meeting was cut short by an onslaught of malaria and July heat. While any decisions they made required approval of the company in London, this was clearly the seed from which American rift platinum representative government would grow. The little assembly had a shaky beginning, from its initial malarial summer. In the first place, the House of Burgesses was not an instant solution to the serious problems still faced by the Jamestown settlers. Despite years of immigration to the new colony, Jamestown’s rate of attrition during those first years was horrific. Lured by the prospect of owning land, some 6,000 settlers had been transported to Virginia by 1624. However, a census that year showed only 1,277 colonists alive. A Royal Council asked, “What has become of the five thousand missing subjects of His Majesty?”

How did New Amsterdam become New York?

The Dutch got New York cheap. The English went them one better. They simply took it for nothing. Why pay for what you can steal? Dutch rule in America was not long-lived, but it was certainly influential in the stamp it put on rift platinum the future New York. It was the Dutch who erected, as a defense against Indians, the wall in lower Manhattan from which Wall Street takes its name. And what would some Dutch burgher think of finding today’s Bowery instead of the tidy bouweries, or farms, that had been neatly laid out in accordance with a plan drawn up in Amsterdam? Besides the settlement on Manhattan island,tera gold the Dutch had also established villages, such as Breukelen and Haarlem. And early Dutch and Walloon (Belgian Protestant) settlers included the ancestors of the Roosevelt clan.

New Amsterdam developed far differently from the English colonies, which held out the promise of land ownership for at least some of its settlers. Promising to bring over fifty settlers to work the land, a few wealthy Dutch landholders, or patroons, were able to secure huge tracts along the Hudson in a system that more closely resembled medieval European feudalism than anything else, a system that continued well after the Revolution and that contributed to New York’s reputation as an aristocratic (and, during the Revolution, loyalist) stronghold.

New Amsterdam became New York in one of the only truly bloodless battles in American history. As the two principal competing nations of the early seventeenth century, England and Holland sporadically came to war, and when Charles II reclaimed the throne in 1661 after the period of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, he asserted English rights to North America. Charles II granted his brother, the Duke of York, the largest and richest territorial grant ever made by an English monarch. It included all of present New York, the entire region from the Connecticut to Delaware rivers, Long Island, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the present state of Maine. In 1664, four English frigates carrying 1,000 soldiers sailed into New York Harbor. The Dutch and other settlers there,rift gold unhappy with the administration of the West India Company, gladly accepted English terms despite Peter Stuyvesant’s blustery call to resist. Without a shot fired, New Amsterdam became New York. The Duke of York in turn generously created a new colony when he split off two large tracts of land and gave one each to two friends, Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley, an area that would become New Jersey. Also gained as part of this annexation was a settlement known as New Sweden. Established in 1638 by Peter Minuit (dismissed earlier as governor of New Amsterdam and now in Swedish employ), and centered on the site of Wilmington, Delaware, New Sweden had fallen to the Dutch under Stuyvesant in 1655. (Although this Swedish colony had little lasting impact on American history, the Swedes did make one enormous contribution. They brought with them the log cabin, the construction destined to become the chief form of pioneer housing in the spreading American frontier of the eighteenth century.)

The English exercised a surprisingly tolerant hands-off policy in ruling the former New Amsterdam. Life as it had been under Dutch rule continued for many years.

AOL Readers Share Their Top Health-Care Reform Questions

We asked for them and readers complied.

AOL and AOL Health readers were asked to submit their biggest questions and concerns regarding health-care reform. Rift GoldAOL Health Vice President Marjorie Martin is presenting the Top 3 of those questions to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (pictured left) today during a roundtable discussion that will be livestreamed here from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m.

Sebelius is holding the discussion as an extension of President Obama's State of the Union address.RIFT Platinum Obama promised to work with a bi-partisan Congress and the people of America to correct the flaws in the health-care reform bill passed last March.

The controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 has raised concern across the aisle and last week the Republican-held House of Representatives voted to overturn the bill.

But before the politicians can hold anymore votes, Sebelius is giving the people a chance to speak up.

Thousands of people wrote to us, and the common thread between all the questions seemed to be confusion,rift gold frustration and unhappiness with the new bill.

Here are the top 10 questions asked:

•Why are Congress and the President allowed to pass a Health Care Bill that doesn't cover them? Why are there two standards? Christina, Florida
•Is it true that there is a provision in the health-care bill that starting in 2010, there will be a 3.8 percent sales tax on all real estate sales to help pay for the new bill costs? Wayne, Virginia
•Why can't the United States cover all its citizens right now instead of waiting until 2014? Marie,RIFT Platinum New Hampshire
•Why aren't health-care options available across state lines to open competitive pricing? Paul, Florida
•When will senior citizens that are covered under health-care plans such as ... Medicare be covered for dental? Stan, Texas
•What specific savings plans, proposals, etc. have been implemented as of now related to decreasing fraud and the like in Medicare, Medicaid and other parts of the health-care system? Walt, Colorado
•How can we be sure that we will not be footing the bills for illegal immigrants, who generally fall into the category of low or no income? Pauline, California
•I would like to know some steps that will be taken to ensure that there are enough primary care physicians to treat all the people needing medical care. Jan, California
•Why are so many special interest groups -- like unions and large employers exempt from the mandates of the healthcare act?TERA Gold Kathleen, Ohio
•Why has there been such poor communication about the health care bill? How it works? When will it start? What's the cost? How do I get it? Is anyone listening? Mark, Wisconsin
AOL Health will work over the next few days to answer your Top 10 questions. We have included links in some of the questions, which go to reputable third-party sites that can provide some insight in the meantime.

HHS Secretary: Americans, Congress Will Enjoy Parity in Health Care in 2014

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says not only will Americans have better health care in 2014, but they will enjoy the same type of insurance coverage that the members of Congress have.

"What's underway as one of the features of the affordable care act is building toward state-based insurance exchanges where private companies compete around a set of benefits and those who cannot afford to pay for 100 percent of those benefits,Rift Gold will get a tax credit to help them get there," said Sebelius, during a roundtable discussion on health-care reform Thursday that AOL Health participated in.

The roundtable was held as an extension of President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, during which he called on a bipartisan Congress to work to improve the current bill rather than repeal it.

AOL Health Vice President Marjorie Martin asked the secretary a question from Jack from Kansas who wanted to know when, if ever, RIFT PlatinumAmericans would enjoy the same health benefits that the federal government provides to the members of Congress.

"Not only will Jack and others be able to purchase insurance from a state-based exchange," Sebelius said, "but it will be the same kind of insurance as Congress will have in 2014."

In 2014, the more than 2,000-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will go into full effect. The plan is being phased in slowly, however,rift gold with small steps being taken to bridge the gap between the nation's current health-care system and the future health-care system.

In response to a question on why adults are still being denied insurance coverage if they have preexisting conditions, Sebelius said the government is first making sure children with preexisting conditions are covered.

"The way the new law is working is that starting [this year] insurance companies can no longer deny children who have preexisting conditions coverage," she said. "That's been a long-time discrimination that we've been trying to fix. ... In 2014, with the new exchange marketplaces up and running, RIFT Platinumno company will be able to have an exclusion for adults with preexisting conditions."

In the meantime, Sebelius said every state has a high-risk pool where adults with preexisting conditions can get coverage. But she conceded that the coverage is often expensive.

And although 2014 seems like a long time to wait for a health-care system that covers every American, Sebelius said enacting the plan is a balancing act.

"2014 seems like a long way down the road, but to the team coming together to build the [state-run insurance] exchanges, it feels like tomorrow," she said. "It's really a balance. First we're fixing some of the features of the current marketplace that don't work right now ... like denying children with preexisting conditions coverage on their parents' policies. TERA GoldSo we're offering these bridge strategies and building some of the workforce we need ... and building the community centers we need to handle the additional 30 million to 35 million Americans who will have insurance in 2014. We have to have a framework in place to deal with all of the people so we don't overload it."

