BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The euro zone may raise the combined lending power of its bailout funds to close to 700 billion euros from 500 billion in a trade-off between German opposition to committing more money and calming markets, euro zone officials said.
Euro zone finance ministers and central bankers will discuss the size of their bailout funds - the temporary European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in Copenhagen on March 30-31.
The 440 billion euro EFSF and the 500 billion ESM now have a combined lending ceiling of 500 billion euros, which means that in the 12 months from July 2012 when they co-exist, they cannot lend together more than 500 billion euros.
Markets have long been pushing for a higher capacity for euro zone lending to make sure the 17-nation bloc has enough money to bail out even its large members like Italy or Spain, should that be necessary, but Germany has been adamantly opposed to such an increase.
"Given that the situation is difficult in several countries, it seems to me the easiest option is the least ambitious one," one senior euro zone official said.
Out of its 440 billion euros of lending power, the EFSF has already committed 192 billion euros to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
"One possibility would be to say the EFSF has made commitments of 192 billion euros, but the ESM should start fresh with 500," the senior euro zone official said.
"The combined lending capacity would go from 500 billion to 692 billion, roughly 700 billion. That is one of the options under discussion and that is probably the least ambitious and therefore politically the easiest," the official said.
A second euro zone official confirmed this was a likely solution, although both noted several options were being examined and the final decision was still uncertain.
(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski; editing by Rex Merrifield)
LONDON (Reuters) - The stars of the eagerly anticipated movie "The Hunger Games" said scenes of violence were justified, after British censors agreed to give the film a "12A" rating only after some footage was cut.
Based on the first of three novels by Suzanne Collins, the film is a post-apocalyptic story in which U.S. actress Jennifer Lawrence plays heroine Katniss Everdeen who volunteers to take her sister's place in a televised fight-to-the-death battle.
The hype surrounding its March 23 launch has been compared to the hugely successful "Twilight" vampire movie franchise, and industry experts predict an opening weekend box office tally of up to $100 million in North America alone.
In Britain, distributors agreed to cut seven seconds of footage featuring wounds and bloodied weapons in order to obtain a "12A" rating and draw in a bigger, younger audience.
When asked whether she believed the violence depicted on screen was acceptable, Lawrence said:
"I think so, yes, because it's the violence and the brutality (which) is the heart of the film, because it's what gets the people angry to start an uprising and to start a revolution.
"I do think the violence and brutality is justified, but I understand if everybody has a different standard for ratings," the actress told Reuters on the red carpet at the European premiere of The Hunger Games in London late on Wednesday.
In the United States, the film aimed largely at a teenaged audience received a PG-13 rating "for intense violent thematic material and disturbing images -- all involving teens".
Josh Hutcherson, who plays Peeta Mellark, said he believed director Gary Ross had struck the right balance between staying true to the book and not overdoing the violence.
"I think kids are more mature than they have been over the years and I think ... the whole idea was to make this movie and stay true to the book without alienating audiences.
"So Gary Ross did it in a way where he didn't glorify it (the violence) at all. It's not overly gruesome or brutal but it is part of the story in some way."
British actor Toby Jones, Claudius Templesmith in the film, praised the pacing of The Hunger Games.
"It feels like a sort of adult film in style, it's not that fast editing you see all the time in films that are supposedly for young people," he told Reuters.
"It's much more, it believes that the audience were interested in the characters so it takes its time."
(Additional reporting and writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
? Travel backpack at Guerrilla Packs is perfect for your next trip! | Home | Termidor Guards Your Home From Pest Damages ?
By admin | March 14, 2012
The new home construction process is exhilerating in many ways, combining practical elements of engineering, team-coordination, code compliance, financial management, etc, with the creative elements of design, aesthetics, and on-the-fly problem-solving. ?While exciting, home construction can also be a source of stress, not only for the clients, but for the professional?home builders?involved as well. ?Experienced builders have learned how to manage construction processes with poise. ?Newer builders can buckle under the pressure, the results of which can include interpersonal conflicts, mishandled funds, and even a sub-par product. ?With this in mind, I would like to recommend what I call the ?Home Builders Haven? to people who are new to the construction process. ?Here?s what it is: ?I encourage home builders to visit the construction site, no more than once a week, at a time when activity is relatively low, ideally at a time when no workers are on site. ?This is not a time to critique work, manage details, or (if at all possible to avoid) talk on the phone. ?This is a time to be quiet and reflective, even for 5-10 minutes. ?Stand on the site and pray for the family who will live there. ?Envision people eating their Thanksgiving meals there. ?Envision them pushing a stroller out of the garage and down the sidewalk or maybe jogging out with their headphones in their ears and their dog on a leash. ?Imagine the lawn being mowed on a quiet summer evening. ?THIS is the home builders haven, the solitary moments when he pauses and is grateful to be involved, not merely in structure construction, but in a strange ethereal sort of way, in the building of lives. ?5-10 minutes in this ?thought haven? is sometimes enough to reclaim your motivation, your patience, and your focus.
