(Reuters) ? Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) is shaking up the leadership of its investment bank as it looks to find its footing in a difficult market environment.
In the reorganization, Christian Meissner will become head of global corporate investment banking, while two former co-heads of the unit will take on new roles, according to a memo sent to employees on Sunday by co-chief operating officer Tom Montag that was obtained by Reuters.
Meissner will report to Montag, the former Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) executive who runs global banking and markets operations for Bank of America.
Paul Donofrio will become head of global corporate banking credit and transaction banking with responsibility for global treasury services, loan products and other services. Michael Rubinoff will become chairman of GCIB, where he will be charged with deepening client relationships.
Both executives will also report to Montag.
The new structure comes as the corporate and investment bank adapts "to a changing market environment to more effectively meet the needs of our clients," Montag said in the memo.
Montag joined Bank of America in 2009 when the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank bought Merrill as it verged on collapse in the financial crisis.
Bank of America spokesman John Yiannacopoulos confirmed the contents of the memo, but declined to comment further.
The reshuffling puts a relative newcomer to Bank of America in charge of capital markets operations that underwrite stock and debt offerings as well as bankers who advise corporations on mergers and other transactions. The bank hired Meissner in April
from Nomura Holdings Inc (NMR.N), the Japanese bank, to head up investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Currently based in London, the former Lehman Brothers veteran will move to New York, Montag said in the memo. Donofrio and Rubinoff are also based in New York.
The moves come after a challenging year for Montag's business, which saw net income fall by more than half to about $3 billion in 2011 from last year as clients pulled back amid uncertainty over the European debt crisis. The unit has been slashing staff amid a decline in revenue and last week investment bankers learned that part of their bonuses would be paid in stock in lieu of cash.
More cuts are also expected in the unit as part of the second phase of an efficiency initiative called Project New BAC. The first phase is set to eliminate 30,000 jobs over the next few years in a bid to trim $5 billion in annual expenses.
Executives are expected to complete planning for the second phase in April. That part of New BAC could eliminate up to $3 billion in expenses. It is expected to eliminate fewer jobs.
(Reporting By Rick Rothacker; Editing by Matt Driskill)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? Jack White is releasing his first solo album "Blunderbuss" on April 24.
White released a single, "Love Interruption," from the record Monday and expected to make it available for sale Monday night on iTunes.
The album is the former White Stripes frontman's first record since he announced the breakup of that pioneering rock `n' roll duo last year. White also is a member of The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.
White offered few details about the new album in a news release Monday. But he said he produced the album and recorded it at Third Man Studio in Nashville. He said the songs were "written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas."
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, talks to an unidentified man after arriving at Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, talks to an unidentified man after arriving at Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, and his wife Callista, center, arrive at Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, leaves his campaign bus and boards his campaign plane in Panama City, Fla., as he travels to Fort Myers, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks to members of the news media, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, after arriving at the Chester County Airport in Downingtown, Pa. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)
MIAMI (AP) ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney for "carpet-bombing" his record ahead of Tuesday's presidential primary in Florida, trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in the final 48 hours before the vote.
On the defensive after barrage of attacks from Romney and a political committee that supports him, Gingrich said Romney had lied and the GOP establishment had allowed it.
"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."
Despite Romney's effort to turn positive, the Florida contest has become decidedly bitter and personal. Romney and Gingrich have tangled over policy and character since Gingrich's stunning victory over the well-funded Romney in the South Carolina primary Jan. 21.
Showing no signs of letting up, Gingrich objected to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline the then-House speaker for ethics charges.
"It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," Gingrich said.
Gingrich acknowledged the possibility that he could lose in Florida and pledged to compete with Romney all the way to the party's national convention this summer.
An NBC/Marist poll showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters and Gingrich slipping to 27 percent.
While Romney had spent the past several days sharply attacking Gingrich, he pivoted over the weekend to refocus his criticism on President Barack Obama, calling the Democratic incumbent "detached from reality." The former Massachusetts governor criticized Obama's plan to cut the size of the military and said the administration had a weak foreign policy.
Gingrich's South Carolina momentum has largely evaporated amid the pounding he has sustained from Romney's campaign and the pro-Romney group called Restore Our Future. They have spent some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week.
Gingrich planned to campaign Sunday in central Florida, while Romney scheduled rallies in the south. He was also looking ahead to the Nevada caucuses Feb. 4, airing ads in that state and citing the endorsement Sunday of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.
Gingrich collected the weekend endorsement of Herman Cain, a tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful whose White House effort foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, planned to remain in Pennsylvania where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized, and resume campaigning as soon as possible, according to his campaign. She has a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul has invested little in the Florida race and is looking ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.
Gingrich appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." Paul was on CNN's "State of the Union."
___
Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Tampa contributed to this report.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) ? NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this morning after a cross-country trip by truck from the Orbital Sciences Corporation's manufacturing plant in Dulles, Va. The mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 14.
Once the observatory is offloaded at Vandenberg, it will be moved into a processing hangar, joining the Pegasus XL rocket that is set to carry it to space. Over the weekend, technicians will remove its shipping container so that checkout and other processing activities can begin next week. Once the observatory is integrated with the rocket in mid-February, technicians will encapsulate it in the vehicle fairing, which is also scheduled to arrive at Vandenberg today.
After processing is completed, the rocket and spacecraft will be flown on Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll for launch in March.