Some of that framework, Sebelius said, involves working to fix the primary care physician and nursing shortages in the country by offering scholarships and building geographical models to determine what type of care is needed, as well as where it is needed throughout the country.

Infants Know Size Matters When It Comes to Social Dominance

A new study claims that babies as young as 8 months old understand that size does matter when it comes to power.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Harvard University studied the reactions of children aged 8 to 16 months to cartoons showing a big character and little character in conflict.Rift Gold Many of the babies were under a year old; none were talking yet.

The animated videos showed a big block and a little block walking toward each other in opposite directions. When the larger block acquiesced to the smaller one -- which is not what is expected -- the babies stared at the screen for longer. The study authors said their responses meant they were surprised at the outcome,RIFT Platinum since big typically prevails over little.

"Infants understand already at 9 months old that size really is a cue for power and dominance," lead author Lotte Thomsen, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Copenhagen and a Harvard research fellow, said in a video statement about the paper.

But Utah pediatrician Dr. Zachary Zarbock said those conclusions may not be accurate, as babies normally aren't aware of size, rift goldsocial dominance or the relationship between the two until they're at least 18 months old.

"If anything, it's a confusing visual because it doesn't make sense," he told AOL Health. "To extrapolate that it has some social significance is a stretch."

He said if babies are showing any understanding of or tendency toward dominance when they're under a year old,RIFT Platinum it probably isn't about how large or small they are.

"It's more of a personality trait than a size issue," Zarbock explained. "We have some babies who are very assertive and aggressive -- they walk a little earlier, explore a little more -- and some babies who are a little more passive."

The children in the study sat with their mothers to watch the cartoons showing the two opposite scenarios -- one in which the big block got its way at the expense of the little one, and the other where the reverse occurred. The babies stared at the video screen for longer after the videos ended when the big block didn't win than when it did,TERA Gold the researchers said.

None of the babies could talk yet to express their thoughts about the cartoons, so the authors of the Science study analyzed their behavior instead.

"If a big and a small guy have goals that conflict, preverbal infants expect the big guy to win over the little guy," Thomsen said in a summary of the findings. "But you cannot just interview them and ask them what they think. So instead, you have to look at what they do. Infants -- like adults -- tend to look longer at something that surprises them."

But Zarbock said using the results to assume babies had grasped the concept of size as it relates to dominance is problematic based on the cognitive abilities of a child under 18 months old.

"I don't think an infant would understand this," he told AOL Health. "Children naturally don't interact well at that age. They don't understand sharing. ... Probably half aren't even walking. To know they're larger than someone else would be difficult."

UFC 129 Live Blog: Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson Updates

This is the UFC 129 live blog for Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson, a lightweight bout on tonight's pay-per-view at the Rogers Centre.

Bocek (9-3) last competed in December, submitting BJJ black belt Dustin Hazelett with a triangle choke. Henderson (12-2) is a former WEC lightweight champion making his UFC debut. At the final WEC event last December, Henderson lost his title to Anthony Pettis.

Round 1: Chess match early as they jockey for position against the fence. RIFT Platinum Bocek wants it on the ground, Henderson probably doesn't. After a stalemate, ref Yves Lavigne splits them up. Bocek scores with a right hand. Henderson works some leg kicks and jabs from the outside. Bocek wades in and eats a right cross and leg kick before moving back. Bocek works the single leg for a takedown. Henderson hops around on one leg for a while, TERA Gold but Bocek kicks it out and Henderson goes down with 1:00 left. Henderson with some elbows from the bottom as time ticks away. Bocek never advanced position or landed anything. MMA Fighting scores it for Henderson 10-9.

Round 2: Henderson fires off a three-punch combo, landing a pair but in his haste, rift gold Bocek ducks low and drives into his legs. Bocek gets the takedown, but Henderson swiftly works his way to his feet. Henderson drives Bocek torwards the cage where he delivers knees to the legs. Lavigne breaks it up. Henderson uses a leg kick, then takes Bocek down off a scramble. Bocek immediately hunts a triangle, but Henderson wiggles free. RIFT Platinum Henderson lands right hands from the top. Bocek threatens a submission by grabbing Henderson's leg, and Henderson gets up. 1:30 left. Bocek works a guillotine, Henderson is positioned to defend though. Bocek holds on to it even as they get back to their feet. Henderson pulls free and on their feet rocks Bocek with a series of punches, elbows and a knee as Bocek ducks low. The knee cut Bocek open. Henderson 10-9.

Round 3: Bocek gets an early takedown. A lot of time to work from the top. Henderson tries an arm bar, and as Bocek pulls his arms free, Henderson rolls away and ends up on top. Henderson looks for ground and pound. He leaves too much space and Bocek works out. He jumps on Henderson's back, but Henderson shucks him loose. Henderson gets a Thai plum and scores with knees to the body. Rift Gold A left hand then comes behind it. Bocek digs for a takedown with :40 left but he's going to have to get busy quickly. Henderson gets up and lands hard strikes as the round ends. 10-9 Henderson.

Kate Middleton in Two Wedding Dresses? A Designer Hints It Could Happen

Something old? Something two?

British fashion designer Bruce Oldfield, rumored to have some role in dressing princess-to-be Kate Middleton for her royal wedding, is hinting the nuptials may feature something new in royal circles: Two dresses!

Oldfield opined during an appearance this week on "Good Morning America" that Middleton may walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey in a conservative dress and then slip on something different for the evening reception hosted by her future father-in-law Prince Charles. "There will be two dresses," he said emphatically.

How does he know? Well, Oldfield played it coy with ABC correspondent Elizabeth Vargas, but acted like a man with insider's knowledge of the palace wedding closet.

Oldfield told Vargas there's one thing he knows for sure about Middleton's dress: Rift Gold It will be modest! "It will have sleeves. It has to have sleeves. You can't walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey in a strapless dress. It has to suit the grandeur of the aisle."

Oldfield also had another insight in Middleton's wedding look: "I can predict she will wear a veil. That, to me, was the most poignant part of (Princess) Diana's wedding. As she was walking down the aisle, her eyes were going to the right and left, looking at people and smiling. That was great."

Buckingham Palace has said Middleton has chosen the designer for the dress she will wear to marry longtime love, Prince William, but wants to keep it a secret. Oldfield teased that anyone who really wants an inside track should camp outside the palace and spy.

After dropping the two dresses hint, Oldfield told Vargas he could "reveal nothing" of what he knows about the second frock. "You know the rules," he said.

As for the pressure of designing a royal wedding dress, he speculated it's a "nightmare" RIFT Platinum saying reactions to her her gown could be: "Oh my God what's she wearing or oh God, she looks fabulous."

Yet he described the bride-to-be as a "slim, gorgeous" down-to-earth woman, who is aware of her changing stature: "She's just an ordinary girl who happened to bag the big one."

Oldfield caused a stir a few weeks ago when Middleton's mother, Carole, and sister, rift gold Pippa, were seen shopping in his London dress shop, fueling speculation he would design the princess bride's dress.

Still, some royal watchers have pointed out that Oldfield's bridal atelier is across the street and that the Middleton's were photographed shopping the sale rack.

When Vargas suggested it would be a coup to dress the mother-of-the-bride for such an occasion, RIFT Platinum Oldfield gushed the "very elegant" Carole Middleton reminded him a bit of France's First Lady Carla Bruni. "Really?" Vargas responded, raising her eyebrows but offering few women would object to that comparison. Oldfield chuckled and said, "She liked it too,actually."

