'Fast And Furious 6' Blows Past 'Hangover Part III' At The Box Office

In the battle of two franchises, only one was able to walk out with its head held high. "Fast and Furious 6" punched the nitro and cruised past expectations to a four-day total of $120 million over Memorial Day weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. The Wolfpack, on the other hand, scored an impressive pile [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/05/28/fast-and-furious-6-box-office/

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Syria says will attend Geneva talks 'in principle'

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Syria's government will "in principle" attend multilateral talks planned for June in Geneva and believes the conference will be an opportunity to resolve the country's conflict, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Sunday.

Russia and the United States are sponsoring a proposed peace conference planned for next month on the war, which has killed 80,000 people and risks spilling over its borders and stirring regional sectarian violence.

"Syria will, in principle, participate in the international conference planned for June in Geneva," Moualem told reporters after talks with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad. "We believe the meeting presents a good opportunity to resolve the Syrian crisis."

"No power on earth can decide on the future of Syria. Only the Syrian people have the right to do so," he added.

Washington is pushing opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to unite before the conference, but the fractious group has been hampered by power struggles during talks in Istanbul over their leadership during the past few days.

Senior opposition leaders say their coalition is likely to attend the peace conference, but they doubt the meeting will result in their key demand, which is an agreement for Assad to leave office.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Suadad al-Salhy; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-attend-geneva-talks-principle-foreign-minister-110646080.html

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Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover

BEIRUT (AP) ? Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

The battles raised the five-day death toll to 16 and fed fears of the Syrian civil war spreading to Lebanon and other neighboring countries.

The violence also added to the urgency to U.S.-Russian efforts to bring both sides of the Syrian conflict to a peace conference in Geneva. Members of the Syrian opposition began three day meetings in Istanbul to hash out a unified position on whether to attend, while maintaining that Assad's departure from power should be the goals of the negotiations.

Lebanon has been on edge since the uprising in Syria began in March 2011. The country, which is still struggling to recover from its own 15-year civil war, is sharply divided along sectarian lines and into pro and anti-Assad camps. The overt involvement by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite militant group alongside Assad's regime has sparked outrage among many Sunnis in Lebanon who identify with the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Deadly sectarian street fighting has erupted on several occasions, mostly in Tripoli, Lebanon's largest city and a hotbed for Sunni Islamists. This week's fighting there has been linked to a Syrian regime offensive against the rebel-held city of Qusair in western Syria that has included Hezbollah fighters supporting Syrian troops against the rebels.

Tripoli is overwhelmingly Sunni but has a tiny community of Alawites, members of Assad's minority sect, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Residents reported more than six hours of fighting that began late Wednesday and continued through Thursday morning. Mortar shells were used for the first time. Ambulances rushed back and forth, transporting casualties to hospitals as officials used mosque loudspeakers to urge citizens to take shelter in basements. Schools and many businesses were shuttered Thursday as sporadic fighting continued.

Five people were killed, pushing the overall death toll to 16 since fighting began Sunday, with 200 people wounded, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

"It was a frightful night that instilled terror in the heart of every resident of Tripoli," said Shada Dabliz, a 40-year-old peace activist in the city. "Tripoli is part of Lebanon, where is the state? Why doesn't the government do anything?"

Cabinet minister Faisal Karami said the fighting was among the worst in the city since Lebanon's civil war that ended in 1990, according to comments reported by Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.

Ashraf Rifi, a former police chief who has a large Sunni following in Tripoli, said the flare-up in Tripoli was a direct result of Hezbollah's involvement in Syria and accused the group of "trying to deflect attention" from its participation in the fighting in Syria.

Hezbollah and its allies held a dominant role in the Lebanese government, which resigned in March but continues to function on a caretaker basis. Various Lebanese factions have been unable to agree on the formation of a new government.

Fighting in Qusair continued for a fifth day Thursday, after Syrian opposition leaders urged rebels from elsewhere to converge on the town, which is strategically important to both sides.

