CA-BUSINESS Summary

Banks, energy shares lift TSX on U.S. data optimism

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index advanced on Tuesday, led by the energy and financial sectors, as positive economic data from the United States buoyed investor sentiment. Gains were kept in check as gold shares weakened as an easing of worries over Cyprus lessened the appeal of gold as a safe haven and weighed on bullion prices.

Bank of Canada says to oversee SwapClear due to systemic risk

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada said on Tuesday it would formally regulate SwapClear, the dominant global system for centrally clearing over-the-counter interest rate swaps, because it has the potential to pose systemic risk to the Canadian financial system. The announcement came the same day Canada's banking watchdog designated the country's top six banks as being of systemic importance.

Canada ups financial oversight, tags "too big to fail" banks

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian authorities on Tuesday designated the country's top six banks as "systemically important" to the domestic economy and increased oversight of a widely used global derivatives clearing system in an effort to reduce banking system risk. The so-called too big to fail designation was widely expected by the market and means the six banks will have to keep more capital on hand than required by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision after the 2008 financial crisis.

EADS vote signals resurrection as "normal company"

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus parent EADS faces the most far-reaching changes in its history as shareholders seek to balance French and German state shareholdings with tough new safeguards against political meddling. Europe's largest aerospace group has been haunted by political pressures since its inception as an industrial counterpart to the euro currency in 2000, but is re-inventing itself to try to secure greater independence.

Air Canada pension deficit estimate falls on higher plan returns

TORONTO (Reuters) - Air Canada said a preliminary estimate of its pension solvency deficit has dropped to C$3.7 billion ($3.6 billion) from C$4.2 billion a year ago, reflecting a better-than-expected 14 percent return on plan assets. Canada's largest carrier said in a recently filed annual information form that the estimate, as of January 1, 2013, was hurt by a decrease in the solvency discount rate to 3 percent from 3.3 percent. Valuations to determine the actual deficit will be completed in the first half of 2013.

Canada's top six banks to get capital surcharge as of 2016

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's banking watchdog said on Tuesday it sees the country's six largest banks as being of systemic importance to the domestic economy and that it will make them keep 1 percent more capital on hand starting January 2016 to protect them from financial disruption. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) said the six banks are so big and complex that their failure would damage the Canadian economy. The banks are: Bank of Montreal , Bank of Nova Scotia , Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce , National Bank of Canada , Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank .

Cyprus readies capital controls to avert bank run

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus is expected to complete capital control measures on Wednesday to prevent a run on the banks by depositors anxious about their savings after the country agreed a painful rescue package with international lenders. Cypriots have taken to the streets of Nicosia in their thousands to protest at a bailout deal that they fear will push their country into an economic slump and cost many their jobs. European leaders said the deal averted a chaotic national bankruptcy that might have forced Cyprus out of the euro.

Monsanto, DuPont strike $1.75 billion licensing deal, end lawsuits

(Reuters) - DuPont Co

will pay Monsanto Co at least $1.75 billion in a new licensing deal and both companies have agreed to dissolve their bitter legal battles over rights to technology for genetically modified seeds, the world's top seed companies said on Tuesday. The companies agreed to drop antitrust and patent claims against each other while forging the new collaboration, and agreed to toss out a $1 billion jury verdict DuPont was ordered to pay Monsanto last August.

Bank of Canada officials urges more central clearing of repos

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Agathe Cote made no mention of monetary policy in a speech on Tuesday that focused on ways Canadian authorities are strengthening financial markets infrastructure to lessen the risk of future crises. Cote said Canada needed to make more progress in clearing repos, or repurchase transactions, centrally through the Canadian Derivatives Clearing Corporation (CDCS).

Exclusive: Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish association representing open-source software users has filed a complaint against Microsoft Corp to the European Commission, in a new challenge to the Windows developer following a hefty fine earlier this month. The 8,000-member Hispalinux, which represents users and developers of the Linux operating system in Spain, said Microsoft had made it difficult for users of computers sold with its Windows 8 platform to switch to Linux and other operating systems.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-business-summary-011657140--finance.html

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Mobb Deep Promise Rare Songs On 20th Anniversary Tour

'If we really want to do it, like two hours,' Prodigy tells MTV News of possible a set time.
By Rob Markman

Mobb Deep
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704395/mobb-deep-20th-anniversary-tour-rare-songs.jhtml

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Why Everything Is Politicized Even Though Most Americans Hate It (Atlantic Politics Channel)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/294641374?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Scientists unravel genetic code of esophageal cancer | The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, March 24, 2013 14:52 EDT

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Scientists said Sunday they had found mutations in 26 genes that may cause oesophageal cancer, a breakthrough they hope will lead to new drugs for the deadly and increasingly frequent disease.

