Greece seeks to win Germany's respect at Euro 2012

GDANSK, Poland (AP) ? Now for the really important business between Greece and Germany: Soccer.

On Friday, thousands of fans from the two nations at opposite ends of the eurozone financial crisis converged on neutral Polish turf for a European Championship quarterfinal match.

For Greece fans, Friday's clash in Gdansk inevitably mixes sports and politics, Euro 2012 and the euro currency. They seek respect for their country after its humiliating economic collapse ? and the German government's role in imposing strict austerity measures as a condition of Greece getting ?240 billion ($300 billion) in bailout pledges.

"It's not good that sports and politics are together, but today we have no other choice," Greece fan Michalis Kalotrapesis said, wearing a white national team shirt and tracksuit top. "We are playing for our country and for our image in Europe and all over the world."

Kalotrapesis, and three Greek friends who now live in Germany, drove through the night to support their native nation here. Their pride in performing what they see as a patriotic duty fits into Greece's favored national narrative: In soccer as in finance, Germany is the traditional power and Greece the spirited underdog.

"We are a little bit crazy, but it's the Greek mentality," said Nikos Barzas, pointing out the bloodshot eyes of the group's designated driver, Georgios Kotiniotis. They left Gifhorn, Germany, at midnight with 750 kilometers (about 465 miles) of roads ahead of them.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the match after morning economic meetings in Italy that were brought forward to help fulfill her role as the supposed lucky charm of the national team.

Barzas is glad she is coming ? to further spur the team and 5,000 Greece fans expected to attend the match.

"(The players will) fight a little bit more because (they want) to beat Angela Merkel. (It would be) a little bit of a small kick in Germany's (backside)," he said.

About 15,000 Germans were expected to go to the match, according to the Football Supporters Europe group. Many of the Germans arrived at Gdansk's main train station, where the scalpers' asking price was ?200 (about $250) for a ticket with a face value of ?75 ($95). There didn't appear to be any Greek fans in the market for them.

Cafes in the narrow cobbled street were occupied by either camp of genial beer-drinking fans. As the street filled up and drinks flowed, a large German flag had claimed the iron fence surrounding the ornate Neptune's fountain. Nearby, Greek fans waving an even larger flag occupied the steps leading up the main town hall. On the Motlawa river bank, fans stopped to get their faces painted in team colors, with accordions being played in the background.

Confident German fans could plan ahead of Euro 2012 for a likely quarterfinal in Gdansk. Fans from the Greek Diaspora knew only last Saturday where to head after an upset win over Russia.

"I was actually happy for them (the Greeks) that they finally had something to celebrate," said Stefan Leidig, a Germany fan from Koblenz. "Besides, I hope that they will manage to get out of the crisis at one point."

Two days after being sworn into office, the prime minister of Greece's new conservative-led coalition government is staying at home to work.

Antonis Samaras, a Harvard-educated former finance minister, is better employed stabilizing the country after a tense election last weekend than cheerleading at a soccer match, fan Thomas Nikolopulos said.

"I'm glad they are at home," said Nikolopulos, who arrived on a morning flight from London.

Before Samaras met with lawmakers in Athens on Friday afternoon, he could read headlines fueling national wishes to repel German policy on the field: "Bankrupt Them!" read Greek paper SportDay, as Derby News repeated the Spartan motto "Come and Get it."

In Germany, the best-selling daily Bild led with: "Bye bye Greece; we can't rescue you today."

Nikolopulos, who is originally from Athens, said the feeling back home is that "Germany has put them in the corner" over the euro currency crisis.

"This is Greece's opportunity to stand up and try to go back to being historical wonders," he said, with a blue-and-white striped national flag draped across his shoulders.

Greece fans takes faith in their team's surprise run to be Euro 2004 champion, founded on the same solid defense and dogged resistance shown by the current team in Poland. For three-time European champion Germany, the match seems more routine ? aiming for its fourth straight semifinal at each World Cup and Euro since Greece's golden year.

"For me, it's a normal football match," said German fan Klaus Lehmkuhl, a technical consultant from Muenster. "I don't think the politics is important for the German team."