The regime would solidify control in the heavily populated west if it retakes the town, which links the capital Damascus with the Alawite heartland along the Mediterranean coast. For the rebels, predominantly Sunni Qusair is part of a supply line of weapons and fighters from Lebanon.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group, said Thursday that 46 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the battle for Qusair. In the past, Hezbollah tried to play down its involvement in the civil war, but its high-profile role in Qusair has made that impossible. Hezbollah has held funerals for fighters who officials close to the group say died at Qusair.

Overall, at least 104 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria in recent months, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.

Hezbollah's growing involvement has prompted international condemnation. European officials said Wednesday that the European Union is reassessing whether to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a move it has long shied from despite pressure from the U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that Hezbollah's overt engagement across the border puts Lebanon at risk.

"You have this major force in Lebanon, Hezbollah ... which has chosen, on behalf of all of the Lebanese people, to drag them into this," he said at a press conference in Amman, Jordan. "That's exactly the kind of danger that we are trying to avoid."

In Amman, Kerry and U.S. allies from Europe and the Arab world sought to convince Syria's rebels of the need to participate in any peace effort.

However, Louay Safi, a senior member of the Syrian National Coalition, Syria's main opposition bloc, said Thursday that only written guarantees that Assad's departure is one of the goals of the negotiations can bring the opposition to the table.

"If the transition and if the removal of Assad is not on the table, this is a non-starter for all the opposition," Safi said by phone from Istanbul.

During its three-day meeting, the coalition is to lay out its positions on peace talks, discuss bringing in other groups and elect a new leadership.

Disagreements over Assad's fate have been a key obstacle to international efforts to end to Syria's civil war.

A Syrian opposition leader who resigned as head of the Western-backed coalition in March called on Assad to hand over power either to his prime minister or vice president within twenty days, as well as the dissolution of the current Syrian parliament.

The proposal by Mouaz al-Khatib, posted on his Facebook page ensures a safe exit for Assad but does not guarantee him legal immunity in the future and is likely to be rejected by Assad regime. Coalition members said it would be discussed at the Istanbul meetings.

On Wednesday, the U.S. along with key European and Arab supporters of Syria's opposition said Assad must relinquish power at the start of a transition period. However, Syria ally Russia, a co-sponsor of the Geneva talks, has not committed to Assad's departure, and the Syrian leader has said he will not step down before elections are held.

Kerry on Thursday acknowledged the difficulties of launching peace talks. "Nobody has any illusions about how difficult, complicated, what a steep climb that is," he said during a visit to Israel.

"But we also understand that the killing that is taking place, the massacres that are taking place, the incredible destabilization of Syria, is spilling over into Lebanon, into Jordan, and has an impact, obviously, on Israel," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Karin Laub and Yasmine Saker in Beirut and Bradley S. Klapper in Jerusalem contributed reporting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clashes-lebanon-feed-fear-syria-spillover-191630324.html

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Thumbnail sketch of CBS' fall schedule

NEW YORK (AP) ? Some highlights of CBS' moves in its schedule for next season.

WHAT'S NEW: Not too much. CBS has such a successful lineup ? tops in total viewers and advertiser-favored young adults this season ? that it is bringing aboard just eight new series. But it is toying with the limited-series format that looks like broadcasting's flavor du jour next year. CBS' experiment: "Hostages" and Intelligence," which will get shorter consecutive runs in the 10 p.m. Eastern time slot on Mondays.

WHAT'S GONE: "CSI: N.Y.," ''Vegas," ''Golden Boy" and "Rules of Engagement."

BIG MOVE: Keeping sitcom "Mike & Molly" and its red-hot movie star, Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids," ''Identity Thief"), off the air until midseason. Network executives said they love the show, are thrilled about McCarthy's summer flick "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock, but wanted the flexibility of having 22 episodes of fresh product available later in the season to avoid rerun fatigue for viewers.

STAR POWER: Robin Williams, who gained fame with "Mork & Mindy" in the late 1970s, will return to sitcom life in "The Crazy Ones," starring opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as his daughter and ad-agency partner. Another big name involved: David E. Kelley, who's shifting from his brand of hour-long dramedy ("Ally McBeal," ''Boston Legal") to the half-hour format.