A team of experts in the United States unravelled the genetic code of tumour cells from 149 patients, which they compared to healthy cells to identify a mutation signature for oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC).

This type of cancer of the oesophagus or gullet, the muscular tube that moves food from the mouth to the stomach, has a five-year survival rate of only about 15-20 percent.

EAC often originates from a disease called Barrett?s oesophagus, which in turn is caused by chronic acid reflux.

Incidence of the cancer has increased by 600 percent over the last 30 years ? particularly in Western countries, according to the study.

Oesophageal cancer kills about 15,000 people in the United States alone every year ? and a total 400,000 worldwide.

Now, the biggest genetic analysis yet of this type of cancer has revealed common mutations that may be specifically targeted by new drugs.

?Finding the mutations helps us understand what makes the cancer tick,? study co-author Adam Bass of the Harvard Medical School told AFP.

?It can also help us find new therapies.?

Cancer develops when a human cell?s DNA is mutated so that its normal function is disrupted and it starts growing and spreading out of control.

There are different causes, including obesity, smoking, exposure to the sun?s UV rays or environmental pollution.

Mutations of different genes have been implicated in different cancers, but there are also vast differences even among people with the same form of the disease.

?We looked at which genes were mutated more frequently than would be expected by chance,? said Bass.

?Doing so, we found 26 genes that may be contributing to this cancer type.?

Genes are segments of DNA that carry the instruction manuals for cells.

The team found a frequent repetition of one particular type of mutation, suggesting it may be caused by some sort of exposure ? perhaps linked to acid reflux disease.

?Why this is especially interesting is that the rates of oesophageal adenocarcinoma have risen greatly in the last several decades,? said Bass.

?We suspect that there may be some factor in the reflux which is causing this specific type of DNA damage.

?If this is so and we can pin down what type of specific factor is responsible for these mutations, we may be able to develop new approaches to prevent these cancers or at least to diagnose them at an earlier point.?

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[DNA illustration via mathagraphics / Shutterstock]

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Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/24/scientists-unravel-genetic-code-of-oesophageal-cancer/

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Super batteries? Hybrid ribbons a gift for powerful batteries

Mar. 25, 2013 ? Hybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene may accelerate the development of high-power lithium-ion batteries suitable for electric cars and other demanding applications.

The Rice University lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan determined that the well-studied material is a superior cathode for batteries that could supply both high energy density and significant power density. The research appears online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

The ribbons created at Rice are thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper, yet have potential that far outweighs current materials for their ability to charge and discharge very quickly. Cathodes built into half-cells for testing at Rice fully charged and discharged in 20 seconds and retained more than 90 percent of their initial capacity after more than 1,000 cycles.

"This is the direction battery research is going, not only for something with high energy density but also high power density," Ajayan said. "It's somewhere between a battery and a supercapacitor."

The ribbons also have the advantage of using relatively abundant and cheap materials. "This is done through a very simple hydrothermal process, and I think it would be easily scalable to large quantities," he said.

Ajayan said vanadium oxide has long been considered a material with great potential, and in fact vanadium pentoxide has been used in lithium-ion batteries for its special structure and high capacity. But oxides are slow to charge and discharge, due to their low electrical conductivity. The high-conductivity graphene lattice that is literally baked in solves that problem nicely, he said, by serving as a speedy conduit for electrons and channels for ions.

The atom-thin graphene sheets bound to the crystals take up very little bulk. In the best samples made at Rice, fully 84 percent of the cathode's weight was the lithium-slurping VO2, which held 204 milliamp hours of energy per gram. The researchers, led by Rice graduate student Yongji Gong and lead author Shubin Yang, said they believe that to be among the best overall performance ever seen for lithium-ion battery electrodes.