The stress of undressPublic release date: 15-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jane Hurly jane.hurly@ualberta.ca 780-492-6821 University of Alberta - Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation
Public change rooms can cause body anxieties for women
Sweating in the gym, surrounded by others, pounding to the beat in group exercise class has become the norm for many women. But when it comes to the experience of changing in the locker room, the acts of disrobing, dressing, showering and being naked in front of others, can be very discomfiting. It's a complex experience as women are faced with an awareness of their bodies different than in any other space.
"I walk into the change room and pace anxiously up and down the rows of lockers. I look for an empty aisle, hoping for some semblance of privacy. I don't like to change in front of others, it makes me uneasy. Perhaps I'm uptight. Or maybe I have what experts would call 'body issues.' But either way changing in public cause me stress."
So begins a new study looking at women's experiences of changing in a public change rooms. Author Marianne Clark, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, says it was her own experience as a dancer and frequent user of fitness facilities and therefore of public dressing rooms and change rooms that led her to explore how other women felt. "Using these facilities, I've always felt an unarticulated discomfort," says Clark.
The act of undressing and being naked, and particularly where there is the potential to be observed by others, can be daunting, as much of the way we think about ourselves and our self-confidence is wrapped up in our notion of ourselves as fully clothed. Undressing in front of others, can, according to Clark, "disrupt" our experience of ourselves, because it reveals an intimate self we don't usually freely display.
Clark says in talking to other women about their experiences in these spaces, "They all had a story and it usually involved a time when there was another person involved."
One woman described being pre-occupied walking into the gym, then suddenly becoming aware of the presence of others in the change room and being reluctant to reveal her more intimate self. She said, "I angle my body this way and that as I undress and dress in the locker room. I look down to button my pants, I see my small breasts, my protruding stomach, no longer held in, contained and covered by my control top nylons and stylish skirt. This naked me is almost unfamiliar to me, so different than who I am all day, when I march around and am busy and efficient and in charge. But now, as I stand practically naked in the change room, no one can see that part of me, all there is to see is my body."
Not every woman feels this sense of discomfort. Some found the experience of being surrounded by many other women's bodies together after a workout comforting. "I like the time in the change room after a workout," said one participant. "I like being in a space where my body is just a body among other bodies. I know people might see me naked or partly naked but it doesn't bother me, this is who I am, this is my body, this is how I am in the world. I like being around all these other women of all shapes and sizes, it makes me feel connected to who I am, and somehow close to them."
Clark says she found that while older women expressed the same concerns about dressing and undressing in the change room as younger women, she says, "I think they spoke more reflectively about why we might experience these feelings of self-consciousness or modesty in a gym and they could articulate that. Although one said, 'I can't believe I still feel this way, but I do.'
"Women also talked about their body as an entity over which they have no control it was sagging or ageing, or it just did not comply with standards of conventional beauty. And while they were OK with that, they didn't want anyone else to see it."
Many women said they first became self-conscious about their bodies while teenagers. "A lot of the women I spoke to, if not every single one of them, could recall feeling painfully self-conscious in phys-ed class and said changing in the fitness centre reminded them of changing after gym class at school," says Clark.
Also, in North American society where the "body beautiful" is celebrated - both dressed and undressed, as something to look at and a reason to be seen - its ideal is young, thin and toned. Clark said she found plenty of social and cultural layers in the women's stories that indicated their awareness of the societal notions of beautiful, healthy bodies influenced their own feelings about the shared undressing experience of the change room. "I think even in the change room, women are carrying with them these knowledges and understandings (of the fit female body) that society has constructed," she says.