NuSTAR is a small-explorer mission managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation. Its instrument was built by a consortium including the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; JPL; Columbia University, New York, N.Y.; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; the University of California, Berkeley; and ATK, Goleta, Calif. NuSTAR will be operated by UC Berkeley, with the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State University, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .
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SARASOTA, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich has staked his presidential bid on the idea that he's best positioned to defeat President Barack Obama. Yet even some supporters seem to be struggling to buy that claim, an indication that efforts by chief rival Mitt Romney to undercut him may be working.
"Beating Obama is more important than everything else," Patrick Roehl, a 51-year-old computer software engineer, said at a Gingrich rally inside a Sarasota airport hangar this past week. "Can Newt win? I'm not sure. He's got a lot of high negatives. The elections are won and lost in the middle. I'm not sure he appeals to the middle."
John Grainger, a 44-year-old assistant golf pro, doesn't like Romney. But he's having trouble shaking skepticism about Gingrich.
"I want to be a Newt supporter," he said. "This guy's going to have the guts to stand up and speak his piece ? no holds barred." But Grainger said he wasn't quite ready to back the former House speaker.
Interviews with more than a dozen Republican voters at Gingrich's overflowing rallies ahead of Tuesday's primary suggest that many Florida voters love his brash style as they look for someone to take it to Obama. But these voters also have lingering doubts about whether Gingrich really is Obama's most serious threat.
Romney and his allies are working to stoke those doubts, and the GOP's establishment wing has started to help the former Massachusetts governor try to make that case.
Romney and his backers are highlighting what they consider Gingrich's liabilities ? consulting contracts and ethics investigations among them. They're suggesting that more baggage could emerge in the fall in the general election.
"In the case of the speaker, he's got some records which could represent an October surprise," Romney said, referring to Gingrich's consulting work and ethics allegations when he was in the House. "We could see an October surprise a day from Newt Gingrich."
An outside group dedicated to helping Romney has spent almost $9 million on Florida television advertising, including a massive $4 million investment this week alone, to make the case even more explicitly.
"Newt Gingrich's tough talk sounds good, but Newt has tons of baggage. How will he ever beat Obama?" says the new ad from the so-called super PAC, Restore Our Future.
Gingrich is not letting such criticism go unanswered. He's telling everyone that he alone can defeat Obama. He points to his 12 percentage point victory last weekend in the South Carolina primary as proof.
Exit polling there showed that 51 percent of Republican voters said that Gingrich was better suited to defeat the Democratic president.
"Their highest value was beating Obama," Gingrich told evangelical voters this past week. "And if they thought Romney was the only person who could beat Obama, then they would swallow a lie. But the minute they thought there were two people who could beat Obama, they suddenly turned and said, Well, you know, maybe we should be for Newt."
Polls suggest that Gingrich could defeat Romney in Florida, a surge fueled partly by growing support from the tea party movement and continued anti-Romney sentiment.
"He's a fighter. Mitt, I think, is too wishy-washy," said Dominique Boscia, a 43-year-old unemployed woman from Lakewood Ranch. "I like feisty people. I like people who have spunk."
For months, Gingrich has used aggressive debate performances to fuel his underdog candidacy. He has thrilled conservatives by promising to take the fight directly to Obama in a series of free-form debates modeled after the 1860 meetings between Illinois Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.
Should Obama refuse, Gingrich says he'll follow the president until he agrees.
That gets good applause lines at rallies. But a closer look at polling suggests that a debate beat down doesn't necessarily mean Gingrich can beat the president in an election that will include independents and Democrats.
Gingrich struggled among independents in a recent Washington Post-ABC News national poll, in which 53 percent gave him unfavorable marks and just 22 percent had a favorable opinion of the former House speaker. While Romney has typically polled better among independents, the poll conducted between Jan. 18 and 22 found virtually no difference: 51 percent of independents viewed him unfavorably, compared with 23 with favorable views.
But when all Florida voters, including independents and Democrats, are asked to weigh in, Romney appears to have a strong advantage over Gingrich, according to a poll conducted by Suffolk University-WSVN-TV Miami. Romney would defeat Obama here 47 percent to 42 percent; Gingrich would lose, earning just 40 percent to Obama's 49 percent of likely Florida general election voters.
Hey everyone! One of my GM's needs one more character before we can start! Would anyone be interested? No pay but health benefits! Here's the RP. roleplay/international-sensations/ A fragmented tale, eternally retold. When darkness falls, two shall stand against it. The crimson-haired girl and the beach born boy, their fates intertwined, stand together.
Come my children and listen, For time is all we have.
Science Online has become my favorite annual conference to attend, by far.? Where else can I be simultaneously surrounded by, tutored, and refreshed by hundreds of folks who are equally geeked about science, technology, outreach, quality education, and social justice and equality as I am? And I love, nay exhilarated by the fact that these comrades are like me, but like me in so many beautiful, complex and different ways.? It warms my heart and feeds my soul. It really does.
I was honored, again, that The Blogfather Bora Z, asked me moderate a session on Broadening Participation of Underrepresented Populations in Online Science Communication & Communities.? There was plenty of discussion and sharing among the participants, which I suppose was near 30 or so (I?m bad a mental math).
Alberto Roca of MinorityPostdoc.org aggregated the notes from the session (which I was typing on the spot).?The?notes include a list of Action Items generated from the discussion. ?It also some video from the session, thanks to Tim Skellet, as well as a Storify summary of? tweets related to the session that occurred both before, during, and after. In fact the tweets continue. Search the hashtags #scio12 #diversity to get the scoop.