"One challenge to production was controlling the conditions for the co-synthesis of VO2 ribbons with graphene," Yang said. The process involved suspending graphene oxide nanosheets with powdered vanadium pentoxide (layered vanadium oxide, with two atoms of vanadium and five of oxygen) in water and heating it in an autoclave for hours. The vanadium pentoxide was completely reduced to VO2, which crystallized into ribbons, while the graphene oxide was reduced to graphene, Yang said. The ribbons, with a web-like coating of graphene, were only about 10 nanometers thick, up to 600 nanometers wide and tens of micrometers in length.

"These ribbons were the building blocks of the three-dimensional architecture," Yang said. "This unique structure was favorable for the ultrafast diffusion of both lithium ions and electrons during charge and discharge processes. It was the key to the achievement of excellent electrochemical performance."

In testing the new material, Yang and Gong found its capacity for lithium storage remained stable after 200 cycles even at high temperatures (167 degrees Fahrenheit) at which other cathodes commonly decay, even at low charge-discharge rates.

"We think this is real progress in the development of cathode materials for high-power lithium-ion batteries," Ajayan said, suggesting the ribbons' ability to be dispersed in a solvent might make them suitable as a component in the paintable batteries developed in his lab.

Co-authors of the new paper are Rice graduate students Daniel Hashim and Lulu Ma; research scientist Zheng Liu; former Rice visiting researcher Liang Zhan, now an associate professor at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai; and faculty fellow Robert Vajtai. Ajayan is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, chemistry, and chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The work was funded by the U.S. Army Research Office and the Office of Naval Research through a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship grant.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by Mike Williams.

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. Shubin Yang, Yongji Gong, Zheng Liu, Liang Zhan, Daniel P. Hashim, Lulu Ma, Robert Vajtai, Pulickel M. Ajayan. Bottom-up Approach toward Single-Crystalline VO2-Graphene Ribbons as Cathodes for Ultrafast Lithium Storage. Nano Letters, 2013; : 130314101516006 DOI: 10.1021/nl400001u

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_technology/~3/MgNIdDGu0nc/130325125607.htm

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Trade relations in focus before China's Xi gives Africa speech

By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala and George Obulutsa

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - China's trade ties with Africa will be under the spotlight on Monday when President Xi Jinping outlines his country's relationship with the continent, which Beijing is increasingly turning to for both its resources and as a market place.

Xi's tour of Africa on his first overseas trip is seen as a reflection of the strategic importance of Africa's oil and mineral resources to the world's second biggest economy.

But while seeking to build on expanding economic relations, China's new leader faces concerns in Africa that the continent is being stripped of its raw materials for export while spending heavily on finished consumer goods from the Asian economic powerhouse.

Africans generally see China as a healthy counterbalance to the West's influence but, as the relationship matures, there are growing calls from policymakers and economists for a more balanced trade deal.

One of Xi's main aims could be to ease local fears China was in Africa purely for its resources, said James Shikwati, head of the Nairobi-based Inter Regional Economic Network think tank.

Gratitude for Chinese no-strings aid to Africa is increasingly tinged with a wariness about its intentions.

"China has been giving us a lot of development support, but they obviously want something in return," said university student Lisa Mgaya in Dar es Salaam.

"We should be careful with China."

LONG HISTORY OF CONTACTS

Chinese interest in Africa goes back centuries. In 1414 admiral Zheng He sailed with a fleet down the east coast of Africa to Malindi, on a voyage to proclaim the strength of China. He famously brought home a giraffe, astonishing the Chinese court.

Six centuries later, China is focused less on African exotica and more on energy and minerals. The east African seaboard is hot property after huge gas discoveries in Tanzania and Mozambique. Oil strikes have also caught China's eye.

Xi arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's commercial capital where he will deliver his speech, on Sunday and signed more than a dozen trade and cooperation deals with President Jakaya Kikwete's government.

The agreements included plans to co-develop a new port and industrial zone complex, a concessional loan for communications infrastructure and an interest free loan to the Tanzanian government. No details were given on the size of the loans or the monetary value of the projects.

He then travels to South Africa for a summit of leaders of the world's major emerging economies, known as the BRICS, on Tuesday and Wednesday, and could endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool and an infrastructure.

