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SYDNEY?? Tens of thousands of stranded Qantas Airways passengers are pinning their hopes on a government-appointed tribunal on Sunday ordering an end to the industrial action that grounded the Australian national carrier's entire fleet.
Qantas said Sunday that it had canceled 447 flights affecting more than 68,000 passengers ? including 17 world leaders.
When the grounding was announced Saturday, 36 international and 28 domestic Australian flights were in the air, said a Qantas spokeswoman, who declined to be named citing company policy. At least one taxiing flight stopped on the runway, a flier said. Qantas said 108 airplanes were grounded.
The airline is seeking to bring to a head a prolonged and increasingly bitter battle with its unions over pay, working conditions and plans to set up two new airlines in Asia.
Qantas plans to cut 1,000 jobs and order $9 billion of new Airbus aircraft as part of a makeover to salvage its loss-making international business.
The marked escalation in the dispute angered the government and came as an embarrassment for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was hosting a summit of Commonwealth leaders in the western city of Perth, 17 of them booked to fly out on Sunday with Qantas.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has estimated the "bold decision, an unbelievable decision" would cost the company A$20 million ($21.4 million) a day. He said the special labor tribunal would have to terminate all industrial action before the airline could resume flying.
"We're hoping a determination is made today and that will give us certainty about what we can do and start planning to get the airline back in the air," Joyce told Australia's Sky News on Sunday.
Joyce indicated Qantas could be flying again on Monday. if the Fair Work Australia tribunal ordered the termination of industrial action on Sunday.
Qantas and the unions would then have 21 days to negotiate a settlement before binding arbitration would be imposed. The hearing begins at 0300 GMT.
The lockout is the latest in a rising tide of industrial unrest in Australia as unions increase pressure for a greater share of profits amid tight labor markets and a boom in resource prices.
It threatens to become the most significant disruption to Australian aviation since a dispute in 1989 that lasted for six months and had a significant impact on tourism and other businesses. Industrial action by engineers cost Qantas around A$130 million in 2008.
Qantas faced angry shareholders and workers at a shareholders' meeting on Friday when the company said the labor dispute since September had caused a dive in forward bookings and was costing it A$15 million a week.
The shareholders backed hefty pay rises to senior Qantas executives, including a A$5 million package for Joyce.
The action sparked an angry response from Australia's Transport Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday.
"I'm extremely disappointed. What's more, I indicated very clearly to Mr Joyce that I was disturbed by the fact that we've had a number of discussions and at no stage has Mr Joyce indicated to me that this was an action under consideration," he said.
Tony Sheldon of the Transport Workers Union said the lockout was cynical and pre-planned.
"It's a company strategy that shareholders should have been told about, that the Australian community should have been told about, not ambushed in the dead of night," he said.
The Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) was flabbergasted at the move to ground the fleet, describing it as "brinkmanship in the extreme."
"Alan Joyce is holding a knife to the nation's throat," said Richard Woodward, vice-president of AIPA.
Massive disruptions
Qantas check-in desks across Australia were empty on Sunday morning as customers scrambled for alternative travel arrangements. The airline usually flies more than 60,000 people a day.
Australian rival Virgin Blue said it was adding an extra 3,000 seats on its domestic network on Sunday to assist Qantas passengers.
Qantas's decision left many passengers venting their anger after they were stranded in 22 cities.
British tourist Chris Crulley, 25, said the pilot on his Qantas flight informed passengers while taxiing down a Sydney runway that he had to return to the terminal "to take an important phone call." The flight was then grounded.
"We're all set for the flight and settled in and the next thing ? I'm stunned. We're getting back off the plane," the firefighter told The Associated Press from Sydney Airport by phone.
Qantas' Facebook page was inundated with angry passengers. "Stranded in Sydney Airport...because QANTAS are useless idiots," wrote Lyn Haddon.
"To resolve this at the expense of paying customers on one of the biggest flying days in Australia is quite frankly ... bizarre, unwarranted and unfair to the loyal customers that Australia has," a businessman, who gave his name only as Barry, told Sky TV at Melbourne airport.
Big horse race
This weekend is one of Australia's busiest for travel, with tens of thousands traveling to the hugely popular Melbourne Cup horse race on Tuesday, dubbed "the race that stops the nation."
Adding to travelers' problems, Air France has canceled about one in five flights and warned of wider disruption as a five-day strike by flight attendants over employment terms began on Saturday.
Qantas' Facebook page was inundated with angry passengers. "Stranded in Sydney Airport ... because QANTAS are useless idiots," wrote Lyn Haddon.