The notes give you an idea of the issues we broached.? And truth be told, I believe we could have spent another hour exploring some of the topics more fully.? But there were some very good take home messages, for the people in the room and anyone else in the science, education, and communication worlds that could make the goal of bringing more people into the fold a reality.
1. Regarding blogging, we can each work to create more reader-friendly blog posts.? For example, add more detailed captions for photos.? Some people may be google images and this search activity could bring newer audiences to your blog.? Plus, with more people from urban communities using mobile devices to access the internet, make sure your page is optimized for such viewing.
2. Real life connections still matter, and perhaps more than ever.? Mentoring young scholars ? whether they become scientists/engineers or not is an important if not pivotal piece in the broadening participation jigsaw puzzles.? Plus, it?s important that we maintain real contact with people who may not read blogs very much. We still can be that key resource to them, personally, and their sole connection to science and innovation.
3. The highlight of the session was the incomparable and wise, Dr. Cynthia Coleman (Musings on Native Science). Through her very engaging (and almost hyponotic) story-telling style she eloquently illustrated the imperative of?comprehending cultural norms for different communities.? Many communities such as Native peoples of America have multi-generational traditions for passing on knowledge or us, oral history/story-telling traditions to explain natural phenomena or new discoveries.? And something that really touched the entire audience is that for Native Americans, science isn?t a separate way of knowing.? Science is mbedded/intertwined/enmeshed in everything.? It is a part of the spiritual traditions and rituals of the people. ?And I was heartened to learn that the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is recognizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge or TEK in its programming.? Which opened up the conversation and a member of the USDA Forest Service Eastern Forest & Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center reached out to members of the audience to partner with communicating with different audiences.
4. Finally, Gabe Lyon of Project Exploration really drove home a very important point: There is NO a single way to access STEM. The metaphor of the pipeline may not be the best because all of our solutions to ?plug up? or fix the ?leaky pipeline? are deficit models.?? We?ve got to work with people, all people where they are and help them find or rather navigate this twisty-turny maze to access STEM.
From this perspective, it gives everyone a chance to work At any point of time any or all of us might be called upon to be a
Map spelling out the way, the rewards, and the potential pitfalls to pursuing STEM;
Beacon shining light on new opportunities to students, blog readers, a family member or neighbor child;
Signpost pointing someone in the right direction for financial aid, academic support, or even social services so that they can stay on course;
Cheerleader who celebrates every victory ? a test passed, a presentation given, a lab project completed ? and who?offers unselfish obnoxious applause to persevere when a student falls short of victory;
Shelter offering students retreat when they encounter pitfalls or nasty antagonists along the way, because surely they will; or an
Ally welding your weapon to slay a dragon too ferocious or leding your strength to build bridges across moats too wide for a student to handle alone.
We?ve all got work to do. What will you do to broaden participation of under-represented communities in science and science communication?
WARSAW, Poland ? Poland on Thursday signed an international copyright agreement, sparking more demonstrations by Internet users who have protested for days over fear it will lead to online censorship.
After the signing, protesters rallied in the Polish cities of Poznan and Lublin to express their anger over the treaty. Lawmakers for the left-wing Palikot's Movement wore masks in parliament to show their dissatisfaction, while the largest opposition party ? the right-wing Law and Justice party ? called for a referendum on the matter.
Controversy in Poland has been deepening over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Though many other industrialized countries have signed it, popular outrage appears to be greater in Poland than anywhere else.
ACTA is a far-reaching agreement that aims to harmonize international standards on protecting the rights of those who produce music, movies, pharmaceuticals, fashion, and a range of other products that often fall victim to intellectual property theft.
ACTA also takes aim at the online piracy of movies and music; those opposed to it fear that it will also lead authorities to block content on the Internet.
A prominent Polish rock start, Zbigniew Holdys, has come out in support of ACTA, accusing the Internet activists ? mostly young people ? of profiting from pirated material online and trying to hold onto that practice.
ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was shelved by lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day in protest.
Poland's ambassador to Japan, Jadwiga Rodowicz-Czechowska, signed it in Tokyo. Speaking on Polish television, she said that Poland was one of several European Union countries to sign ACTA Thursday, including Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece.
Several other industrialized countries, including the United States, Canada and South Korea, signed the agreement last year.
Poland's support for ACTA has sparked attacks on Polish government websites by a group calling itself "Anonymous" that left them several of them unreachable off and on for days. Street protests of hundreds, and in some cases thousands of people, have broken out across Poland for the past three days.
In reaction to the widespread opposition, Polish leaders have been struggling to allay fears over it.
Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski defended his government's position in a TV interview Wednesday evening, arguing that ACTA is not as threatening as young people fear.
But he said the Internet should not be allowed to become a space of "legal anarchy."
"We believe that theft on a massive scale of intellectual property is not a good thing," Sikorski said.
In the Czech Republic, a local group aligning itself with Anonymous attacked the website of a group that supports ACTA. The group collects money for music production and distributes it to artists.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Studying the potential health hazards of nanotechnology will require an additional $24 million a year to close the knowledge gap about the tiny particles used in a fast-growing array of consumer products, the National Research Council said on Wednesday.
A new federal oversight agency is also required to integrate research by private business, universities and international groups, the non-profit research council said in a study sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Nanotechnology involves designing and manufacturing materials on the scale of one-billionth of a meter. It is used in areas ranging from stain-resistant clothing and cosmetics to food additives.