Still, some off-field tensions are expected when the German national anthem is played minutes before kickoff. And if images of Merkel sitting next to UEFA President Michel Platini in the VIP seats are shown on the stadium giant screens?

"There will be massive boos. I can't see there not being some," said Yiannis Televantibes, a real estate agent from London. "But there's no problem between the fans."

In Berlin, thousands of soccer fans waving German flags flooded the area in front of the landmark Brandenburg Gate. Organizers of the public viewing event said they expected around 400,000 to turn out to watch the match on large screens.

Earlier, a German deputy government spokesman was peppered with questions about the match and asked whether Merkel would feel the need to tone down any goal celebrations, because of the eurozone crisis.

"I think it depends a bit on how the game goes, but I think you will see that she is glad if there's a goal on the right side," Georg Streiter said.

Streiter also shrugged off a question as to whether Merkel would consider herself partly responsible if German loses.

"I think you would be loading up the chancellor, who already has plenty of packages to carry, with an unjustified package," he said. "She's a spectator."

___

Associated Press writers David Rising and Juergen Baetz in Berlin, and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.

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Remodeling Your Home with Professional Help - IdeaMarketers.com


by Caldwell Olaf
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Kitchen remodeling, Bathroom remodeling More Details about Kitchen remodeling, Bathroom remodeling here.

Your home may have been ideal (or at least close to that) when you first moved in, but as time goes by and you progress further in your life, you realize that you want to make things a bit better for yourself, and get a little extra luxury thrown in. And there's nothing bad with that -- everyone deserves a better life if they've earned it. It's important to utilize the right companies and tools for this job though, because remodeling your home can be made a lot easier if you work with the proper company on the market. There are various factors that can define the "right" company for home remodeling for your personal needs -- but you'll generally need to be aware of their method of operations. First, start with the obvious -- check for any customer reviews or opinions, published online or elsewhere. This can be a pretty good indicator for whether you're working with a reliable company or not. Note that the lack of any reviews online doesn't mean anything bad for the company -- they may just be relatively new on the market. Insurance is also important -- various things can go wrong in the course of the renovation company's work, no matter how good their workers are. Because of this, it's important to ensure that you'll be insured against any damage that may occur in the renovation process, so you can leave them to work without having to worry about the state of your home when you get back to check it next. More and more people are recognizing the importance of being green in all aspects of our lives nowadays -- and this is reflected in the way some companies work. It's a good idea to work with a remodeling company that's familiar with the concept of working with environmentally friendly equipment and materials, as you'll need to do your duty in protecting our environment when you're providing some extra luxury in your life. In some cases you may also need something about your home's construction changed for safety reasons -- this can include all sorts of details, but one common feature is the lead paint used in older buildings. If your home has been decorated with lead paint, a good remodeling company should be able to take care of that easily and without too much hassle, allowing you to live with your family safely and without having to worry about any harmful substances in the surrounding area. A good guarantee for the longevity of the job that has been done on your home is also something nice to have -- especially if you're ordering a more expensive and complicated remodeling job. Just make sure that the company guarantees that the job has been completed according to the common industry standards and regulations, and that they'll cover any damages that might occur in the future from improperly conducted parts of the job. Knowing that, you should be perfectly fine with the results that you get from your home remodeling, and be able to enjoy a new home for a long time to come.

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Mars Odyssey bounces back from glitch

NASA's veteran Mars Odyssey spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet is out of the woods after a glitch stalled the probe's science operations earlier this month.

The 11-year-old orbiter went into protective safe mode on June 8 after its onboard computer detected a problem with one of the three reaction wheels that control its orientation. One of these wheels jammed temporarily, so mission controllers instructed Mars Odyssey to use a spare it had onboard.

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Mars Odyssey uses a trio of spinning reaction wheels to maintain its orientation in space without the use of thrusters, which consume precious thruster fuel. Until recent tests this week, the spare wheel on Mars Odyssey had not turned since before the spacecraft launched toward the Red Planet in 2001. A shakeout of the wheel spun it up to 5,000 rotations per minute, mission managers said.

With the spare wheel up and running, Mars Odyssey has succesfully shifted out of safe mode (which pointed the spacecraft at Earth for better communications) to its normal downward direction facing Mars, called nadir.