Zoe Johnson, an Australian living in Switzerland, said: "I'm proudly Australian but it just leaves a really bad taste in your mouth. So many people say, 'I'm never going to fly Qantas again,' and from my point of view its just feels like a kind of bullying tactic really."
At London's Heathrow Airport, passengers stood in long queues looking up at departure boards showing canceled flights.
"(I'm) not very happy because it was the holiday of a lifetime for us and it cost us a lot of money," British passenger Steve Johnson said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45087583/ns/business-world_business/
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So, streamers -- what's your go-to service? Tried a few of 'em? Let us know which you prefer, and why, down in comments below."Rdio, Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody -- there are way too many streaming music services out there begging for my money. Which is the one I should spring for? I live in the US, but would love for whatever I choose to work when I travel internationally, if that's possible. Trying to keep it up under $10 per month, and looking for a large library and nice mobile compatibility. Thanks!"
Ask Engadget: best streaming music solution? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LOS ANGELES ? Jurors hearing the involuntary manslaughter case against Michael Jackson's doctor will hear an alternate version Friday of what may have occurred in the singer's bedroom in the hours before his death.
Dr. Paul White, an expert in the anesthetic propofol, will finally lay out his rationale for the defense theory that Jackson somehow gave himself a fatal dose of the drug when his doctor left the room.
White's testimony will likely be vigorously challenged by prosecutors, who spent four weeks laying out their case that Dr. Conrad Murray is a greedy, inept and reckless doctor who was giving Jackson propofol as a sleep aid. But cross-examination of White will be delayed until Monday to give prosecutors more time to review a new analysis prepared by the defense based on recently-conducted tests on samples taken during Jackson's autopsy.
"This is the entire crux of the defense case," Deputy District Attorney David Walgren said in arguing for a delay.
The judge hearing the case, which ends its fifth week on Friday, reluctantly agreed to delay the cross examination and said he is concerned about losing jurors. Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor however noted that the panel of has remained rapt throughout the trial.
"Every single member of that jury and all the alternates are paying extraordinary attention to every witness," Pastor said.
Murray has pleaded not guilty.
White's opinions will challenge those of the prosecution's main expert, Dr. Steven Shafer, who testified that the only scenario he believes explains Jackson's death is that Murray placed Jackson on an IV drip and left the room after he thought the singer was sleeping peacefully.
Murray told police he left Jackson's bedside, but claims he only gave the singer a small dose of propofol the morning of Jackson's death. He said he left the room and returned after two minutes to find the pop superstar unresponsive.
Murray's defense attorneys have repeatedly claimed that Jackson somehow gave himself the fatal dose, but it will be up to White to explain how that would be possible.
Defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan said that the new models White will show jurors on Friday will offer different simulations about the drugs propofol and sedative lorazepam. They are based on a new computer program and updated test results.
Flanagan did not reveal what conclusions White drew from the new models, or whether they would change his testimony.
White is a retired researcher and professor who performed clinical studies of propofol for years before it was approved for usage by the Food and Drug Administration in 1989. He said he was initially reluctant to become involved in the case, but after reading through more than a dozen expert reports, he couldn't figure out how others came to the conclusion that Murray would have had to leave Jackson on a propofol IV drip for the singer to have died with the anesthetic still coursing through his body.
He said the others' theories didn't make sense based on Murray's statement to police.
"I thought that there were questions if in fact Murray had administered the drugs that he described in his conversations with the police department in the doses he described, I would not have expected Michael Jackson to have died," White said.
He continued to work on the case after meeting with Murray, although White was not allowed to testify about his conversations with the Houston-based cardiologist.
Flanagan early in White's testimony on Thursday asked the doctor to address "the elephant in the room" ? whether he could justify Murray's actions if he left Jackson hooked to a propofol IV and then left the room.
"Absolutely not," White replied.
___
AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.
___
McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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TRIPOLI?? Moammar Gadhafi's influential son and heir-apparent, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, has offered to turn himself in to The Hague war crimes court, a senior Libyan official told Reuters on Wednesday.
On the run in the desert, fearing for his life after his father was captured and slain and despairing of any safe haven across an African border, the 39-year-old once expected to inherit dynastic power from Moammar Gadhafi now saw a Dutch prison cell as his best option, the official said.
Spokesman for the Hague court Fadi El Abdallah said: "We don't have confirmation about this now. We are trying to contact the NTC for more information."
Saif al-Islam is wanted by the International Criminal Court, as was his late father. There is also a warrant out for his relative, former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.
