World stocks jump on Fed pledge for US economy

A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012. Asian stock markets bound higher Friday after investors got just what they wanted - big moves by the Federal Reserve to help the U.S. economy out of its funk. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012. Asian stock markets bound higher Friday after investors got just what they wanted - big moves by the Federal Reserve to help the U.S. economy out of its funk. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Specialist David Pologruto works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke holds a news conference in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. Bernanke said the Federal Reserve does not have a specific economic target for its new U.S. stimulus program and will keep buying bonds until it sees more jobs, lower unemployment and stronger growth. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

An investor looks at a stock price monitor at a private securities company Friday Sept. 14, 2012 in Shanghai, China. Asian stock markets bounded higher Friday after investors got just what they wanted ? big moves by the Federal Reserve to help the U.S. economy out of its funk. (AP Photo)

MILAN (AP) ? World stock markets shot higher Friday after the Federal Reserve met investor expectations by giving the green light to big asset purchases to boost the U.S. economy.

"What wasn't expected - and explains the particularly exuberant reaction by markets - was the open-ended nature of the latest plan, with the U.S. committing to buy bonds until the economy improves.," said David Jones, IG chief market strategist. "All of this has raised hopes of providing a shot in the arm for the global economy."

European stocks surged. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.5 percent to 5,907.43. Germany's DAX gained 1.44 percent to 7,415.87 and France's CAC-40 added 1.98 percent to 3,571.30.

The euro currency edged higher to $1.3061 from $1.2985 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 78.08 yen from 77.45 yen.

Oil prices rose above $100 for the first time since May, pushed up by the Fed's moves as well as tension in the Middle East and Africa. Benchmark oil was up $2.07 to $100.38 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.30 to end at $98.31 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday.

Europe's rally was on top of big rallies in Asia, where Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 2.9 percent to 20,629.78, a level it hasn't seen since early May. Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.8 percent to 9,159.39 and South Korea's Kospi vaulted 2.9 percent to 2,007.58.

Wall Street looked set to post gains, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.3 percent to 13,484. S&P 500 futures gained 0.3 percent to 1,454.80.

The Fed 's pledge Thursday to buy $40 billion of mortgage securities a month until the economy improves comes a week after the European Central Bank announced its most ambitious plan yet to ease Europe's financial crisis by buying unlimited amounts of government bonds to help countries manage their debts..

European finance ministers meet Friday in Cyprus, where discussions are expected to turn on whether Spain should seek a bailout. Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy has resisted doing so to date, fearing political damage at home.

The Fed has been under pressure to act because the U.S. economy is still growing too slowly to reduce high unemployment. The unemployment rate has topped 8 percent every month since the recession officially ended more than three years ago.

In August, job growth slowed sharply. Employers added just 96,000 jobs, down from 141,000 in July and well below what is needed to bring relief to the more than 12 million who are unemployed.

The unemployment rate did fall to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent. But that was because many Americans stopped looking for work, so they were no longer counted as unemployed.

Analysts said economy-bolstering moves by authorities in the U.S., Europe and China bode well for markets at least in the short-term.

"It certainly seems like sentiment is largely positive now," said Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne, Australia. "I think everyone will be much happier knowing the Fed will support a recovery."

____Pam Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-09-14-World-Markets/id-ca3e81c66d2e4f2986d42aca0784b55a

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Are our bones well designed? Insects and crabs have a leg up on us

ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2012) ? Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have recently shown that the legs of grasshoppers and crabs have the ideal shape to resist bending and compression. If human leg bones were built the same way, they could be twice as strong.

"Like all Arthropods, grasshoppers and crabs have so called exoskeletons made from a very special material called cuticle," said Professor David Taylor, of the Trinity Centre for Bioengineering at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. "This exoskeleton protects the animal like a knight's suit of armour. Recently we have shown that this cuticle is in fact one of the toughest natural materials."

"In terms of evolution, having your bones on the outside has been a pretty good concept," said his colleague Dr Jan-Henning Dirks. "Since millions of years animals with exoskeletons such as insects, spiders and crustaceans can be found basically in every ecosystem in the world."

So what makes this exoskeleton so successful? Together the interdisciplinary team used the latest principles of engineering mechanics, materials science and biomechanics to address this question. In particular, Taylor and Dirks were interested in the diameter and thickness of the bones. They used a special computer-tomography machine to generate X-ray images of insect legs with a resolution of only a few thousands of a millimetre and collected and compared data from crabs and human bones.

Their results, published in the article 'Shape Optimisation in Exoskeletons and Endoskeletons: a Biomechanics Analysis' in the Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, showed that, whilst human leg bones are relatively thick-walled tubes, the legs of insects and crabs have a much thinner wall in relation to their radius.