The proposal underscores frustrations among emerging markets at having to rely on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are seen as reflecting the interests of the United States and other industrialized nations.

Nigeria's central bank governor, Lamido Sanusi, wrote in the Financial Times this month that the trade imbalance between China and Africa was "the essence of colonialism" and cautioned the continent was vulnerable to a new form of imperialism.

China will be keen not to be perceived as an imperial master.

"The legacy of (the) West is the feeling that Africa should thank them, and that Africa should recognize that it is not as good as the West," said Zhong Jianhua, China's special envoy to Africa. "That is not acceptable."

Xi's African tour ends in the Republic of Congo, from where China imported 5.4 billion metric tons (5.9 billion tons) of oil last year, just 2 percent of its total oil imports, but potentially the source of a lot more to feed its booming, energy-hungry economy.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-xi-arrives-africa-focus-trade-ties-165225618.html

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PFT: Giants offer Cruz $7 million-plus per year

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Bills G.M. Buddy Nix says that he plans to keep making more moves in free agency.

The Dolphins hosted their annual Girls High School Flag Football Jamboree.? (Some fans and pro players would say that the Girls High School Flag Football Jamboree eventually will go by the name ?National Football League.?)

The Patriots worked out Washington State QB Jeff Tuel on Friday.

Jets coach Rex Ryan won?t be ticketed for a January car accident in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Browns LB coach Brian Baker can?t wait for April 1.

Steelers RB Baron Batch will be the featured artist at the 35th Annual Lubbock Arts Festival.

As the Ravens sniff around Elvis Dumervil and Dwight Freeney, they?re talking up Courtney Upshaw as a potential pass rusher.

Talks between the Bengals and RT Andre Smith remain at a standstill.? (If Smith is getting antsy, we?d tell him to keep his shirt on.? Then again, we?d tell him to keep his shirt on pretty much always.)

Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips believes S Ed Reed will ?energize everybody.?

Colts NT Martin Tevaseu has signed his exclusive rights free agency (i.e., not a free agent at all) tender.

A group of private pilots have offered to do flyovers at Jaguars games this year, given that the ?sequester? has ended public funding of the airborne dog-and-pony shows.

Titans S Bernard Pollard says he?s ?not looking to change.?? (Which could mean that, in due time, he?ll be looking for his fifth NFL team.)

San Diego mayor Bob Filner likes the idea of a combined Chargers stadium and convention center.

The departure of Shane Lechler opens the door for Marquette King to become the next great Raiders punter.

Former (for now) Broncos DE Elvis Dumervil says he simply wants to feel wanted.

Chiefs WR Dexter McCluster is ?happy about the fresh start? in Kansas City.

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett knows that back-to-back 8-8 seasons are ?not good enough.?

New Giants TE Brandon Myers played the entire 2012 season with a sprained shoulder.

New Eagles WR Arrelious Benn knows that he has to stay healthy.

A bill that would necessarily require the Redskins to change their name has been introduced at the U.S. House of Representatives.

Former Bears DT Anthony Adams filed his retirement paperwork on Friday.

Lions K Jason Hanson has decided to return for a 22nd season ? if he can get a contract he likes from the team with which he has spent seasons one through 21.

Donald Driver is relieved that Vikings WR Greg Jennings now won?t be able to break Driver?s receiving records in Green Bay.

Packers coach Mike McCarthy realizes that teams will use the read-option against Green Bay?s defense.

The Saints currently have no starting left tackle; ?I look at that spot like there?s a magnet with no name on it,? coach Sean Payton said.? ?Gray, it?s just gray.?

Falcons QB Matt Ryan?s 68.6-percent completion percentage was the 13th highest in league history for passers with more than 300 attempts.

The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce has launched a public campaign to keep the Panthers in town.

The Buccaneers? official website spends a little time on the ?f?king Warren Sapp f?king angle.?

New 49ers WR Anquan Boldin would be interested in extending a contract that expires after the 2013 season.

Cardinals CB Patrick Peterson continues to mentor Tyrann Mathieu.

The Rams freed up $725,000 in cap space by releasing TE Matthew Mulligan.

The Seahawks still have two starters who are on the market and unsigned:? LB Leroy Hill and K Stephen Hauschka.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/03/23/report-giants-offer-cruz-more-than-7-million-per-year/related/

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