The sector's product sales were about $225 billion in 2009 and it is expected to expand rapidly in the next decade, said the study by the research council, a unit of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Despite the promise of nanotechnology, without strategic research into emergent risks associated with it -- and a clear understanding of how to manage and avoid potential risks -- the future of safe and sustainable nanotechnology-based materials, products, and processes is uncertain," said the study by a committee of 19 scientists.
There is insufficient understanding about the environmental, health and safety effects of engineered nanotechnology materials (ENMs). Little progress has been made on the health effects of ENMs that have been swallowed, inhaled or absorbed by humans, it said.
There also has been little research on potential damage from more-complex ENMs that are expected to come into the market in the next decade.
The federal Centers for Disease Control says there are indications "that nanoparticles can penetrate the skin or move from the respiratory system to other organs."
"At this time, the limited evidence available suggests caution when potential exposures to nanoparticles may occur," the CDC says on its website.
CHALLENGING MATERIALS
Half of nanomaterials are made from ceramic nanoparticles, with another 20 percent each from carbon nanotubes and nanoporous materials, the report said.
The complexity of ENMs and their coatings make them challenging to assess as risks. For example, a nanomaterial can change its surface properties depending on where it is, such as in lung fluid or air, the study said.
The federal government has set aside $123.5 million in its 2012 budget for ENM safety research, and that level should remain stable for about five years, the report said.
Public, private and international groups should designate another $5 million a year for collecting and disseminating information on ENM, and $10 million for instrumentation, it said.
Investment in developing and providing benchmark nanomaterials should be from $3 million to $5 million a year. Identifying nanomaterials sources and developing research networks each need $2 million a year.
All the new spending should be kept in place for five years, the report recommended.
The panel called for replacing the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which coordinates federal agencies' investments in sector research and development, with a body that has the authority to direct federal safety research.
The new body also should ensure that federal research is meshed with that from private business, universities and international organizations, it said.
NEW DELHI (AP) ? India's Sikh community isn't finding Jay Leno so funny.
Members of the religious group said they were outraged when the "Tonight Show" host showed a photo of a glittering gold building and claimed it was Republican Mitt Romney's summer home.
It was meant to be a joke about the Republican presidential candidate's wealth. But the building in the photograph is the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion.
Dalbeg Singh, a top Sikh leader, said Tuesday that community leaders would seek an apology from Leno.
India's foreign minister says the government would take the issue up with U.S. authorities.
You can run, but you can't hide. Facebook's biggest user interface overhaul since the Wall, the Facebook Timeline, is now becoming mandatory for all users. According to the company, over the next few weeks, everyone will get the new Timeline. And here's the important part: when you do, you'll have just seven days to preview what's there now, and hide anything you don't want others to see.
Around these parts, we've generally had favorable opinions of Klipsch's audio products. Whether it's been something as small as its S4 line of smartphone oriented in-ears or grand speaker systems like its AirPlay-enabled G-17 Air, we've usually ended up awarding the brand our highest praise. If you'll recall, it was little over a year ago that Klipsch introduced its $150 Image One on-ear headphones -- the company's first set ever that weren't of the intra-aural variety, and a favorite of our own James Trew.
Fast forward to the present, and the company's unleashed its second proper over-the-head headphone, the Klipsch Mode M40 with active noise-cancellation. In recent years, headphones have exploded in popularity -- many companies have been furiously trying to blend good sound with fashion-forward looks. It's safe to say that's Klipsch's end game here, and is asking that you part ways with 350 bones to get in on the action.
Put simply, these aren't a follow-up to the Image Ones, but rather, a luxury pair that takes cues from the company's reference series headphones. Of course, as we've come to expect from Klipsch, the M40s do have some notable tricks up their yokes aside from their debatably fashionable looks -- the company promises they'll cancel noise for a massively long 45 hours on a single AAA battery, and both earcups feature an interesting dual-driver array with a 15mm tweeter and a 40mm woofer. So, have the M40s made us smitten with Klipsch all over again? Or not? Maybe something a bit more complicated? Click on past the break to find out!
Group settings can diminish expressions of intelligence, especially among womenPublic release date: 22-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Paula Byron pbyron@vt.edu 540-526-2027 Virginia Tech
In the classic film "12 Angry Men," Henry Fonda's character sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence. But would he have succeeded if he had allowed himself to fall sway to the social dynamics of that jury?
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. "You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.
The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.
"We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ," said Montague. "Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect."
"Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning," said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit."
The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.
Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores -- a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 -- they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals' expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.
The researchers wanted to know what was happening in the brain during the observed changes in IQ expression. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the results of their final rank -- the high performers, who scored above the median, and the low performers, who scored at or below the median. Two of every group of five subjects had their brains scanned using fMRI while they participated in the task.
Among the researchers' findings:
1. Dynamic responses occurred in multiple brain regions, especially the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the nucleus accumbens -- regions believed to be involved in emotional processing, problem solving, and reward and pleasure, respectively.
2. All subjects had an initial increase in amygdala activation and diminished activity in the prefrontal cortex, both of which corresponded with a lower problem-solving ability.
3. By the end of the task, the high-performing group showed a decreased amygdala activation and an increased prefrontal cortex activation, both of which were associated with an increased ability to solve more difficult problems.
4. Positive changes in rank were associated with greater activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, which has traditionally been linked to learning and has been shown to respond to rewards and pleasure.