Clark says those involved in the design of these facilities need to think about how people feel about changing in public spaces and who might be using them to make them friendlier for different bodies.
"Currently change rooms are designed for efficiency. As our lifestyles continue to change and gyms become a more important part of getting exercise, the change room becomes an increasingly interesting space to consider. So I think it does actually merit some study. There are so many obstacles to going to a gym for the first time, from using the equipment, to knowing how to use the equipment, to navigating your way around the space.
"And then for people who find change rooms a difficult space, that's a barrier too. So I think we can be more thoughtful in general, but also in our approach to these spaces and what they might mean for the way that women understand themselves in relationship to health and fitness."
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The stress of undressPublic release date: 15-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jane Hurly jane.hurly@ualberta.ca 780-492-6821 University of Alberta - Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation
Public change rooms can cause body anxieties for women
Sweating in the gym, surrounded by others, pounding to the beat in group exercise class has become the norm for many women. But when it comes to the experience of changing in the locker room, the acts of disrobing, dressing, showering and being naked in front of others, can be very discomfiting. It's a complex experience as women are faced with an awareness of their bodies different than in any other space.
"I walk into the change room and pace anxiously up and down the rows of lockers. I look for an empty aisle, hoping for some semblance of privacy. I don't like to change in front of others, it makes me uneasy. Perhaps I'm uptight. Or maybe I have what experts would call 'body issues.' But either way changing in public cause me stress."
So begins a new study looking at women's experiences of changing in a public change rooms. Author Marianne Clark, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, says it was her own experience as a dancer and frequent user of fitness facilities and therefore of public dressing rooms and change rooms that led her to explore how other women felt. "Using these facilities, I've always felt an unarticulated discomfort," says Clark.
The act of undressing and being naked, and particularly where there is the potential to be observed by others, can be daunting, as much of the way we think about ourselves and our self-confidence is wrapped up in our notion of ourselves as fully clothed. Undressing in front of others, can, according to Clark, "disrupt" our experience of ourselves, because it reveals an intimate self we don't usually freely display.
Clark says in talking to other women about their experiences in these spaces, "They all had a story and it usually involved a time when there was another person involved."
One woman described being pre-occupied walking into the gym, then suddenly becoming aware of the presence of others in the change room and being reluctant to reveal her more intimate self. She said, "I angle my body this way and that as I undress and dress in the locker room. I look down to button my pants, I see my small breasts, my protruding stomach, no longer held in, contained and covered by my control top nylons and stylish skirt. This naked me is almost unfamiliar to me, so different than who I am all day, when I march around and am busy and efficient and in charge. But now, as I stand practically naked in the change room, no one can see that part of me, all there is to see is my body."
Not every woman feels this sense of discomfort. Some found the experience of being surrounded by many other women's bodies together after a workout comforting. "I like the time in the change room after a workout," said one participant. "I like being in a space where my body is just a body among other bodies. I know people might see me naked or partly naked but it doesn't bother me, this is who I am, this is my body, this is how I am in the world. I like being around all these other women of all shapes and sizes, it makes me feel connected to who I am, and somehow close to them."
Clark says she found that while older women expressed the same concerns about dressing and undressing in the change room as younger women, she says, "I think they spoke more reflectively about why we might experience these feelings of self-consciousness or modesty in a gym and they could articulate that. Although one said, 'I can't believe I still feel this way, but I do.'
"Women also talked about their body as an entity over which they have no control it was sagging or ageing, or it just did not comply with standards of conventional beauty. And while they were OK with that, they didn't want anyone else to see it."
Many women said they first became self-conscious about their bodies while teenagers. "A lot of the women I spoke to, if not every single one of them, could recall feeling painfully self-conscious in phys-ed class and said changing in the fitness centre reminded them of changing after gym class at school," says Clark.
Also, in North American society where the "body beautiful" is celebrated - both dressed and undressed, as something to look at and a reason to be seen - its ideal is young, thin and toned. Clark said she found plenty of social and cultural layers in the women's stories that indicated their awareness of the societal notions of beautiful, healthy bodies influenced their own feelings about the shared undressing experience of the change room. "I think even in the change room, women are carrying with them these knowledges and understandings (of the fit female body) that society has constructed," she says.