"They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague," said Abdel Majid Mlegta, a senior military official for the National Transitional Council. NTC forces toppled Gadhafi in August and overran his hometown and final bastion of Sirte a week ago, capturing the fallen strongman, who was then killed.
An ICC spokesman said it had no confirmation of any talks.
It had hoped to try Moammar Gadhafi himself for crimes against humanity, although Libya's NTC also wanted to have him face justice at home. In the event, the 69-year-old was seized by NTC fighters who filmed themselves beating him before he died, although it remains unclear who killed him.
His rotting corpse was displayed to the public for four days before being buried in a secret desert grave on Tuesday.
Story: Rebels: Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam captured aliveThere have been several conflicting reports of Saif al-Islam's fate and none have been verified.
Mlegta, citing intelligence sources, said Saif al-Islam, whose British education and talk of liberal reforms once put him at the heart of a rapprochement between his father and the West, was somewhere in the Libyan Sahara far to the south, trying to get an unnamed country to broker a deal with the ICC.
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With Senussi, he had contemplated escape into either Algeria, which has taken in his mother, sister and two brothers, or to Niger, where another brother found refuge. However, Mlegta said: "They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they are or to go anywhere."
Further confirmation of the fugitives' situation was not immediately possible. Mlegta said that, although the Gadhafi family was assumed to have great wealth hidden away, Saif al-Islam lacked the funds to buy safe passage into Niger.
Transformation
The transformation of Saif al-Islam's image, from that of a relaxed, English-speaking pragmatist into a maker of blood-curdling threats against the "rats" who rose up against his father, saw him join the elder Gadhafi on the ICC wanted list.
His flight and possible capture may not extinguish opposition to the NTC, which on Sunday declared Libya "liberated" after 42 years of Gadhafi's rule and is now working toward forming a government that can hold free elections.
At the pro-Gadhafi tribal stronghold of Bani Walid, where a captive aide to Saif al-Islam told Reuters Gadhafi's son was hiding until last week, tribesmen incensed by retribution from NTC forces warned they were readying an insurgency.
"The Warfalla tribe is boiling inside. They can't wait to do something about this," Abu Abdurakhman, a local resident, said during a tour of his house destroyed by what he said was a revenge attack by anti-Gadhafi forces.
"The Warfalla men of Tripoli and elsewhere are sending around text messages saying: 'We need to gather and do something about this. Let's gather! Let's gather!'"
Libya lacks the sectarian divide and proximity to competing regional powers that turned U.S.-occupied Iraq into a killing ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
But it is awash with weapons and with long-standing regional and ethnic rivalries and resentments that could prolong instability as its new leaders and their foreign allies seek to exploit Libya's big oil and gas reserves.
Saif al-Islam
On a pro-Gadhafi website, Zangetna.com, supporters declared: "We promise you, martyred leader, that we will follow your path and we swear to the creator of heaven and earth the blood of martyrs will not be shed in vain." They swore allegiance to "the holy warrior" Saif al-Islam Moammar Gadhafi, calling on him to lead them.
An account of the younger Gadhafi's last days in Bani Walid suggest a degree of panic, however, as his enemies closed in.
'I am happy': Libyans line up to see Gadhafi's body"He was nervous. He had a Thuraya (satellite phone) and he called his father many times," said al-Senussi Sharif al-Senussi, an officer who was part of Saif al-Islam's personal security team until Bani Walid fell to the NTC on October 17.
"He repeated to us: don't tell anyone where I am. Don't let them spot me. He was afraid of mortars. He seemed confused."
The NATO alliance whose air power tipped the balance of eight months of fighting in favor of the motley rebel forces says that it sees no immediate military threat and plans to wind up its mission.
But the head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, called at a meeting with military allies in Qatar for NATO assistance to continue until the end of the year.
NATO responded to his remarks by postponing until later this week a meeting that had been expected to formalize a decision to end its Libya mission at the end of the month.
Qatar's top general, Chief of Staff Major-General Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah, said in remarks carried by Al Jazeera television that Western countries had proposed setting up a new alliance to support Libya after the NATO mission ended.
"And they have asked that it be headed by Qatar because Qatar is a friend of theirs and a close friend of Libya," he added without giving further details.
Abdel Jalil said he wanted NATO help in stopping Gadhafi loyalists escaping justice. But NATO officials at their Brussels headquarters recalled that their U.N. mandate was to protect civilians, not target individuals ? though it was a NATO airstrike on a motorcade in Sirte that led to the elder Gadhafi's capture.