5. Negative changes in rank corresponded with greater activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, consistent with a response to conflicting information.
6. Neither age nor ethnicity showed a significant correlation with performance or brain responses. A significant pattern did emerge along gender lines, however. Although male and female participants had the same baseline IQ, significantly fewer women (3 of 13) were in the high-performing group and significantly more (10 of 13) fell into the low-performing group.
"We don't know how much these effects are present in real-world settings," Kishida said. "But given the potentially harmful effects of social-status assignments and the correlation with specific neural signals, future research should be devoted to what, exactly, society is selecting for in competitive learning and workplace environments. By placing an emphasis on competition, for example, are we missing a large segment of the talent pool? Further brain imaging research may also offer avenues for developing strategies for people who are susceptible to these kinds of social pressures."
"This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed," said coauthor Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech. "Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other."
"So much of our society is organized around small-group interactions," said Kishida. "Understanding how our brains respond to dynamic social interactions is an important area of future research. We need to remember that social dynamics affect not just educational and workplace environments, but also national and international policy-making bodies, such as the U.S. Congress and the United Nations."
###
The research appears in the Jan. 23, 2012 issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in the article, "Implicit signals in small group settings and their impact on the expression of cognitive capacity and associated brain responses," by Kenneth Kishida; Dongni Yang, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; Karen Hunter Quartz, a director of research in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies of the University of California, Los Angeles; Steven Quartz; and Read Montague, corresponding author, who is also a professor of physics at Virginia Tech. The research was supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust and the Kane Family Foundation to Montague and the National Institutes of Health to Montague and Kishida.
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Group settings can diminish expressions of intelligence, especially among womenPublic release date: 22-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Paula Byron pbyron@vt.edu 540-526-2027 Virginia Tech
In the classic film "12 Angry Men," Henry Fonda's character sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence. But would he have succeeded if he had allowed himself to fall sway to the social dynamics of that jury?
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. "You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.
The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.
"We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ," said Montague. "Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect."
"Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning," said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit."
The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.
Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores -- a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 -- they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals' expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.
The researchers wanted to know what was happening in the brain during the observed changes in IQ expression. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the results of their final rank -- the high performers, who scored above the median, and the low performers, who scored at or below the median. Two of every group of five subjects had their brains scanned using fMRI while they participated in the task.
Among the researchers' findings:
1. Dynamic responses occurred in multiple brain regions, especially the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the nucleus accumbens -- regions believed to be involved in emotional processing, problem solving, and reward and pleasure, respectively.
2. All subjects had an initial increase in amygdala activation and diminished activity in the prefrontal cortex, both of which corresponded with a lower problem-solving ability.
3. By the end of the task, the high-performing group showed a decreased amygdala activation and an increased prefrontal cortex activation, both of which were associated with an increased ability to solve more difficult problems.
4. Positive changes in rank were associated with greater activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, which has traditionally been linked to learning and has been shown to respond to rewards and pleasure.
5. Negative changes in rank corresponded with greater activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, consistent with a response to conflicting information.
6. Neither age nor ethnicity showed a significant correlation with performance or brain responses. A significant pattern did emerge along gender lines, however. Although male and female participants had the same baseline IQ, significantly fewer women (3 of 13) were in the high-performing group and significantly more (10 of 13) fell into the low-performing group.
"We don't know how much these effects are present in real-world settings," Kishida said. "But given the potentially harmful effects of social-status assignments and the correlation with specific neural signals, future research should be devoted to what, exactly, society is selecting for in competitive learning and workplace environments. By placing an emphasis on competition, for example, are we missing a large segment of the talent pool? Further brain imaging research may also offer avenues for developing strategies for people who are susceptible to these kinds of social pressures."
"This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed," said coauthor Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech. "Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other."
"So much of our society is organized around small-group interactions," said Kishida. "Understanding how our brains respond to dynamic social interactions is an important area of future research. We need to remember that social dynamics affect not just educational and workplace environments, but also national and international policy-making bodies, such as the U.S. Congress and the United Nations."
###
The research appears in the Jan. 23, 2012 issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in the article, "Implicit signals in small group settings and their impact on the expression of cognitive capacity and associated brain responses," by Kenneth Kishida; Dongni Yang, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; Karen Hunter Quartz, a director of research in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies of the University of California, Los Angeles; Steven Quartz; and Read Montague, corresponding author, who is also a professor of physics at Virginia Tech. The research was supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust and the Kane Family Foundation to Montague and the National Institutes of Health to Montague and Kishida.
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PARK CITY, Utah ? The rap group that created controversy in the early 1990s with songs like "Me So Horny" is reuniting and hitting the road.
Luther Campbell said Saturday that 2 Live Crew is back together and will tour this summer.
The rapper and producer made the announcement at the Sundance Film Festival, where he is promoting his appearance in the short film "The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke."
The 51-year-old entertainer describes the offbeat film as "an art piece" that he did to help young filmmakers who were inspired by his hip-hop work. But his mind was on getting back with the old crew.
"I just can't wait to just start practicing," he said. "That's going to be a blast."
So will they be "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" (the title of the group's 1989 album that a judge deemed obscene, a ruling later overturned by the United States Court of Appeals)?
Not really, Campbell said.
"We're going to perform the songs and everybody's going to be excited," he said. "Some of the older people of our generation will be able to tell their kids, `You're staying home tonight, we're going to see 2 Live Crew and shake our booty!'"