As for the wedding guests, TERA Gold Oldfield already has commissions to dress some invites and expects more to come. "We've already got three or four nice ones," he said. Read More on StyleList

James Cook

James Cook (Captain James Cook) (1728–1779) British naval officer in the Atlantic and Pacific

James Cook was born in Marton-in-Cleveland, an agricultural village in Yorkshire, England, where his parents were farm workers. At the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a dry goods merchant in the fishing village of Staithes. About two years later,rift gold Cook moved to Whitby, the English seaport on Yorkshire’s North Sea coast, where he began his seafaring career as shipwright and later as a ship’s boy on the Freelove, which carried coal down the coast from Whitby to London. Over the next few years, Cook studied mathematics and astronomy on his own and developed his skills as a navigator. In 1755, at the beginning of the Seven Years War between England and France, Cook enlisted in the Royal Navy as an able-bodied seaman, serving on the HMS Eagle under Sir Hugh Palliser. Palliser recognized Cook’s talent for navigation and seamanship and helped to advance his naval career.

In 1759, Cook undertook a detailed navigational survey of the St. Lawrence River and its estuary. His charts were invaluable in the British landing and victory at Quebec that September. Cook’s expertise as a navigator and hydrographer became well known in 1760, with the publication of his New Chart of the River St. Lawrence. After Great Britain gained control of Canada in 1760, Palliser was appointed governor of Newfoundland, and Cook continued to conduct coastal surveys of Newfoundland. He charted the northern approach to the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the Strait of Belle Isle,rift gold as well as the southern route through Cabot Strait. In spring 1764, Cook was given his first Royal Navy command, the schooner Grenville. Two years later, in July 1766, he took the Grenville to the Newfoundland coast to observe a solar eclipse. In 1768, the findings of this expedition were published by the ROYAL SOCIETY.

Vinland

Vinland is the name given to a place in North America visited by the Vikings in the beginning of the 11th century. It represents the location of the first known European visit to the Americas.

The earliest surviving reference to Vinland is from Adami Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (translated as History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen) written by Adam of Bremen in about 1075. He was a German who had obtained his information from Danish king Sweyn Estrithson. In this work, Adam of Bremen mentions a land with grapes,rift gold which make superior wine, as well as self-sown wheat. He also mentions an ice buildup to the north, which makes sailing impossible. Scholarly research has shown that Adam’s writings were not always accurate, and it is likely that his mention of grapes and wine came from the interpretation of the word Vinland. In German this would refer to a land of wine, but in the Old Norse the prefix vin means a grassy field. In any case, the work of Adam of Bremen led to the repetition of this characteristic of Vinland in the sagas written more than a century later.

The chief sources of information on Vinland come from two Norse sagas, Groenlendinga (or the Saga of the Greenlanders) and Eiríks saga (or the Saga of Eric the Red). These stories had been passed down by word of mouth for centuries before being written. The first to be recorded, the Saga of the Greenlanders, written in ICELAND in about 1200, has proven to be the more reliable of the two. The story of the temporary settlement of Vinland begins with Viking BJARNI HERJULFSSON in about 985 or 986. On a trip from Iceland to visit his father in GREENLAND in a LONGSHIP,rift gold he was blown off course, to the southwest. Although he spotted land—three distinct coastlines, he reported— he did not make a landing. Eventually, he made his way to Greenland, where he related his findings. According to the sagas, on a voyage of exploration to find the land that Herjulfsson had seen, LEIF ERICSSON embarked with a crew of 35 from Greenland in about 1001. He came upon three different regions: The first he named Helluland, after its extreme flatness; the second he named Markland, referring to a land of woods; the third, and most southern, he called Vinland. At Vinland, he built houses and probably stayed for a year. He then returned to Greenland.

Ding Shimei Regular Script Banner，"13 Lines of Wang Xianzhi The Goddess of the Luo"

Ding Shimei Regular Script Banner，"13 Lines of Wang Xianzhi The Goddess of the Luo"

Size: 78cm×32cm

Creation Years: 2010

Dalai Lama Prays for Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami Victims

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on Friday offered prayers for the victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last month.

At Tokyo's Gokokuji Temple,rift gold the Dalai Lama offered his condolences and urged survivors to be hopeful. He said there is "no reason to feel discouraged and remain hopeless."

He joined Tibetan and Japanese monks at prayers on the 50th day since the disaster, which left more than 25,000 people dead or missing and made tens of thousands homeless.

The 75-year-old spiritual leader was on his first visit to Japan since the March 11th disaster. He later will travel on to the United States.

The Dalai Lama is giving up his political role as the leader of Tibetans in exile.
Those duties will be taken up by Lobsang Sangay, who was elected to lead the exile community, which has been based in Dharamsala,rift gold India, since thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama there when he fled Chinese rule of Tibet.

Hymn of Youyu County Spirit - Cursive Script Vertical Scroll

Hymn of Youyu County Spirit - Cursive Script,
rift gold
Calligrapher: Ding Shimei

Size: 199cm×48cm

Creation Year: 2010AD

Youyu County is a district of Shanxi, China. It is under the administration of Shuozhou city.

rift gold

Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day

He "threatened me," "strangled me with a PlayStation cord," "lunged at me with a pocketknife." A horror movie? No, real life for far too many young women, an exclusive new Glamour survey reveals. Why is relationship violence still so frighteningly common in 2011? And how can we help? The answer starts with two simple words: Tell Somebody.

Not long before sunrise on a Midwestern Friday, college student and part-time waitress Alexandra Briggs sat in her one-bedroom apartment, meticulously applying thick makeup all over her face, Rift Goldneck and arms. It took two coats to cover her boyfriend's teeth marks and the cigarette burns he'd inflicted, along with her newly purpling bruises; her pants hid the spot on her thigh where he'd stabbed her with a fork. When she finished, he drove her to the Original Pancake House for her 7:00 a.m. shift. "I'm sick," she told her boss as she clocked in and headed to the restroom.

Briggs, a freckled, blue-eyed Beatles fan who was studying criminal justice, had first chatted with Matthew Hubbard over Instant Messenger five months earlier. After their first date, she hadn't been interested, but when Hubbard, a fellow student, begged her to give him a chance, she did.

By that morning, she was barely a whisper of herself. As Hubbard would later admit in court, before Briggs had gone to work he'd hit her repeatedly with a small bat and strangled her until she slumped, unconscious -- typical of the violence that had started a month into the relationship. "He had me in a choke hold against the wall, saying, 'I'm going to kill you. No one will find your body; no one cares about you,'" Briggs, now 26, recalls. Dazed, she had agreed to Hubbard's order to go to work, fake the stomach flu and return home with him. She was huddled over the toilet when her manager, Shea Duymovic, pushed her way into the stall and sat on the floor.RIFT Platinum "Look at me," Duymovic said, her face next to Briggs'. "I know what he's doing to you. And I can't stand to see this happen anymore."

A moment passed. When Briggs finally turned, she saw her boss's eyes filled with tears. She remembers thinking one simple thought: Someone cares? Overwhelmed, she began to sob. "Do you want me to call your parents?" Duymovic asked gently. Briggs could only nod.

That day wasn't the first time Duymovic, then 33, had worried about her employee. She'd weathered a violent relationship herself, swept into it young, as Briggs had been. "I knew Alex's situation was getting really bad," Duymovic recalls. She had seen the bruises on Briggs' arms and noticed that she'd begun wearing glasses and heavy foundation; once bubbly, Briggs now spent most breaks tethered to her cell phone. "She came in and I could just tell," Duymovic says. "I think she would have died if she had left with him." And so Duymovic stepped in: staying by Briggs' side until her father arrived, keeping in touch as Briggs recovered from her injuries -- including a broken nose and ruptured eardrum. And the day that Hubbard was sentenced to 10 years in prison and the details of Briggs' abuse went on record, Duymovic was there, cheering her on. As Briggs says today, "Shea was my angel."

Duymovic is a hero. But what she did is something each and every one of us can do -- and must do. Because the violence Briggs kept secret is much too common.