QUOTE: "I don't care if you bow to the gods of demographics ? that's a huge victory," CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves said of CBS' expansive lead in total viewers over competitors ABC, NBC and Fox. While CBS has long touted its focus on that number over advertiser-favored young adults, its executives acknowledged they are making a stronger play for youth next season. One example: "We Are Men," with Kal Penn and Jerry O'Connell among four newly single men sharing temporary digs.

AMAZING FACTOID: The Tuesday-night lineup of "NCIS," ''NCIS: Los Angeles" and "Person of Interest" is the first time since 1982 that a network has had TV's three top-rated dramas on a single night, said Kelly Kahl, CBS prime-time senior executive vice president. The last trio to accomplish that feat: CBS' "The Dukes of Hazzard," ''Dallas" and "Falcon Crest."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thumbnail-sketch-cbs-fall-schedule-181507572.html

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Albina Du Boisrouvray: The FXB-Village Model: Together Towards a Global Solution

As the founder of development and children's rights organization FXB International, I have in the past several years witnessed a subtle yet important shift in the terms used to describe our work, as "international health" has steadily faded away in favor of "global health." This shift is a perfect representation of the ways in which modern life has shrunk the size of our world and expanded the reach of our connections -- we are no longer "international," defined by our borders, but rather "global," defined by what we share across them.

Unfortunately, one of the most troubling things we share is a global epidemic of poverty compounded by HIV/AIDs. This epidemic has created a generation of children left desperately poor and vulnerable, left by neglectful governments without access to healthcare, education or hope for the future. And just as it encompasses a wide-ranging host of problems -- in medicine, in economics, in infrastructure -- so too must its solution be global in scope.

No one understood this better than Dr. Jonathan Mann, a figure who believed deeply in the importance of holistic solutions. As the founder of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS in 1986, Mann pioneered the idea that health and human rights are inextricably linked, arguing that public health interventions can be sustained only by ensuring people access to the essential rights and services that all deserve.

The central program of FXB International, the FXB-Village Model, is a solution firmly rooted in the concept of interconnectedness -- and so it should come as no surprise that when I founded the program in 1989, I did so with Mann's public health paradigm in mind. With thousands of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS living with extended and foster families -- and many of those households headed by struggling widows or grandparents -- the well-being of the world's most vulnerable children is intimately tied to the well-being of the adults around them. The FXB-Village Model, therefore, operates on a holistic view of children's rights. We help children by investing in their families and communities, empowering participants to permanently lift themselves out of poverty.

Albina du Boisrouvray with children from the FXB Sunday Empowerment Group in Yangon, Myanmar. Courtesy of Kaung Htet

In a field flush with development and aid programs, the FXB-Village Model is unique in its view towards long-term results, emphasizing sustainability over handouts. The structure is as simple as it is effective: In the first year, participating communities are provided essential services at no cost, including healthcare, children's education, food, sanitation, psychosocial counseling and vocational training. In the second, participants' financial contribution towards their households increases to 25 percent as they build on their newfound knowledge and skills. In the third, that figure increases to 50 percent as they work towards achieving financial autonomy, and by the end of the final year, participants graduate with the expectation that they are now fully self-sufficient. According to a recently published Harvard study The Cost of Inaction, fully 70 percent of them remain so for life, with that number increasing to more than 80 percent if food produced by the families in rural areas is included in the analysis.

Since the first FXB-Village Model initiative was founded in Uganda nearly 25 years ago, the program has flourished along with the people it serves, expanding to its current reach of 49 locations across Africa, Asia and South America. We've helped 12,000 families and more than 800,000 children to date by focusing our efforts on those who care for them -- people like Elizabeth, a mother in Rwanda whose family was left in poverty when her husband passed away soon after the birth of her children.