___
AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: . www.twitter.com/APSandy
___
Online:
http://www.sundance.org/festival/
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Shirin Neshat's latest series of photographs presented along with a video installation at Gladstone Gallery perpetuate her study of the underlying conditions of power within socio-cultural structures in the Middle East. Born in Qazvin, Iran before immigrating to the United States in 1974, Neshat's artistic practice has focused on the plight of women in oppressive, Muslim societies. Addressing the Arab Spring and the momentum of these uprisings, Neshat turned to historical and contemporary sources to create technically beautiful and richly provocative photographic portraits.
Shirin Neshat, My House is Burning Down, 2012, Ink on LE silver gelatin print, 47 1/8 x 60 inches (119.7 x 152.4 cm), 47 1/2 x 60 1/4 x 2 inches (120.7 x 153 x 5.1 cm), Edition of 5 + 2 Aps
The exhibition's title, The Book of Kings, stems from the ancient Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), an epic tragedy written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 AD. The Book of Kings recounts the mythical and historical past of Greater Iran from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th Century.
Shirin Neshat, "The Book of Kings", January 13 - February 11, 2012 Installation View: Gladstone Gallery, New York, Photo: David Regen, Copyright Shirin Neshat Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
Each photograph appears inscribed with Neshat's signature calligraphic texts and drawings over each subject's face and body drawn from Shahnameh as well as from contemporary poetry by Iranian writers and prisoners vying against authoritarian rule.
Shirin Neshat, "The Book of Kings", January 13 - February 11, 2012 Installation View: Gladstone Gallery, New York, Photo: David Regen, Copyright Shirin Neshat Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
While the work conveys little conceptual deviation from previous series, the aesthetic beauty of each silvery print and the raw emotion garnered from each sitter remains resolutely powerful.
The Book of Kings will be on exhibition from January 13-February 11 at Gladstone Gallery (515 West 24th Street).
We define social business as the creation of shared value for everybody in a business value chain, including the customer and the communities they live in, online or offline. For someone in technology, social business may mean free software, platform businesses or games. For a marketer, it could mean loyalty programmes or social network marketplaces. There is also a CSR angle ? social business might apply to an ethical, value-driven business.
Social business isn?t new ? it has in fact been around for the past thirty years and continues to evolve. Social business has evolved from multiple sources and is taking business in a new direction.
My company Global Dawn has produced an explanatory infographic to niftily sum up social business over the past three decades, showing all the routes that business has travelled to become more social. More than just being about social media, it?s also about values, customers, collaboration, involvement and engagement.
From the development of micro-finance to crowdsourcing to today?s customer ecosystems, shared value and social business is all about empowering people and creating a more collaborative human-centred business environment.
The Technology Stream
A strong tradition running through social business and dating back to the free software movement and then open source is the idea of contribution, specifically making a contribution to the ecosystem you work within. This tradition has helped build the web as we know it today into a giant, free collaborative resource.
The Marketing Stream
Another strong tradition begins with multi-level marketing and loyalty programs. The web has enhanced the capacity of smart firms to build loyalty by engaging more deeply with customers and by interacting in more equal terms, creating a two-way conversation between marketers and customers.
The Social Stream
Finally, there is the tradition of social itself, beginning with the micro-finance initiatives that were designed to replace development aid in what used to be called the third world. That tradition has informed open innovation, the large mobile ecosystems that flourished first in Kenya, and then crowdsourcing.
As we can see, social business is no buzzword but rather a long tradition that has evolved through the decades. However, we can expect to see many more organisations coming forward, claiming to be social business over the coming 12 months.
Social business is about more than just engagement across social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. A true social business will create shared value for everyone, empowering the people it reaches in a valuable way.
Andy Hewitt is Global Dawn?s Director of Customer Propositions. Global Dawn works with brands to offer bespoke software-as-a-service (SaaS) social business platform packages which enable brands to optimise customer marketing engagement. Andy is responsible for defining the Global Dawn proposition for customers as well as the functionality of its Social Business Engine. Contact: andrew.hewitt@globaldawn.co.
Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the handheld camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for what remains one of America's best-known companies.
The 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak," Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio M. Perez said in a statement.
Kodak said that it and its U.S. subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Non-U.S. subsidiaries were not covered by the filing, it added.
Kodak once dominated its industry and its film was the subject of a popular Paul Simon song, but it failed to quickly embrace more modern technologies such as the digital camera -- ironically, a product it even invented.
Its downfall has already hit its Rust Belt hometown of Rochester, N.Y., with employment there falling to about 7,000 from more than 60,000 in Kodak's halcyon days.
In recent years, Perez has steered Kodak's focus more toward consumer and commercial printers.
But that failed to restore annual profitability, something Kodak has not seen since 2007, or arrest a cash drain that has made it difficult for Kodak to meet its substantial pension and other benefits obligations to its workers and retirees.
Perez said bankruptcy protection would enable Kodak to continue to work to maximize the value of its technology assets, such as digital-imaging patents it licenses for use in mobile and other devices and its printing technology.
Kodak said it was being advised by investment bank Lazard Ltd, which has been helping Kodak look for a buyer for its 1,100 digital patents.
Other advisers included business-turnaround specialist FTI Consulting Inc, whose vice chairman, Dominic DiNapoli, would serve as chief restructuring officer for Kodak, supporting existing management.