The truth is, four women are killed every single day in the United States by someone they're involved with. One year ago, on May 3, the world lost Yeardley Love, a 22-year-old University of Virginia lacrosse player whose boyfriend now faces trial for her murder; he told police he shook her so hard her head repeatedly hit the wall. And the headlines kept coming, telling the horror stories of New York swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay, 33, strangled and left in her hotel bathroom, allegedly by her boyfriend;rift gold Samantha Miller, 34, shot in the head on Christmas near a Tennessee Army base; Courtney Delano, 19, killed in Michigan when she was six months pregnant. The very day Glamour went to press with this story, Sarah Coit, 23, was stabbed multiple times, reportedly by her boyfriend, in their Manhattan apartment. "I knew he was going to kill her," a former neighbor told the New York Post. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: Over the course of an average year in twenty-first-century America, more than 1,400 women will be murdered by someone they've loved.

Most alarming, things are only getting more dangerous for some women: While overall female "intimate partner homicides," as these deaths are called, have dropped almost 20 percent since domestic violence awareness began in the 1970s, a closer look at data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that, frighteningly, among women who are dating -- as opposed to married -- the homicide rate is climbing. "For girlfriends killed by boyfriends, especially white girlfriends, the homicide rates have actually risen slightly," says James Alan Fox, Ph.D., a criminology expert at Northeastern University and former fellow of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, who analyzed the government data for Glamour. And the rates of violence for young married women are still unacceptably high as well: In an exclusive Glamour/Harris Interactive random survey of 2,542 women ages 18 to 35 -- single, living together and married -- a full 29 percent said they'd been in an abusive relationship. Another 30 percent said they'd never been abused but then went on to acknowledge that, at some point, a partner had viciously hurt them: from verbal degradation to being strangled or threatened with a knife. That means more than half of all women have been harmed by their partner.

Why is this still happening in 2011? After all, as women, we're clearly no longer second-class citizens, so dependent on men's earnings and support that we must put up with brutal relationships simply because we have no choices. We have more choices than ever -- and men are surely more enlightened. So why are women more likely to be killed by their boyfriend than they were 35 years ago? And what can we do to reverse the trend?

Glamour is hoping to answer those questions. To honor the one-year anniversary of Yeardley Love's death, we're encouraging women to talk about relationship violence -- both to ask for help and to offer it without judgment. Our campaign starts on these pages -- full of real stories, hard science and guidance about exactly what to say and do. The most important step: Tell Somebody.

Why Young Women Are More At Risk Now

We've come a long way since the 1980s, when movies like Farrah Fawcett's "The Burning Bed" helped break decades of silence about relationship abuse. Back then "everyone thought that domestic violence and rape were rare occurrences," RIFT Platinumsays Patricia Tjaden, Ph.D., who headed the acclaimed National Violence Against Women Survey 10 years ago. "Now there is a consensus among practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and the public that these types of violence are widespread." And yet it seems that greater awareness hasn't translated into a public condemnation of these crimes -- instead, some days, our reaction looks like one giant cultural shrug. Consider Charlie Sheen, who apparently spent two decades pushing, shoving, threatening and, on one occasion, even accidentally shooting the women in his life -- much of the time while enjoying his role as TV's highest-paid actor. ("I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom!" he reportedly said to his third wife, Brooke Mueller.) Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to charges stemming from hitting his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva ("You f--king deserved it," he ranted) and then went on to star in "The Beaver," one of his biggest films in years. Over in the sports world, at least three players in the NFL alone were accused of domestic violence last year. It all maddens attorney Gael Strack, cofounder of the National Family Justice Center Alliance. "It's like, 'I just got charged with DV, what's the big deal?'" she says. "In a lot of cases, there are few or no consequences."

But cultural complacency may be only one reason relationship violence persists. New technology is playing a part, too. For years experts have known -- and told victims -- that any partner who constantly needs to know where you are and what you're doing is a dangerous partner, that such "monitoring" often leads to physical violence. But these days it's become so acceptable for couples, colleagues and friends to text and email one another at any given moment that women may miss those early danger signs. What's more, GPS and computer spyware are cropping up increasingly in stalking and dating violence cases. "Abusers can now be on you 24/7," says Cindy Southworth, founder of the Safety Net Project, a team of experts on digital abuse at the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

And believe it or not, in a hookup culture, some advocates worry that young women may be brushing off "bad boy" behavior. "A major misperception is that if the relationship isn't serious, the abuse can't be serious," says Cristina Escobar, a spokeswoman for Break the Cycle, a dating violence organization for teens and twentysomethings. "Just because you're hooking up doesn't mean you're not experiencing violence." In fact, says Tjaden, "there's more intimate violence reported in cohabiting couples than in marriages."

Perhaps most surprising, some researchers believe that because young women today feel invulnerable in relationships, they may actually try to tough it out themselves rather than ask for help when things turn bad. "We've grown up in a different generation, where women are leaders, TERA Goldwe have careers, children -- we break glass ceilings," one 24-year-old student tells Glamour, explaining why she spent two and a half years with a boyfriend who called her "bitch" and "whore" and, according to her police report, hit her and threatened her. "We expect to be strong and independent. When the abuse began, I thought, I can handle this on my own."

In other words, it's hard for young women to see themselves as victims at the hands of a man. "They don't believe they'll ever be an Ike and Tina Turner story," says Kenya Fairley, program manager for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, "because they see the initial incidents of abuse in the same way they see obstacles they're tackling at work. So if a boyfriend criticizes her, she thinks, I can handle it, just like she does with her boss. Women today keep managing the abuse until they're so far in they need help getting out."

That's exactly what happened to April Singiser, 22, a San Diego nursing student. Over the course of three years, she says, her then boyfriend threw food at her and held her hostage in his apartment when she wanted to leave. She told no one -- not her family, not her friends, not her coworkers -- because "I was ashamed and embarrassed," she says. "I am not that type of person. I'm the person who always says, 'I don't care how big you are.'" But after she tried to break up with him, he forced her into her Honda Civic at knifepoint, and she had to face it: She might be strong, but at 6' 5" and 300 pounds with a switchblade in his hand, he was stronger.

"He was telling me, 'You shouldn't have left me; I'm going to take you to an Indian reservation where I can kill you and no one will find you,' and holding the knife to my throat," she recalls. "I was driving on the 805 North, bawling, thinking, How am I going to get out of this? Should I just crash the car on his side?" When, at his direction, she got off the freeway, they hit a red light. Singiser sprang out, raced to the car behind her and banged on the windows. "He's going to kill me!" she screamed. It was literally the first time she'd ever asked for help.

Singiser's ex is now in jail; he gets out next February. She is worried -- on his Facebook profile, his interests include "Gettin Even" -- but she's also thriving, going to school and working as a medical assistant. "Even though I thought I could handle it," she says of her early reluctance to talk about her situation, "I obviously couldn't."

Why Doesn't She Just Leave?

Perhaps the most nagging question about this issue is, Why do women stay? Some of the reasons are the age-old ones: Love, as uncomfortable as it is to confront, was the top answer from women in our survey when asked why they had not left an abusive partner. And research is proving exactly how emotional and physical abuse physiologically changes the brain. Using MRI scans, neuroscientists like Alan Simmons, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, have found that repeated abuse makes a victim more prone to being withdrawn, forgetful and so stuck in negative thinking that she can't even see how a situation could improve. Many survivors look back and say they were in a fog; often the phrase is "I lost myself." "There is something biological," says Simmons. "It's not a sign of weakness. It's akin to what happens to the brain during war."

This rings true for Reena Becerra, 38, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, whose then boyfriend, Mike Vargas, once bashed her head against the linoleum floor and strangled her. (Despite that and his 18 prior incidents, he got five years' probation and no jail time -- shockingly not atypical in these cases.) "People think, You don't have kids, you're a beautiful girl -- what's keeping you with him?" she says. "Well, I started out a confident, strong girl. Five years of someone telling me, 'If you just shut up, I wouldn't have to hit you,' and I started thinking, Maybe I should shut up."