Clark says those involved in the design of these facilities need to think about how people feel about changing in public spaces and who might be using them to make them friendlier for different bodies.
"Currently change rooms are designed for efficiency. As our lifestyles continue to change and gyms become a more important part of getting exercise, the change room becomes an increasingly interesting space to consider. So I think it does actually merit some study. There are so many obstacles to going to a gym for the first time, from using the equipment, to knowing how to use the equipment, to navigating your way around the space.
"And then for people who find change rooms a difficult space, that's a barrier too. So I think we can be more thoughtful in general, but also in our approach to these spaces and what they might mean for the way that women understand themselves in relationship to health and fitness."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Today's Tallevast direct selling article is for Tallevast internet rookies who want to kick up their web marketing a notch by adding a podcast to their Tallevast home business blog. A podcast is a multimedia file that is downloaded for playback on a mobile device such as an iPod or laptop computer. It can be a digital recording of a radio program or, more often, a program produced solely for online distribution. A podcast can be a recording of a webcast: a live Tallevast ...
Posted on March 12, 2012 by The Victoria Law Group
Carlos Slim, El Gordo, is richer than Bill Gates, than Warren Buffet, even than all those Walton heirs.? El Gordo takes the whole enchilada as the richest man in the world.? The Mexican telecommunications tycoon with a net worth of $68.4 billion edged out Microsoft?s founder in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.? Do you have any idea how much money that is?
Read Matthew G. Miller and Peter Newcomb?s Miami Herald article here:
Annual Insurance Plan: A Sure Protection during Frequent Annual Trips
It is but a fact that the insurance plan that you?re currently in may not assist you in times of trouble during your trip. It is but a fact that there are instances that you meet troubles during the time of your travel like serious physical injuries or acute diseases and during those times, you need to have assistance coming from the travel insurance plan to help you with your dues for the doctor consultations. And for the several times that you need to travel outside the country, the more you need to have assistance for your healthcare. If you usually go for international travels yearly, then you should take a multi-travel insurance plan that would help you manage your costs for your health matters.
If you plan to have frequent travels in one year, you should consider applying for a one year travel insurance plan to serve as your assistance. If we actually talk about this travel insurance plan, we are not talking about an assistance that would only deal with physical injuries or other health emergencies but also other matters that the travellers need the most assistance.
In the event that during your travel, you have stolen, lost or damaged your luggage, the insurance will be paying you with a particular amount. You would also receive some compensations coming from your lost or stolen credit card, visa or passport. For some cases that your luggage didn?t arrive at the supposed time, you will be given the privileged to replace the item so that you have something to be used in your travel. These things are not far to be happening to you especially if you always go for international travels. You might just find yourself experiencing these possible misfortunes during your travels.
You would be assured to have the necessary assistance that you will need in your specific travels. Not only that, the travel insurance plan was also designed to help you in some instances like prescription drug, guaranteed hospital admission, translation services, eyeglass replacement, emergency cash transfers and many more that you may need during your travel including some legal assistance that you may also need during your international travel. If ever there would be an occurrence of any misfortunes or problems during your specific trip, the travel insurance plan will take care of everything for you.
By applying to a particular travel insurance agency, you will be comfortable travelling internationally as frequently as you wish for you are sure to be always covered by the said agency. The kind of service that this particular insurance travel agency can offer would really be as fast and as welcoming as possible just for you.
You will not have any problem in trying to pay for this travel insurance plan for it is really cost-friendly and it will be a great help in times of specific emergencies. Actually there are a lot of available travel insurance plans that will suit to your specific needs like an insurance plan that would cover only your flight and another type that would cover services pertaining to evacuation/repatriation services, travel assistance, medical emergency and flight accident, with of course a corresponding specific payments that would still be affordable on your part.
It is but a fact that in the event that you chose to travel abroad, you would also have to prepare yourself with some issues and problems that may happen during the trip. You will not have any worries anymore in trying to deal with any financial concerns brought about by certain accidents and health related emergencies for the travel insurance company would have to deal with that.
If you happen to decide that you wanted to travel internationally, it would be better to ensure that you do have an insurance travel plan. For safety purposes, it is really necessary to apply for many travel insurance plan especially if you always go on an international trip.
The moment you enter holidays in china into Yahoo search, do you find what you need?
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Public release date: 15-Mar-2012
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