Kodak stock, which traded over $5 a year ago, closed Wednesday at 55 cents a share on the New York Stock Exchange, where it had been in danger of being delisted.
Kodak struggles to reinvent itself in digital age
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iran said on Wednesday it was in touch with big powers to hold fresh talks soon but the European Union denied it, with Britain saying Tehran had yet to show willingness for negotiations on its disputed nuclear work without preconditions.
A year after the last talks collapsed, tensions are rising with the United States and EU preparing to embargo Iran's lifeblood oil industry over its refusal to suspend a nuclear program that the West suspects is meant to develop atom bombs.
Iranian politicians said U.S. President Barack Obama had expressed readiness to negotiate in a letter to Tehran, a step that might relieve tensions behind several oil price spikes and growing fears of military conflict in the Gulf.
"Negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters during a visit to Turkey.
"Most probably, I am not sure yet, the venue will be Istanbul. The day is not yet settled, but it will be soon."
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the six powers, denied there were any fresh discussions with the Islamic Republic to organize a meeting.
"There are no negotiations under way on new talks," he said in Brussels. "We are still waiting for Iran to respond to the substantive proposals the High Representative (Ashton) made in her letter from October."
Britain was also dismissive. "There are no dates or concrete plans because Iran has yet to demonstrate clearly that it is willing to respond to Baroness Ashton's letter and negotiate without preconditions," a Foreign Office spokesman said.
"Until it does so, the international community will only increase pressure on it through further peaceful and legitimate sanctions," he said.
PROTRACTED IMPASSE
The last talks between Iran and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- along with Germany stalled in Istanbul a year ago, with the parties unable to agree even on an agenda.
Since then, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report has hardened suspicions Iran has worked on designing a nuclear weapon and Washington and the European Union have turned to much harsher economic sanctions aimed at pushing Tehran into suspending sensitive nuclear activity and entering genuine negotiations.
EU foreign ministers are expected to approve an embargo on Iranian oil at a meeting on January 23, diplomats say.
"Ahead of (that meeting) Iran is chasing headlines and pretending that it is ready to engage," a Western diplomat said in reference to Salehi's remarks.
"If it really is ready to sit down without preconditions the (six powers) would do so. Sadly, at the moment, it seems more interested in propaganda."
Iran has said it is ready to talk but has also started shifting uranium enrichment to a deep bunker where it would be less vulnerable to the air strikes Israel says it could launch if diplomacy fails to halt the nuclear program.
Western diplomats say Tehran must show willingness to change its course in any new talks. Crucially, Tehran says other countries must respect its right to enrich uranium, the nuclear fuel which, if enriched to much higher levels than that suitable for power plants, can provide material for atomic bombs.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says its activities are for power generation and medical applications.
Russia, a member of the six power group that has criticized the new EU and U.S. sanctions, said the last-ditch military option mooted by the United States and Israel would ignite a disastrous, widespread Middle East war.
"On the chances of whether this catastrophe will happen or not you should ask those who repeatedly talk about this," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.
"I have no doubt that it would pour fuel on a fire which is already smoldering, the hidden smoldering fire of Sunni-Shi'ite (Muslim) confrontation, and beyond that (it would cause) a chain reaction. I don't know where it would stop."
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday any decision about an Israeli attack on Iran was "very far off." [ID:nL6E8CI0NH]
THREATS, FRIENDSHIP
China, which shares Russia's dislike of the new Western moves to stop Iran exporting oil, said U.S. sanctions that Obama signed into law on December 31 had no basis in international law.
"As for some countries imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran, that is not international law and other countries are under no obligation to participate," Li Song, a deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, told an online question-and-answer session.
In reply to Tehran's threat to close the Gulf's vital oil shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz, if sanctions prevent it selling oil, Obama has written to the senior cleric who sits atop the Islamic Republic's power structure, Iranian politicians said.
While Washington has yet to comment on the reported letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several members of Iran's parliament who discussed the matter on Wednesday said it included the offer of talks.
"In this letter it was said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is our (U.S.) 'red line' and also asked for direct negotiations," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted lawmaker Ali Mottahari as saying.
"The first part of letter has a threatening stance and the second part has a stance of negotiation and friendship."
Washington has often said it has a dual-track approach to Iran, leaving open the offer of talks while seeking ever tighter sanctions as long as Tehran does not rein in its nuclear work.
But any fresh opening to Tehran might be a risky strategy for Obama in an election year as Republican presidential candidates compete over who is toughest on a country Washington has long considered a pariah state.
Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent column in the Washington Post that there were doubts about Tehran's sincerity in wishing to return to talks.
"By threatening the disruption of global oil supplies, yet dangling the prospect of entering talks, Iran can press actors such as Russia and China to be more accommodating in an effort to avoid a crisis that they fear," Takeyh wrote.
"Any concessions that Iran may make at the negotiating table are bound to be symbolic and reversible."
(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna and Estelle Shirbon in London; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
SHARON, Pa. (AP) ? Police say a man tried to rob a western Pennsylvania gambling parlor by threatening to spread a staph infection.
Online court records don't list an attorney for 41-year-old Fred Parker, of Coolspring Township.
Police say he walked into Lucky's Internet Cafe in Sharon on Monday night and began touching the walls and gambling machines, claiming he has MRSA ? a serious staph infection that resists antibiotics.
Sharon police Chief Mike Menster says Parker then threatened to infect the cashier if he didn't give Parker money. The chief tells The Herald newspaper of Sharon, "It's our first case of robbery by threat of an infectious disease."