Military experts say NATO's aerial and satellite power would be stretched to detect fleeing convoys in the vast Sahara, which is also out of realistic range for a mission to strike such vehicles, even if NATO's mandate were interpreted to allow it.
Reuters and NBC News contributed to this report.
? 2011 msnbc.com
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TUESDAY, Oct. 25 (HealthDay News) -- When used alone, the asthma medications known as long-acting beta-agonists are associated with an increased risk of serious complications, new research indicates.
What's more, the increased risk of complications, including hospitalization, intubation and death (called the asthma composite outcome), associated with the use of these medications was even higher in children than in adults.
However, when long-acting beta-agonists (LABAs) are used in combination with inhaled corticosteroids, the increased risk appears to dissipate.
Products that only contain a LABA are marketed under the brand names Foradil and Serevent in the United States, while they are sold under the brand names Symbicort and Advair when combined with inhaled corticosteroids.
"What we found overall was that there was a greater risk of the asthma composite outcome in the group that took LABAs as opposed to the group that didn't. And, the risk was higher in the younger asthmatic population," said study author Dr. Ann McMahon, associate director of science and director of KidNet in the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"The other important thing is that in a smaller subgroup that took LABAs and inhaled corticosteroids [ICS], and took those consistently, we did not find that the risk was elevated. But, this subgroup was rather small, so the results regarding ICS are somewhat inconclusive. The agency is now pursuing doing a large randomized clinical trial in the context of LABAs and consistent ICS use," McMahon said.
Results from the current study are published in the November issue of Pediatrics.
The FDA first began looking into the safety of LABAs in 2005 when concerns about a possible increase in serious complications were first raised. In 2008, the first meta-analysis examining the safety of LABAs was conducted. As a result of that analysis, an FDA advisory committee voted to restrict the use of LABAs to be used in combination with inhaled corticosteroids. The current meta-analysis was undertaken to expand the knowledge gained from that initial analysis.
The current meta-analysis included 110 clinical trials with a nearly 61,00 people with asthma. The trials included people aged 4 and up. Some used LABA medications; some did not.
Overall, the researchers found that 6.3 more events per 1,000 patient-years occurred in people taking LABAs compared to those not taking the medication. Events included asthma-related hospitalizations, intubations and deaths.
In children between the ages of 4 and 11, the difference between the two groups was 30.4 events per 1,000 patient years. In children between the ages of 12 and 17, the difference was 11.6 per 1,000 patient years.
McMahon noted that most of the complications in children were hospitalizations related to asthma flares. Asthma-related deaths and intubations were rare complications, according to the study.
She said the study was designed to identify trends, not look at individual cases, so "we don't have a lot of answers about why the asthma composite outcomes were higher in the younger age groups."
"Sometimes we find that products that work well in adults don't work well in kids," said senior study author Dr. Dianne Murphy, director of the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics at the FDA. And in the case of LABAs, there could be numerous explanations. It may be that asthma is a different disease in children than in adults, or it may have to do with children's smaller airways. Or, she said, it could be that children might not always let their parents know when their asthma symptoms are getting worse.
Whatever the reason for the higher risk of complications in children, Murphy said, what's important to take away from this study is that "if your child requires a LABA, they ought to be on a steroid with it." And, she added, if your child's symptoms aren't improving on the combination medication, let your child's doctor know.
"This meta-analysis suggests that we have more to learn. It looks like LABA alone may not be the right treatment for the pediatric population, and we don't use it alone. But, combining the two potentially may not increase the bad outcomes," said Dr. Allyson Larkin, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of pulmonary medicine, allergy and immunology at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
More information
Learn more about long-acting beta-agonists from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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HONG KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters)- China is expected to steer clear of Europe's bailout fund and its investment vehicles as regulators and politicians scramble to pull together a plan aimed at expanding the debt clean-up.
Instead it will continue to focus on specific countries and on specific assets in Europe, attaching diplomatic strings wherever possible and heeding the call from within its borders to be careful of wading too deeply into the euro zone mess.
"I think you can see China participating possibly country by country because it's easier for them get concessions on investments and imports and trades and other things at the sovereign level than from the EU," said Paul Sheehan, chief executive of Hong Kong-based hedge fund Thaddeus Capital.
Sheehan, a veteran of the region who specializes in analyzing banks, said the most likely scenario is a China-Italy, China-Belgium-style deal. Beijing will want to be able to buy European companies and assets on an expedited basis, with a guarantee that anti-China hurdles won't pop up should any deal be reached.
"So one way you could see China possibly come in is buying out state-owned assets from places like Greece if they do a sort of SPV holding," Sheehan said.