"Attitude control in nadir pointing is being maintained with the use of the replacement wheel, and the suspect wheel has been taken out of use," Odyssey project manager Gaylon McSmith of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

Scientists will continue checking on the performance of the replacement wheel, but expect the spacecraft to be fully back on its feet soon.

"Remaining steps toward resuming all normal spacecraft activities will probably be completed by next week," officials said in the statement.

Mars Odyssey launched in April 2001 and has been orbiting the planet for more than a decade, longer than any other Mars mission in history.

The orbiter has been mapping the surface of Mars to study its chemical and mineral distribution, and it also serves as a relay station to pass on data collected by landers on the planet back to Earth. Mars Odyssey is a primary relay station for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, and will also serve the Mars Science Lab rover Curiosity after it lands on the Red Planet in August.

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AP IMPACT: AP trip finds Syria rebels without leader, disorganized, willing to kill prisoners

SARJEH, Syria - Rebel commander Ahmed Eissa al-Sheikh keeps a paper on his desk bearing the names of the dead from his brigade. The first 16 are neatly typed below a Quranic verse extolling martyrdom. The next 14 are handwritten and crammed into the margin, because the paper is full.

Al-Sheikh, an Islamist with a long black beard and grey fatigues, runs the Falcons of Damascus group from the mayor's office in his village, which his fighters have taken over. The list is a constant reminder of al-Sheikh's personal score with the Syrian regime: 20 of the dead are his relatives, including three brothers and his 16-year-old son, all killed fighting Syrian forces in the last year.

One of northern Syria's most powerful and best-armed commanders, Al-Sheikh boasts more than 1,000 fighters, and they don't shy away from rougher tactics themselves. They have released prisoners in bomb-laden cars and then detonated them at army checkpoints ? turning the drivers into unwitting suicide bombers.

Most of their weapons are booty, including at least two anti-aircraft guns, some anti-tank missiles and one tank, but they buy arms with donations from "honourable businessmen." Although al-Sheikh, who ran a grocery store before the uprising, wouldn't disclose the source or amount, he gets enough to pay some of his men monthly salaries of about $25, slightly more for those with wives and children. His fighters say the cash comes from Syrian expatriates and other Arabs. He was heard on the phone thanking a group in Bahrain.

"God willing, Syria will not bow to anyone but Allah after the regime falls," he said.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Arabic-speaking journalist Ben Hubbard was part of a three-member Associated Press team that spent two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, gathering firsthand information on the increasingly bloody rebellion against President Bashar Assad ? the longest and deadliest uprising of the Arab Spring.

___

Al-Sheikh is one face of the rebel movement in Syria. There are many more.

During two weeks in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists counted more than 20 rebel groups, with anywhere from fewer than 100 to more than 1,000 fighters each. They go by names like the Idlib Martyrs Brigade and the Shield of the Revolution, and while all share a deep hatred of President Bashar Assad's regime, their unity stops there.

Simply put, no one is in charge.

This comes at a time when efforts to end 15 months of strife in Syria are collapsing, and the rebel movement has taken the lead in the struggle against Assad. Some countries have talked of boosting the rebels' capabilities against the regime, and U.S. officials even have spoken of secret plans to sift among the rebel groups to determine which should receive arms from other Arab nations.

Rebel co-ordination rarely extends beyond neighbouring towns and villages and never to the provincial or national level. Many rebels don't even know the commanders in towns two hours away.

While the regime has been brutal, so have some of the rebels ? another cause of concern for the West.

Opposition activists filter most information about the rebels sent outside the country, making it hard to get an accurate picture. But several groups said they had sent captured soldiers "to Cyprus," which in rebel shorthand means execution. So many poor Syrians have died trying to reach the island that the phrase "send to Cyprus" has become synonymous with "put to death," usually by gunfire.

One group said it had killed two brothers caught collaborating with the regime ? one during interrogation, the other by firing squad.

Rebels have scored small victories against regime forces throughout Syria's northern Idlib province. Armed with bought, looted or homemade weapons, they have destroyed government army posts and littered main highways with charred army vehicles.

In the countryside, they roam freely in much more territory than was previously known, their bearded, camouflaged gunmen on motorcycles zipping through strings of towns and villages with no remaining police or security presence. Children often hail the fighters with V-for-victory signs and calls of "May God protect you!"