"This relation of wall-thickness to radius can tell us a lot about the mechanical stability of the structure," said Taylor. "Imagine the bones as simple tubes. Now, if you had a limited amount of material, what would you do? Would you make a thin solid rod or a hollow, thin walled tube? When compressed, the rod might easily bend like a straw, the hollow tube however might buckle like a beer-can."
However, for a given weight there is a mechanical optimal wall-thickness. And interestingly, the researchers found that the leg-shape of crabs represents an ideal compromise to resist both the bending and compression forces the crab experiences when walking under water.

The locust leg on the other hand is optimised to withstand the huge bending forces which occur when it jumps.
In comparison, the human thighbone didn't do so well. Using the same amount of bone material and taking into account its mechanical properties, the human thighbone could be "redesigned" as an exoskeleton to be twice as strong as it is now.

"Of course there are numerous other factors determining the evolutionary advantages of endo- and exoskeletons," said Taylor. "However, we think that by taking a design engineer's view on the problem we've been able to shed some light on the evolutionary development of skeletal forms."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Trinity College Dublin, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. D. Taylor, J.-H. Dirks. Shape optimization in exoskeletons and endoskeletons: a biomechanics analysis. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2012; DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.0567

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/UGKqtgRQb-s/120912084432.htm

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Miners charged in deaths of 34 killed by police

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? About 270 miners were charged Thursday with the murders of 34 striking colleagues who were shot by South African police officers, authorities said, a development that could further infuriate South Africans already shocked and angered by the police action.

The decision to charge the miners comes under an arcane Roman-Dutch common purpose law used under the apartheid regime, and it suggests President Jacob Zuma's government wants to shift blame for the killings from police to the striking miners.

Firebrand politician Julius Malema, who has seized on the shootings to score political points, told supporters of miners outside the courthouse that the charges were "madness."

"The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them. This is madness," said Malema, who was expelled from the governing African National Congress in April. "The whole world saw the policemen kill those people."

The Mail and Guardian newspaper quoted constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos as saying the decision to charge the miners with the murders was "bizarre and shocking and represents a flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system in an effort to protect the police and/or politicians like Jacob Zuma and (Police Minister) Nathi Mthethwa."

National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Frank Lesenyego told The Associated Press that "It's the police who were shooting, but they were under attack by the protesters, who were armed, so today the 270 accused are charged with the murders" of those who were shot.

More than 150 of the arrested miners have filed complaints that they have been beaten up in police cells by officers, the Independent Police Complaints Directorate reported earlier this week.

Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini said the complainants accused police of beating them with batons and fists and kicking and slapping them to force them to give the names of miners who hacked two police officers to death in a week of violence preceding the shootings. Eight other people were killed, including three miners and two mine security guards whom striking miners burned alive in their vehicle.

The strike, apparently rooted in rivalry between two trade unions, had rock drill operators demanding a minimum wage of 12,500 rand ($1,560) and complaining that their take-home pay was only about 5,500 rand ($688).

On Aug. 16, police said they had failed to persuade the strikers to disarm and that it was "D-Day" to end the strike at the London-registered Lonmin PLC platinum mine. That afternoon, striking miners armed with clubs, machetes and at least one gun allegedly charged at police, who opened fire, killing 34 and wounding at least 78.

Some survivors said many of the miners were fleeing police tear gas and water cannons when they were shot.

Dlamini has refused to comment on local news reports that autopsies show many of those killed were shot in the back.

Police Commissioner Gen. Riah Phiyega has been criticized for saying her officers "did nothing wrong." She said they acted in self-defense, using live bullets only after they were fired upon and had failed to stop a charge of miners with water cannons, stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets.

Prosecution spokesman Lesenyego said the 270 miners were charged under Roman-Dutch law that held sway in South Africa before a new liberal constitution was adopted after apartheid ended in 1994. He said it was case law, meaning it has been used in previous cases and that there is legal precedent even though it is not in the constitution.

The police killings were the worst public display of state-sponsored violence since apartheid was overthrown and have traumatized a nation that hoped it had seen the last of such scenes.

The common purpose law being used to charge the miners was fought by the African National Congress when it was a liberation movement, accusing the white minority government of using it to make victims of a crime its perpetrators. The ANC has been in power for 18 years and the miserable living conditions of miners has highlighted its failure to transform the wealth of Africa's richest nation into better lives for the majority of its 48 million citizens, who continue to battle unemployment, housing shortages and poor health and education services.

In the fallout from the killings, the bitter mine strike has strengthened. Lonmin reported an average of 6.6 percent of workers showed up across various shifts Thursday, down from 13 percent on Monday and 50 percent on Saturday.

Lonmin said many workers were being intimidated and feared for their safety if they returned to work. The company has suffered a serious hit to its share price and has said it probably cannot meet debt payments, due next month, because of the strike that started Aug. 10.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/miners-charged-deaths-34-killed-police-183825428.html

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