Police say Parker left when the cashier refused, but was arrested a short time later based on his description.
Parker remained in jail Wednesday.
___
Information from: The Herald, http://www.sharon-herald.com
TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iran said on Wednesday it was in touch with big powers to hold fresh talks soon but the European Union denied it, with Britain saying Tehran had yet to show willingness for negotiations addressing suspicions that it trying to develop atom bombs.
A year after the last talks fell apart, confrontation is brewing as the EU prepare to dramatically intensify international sanctions against Iran with an embargo on its economically vital oil exports.
Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, used for a third of the world's seaborne oil exports, if it cannot sell its own crude, fanning fears of a descent into war in the Gulf that could inflame the Middle East.
Iranian politicians said U.S. President Barack Obama had expressed readiness to negotiate in a letter to Tehran, a step that might relieve tensions behind recent oil price spikes.
"Negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters during a visit to Turkey.
"Most probably, I am not sure yet, the venue will be Istanbul. The day is not yet settled, but it will be soon."
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the six powers, denied there were any fresh discussions with the Islamic Republic to organize a meeting.
"There are no negotiations under way on new talks," he said in Brussels. "We are still waiting for Iran to respond to the substantive proposals the High Representative (Ashton) made in her letter from October." Iran has yet to formally respond.
Ashton wrote to Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili to stress that the West still wanted to resume talks but Iran must be ready to engage "seriously in meaningful discussions" about ways to ensure its nuclear work would be wholly peaceful in nature.
The Islamic Republic has in sporadic meetings over the past five years insisted that talks focus on broader international security issues, not its nuclear energy program.
Britain also dismissed Salehi's remarks. "There are no dates or concrete plans because Iran has yet to demonstrate clearly it is willing to respond to Baroness Ashton's letter and negotiate without preconditions," a Foreign Office spokesman said.
"Until it does so, the international community will only increase pressure on it through further peaceful and legitimate sanctions," he said.
Iran denies wanting nuclear bombs, saying its enrichment work is for power generation and medical applications.
PROTRACTED IMPASSE
The last talks between Iran and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- along with Germany stalled in Istanbul a year ago, with the parties unable to agree even on an agenda.
Since then, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report has lent weight to concern that Iran has worked on designing a nuclear weapon and Washington and the EU have turned to extending hitherto modest sanctions in place since 2006 to target Iranian oil.
EU foreign ministers are expected to approve a phased ban on imports of Iranian oil at a meeting on January 23 - three weeks after the United States passed a law that would freeze out any institution dealing with Iran's central bank, effectively making it impossible for most countries to buy Iranian oil.
"Ahead of (that meeting) Iran is chasing headlines and pretending that it is ready to engage," a Western diplomat said in reference to Salehi's remarks. "If it really is ready to sit down without preconditions the (six powers) would do so. Sadly, at the moment, it seems more interested in propaganda."
Iran has said it is ready to talk but has also started shifting uranium enrichment to a deep bunker where it would be less vulnerable to the air strikes Israel says it could launch if diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear drive.
Western diplomats say Tehran must show willingness to change its course in any new talks. Crucially, Tehran says other countries must respect its right to enrich uranium, the nuclear fuel which, if enriched to much higher levels than that suitable for power plants, can provide material for atomic bombs.
Russia, a member of the six power group that has criticized the new EU and U.S. sanctions, said the last-ditch military option mooted by the United States and Israel would ignite a disastrous, widespread Middle East war.
"On the chances of whether this catastrophe will happen or not you should ask those who repeatedly talk about this," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.
"I have no doubt that it would pour fuel on a fire which is already smoldering, the hidden smoldering fire of Sunni-Shi'ite (Muslim) confrontation, and beyond that (it would cause) a chain reaction. I don't know where it would stop."
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday any decision about an Israeli attack on Iran was "very far off."
THREATS, FRIENDSHIP
China, which shares Russia's dislike of the new Western moves to stop Iran exporting oil, said U.S. sanctions that Obama signed into law on December 31 had no basis in international law.
"As for some countries imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran, that is not international law and other countries are under no obligation to participate," Li Song, a deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, told an online question-and-answer session.
Iranian politicians said that in reply to Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, if sanctions prevent it selling oil, Obama has written to the senior cleric who sits atop the Islamic Republic's power structure.
While Washington has yet to comment on the reported letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several members of Iran's parliament who discussed the matter on Wednesday said it included the offer of talks.
"In this letter it was said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is our (U.S.) 'red line' and also asked for direct negotiations," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted lawmaker Ali Mottahari as saying.
"The first part of letter has a threatening stance and the second part has a stance of negotiation and friendship."
Washington has often said it has a dual-track approach to Iran, leaving open the offer of talks while seeking ever tighter sanctions as long as Tehran does not rein in its nuclear work.
But any fresh opening to Tehran might be a risky strategy for Obama in an election year as aspiring Republican presidential challengers compete over who is toughest on a country Washington has long considered a pariah state.
Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a Washington Post column that there were doubts about Tehran's sincerity in wishing to return to negotiations.
"By threatening the disruption of global oil supplies, yet dangling the prospect of entering talks, Iran can press actors such as Russia and China to be more accommodating in an effort to avoid a crisis that they fear," Takeyh wrote.
"Any concessions that Iran may make at the negotiating table are bound to be symbolic and reversible."
(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna and Estelle Shirbon in London; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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