But Syria's army retains a chokehold on many large towns and cities with tanks, attack helicopters and heavy artillery, weapons that the rebels' current arms can't challenge.

Indeed, more than two dozen rebel commanders, fighters and activists said that without better arms they can do no more than chip away at the regime ? a recipe for a long, deadly insurgency.

"If we get military aid, the end will come quickly," said Ahmed Abdel-Qader, a rebel co-ordinator in the village of Koreen. "If not, we have no idea how this will end. We are here. We're not going back. God will decide the rest."

Even groups associated with the Free Syrian Army, which claims to represent the armed opposition, bemoan the failure of its Turkey-based leadership to deliver aid. While they wait, most rely on guerrilla tactics.

One afternoon, 50 fighters in a vast olive grove crawled under barbed wire, leaped over oil drums and dove through flaming hoops in training for future attacks. Most were in their 20s and 30s and had fled the provincial capital of Idlib when the army seized it in March. Their rifles can't match the tanks guarding the city, and they can't afford better weapons.

Commander Maan Dahnin said a Kalashnikov rifle now costs $1,500 and bullets are $4 each. That's why when they lined up for target practice, most fighters fired only a few times.

Some weapons come from neighbouring Iraq, though many are duds, and some from Turkey, he said. The best come from corrupt officers in the Syrian army itself.

"There are those who worry that the regime is going to fall, so they want to fill their pockets first," Dahnin said.

For now, his group's 1,000 men never gather in one place, so that if they are shelled or come under fire, not everyone will die. Meanwhile, they focus on roadside bombs built with dynamite, sugar and fertilizer and detonated by remote control.

Like most rebel commanders, Dahnin said his group gets no outside support.

"Here's the biggest proof," he said, pointing to a fighter wearing plastic flip-flops. "He's only good for one thing: toothpaste advertisements," he said, prying open the man's mouth to reveal a row of rotten teeth.

The conflict in Syria has already killed more than 14,000 people and appears headed for civil war. The Syrian government has ignored popular demands for reform, instead blaming the violence on armed gangs and foreign-backed terrorists. Others have warned against an influx of Islamists. The AP journalists saw no evidence of foreign fighters.

The uprising reached Idlib in April 2011, about a month after Syrian protesters inspired by other Arab Spring revolts first took to the streets and faced violent security crackdowns.

The protests started small in Ariha, a busy commercial centre on the face of a round-topped mountain, but residents were shocked when regime forces shot and killed five protesters in one day, said Khalid Naif, a doctor. Many more people then joined in, armed first with hunting guns and later with attack rifles.

A year ago, the army surrounded the city and took over a downtown building, paralyzing the city centre, Naif said. He easily named many of the dozens of people he has treated for gunshot and shrapnel wounds since. Others died before reaching the clinic.

Early this month, when a military convoy arrived to quash the city's opposition, rebel fighters blew up tanks and armoured cars in a hail of gunfire and grenades and stormed the army position downtown.

Weeks later, battle scars remain. Three destroyed tanks sit in the main boulevard, their tops blown off like bottle caps. The former army post is charred black, and walls of nearby buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes.

Graffiti on one wall reads, in English, "The people wants SOS." Elsewhere: "We bow only for God."

But the rebel victory was limited. Some stores have reopened and shoppers have returned to downtown, but a ring of army checkpoints restricts movement in and out, forcing many residents to sneak out on foot. Military helicopters and snipers still target the city, wounding more people every week.

The city's rebel commander, Jamal Akta, who ran a unisex barber shop before the uprising, said the battle had killed 10 civilians and no rebels. While proud of the fight, he said his men could do no more.

"If we get more weapons, we can get rid of all the checkpoints," he said. "But the ammunition we have now is enough to defend the city, no more than that."

A ring of checkpoints with a central army post full of snipers and armoured vehicles also strangles Khan Sheikhoun, a dusty, sun-baked city further south, on the country's main north-south highway. Local rebels can't clear out the army, so they blast military vehicles on the highway with rocket-propelled grenades. Two destroyed armoured vehicles, one still on its trailer, now lie in the road, and local fighters say the army has changed its route.