Rene Renick, a vice president at the National Network to End Domestic Violence and a counselor for 20 years, sees women like Becerra all the time. "You become isolated, and the only feedback you're getting is from this guy who's giving really distorted messages, like 'You caused this,' which gets inside your head," Renick says. "You fall in this cycle of believing that if you caused the violence, you can stop it, which you can't -- only he can."

Speak Up -- It Really Matters

Vanessa Saulter, 37, thanks God every day that she told her friends about the violence her on-again, off-again boyfriend put her through, and that they stuck by her. Longtime pal 32-year-old Janet McKnight may have even saved her life one night.

As Saulter remembers it, that early spring evening started off well enough. She and her boyfriend were hanging out at her apartment, but his mood veered after an argument in which he accused her of cheating. In what became a deranged marathon of violence, he punched and choked Saulter until at one point she looked out the window of her third-story bedroom and -- fell? jumped? she's not sure -- but somehow found herself, one sneaker on, plunging three stories through the midnight air.

When she came to on the parking lot cement, "he told me, 'I can leave you here, or I can take you back upstairs,'" says Saulter, now a resident director at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. "I couldn't feel my legs. I knew I needed help." He carried her to her bed but instead of calling 911, continued to torture her for another 12 hours. Sometime the next morning, he hacked off her hair.

Meanwhile, McKnight was trying desperately to reach Saulter; knowing about the violence, she always worried when Saulter didn't answer her calls immediately. Frantic, she phoned Saulter's parents and urged them to hurry to the apartment. When McKnight got there herself, she says, "I saw her hair everywhere, holes in the wall, blood. And I was thinking, What happened to her?"

Saulter's family rushed their daughter to the hospital; she had multiple rib fractures, a collapsed lung and "she'd broken her back in two bad places," says her doctor, Leonard Nelson, M.D. "It takes an unusual amount of force to do that."

After more than a year, Saulter got back on her feet, both physically and emotionally. "Honestly, I thought I would never get to the point where I could leave," she says, giving full credit to her friends for their support. "They saw the signs from the beginning. They would tell me I would go missing and my picture would end up on a milk carton. Over time, it slowly sank in."

It does sink in, say experts. "If others can continually counter with messages like 'It's not you. You didn't cause this. This is not a normal relationship,'" says Renick, "they can help women escape the abuser's reality."

That's exactly the script Ashia Troiano, 21, a recent Swarthmore College graduate, used with her best friend, Quasona Cobb, also 21. "There were plenty of times where I was like, 'This isn't healthy -- you're not even happy,'" she says of Cobb's relationship with boyfriend Keith Bailey and his ongoing brutality.

Cobb, a hotel administrative assistant and college student in New York, eventually came to the same conclusion herself; last December, she demanded that Bailey move out. Troiano stood by her -- and is still her rock through the even darker time that has followed. One night before Bailey left, as Cobb later told police, he pulled out a chunk of her hair and dragged her down the hall; then, planting his foot on her stomach and holding a lighter in one hand, he started dousing her with her own aromatherapy oil. Vanilla, maybe, or grapefruit. She realized, with horror, what he was about to do. "I was screaming. I was begging, 'Please do not set me on fire. I'll do anything you want, OK? I'll stay with you,'" she recalls. He finally calmed down and fell asleep. Immediately, Cobb texted Troiano: Be here at 7:30 in the morning to help me move out. Bailey would leave for work by then.

When Troiano arrived, the two threw some clothes in a bag for Cobb and went straight to the 42nd Precinct to file a police report. And then Cobb called her mom, Arlene Gordon, a 42-year-old assistant analyst for Con Edison. Although they talked five times a day, Cobb had never told her mother about Bailey's rages. Now she did, and they agreed that Cobb shouldn't see her boyfriend again; instead, Gordon, a fierce mama-bear type, would supervise Bailey as he cleared his belongings out of her daughter's apartment. Cobb urged her to go with a male relative, but Gordon said no, she could take care of this herself. Cobb called and talked to her mother at the apartment around 4:30. When she phoned again at 5:01, no answer; 5:10, nothing. So Cobb dialed 911.

At 7:30 she heard. Cobb says police had found her mother facedown on the bed, set afire -- the heat so intense, a garbage bag over her head had melted into her hair. She was alive, but barely. Her head had been crushed by a heavy object, Cobb says. The only thing untouched were her perfectly pedicured red toes.

"That was the hardest night," says Cobb. "I wanted to die myself. You go through the blame -- Why didn't I go with her?"

Five months later, Gordon remains in the hospital. At press time, she has said just two words, but two words of a fighting spirit: "I want." Bailey, for his part, faces 10 counts, including arson and attempted murder of Gordon.

The two friends are still in constant contact. They're struggling with their guilt, but Cobb reassures Troiano that she's saved at least one life. "Ashia is my she-ro," she says. "I tell her every day: 'You are the best friend in the whole wide world.'"

Here's What You Can Say

Over the five years that Cobb stayed with her boyfriend, Troiano never stopped talking to her about what was going on. But many people -- 37 percent in Glamour's survey -- don't reach out to a friend or acquaintance if they suspect abuse. It is hard to know what to say, but here are some of the exact phrases that helped 50 survivors we interviewed with the help of the National Family Justice Center Alliance:

•"I am afraid for you." Nicole Van Winkle, 24, heard these words after confiding to an old friend that she worried her boyfriend would hit her if she didn't return his calls. "She said it wasn't OK, but she didn't judge me," says Van Winkle. "She just listened -- and that really helped."


•"You're not leaving until I take pictures." A friend said this to Yvonne Coiner, 44, after she spotted Coiner's bruises one day. The friend gave the photos to a counselor, who told Coiner that she wasn't safe. "I needed to hear that," Coiner says, "because when you're in the abuse, you're paralyzed."



•"I am proud of you." After Petra Johansson, 39, filed for divorce from her abusive husband, her friend sent her that text. "I'll never forget it," she says, "and during bad times I'd pull it up again, reread it and be able to go on."



•"I'm sorry, but honey, if he's hit you once, he'll hit you again." A friend said this to Jennica Tulao, 25, after noticing her bruises. "I'd told her I wanted to give him another chance," says Tulao. "That's when she said the thing about hitting. It was one of the turning points for me."



•"Do you want your kids to go through that?" Ashley Raymer's dad asked that question when she came back home after a fight with her boyfriend. "I really wanted to be a mom," says Raymer, 24, "and that stayed with me."



•"I can prosecute a felony DV charge with you alive -- or wait until you're dead and prosecute a felony murder charge." Reena Becerra, 38, was considering going back to her abuser when the district attorney said this. "It was the wake-up call I needed," she says. "I thought I was in danger; I just didn't know how much."


Many of the survivors we spoke to acknowledged just how tough it is for a friend to step in but said that having a caring, nonjudgmental supporter was nothing short of lifesaving. "Even if it doesn't happen overnight," stresses Renick, "the victim will say, 'You know, someone told me, "That isn't OK," and it took me six months, but it planted a seed.' It helps women begin to think about leaving a relationship."

And saying something -- even an awkward, uncomfortable something -- is always better than saying nothing. "So many women think there's no way out," says Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "If every woman who reads this says something, the ripple effect will be unbelievable."

As Vanessa Saulter, whose circle of female friends never gave up on her, puts it: "Along with my family and faith, my close friends are 100 percent responsible for the fact that I'm finally free."

How you can help: Text TELLNOW to 85944 to make a $10 donation that will go toward keeping a domestic violence hotline open. The Avon Foundation will match every dollar you donate up to $200,000. Find out more about our texting campaign.

