Activists: Syrian warplanes strike village, kill 5

In this Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012 photo, a general view of damaged buildings from shelling in Aleppo, Syria. With death lurking around every corner, the survival instincts of Aleppo's population are being stretched to the limit every day as the battle between Syria's rebels and the regime of President Bashar Assad for the country's largest city stretches through its fourth destructive month. Residents in the rebel-held neighborhoods suffering the war's brunt tell tales of lives filled with fear over the war in their streets, along with an ingenuity and resilience in trying to keep their shattered families going. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo)

In this Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012 photo, a general view of damaged buildings from shelling in Aleppo, Syria. With death lurking around every corner, the survival instincts of Aleppo's population are being stretched to the limit every day as the battle between Syria's rebels and the regime of President Bashar Assad for the country's largest city stretches through its fourth destructive month. Residents in the rebel-held neighborhoods suffering the war's brunt tell tales of lives filled with fear over the war in their streets, along with an ingenuity and resilience in trying to keep their shattered families going. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo)

In this Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter cleans a main street in Shaar district in Aleppo, Syria. With death lurking around every corner, the survival instincts of Aleppo's population are being stretched to the limit every day as the battle between Syria's rebels and the regime of President Bashar Assad for the country's largest city stretches through its fourth destructive month. Residents in the rebel-held neighborhoods suffering the war's brunt tell tales of lives filled with fear over the war in their streets, along with an ingenuity and resilience in trying to keep their shattered families going. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo)

BEIRUT (AP) ? Activists say Syrian warplanes have struck a village near a strategic rebel-held town in the country's north, killing five members of an extended family.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says government aircraft hit Mar Shureen village on Wednesday morning.

The Observatory director, Rami Abdul-Rahman, says the dead include a father and his two sons, as well as a two other relatives, a woman and a young man.

Regime forces have intensified airstrikes in an area along a main highway between the northern city Aleppo and Damascus in efforts to reopen a key supply route to Aleppo. The government troops are bogged down in a stalemate with the rebels in Aleppo, Syria's largest city.

Syria's relentless fighting has killed more than 34,000 people since March last year.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-24-ML-Syria-/id-c47977adf2c74ad88415317452e4c756

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U.S. consumer agency to supervise debt collectors

(Reuters) - The U.S. consumer agency will begin closely supervising about 175 debt collectors for the first time starting in January, widening the new watchdog's oversight of consumer lending.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said on Wednesday it had finalized plans to oversee larger firms in the industry to make sure debt collectors treat Americans fairly.

The agency said it will determine whether debt collectors properly disclose the amount owed, maintain accurate data about consumer debt, and address consumer complaints quickly.

"We want all companies to realize that the better business choice is to follow the law ? not break it," CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law created the bureau and directed it to oversee consumer financial products such as mortgages, student loans and credit cards.

It also allowed the CFPB to extend its oversight to larger non-bank companies participating in consumer financial markets.

The CFPB will supervise firms with more than $10 million in annual receipts from consumer debt collection. About 30 million Americans have outstanding debt that is subject to collection, the agency estimates.

Firms involved in debt collection try to get money from delinquent borrowers for a fee, buy up debt from lenders and recover what is owed, or collect money through litigation.

Encore Capital Group Inc and Asset Acceptance Capital Corp are among the biggest companies in the industry.

Debt collectors sometimes pass on consumers' collection status to credit agencies, which issue the credit reports that banks and other lenders use to determine whether to lend money and what interest rates to charge, the CFPB said.

"If they get the information wrong, this can be the difference between getting approved or denied for such financial products as a mortgage or a car loan," the agency said.

The CFPB in September began supervising credit reporting agencies that take in more than $7 million each year, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Cordray has said those industries were chosen partly due to the role they are playing in consumers' lives after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

When the bureau begins overseeing debt collectors, it will be able to keep an eye on every stage of the lending process, the CFPB said.

The CFPB said on Wednesday it also released the field guide that examiners will use to supervise debt collectors.

(Reporting By Emily Stephenson; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-consumer-agency-supervise-debt-collectors-040455590--sector.html

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Dow Chemical to cut 2400 jobs, close 20 plants

St. Louis Business Journal

Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 6:22am CDT - Last Modified: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 7:25am CDT

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_13/~3/wmsyUhgxLmg/dow-chemical-to-cut-2400-jobs-close.html

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Study: Multivitamins drastically reduce cancer risk in men

(NaturalNews) It's not that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent over the years on cancer research has been a complete waste, but sometimes the simplest answer is the best one.

In this case, researchers seem to have confirmed what science has known for quite some time: that a well-balanced diet is the "secret" to better health.

A just-released study of nearly 15,000 men over the age of 50 suggests that taking a daily supplemental multivitamin could reduce rates of cancer by about eight percent. That may not sound like much, but it's enough of a risk reduction to make it well worth your while to pop a One-A-Day or Centrum.

"Despite the lack of definitive trial data regarding the benefits of multivitamins in the prevention of chronic disease, including cancer, many men and women take them for precisely this reason," said Dr. Michael Gaziano, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Our study shows a modest but significant benefit in cancer prevention."

Differences seen over past studies

The study did not examine men and women under the age of 50, so it wasn't clear whether that age group would see similar benefits. Then again, cancer generally afflicts older adults.

Previous large-study research, including a 180,000-patient effort begun in 1992 and the Women's Health Initiative Study of 160,000 women that was published in 2009, discovered that multivitamins had little-to-no effect on cancer risk, ABC News reported.

"In fact, a 2010 Swedish study of 35,000 women who reported using multivitamins had an increased risk of breast cancer," the news affiliate said.

What was different this time around, then?

First of all, the new study assigned men to a couple of groups randomly - one which took a daily
Centrum Silver capsule while the other took a placebo. In previous studies, researchers used an observational technique, which means the participants were not compared to a group taking placebos.

Secondly, men who were 65 years of age or older, on average, were followed over 11 years; this involved a longer follow-up than in earlier studies and included sufficient time for cancer to develop.

Lastly, the earlier trial used a multivitamin, whose aim is to fill in nutritional gaps in a person's diet. Other trials have only tested single vitamins - A, E, or D - in large doses, which is considerably different from the way people normally get the kinds of vitamins and minerals they need from foods.

"The reduction in total cancer risk in [the study] argues that the broader combination of low-dose vitamins and minerals contained in the [Centrum Silver] multivitamin, rather than an emphasis on previously tested high-dose vitamins and mineral trials, may be paramount for cancer prevention," said Gaziano.

Poor dietary habits make a multivitamin necessary

Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Preventative Research Center, who was not involved in the study, noted that previous studies involving single vitamins have shown them to be ineffective.

"Clearly the notion of megadoses of isolated nutrients has been proven wrong again and again," he said. "Maybe the active ingredient in broccoli is broccoli."

If the multivitamin approach is the answer, then why not simply recommend that people eat a mix of foods that provide all of the vitamins necessary for a proper diet? Wouldn't that also serve to reduce cancer rates?

Researchers admit the problem is that only a small fraction of the population - 1.5 percent - gets the recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables, says Katz.

"Clearly...taking a multivitamin is easy; changing dietary patterns is hard," he said.

According to a government study released last year, more Americans are taking daily vitamin supplements than ever before. More than half take some sort of dietary supplement, the study by the National Center for Health Statistics found.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com

http://abcnews.go.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/multivitamins.html

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Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/037647_multivitamins_cancer_risk_men.html

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