China has already been an active investor in Europe, something politicians are keenly aware of as they try to come up with a plan to increase the firepower of the 440 billion euro ($611 billion) European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) bailout fund, now deemed too small to keep the crisis from spiraling.
Ahead of Wednesday's European summit, they have launched a two-pronged plan to lure investors to the fund through a special purpose investment vehicle (SPIV) in combination with an insurance model for sovereign debt. Euro zone sources said on Tuesday leaders were likely to approve both options, or a combination of the two.
Investors globally are expected to be wary of the plan. Brazil has already said it will not buy European bonds as part of the rescue.
That has turned attention, once again, to China, with Klaus Regling, head of the European Financial Stability Facility, traveling to Beijing on Friday.
The cost of any support is not a major issue for Beijing. China's two main investment vehicles are China Investment Corp. (CIC), the nearly $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, or SAFE, the body that manages its $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
"They'd prefer to do something more diversified across the European countries rather than something like the EFSF. I don't think China wants to be standing out as owning 40 percent of Portugal's debt or anything like that," said James Ellman, portfolio manager at Seacliff Capital in San Francisco.
At the same time, Ellman said that a China move into the euro zone was a "perfect marriage on paper." Europe is Beijing's biggest export market and Chinese leaders have a vested interest in avoiding a financial meltdown in the European Union that could trigger a world recession.
China, which has been courting more and more business in Europe over the last few years, wants to diversify its $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves away from U.S. Treasury bonds.
"You need to marry up the Europeans' need for new debt offerings at lower rates with China having the euro/dollar firepower and having a need to keep the European economy going," Ellman said.
EU officials managing the debt crisis say privately that China is one of the few big foreign investors continuing to buy bonds of some euro zone countries in the secondary market, although its purchasing practices are shrouded in secrecy.
A senior EU official described as "in the ballpark" a report in the French newspaper La Tribune in January, based on a rare leak about Chinese currency holdings, suggesting that Beijing held just over seven percent of euro zone government bonds.
"CHINA IS GOING TO BE RESTRAINED"
China's overseas investments have been the subject of much scrutiny since Beijing began to move more aggressively in buying foreign assets roughly five years ago.
CIC's first two investments were in U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group and U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley, in 2007. Both holdings plunged in value when the financial crisis set in shortly afterwards, an event that caused Beijing a fair deal of embarrassment.
When Morgan Stanley's shares dropped below $10 and went into free fall in the days when the post-Lehman panic set in, it was Japan's Sumitomo-MUFG that rescued the bank -- not CIC.
CIC has since steered away from financial investments and more toward natural resources.
China already owns about $2 trillion in U.S. debt, independent economists estimate, a stake that came into focus this summer when U.S. markets dropped, politicians struggled with a plan to pay back its debt and S&P downgraded the country's credit rating.
The majority of concern about Europe's crisis is centered on its banks. Few analysts or China experts expect any of China's Big Four banks -- which are four of the ten largest banks in the world by market value -- to play a major role in the European debt crisis.
"China is going to be restrained in terms of how much money it can put into this for domestic political reasons. They're not going to want to be seen as the savior of Europe," said Nicholas Consonery, Asia analyst at Eurasia Group.
"We're talking about a country that has 400 million poor people. Politically, the notion that Beijing is bailing out European banks is not a very safe narrative for the government right now."
For some watching the European debt crisis play out, it is not a matter of if the Chinese will invest somehow, it is a matter of when.
"I'd make the bet that a better bargain could be had in six months than right now with a distressed seller -- private sector or public -- in Athens. So, to Beijing, what's the hurry?" said Donald Straszheim, head of China Research at ISI Group in Los Angeles.
For now, Straszheim believes China will sign a "bland" statement of encouragement for Greece and Europe, and will not put any money down -- especially given that its own financial system is beginning to wobble a bit under a debt load and other global market pressures.
If China does sign on, any agreement is expected to be precise in its scope, and with ample room for Beijing to have a say on the terms of the deal.
"If I am advising China, I am going to say you definitely want preconditions in addition to making sure that the scheme works," said Sheehan, of Thaddeus Capital.
"You want to make sure you are getting something out of it. As a Chinese leader, if I agree to assist in a bailout, I do not want to hear anything more about the RMB (yuan) and currency manipulation for the next five years, or maybe ever."
(Additional reporting by Nishant Kumar and Umesh Desai in Hong Kong, Paul Taylor in Brussels; Editing by Brian Rhoads and Nick Macfie)
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