The Psychology of Revenge: Why We Should Stop Celebrating Osama Bin Laden's Death

I have modified this post slightly to respond to and incorporate feedback from comments received to the original post. Many thanks to all who are contributing to the conversation. --Pamela

While the killing of Osama Bin Laden is being enthusiastically celebrated throughout America and some parts of the world, to say that such merriment is out of order will surely be considered heresy.Rift Gold Nonetheless, I'm saying it--because it needs to be said. For starters, let me say this: "Those of you who are celebrating--could you just pause for a moment and consider: What message are you sending the world?"

I certainly understand how those who have suffered from the events of 9/11 may feel relieved, even happy, to have "closure" after ten years of waiting for "justice to be done"--and I don't quarrel with such feelings. Closure is a natural yearning and can help people move on from serious trauma. And, of course, feelings are feelings. If you feel joyful, you feel joyful.

But celebration in the streets and on the airwaves is neither appropriate nor advisable--really--no matter what your feelings of elation. RIFT PlatinumHere's why.

"Celebrating" the killing of any member of our species--for example, by chanting USA! USA! and singing The Star Spangled Banner outside the White House or jubilantly demonstrating in the streets--is a violation of human dignity. Regardless of the perceived degree of "good" or "evil" in any of us, we are all, each of us, human. To celebrate the killing of a life, any life, is a failure to honor life's inherent sanctity.

Plenty of people will argue that Osama Bin Laden did not respect the sanctity of others' lives. To that I would ask, "What relevance does that have to our own actions?" One aspect of being human is our ability to choose our own behavior; more specifically, our capacity to return good for evil, love for hate, dignity for indignity. While Osama Bin Laden was widely considered to be the personification of evil, he was nonetheless a human being. A more peaceable response to his killing would be to mourn the many tragedies that led up to his violent death and the thousands of violent deaths that occurred in the attempt to eliminate him from the face of the Earth;rift gold and to feel compassion for anyone who, because of their role in the military or government, American or otherwise, has had to play a role in killing another. This kind of compassion can be cultivated, as practitioners of many different spiritual traditions and humanistic philosophies will attest.

We are not a peaceful species. Nor are we a peaceful nation. The public celebrations of this killing throughout the country draw attention to these facts.

The death of Osama Bin Laden gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves: What kind of nation and what kind of species do we want to be? Do we want to become a species that honors life? Do we want to become a species that embodies peace? If that is what we want, RIFT Platinumthen why not start now to examine our own hearts and actions, and begin to consciously evolve in that direction? We could start by not celebrating the killing of another.

It is hard not to think that some of the impulse to celebrate "justice being done" may also contain a certain pleasure in revenge--not just "closure" but "getting even." The world is not safer with Osama Bin Laden's violent demise (threat levels are going up, not down); evil has not been finally removed from the Earth; the War on Terror goes on--so any celebration must be tempered with the sobering fact that much work still needs to be done to establish peace. The truth is that "celebrating justice" when one person is killed--as happens regularly in the gang wars of American cities--only incites further desire for revenge, which, from "the other side's" viewpoint, is usually called "justice."

Consider this: If a leader in our country were killed in the manner in which Osama Bin Laden was killed, as "justice" for his acts of aggression in the War on Terror--and supporters of that act were shown proudly chanting their country's name,TERA Gold singing their national anthem, and demonstrating in the streets--Americans would likely feel more sickened than joyful, wouldn't you think? The impulse to celebrate a death depends on what side you're on.

The bottom line is that we cannot even begin to have peace until we stop the cycle of jubilation over acts of violence.

So isn't it time to ask: Who will stop the cycle? If not us, who? If not you and I, who will it be?

Former NHL Enforcer Donald Brashear to Fight at Ringside MMA 11

Donald Brashear will make his MMA debut on June 4 against a relatively unknown heavyweight.

According to Nic Landry of RDS, the former NHL enforcer has agreed to face Martin Trempe (0-2) in a heavyweight bout at Ringside MMA 11 in Quebec City. Rift Gold The fight, which will be officially announced at a press conference in Quebec City on Thursday, will mark Brashear's first pro MMA bout.

The 39-year-old Brashear currently plays in the Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey. RIFT Platinum He played in the NHL for the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals and New York Rangers. The 6-foot-3, 237-pound American-Canadian racked up 2,634 penalty minutes in 1,025 NHL games from 1993-2010.

He has been training for his MMA debut at Nordik Fight Club in Quebec City.

"Right now, we are quite impressed with his technical skills," Ringside MMA president Eric Champoux told MMA Fighting. rift gold "He's a quick learner."

According to Champoux, Brashear has signed a one-year contract with the promotion. RIFT Platinum However, both parties can part ways after the June 4 fight.

Both of Trempe's fights haven't gone passed TERA Gold the first round. He quit between rounds in November and lost via TKO in January.

The main event of Ringside MMA 11 will feature a 190-pound catchweight bout between former UFC fighters Patrick Cote and Todd Brown.

Three Reasons to Still Own Gold (or Finally Buy Some)

I recently watched the classic man-eating fish movie Jaws and the latest action in the precious metals space reminded me of the tagline for the film, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water..."

Is it safe to swim in the water? Or is Jaws still lurking out there, the physical embodiment of a financial world gone lethal? Can gold still protect us?

Gold has had a magnificent run during the past 10 years, doubling in value since 2008 alone. Gold has set and broke several new price records, most recently reaching $1,500 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange in Tuesday's trading.

The most commonly-traded gold exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD), followed suit, closing just shy of $146.00 a share, an all-time high. Mirroring these moves was gold's less valuable (and possibly more appealing sibling) silver, which has been hitting 31-year highs almost daily.

Gold "mania" is seemingly at full strength. But questions remain. Is profit taking the next move? What if you are among the majority of investors who have yet to dip a toe into the water? Is it safe to dive in?

Let's look at three fundamentals regarding gold, along with the rational outlook that should correspond with these facts:

1. Inflation

Naturally, I'm not referring to core inflation, also known as the government's consumer price index. The CPI is like the calm surface water that hides the beast beneath.

Headline inflation, which is the measure of the total inflation in the economy, is running very hot. There is increased demand for resources thanks to growing economies worldwide and corresponding shortages developing in food, energy and elsewhere. Gold is benefiting from inflation and there seems to be little reason to expect it to slow down.

Money creation in the United States has excess dollars chasing these aforementioned goods. Some think this is a good thing. Some will argue that the Federal Reserve will eventually sop up the extra liquidity. TERA Gold But the reality is they never really will. The dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power since 1913, the birth-year of the Fed. I see no circumstances under which the dollar will not continue to fall long-term. It will bounce up now and then, but if nothing else, the past 40 years have cemented the dollar's future -- and the trajectory is to the ocean floor.

2. Demand

From people, institutions and governments -- gold is wildly in demand like the cheesy Jaws merchandise sold during the record run of the movie in the 1970s.
Faith in virtually all currencies has been shaken, if not destroyed, and will probably never be restored.

The dollar's reserve currency status is threatened. More than threatened, RIFT Platinum it is visibly on the way out. What was once mere speculation has evolved into blatant measures to see it replaced. It will happen, but it will also take years. When we see countries like Venezuela and China trading with each other without using dollars (or any other currency) the evidence is irrefutable.

We also see many countries increasing their gold holdings (China's has increased from 600 metric tons to 1,054.1 metric tons since 2003), rift gold the logical defensive strategy when saddled with hundreds of billions in depreciating dollar reserves: stockpile commodities and natural resources. I give you dollars and you give me gold, oil, or steel -- that's a fine exchange for me.

3. Government spending

The U.S. government is losing its credibility. RIFT Platinum Speculation that the United States will have its credit rating lowered was fueled this week after ratings agency Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on U.S. debt from "stable" to "negative".

The United States is the largest debtor nation in the world, nee, in all of human history. Rift Gold Once upon a time, it was the largest creditor nation in the world. In the 1980s, it loaned other countries money, money it really had. Now it borrows massive amounts to service its debt. The nation's well documented entitlement obligations are helping to catapult its annual budget to fantastical extremes.