"We can't face the regime as an army face to face, so we have to fight like street gangs," said Waddah Sirmani, head of one of the town's half-dozen rebel brigades.

Fighters have also surrounded the central base and fire on supply vehicles to keep the soldiers inside hungry and short of ammunition, he said.

"You could say that those soldiers are imprisoned among us," said activist Hisham Nijim.

Almost all the rebels the AP journalists met were from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, and many consider the fight a religious cause. When asked what they are fighting for, most said they are fed up with corruption, harassment by security services and a system that gives preference to members of the ruling Baath party and the Alawite sect, to which Assad belongs. The word they used most often was dignity.

"If I go to the beach, I don't want an Alawite to call me a dog and I can't respond," said Ahmed Salim, 27, who left the police for the rebels in October. "I don't want to be treated like an animal. I want to be treated like a human."

Most fighters said they did not target other sects, only those who had fought for the regime.

There was little evidence of rebel attacks on civilians, but they were often merciless with regime troops. For most, the fight to topple Assad has become personal after they have been chased from their cities, their friends and relatives killed. Many frequently flip through "martyr" photos on their cellphones for inspiration.

One night at al-Sheikh's headquarters in Sarjeh, a group of fighters flipped through brigade photos on a laptop.

"Martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr," they said, pointing out those who had died fighting.

Videos of the group's attacks showed roadside bombs destroying tanks and flipping over army buses, as Islamic chanting played in the background. In one video, a booby-trapped van sped toward a checkpoint and blew up, splattering two soldiers into nearby trees.

The group was still high on a recent attack that had destroyed a military camp nearby. In the end, they photographed the dead bodies of 35 soldiers, drove off a tank they now park under a tree in the village graveyard and held trials for five captured soldiers. All were found guilty of killing other Syrians.

"They travelled to Cyprus," al-Sheikh said with a grin. "On a fast plane."

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Arabic-speaking journalist Ben Hubbard was part of a three-member Associated Press team that spent two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, gathering firsthand information on the increasingly bloody rebellion against President Bashar Assad _ the longest and deadliest uprising of the Arab Spring.

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Health and Fitness Supplements You May Not Have Heard Of

If you?re looking to improve your health and fitness then you will most likely have looked at some of the different health supplements available to help give you an edge. And most likely you will have to this end looked at protein shakes and maybe creatine or even amino acids ? but what you might not realize is that this is only scratching the surface of the kinds of shakes and supplements that are available. Here we will look at a few of the more obscure supplements that you might not have heard of but which might prove very helpful in your training, or that you are better off avoiding.

NO2

Nitric Oxide is a supplement that causes vasodilation. Essentially this means that it causes the blood vessels to dilate (widen) so that more blood can get around the circulatory system more quickly. This is useful for bodybuilders from an aesthetic perspective ? because many (myself included) are under the impression that bulging veins is a great look. More to the point though, it also means that more blood can get around the body to provide the muscles with energy during training to help you train harder for longer. And then following this it will help to aid recovery by helping you get more nutrients and specifically amino acids to your muscles. One of the few supplements you can see working immediately after taking.

Testosterone Boosters

Testosterone boosters of course work to increase the amount of testosterone in the body by encouraging the testes to produce more than they usually would. This is accomplished through the use of herbs such as tribulis terrestris and minerals such as zinc and magnesium. However for the most part these supplements are unlikely to cause much of a noticeable change so you?re better off skipping these ones.

GABBA

GABBA is a neurotransmitter that prevents the ?re-uptake? of various other signalling hormones in the brain such as serotonin and melatonin to leave more of those substances free for the brain to use. This makes GABA theoretically useful as a sleeping aid and an antidepressant, but it also might be useful to encourage the pituitary glands to produce more growth hormone. However this is again a supplement that doesn?t necessarily do what it says on the tin ? and there?s a chance that GABA may not even be able to cross the blood brain barrier to cause any effects on the brain. If it does however, then there would also likely be some side effects ? perhaps even resulting in a lower production of serotonin (a possible compensatory response) which could lead to depression and other mood disorders. One to avoid.

Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

Vitamin and mineral supplements are great health supplements, but they are also very useful for sportsmen and women and for bodybuilders. For instance calcium can help to strengthen contractions by improving the strength of the ligaments and tendons, while vitamin B6 can help you to get more energy from your carbohydrates and iron can help improve energy by carrying oxygen around the body. In other words ? don?t underestimate the potency of vitamins and minerals (but do also think about how you eat them ? they?re better in your diet and if you take them as supplements you might do better taking them on a full stomach).

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is not typically considered a bodybuilding supplement and is a little known health supplement. Still though, it is perhaps one of the most potent supplements on the market helping to improve the function of the mitochondria ? the surroundings of the cells which help to convert glucose into ATP and which can help to protect them against oxidisation and free radicals. The downside is that it?s really rather expensive as a supplement, and it doesn?t work over night. So unless you?re Richard Branson it?s hard to recommend.

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2 guilds scrutinize Lohan TV film production

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Belief in hell, according to international data, is associated with reduced crime

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? Religions are thought to serve as bulwarks against unethical behaviors. However, when it comes to predicting criminal behavior, the specific religious beliefs one holds is the determining factor, says a University of Oregon psychologist.

The study, appearing in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, found that criminal activity is higher in societies where people's religious beliefs contain a strong punitive component than in places where religious beliefs are more benevolent. A country where many more people believe in heaven than in hell, for example, is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one where these beliefs are about equal. The finding surfaced from a comprehensive analysis of 26 years of data involving 143,197 people in 67 countries.

"The key finding is that, controlling for each other, a nation's rate of belief in hell predicts lower crime rates, but the nation's rate of belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates, and these are strong effects," said Azim F. Shariff, professor of psychology and director of the Culture and Morality Lab at the UO. "I think it's an important clue about the differential effects of supernatural punishment and supernatural benevolence. The finding is consistent with controlled research we've done in the lab, but here shows a powerful 'real world' effect on something that really affects people -- crime."

Last year, in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Shariff reported that undergraduate students were more likely to cheat when they believe in a forgiving God than a punishing God.

Religious belief generally has been viewed as "a monolithic construct," Shariff said. "Once you split religion into different constructs, you begin to see different relationships. In this study, we found two differences that go in opposite directions. If you look at overall religious belief, these separate directions are washed out and you don't see anything. There's no hint of a relationship."

The new findings, he added, fit into a growing body of evidence that supernatural punishment had emerged as a very effective cultural innovation to get people to act more ethically with each other. In 2003, he said, Harvard University researchers Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary had found that gross domestic product was higher in developed countries when people believed in hell more than they did in heaven.

"Supernatural punishment across nations seems to predict lower crime rates," Shariff said. "At this stage, we can only speculate about mechanisms, but it's possible that people who don't believe in the possibility of punishment in the afterlife feel like they can get away with unethical behavior. There is less of a divine deterrent."

He added, however, that these are correlational data, and so caution should be taken with the conclusions. Though Shariff and study co-author Mijke Rhemtulla of the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis at the University of Kansas tried to account for obvious alternative explanations, more research is needed to explore other interpretations for the findings.

"This research provides new insights into the potential influences of cultural and religious beliefs on key outcomes at a societal level," said Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation. "Although these findings may be controversial, dissecting the associations between specific belief systems and epidemiologic behaviors is an important first step for social scientists to disentangle the complex web of factors that motivate human behavior."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Oregon.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Azim F. Shariff, Mijke Rhemtulla. Divergent Effects of Beliefs in Heaven and Hell on National Crime Rates. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (6): e39048 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039048

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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David Geffen to get the "American Masters" treatment

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Iran-6 power nuke meeting begins

(AP) ? Iran and six world powers have launched a new attempt to break deadlocked negotiations meant to reduce international tensions over Tehran's nuclear activities.

The two sides began their latest meeting in Moscow Monday after the failure of two recent talks to bridge their differences.

The six want Iran to curb nuclear enrichment, which can be used to make both reactor fuel and arm nuclear warheads. Iran says it has a right to enrich and denies Western accusations that it is doing so to be able to make such weapons.

Previous talks stalled as each side waited for the other to make the first move. Iran wants sanctions lifted or postponed, but the six powers rule that out until Iran complies with their demands.

Associated Press

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