Struggling with depression and other health problems, unable to pay for food, shelter or education for her children, Elizabeth faced what appeared to be a hopeless future until the day an FXB staffer knocked on her door. Today, with the help of counseling, nutritional support and her own pig as a means of generating income, Elizabeth has successfully overcome a difficult past to provide her children with a brighter future.

The future of the FXB-Village Model is equally bright. The program's accomplishments are due in no small part to another by-product of our increasingly connected world - a strengthened commitment to empowering all communities to make the best decisions for their future. As FXB moves further into the 21st century, we are transitioning from a centralized structure to a localized decision-making model, empowering local boards to act autonomously within their communities. This shift will enable staff members to tailor initiatives to each village's cultural and economic realities and help the FXB-Village Model expand the depth of its programming for continued success.

But true to its founding philosophy, the FXB-Village Model has not achieved such success in a vacuum. We are both connected to and indebted to others in the fields of development and global health -- others like Dr. Jonathan Mann; like Cost of Inaction study author Dr. Sudhir Anand; like Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Anand's advisor in the study and author of its foreword; and like our Global Partners, companies and private donors that have committed themselves to raising funds for the FXB-Villages Model through grassroots campaigns. As the FXB-Village Model continues to grow and we develop ways to share its methodology with the public, we will continue to rely on others - on organizations that put out the call to action, and on individuals that answer it - to help us validate and advance our work. With the ills of poverty and disease impacting the security of our global future, only a truly global effort will be able to heal our world.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/albina-duboisrouvray/the-fxbvillage-model-toge_b_3225319.html

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Live from Google I/O's 2013 opening keynote!

The time is nearly here and we are ready to liveblog. Will Google unveil the long-rumored Nexus 7 successor? Will there be new phones to consider? What does the future hold for Google Glass? Over the course of the next three hours (!) we're eager to find out. Join us at 9:00 AM PT for all the excitement.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/15/live-from-google-i-os-2013-opening-keynote/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Liberals stage comeback to win in Canada's British Columbia: networks

By Jennifer Kwan

VICTORIA, British Columbia (Reuters) - The incumbent Liberal Party won a handsome majority in the election in the Canadian Pacific province of British Columbia on Tuesday, news networks predicted, defying the pollsters who had expected voters to boot the party out of power.

The Liberals, in power for more than a decade, lost support after the introduction, and then cancellation, of an unpopular sales tax. But the party gained momentum late in an election campaign that focused on the economy, balanced budgets and controlled spending.

The majority government was predicted by networks Global News and CTV News.

Analysts characterized the victory as shocking and a miracle because the Liberals had trailed the left-leaning New Democrats by some 20 percentage points heading into the campaign.

Provisional returns at around 10 p.m. Pacific Time (1 a.m. EDT Wednesday) showed the Liberals had won, or were slightly ahead, in 50 of the 85 seats in the provincial legislature, while the NDP were heading for 33 seats. Forty-three seats are needed for a majority.

Premier Christy Clark was in a tight race with the NDP challenger for her seat and the winner had yet to be decided.

The Liberals held 45 seats in the previous legislature, the NDP had 36, and four were held by independents.

The key turning point in the campaign seemed to be Clark's ability to play up fears that the New Democrats would be poor stewards of Canada's fourth-largest provincial economy.

NDP leader Adrian Dix opposed both the proposed C$6 billion ($6 billion) Enbridge Inc Northern Gateway pipeline that would ship 525,000 barrels of oil sands crude per day from Alberta to the B.C. coast, and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP's plan to more than double the size of its Trans Mountain pipeline carrying crude oil from Edmonton, Alberta, to the coast.

Dix had promised to revoke an agreement the Liberals had signed under which British Columbia would recognize whatever federal decision is taken after a federal environmental review of the Northern Gateway pipeline, due at the end of this year.

British Columbia, which includes large parts of the Canadian Rockies as well as the rugged and often undeveloped Pacific coast, prides itself on its environmental policies. Greenpeace was founded here in 1971.

Green Party candidate Andrew Weaver won the party's first seat in a provincial legislature in Canada.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/liberals-stage-comeback-win-canadas-british-columbia-networks-052312346.html

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