Action to Take: Keep your gold or buy some.

The facts argue that gold should continue to rise; and not just in dollar terms. Many of these observations can be applied to other countries and currencies as well. I'd love to be optimistic regarding the United States' financial future, but right now things look grim. Jaws is still out there.

P.S.: We found an obscure mining company that tossed back 19% in dividends last year (plus another 34% in capital gains). If you think that's impressive, wait until you see this video...

Disclosure: Neither nor StreetAuthority, LLC hold positions in any securities mentioned in this article.

Daytime Napping May Boost Heart Health

Taking a daytime cat nap for up to an hour may be good for your heart and its reaction to psychological stress, new findings suggest.

Sleeping during the day seems to help the heart repair itself after a stressful event,Rift Gold according to a study by researchers at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

The authors say that participants who took a stress test and then slept at least 45 minutes had lower blood pressure on average than those who didn't sleep at all after the exercise.

RIFT Platinum"Daytime sleep may offer cardiovascular benefit by accelerating cardiovascular recovery following mental stressors," the researchers wrote in the paper, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Co-authors Ryan Brindle and Sarah Conklin looked at 85 healthy college students, dividing them into two groups. One was given the chance to nap for up to an hour after taking a mental stress test in the lab;rift gold the other wasn't.

Participants also had to fill out surveys asking about the quality of their sleep and do a cardiovascular reactivity test, which asked them to complete a difficult mental math problem, according to a summary of the findings.

The students' pulse rates and blood pressure were taken regularly throughout the exercise.

The authors found that daytime naps seemed to rejuvenate the students who were able to sleep,RIFT Platinum with those subjects reporting lower levels of sleepiness than the group that stayed awake. And while the blood pressure and pulses of both groups increased after the stress test, the nappers had much lower blood pressure readings on average than those who didn't sleep.

Brindle and Conklin say more work needs to be done to pinpoint the link between daytime naps and cardiovascular health and examine why a short daytime sleep may help the heart recover from stress.

TERA GoldPrevious research has uncovered a link between lack of sleep and obesity, depression, cardiovascular problems and hypertension.

Researchers Say Nasal Spray May Prevent Alzheimer's, Stroke

A nasal spray that can prevent Alzheimer's disease and a stroke? Too good to be true?

Not according to researchers from Tel Aviv University. They say they've developed a medication that can be used as a nasal spray and protect against Alzheimer's and strokes that are related to Alzheimer's disease. Rift GoldThe spray would repair vascular damage in the brain by triggering the body's immune system.

Dr. Dan Frenkel, of the Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology, says he and other researchers are using part of a drug that was previously tested as an influenza treatment to induce an immune response against a build-up of amyloid proteins, or brain peptides, in the blood vessels. RIFT PlatinumThis build-up can lead to development of Alzheimer's disease.

"In early pre-clinical studies, we've found it can prevent both brain tissue damage and restore cognitive impairment," said Frenkel.

Dr. Alan J. Lerner, director of the Memory and Cognition Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Ohio,rift gold praised the nasal spray, adding that not all drugs need to come in a pill or a shot.

"I think we should be excited about this research because Alzheimer's is such a major public health problem," said Lerner, who was not involved in the study. "It affects 5 million people and the Baby Boomers will add 10 to 15 million more patients to that. "

Frenkel believes the new findings, accepted by the journal Neurobiology of Aging, may lead to a future breakthrough for a vaccine and a long-sought cure for Alzheimer's. "This might open a new horizon of treatment targeting the immune response that can both reduce stroke incident in Alzheimer's and also prevent disease progression," Frenkel told AOL Health.

The vaccine activates macrophages, or large proteins in the body that devour foreign antigens.RIFT Platinum Large numbers of activated macrophages dispose of amyloid protein build-up in the brain's vascular system. Trials in animals have shown that further damage can be prevented once these proteins are expelled from the brain, meaing existing damage due to a previous stroke could be repaired. The vaccine may also treat patients who are already experiencing Alzheimer's symptoms.

"We've found a way to use the immune response stimulated by this drug to prevent hemorrhagic strokes which lead to permanent brain damage," Frenkel added.

Researchers used mice to monitor the effect of the drug through "object recognition" tests, which evaluated cognitive function before and after vaccine injection. MRI screenings confirmed that further vascular damage was prevented after administration of the vaccine, and that object recognition tests indicated those animals treated with the vaccine returned to normal behavior. So far the vaccine has shown no toxic side effects in mice.

Lerner's one concern is that the drug has not been tested on humans, although he says the theory behind the spray is backed previous research.

"There's been an immune theory about Alzheimer's around for about 20 years and it looks like this is an immune-mediated approach," Lerner said. TERA Gold"In the past we've tried giving people prednisone and anti-inflamatory drugs. There are currently antibodies in clinical testing."

Frenkel believes the drug may have the same effect in humans, both in preventing the diseases and in treating patients who have already been diagnosed. In fact, if further research supports the vaccine's efficacy, it could have the potential to treat the dementia associated with Alzheimer's in as many as 80 percent of patients.

While Frenkel was unable to comment on when the drug could potentially be available, he noted it has already been tested for safety as an influenza treatment by GlaxoSmithKline.


"The layperson should know that help is on the way," said Lerner, whose own center at University Hospitals does a lot of research in this area. "You're not going to be able to go out and get this right away. But we have to support Alzheimer's research. It's stalled in terms of dollars and students are being told to study something else.
"Sometimes we can look to other countries such as Israel for ideas," Lerner added. "Our center does a lot of clinical trials We don't want to keep doing the same cookie-cutter things. So this research is very germane."

AOL Health writer Ronnie Koenig contributed to this report.

Uprisings in Bahrain Ratchet Up Tension With Iran

As uprisings in the Middle East have spread in recent months, one key Persian Gulf country - Bahrain - has become the scene of demonstrations rift gold demanding greater political freedoms. But the situation in Bahrain is not entirely internal.
The Gulf Cooperation Council - a coalition of key Persian Gulf states - has weighed in on one side of the turmoil, with Iran speaking up on the other. The rhetoric has increasingly hardened, as both sides seek to influence what happens there.

Thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets starting in mid-February, demanding reforms to make the kingdom's Sunni-dominated government more representative, and its economy more inclusive, for the majority Shiite population.

Then,rift gold in mid-March, the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia, rolled a military force into Manama at the invitation of the ruling al-Khalifa family. Bahrain’s government said it was to ensure stability.

I Cant Let Him Get Away

A male crab met a female crab and asked her to marry him. She noticed that he was walking straight instead of sideways. Wow,rift gold she thought, this crab is really special. I can't let him get away .So they got married immediately.
　　The next day she noticed her new husband waking sideways like all the other crabs, and got upset. "What happened?" she asked. "You used to walk straight before we were married."
　　"Oh,rift gold honey, " he replied, "I can't drink that much every day.

Atlanta

Atlanta is the capital rift gold and largest city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Atlanta is the main trade and transportation center for the southeastern United States. The city is also an important financial center. The U.S. government has several offices in Atlanta. The city had its beginnings in 1837. That year the site was selected rift gold as the end stop on a new rail line. A settlement soon grew up around the site. In 1845 it was named Atlanta. During the American CivilWar Atlanta became a rail center for the Confederate states. In 1864 Union troops captured Atlanta and burned most of its buildings. After the war ended, Atlanta recovered quickly. The city became the capital of Georgia in 1868.

In the 1900s Atlanta was the home of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. It was also the first major Southern city to elect an African American man (in 1973) and African American woman (in 2001) as mayor. The 1996 Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta.

Accra

Accra is the capital and largest city of the West African country of Ghana. Its name comes from the word nkran in the Akan language. This refers to the black ants that thrive in the area. Accra is situated on the Gulf of Guinea. Accra is the site of Ghana’s main government offices. It is also the economic center of Ghana. It contains the head offices of all the country’s large banks rift gold and trading firms. The city also has large open markets. Its main products are processed food, lumber, and textiles.

The city of Accra was formed in 1877. By that time the British had gained control of the whole area. It became known as the colony of the Gold Coast. Accra was the capital of the colony. The modern city of Accra was carefully planned rift gold and laid out between 1920 and 1930.

Afghanistan and Taliban

Afghanistan

The country of Afghanistan lies at the heart of central Asia. The capital is Kabul.

Geography
Afghanistan borders Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The Amu Darya river forms part of the northern border. A narrow piece of land called the Vakhan, orWakhan Corridor,rift gold connects Afghanistan with China. Afghanistan is a mountainous country. The main range is the Hindu Kush, in the northeast. North of the central mountains are fertile plains. Deserts, including the sandy Rigestan, lie in the southwest. Afghanistan generally has a dry climate with cold winters and hot summers.

Plants and Animals
Southern Afghanistan has little vegetation. Cedar, oak, walnut, alder, and ash trees grow in the north. The mountains have forests of pine and fir. Wolves, foxes, hyenas, jackals, bears, and wild goats roam the mountains. Gazelles, wild dogs, and wild cats are widespread. The country’s birds include vultures and eagles.

People
The people of Afghanistan, known as Afghans, are a mixture of many different groups. The Pashtuns make up about half of the population. Tajiks make up about a fifth of the population. Other ethnic groups include the Hazara, Uzbeks, Chahar Aimaks, and Turkmen. Pashto, the language of the Pashtuns, and Dari (Persian) are the two official languages, but others are spoken. Almost all Afghans are Muslims.

Kabul is the largest city, but most Afghans live in rural areas. Farmers live in villages along the rivers. Nomads live in tents and move from place to place. Few people live in the mountains or the deserts.

Economy
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most people grow crops and raise animals for their own use. The main food crops are wheat, rice, grapes, barley, and corn. Sheep, goats, and cattle are the main livestock.
Some farmers grow opium poppies, which are used to make illegal drugs.

Manufacturers make processed foods, leather, fur, and textiles. The country has deposits of natural gas, but warfare has prevented Afghans from using them.

History
Major trade routes crossed what is now Afghanistan thousands of years ago. The Persians and Macedonian king Alexander the Great ruled the land more than 2,300 years ago. In the AD 600s Arab invaders introduced the religion of Islam. In 1219 Genghis Khan made the area part of his Mongol Empire. Beginning in the 1300s Turkic peoples,rift gold the Mughal Empire, and the Persians ruled parts of the land.

Ahmad Shah Durrani, a Pashtun leader, unified Afghanistan under his rule in 1747. Great Britain invaded in the 1800s. After winning independence from Britain in 1919, Afghanistan continued as a monarchy. In 1973 Afghans overthrew the king. The country’s new leaders made Afghanistan a republic, led by a prime minister.

Soviet Invasion
In 1978 Communists seized control of Afghanistan’s government. The Soviet Union invaded in December 1979. For nearly a decade Islamic forces known as mujahideen fought the Soviets. Millions of Afghans left the country for Pakistan and Iran. The Soviet Army left in 1989.

The Taliban
Various Afghan groups then fought for control. By the late 1990s a group called the Taliban had gained control over most of Afghanistan. The Taliban ruled according to a strict version of Islamic law.

The Taliban angered other countries by allowing terrorists to live in Afghanistan. When the Taliban refused to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, the United States and its allies bombed Afghanistan in October 2001.Within months the Taliban abandoned Kabul. In 2004 Afghanistan adopted a new constitution and elected a president. But fighting continued between U.S. forces and the Taliban.

Siberia

Siberia is a vast area of land stretching over 5,207,900 square miles from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the North to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China in the south. Most of it lies in the present-day nation of Russia, with a small part in northern Kazakhstan. Siberia is divided into three geographic regions: The West Siberian Plain, a swampy and forested area is situated between the Urals and the Yenisey River; from there, the Central Siberian Plateau,rift gold at a height between 1,000 and 4,000 feet extends to the Lena River; and, from there, to the Pacific Ocean, often called Far East Russia, lie mountain ranges and uplands.

Three large rivers cross Siberia, all flowing north and draining into the Arctic Ocean: the Lena, the Ob, and the Yenisey. Another major river, the Amur, flows east to the Sea of Okhotsk, which opens to the Pacific. Just southeast of the central Asian Plateau is Lake Baikal. With a maximum depth of 5,371 feet, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and is estimated to hold one-fifth of Earth’s freshwater. Siberia has several mountain ranges, including the Yablonovy and Stanovoy Mountains, which run from the border of Mongolia northeast, to the Sea of Okhotsk. The Altai Mountains, with peaks generally between 10,000 and 13,000 feet, stretch along the bottom of the West Siberian Plain, while the Sayan mountains lie just south of the Central Siberian Plateau. To the northeast, along the Kamchatka Peninsula, which extends into the Bering Sea, is a chain of volcanic peaks,rift gold including some active volcanoes, and Siberia’s highest peak, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, at 15,584 feet. Siberia for the most part has long, cold winters and short, moderate summers and is divided into three zones of vegetation. Directly south of the Arctic Ocean is the tundra, a marshy, treeless plain about 270 miles wide covered with permafrost, bearing moss, lichens, and flowers, as well as small shrubs in the summer. South of the tundra is the taiga, a belt of primarily coniferous forests, followed by more deciduous forests. And finally the steppe, a large grassland, stretches to Siberia’s southern limits.

Why the Foreclosure Mess Settlement Proposal Can't Fix the Damage

Ever since this fall, when the mortgage industry's robo-signing scandal first broke, people have been aware that banks have been illegally foreclosing on homes.

Now there's a huge fight over what to do about that, mostly focused on a 27-page proposal that was supposed to represent the consensus of the 50 state attorneys general, but apparently doesn't. On top of that effort came a report of a "shock and awe" modification push from the federal government, but as Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism details, it's neither good policy nor practical.

One feature of both the attorneys general's proposal and the "shock and awe" maneuver is speed.

The attorneys general are in such a hurry to find a solution that they haven't even investigated the banks: They're just relying on consumer complaints to define the problem. Similarly, the shock-and-awe plan involves an impossible six month deadline. TERA Gold As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner explained to Congress: "All parties have a stake in bringing this to resolution as quickly as possible" and "It's very important that we try to bring this to bed as quickly as we can."

At least part of this desire for a fast fix is rooted in the belief that an agreement will help the housing market recover, which in turn will help straighten out the overall economy. That's true to some extent: If millions of mortgages were successfully modified and unnecessary and servicer-driven foreclosures were halted, RIFT Platinum as the settlement proposes, that would be good for the economy and the real estate market.

The Enormous Clouded Title Problem

But the settlement doesn't go nearly far enough to save the housing market. In fact, it can't go far enough, rift gold because it can't address one of the most confounding problems the banks have created: the millions of properties nationwide that now have "clouded" titles.

To put it plainly: Because of these bad titles, property owners can't prove they own the properties they think they bought, and banks can't prove the had the right to sell them.

Even though it's impossible to know how many properties are affected, RIFT Platinum I have confidence in saying millions nationally for the following reasons:


More than 1 million foreclosures have been completed since 2005; nearly 200,000 were completed in the third quarter of 2010 alone.
Foreclosures involving securitized mortgages seem to be flawed as a rule, not the exception.
Even when foreclosures may have been otherwise valid, the practices of foreclosure attorneys have clouded titles.
The problems are ongoing. More flawed foreclosures are completed every day.
The clouded title problem extends well beyond foreclosures. Both MERS, the electronic database that holds more than half the mortgages nationally, Rift Gold and possible securitization failures could have damaged the titles of the properties even though the borrowers are current on their mortgages.