New breast cancer guidelines seen as unsafe: poll

birou notarial

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 3:02am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - More than eight out of 10 women say new guidelines recommending against routine breast cancer screening of women under 50 are "unsafe," according to an opinion poll.

But most of the women also seriously overestimate their risk of developing the disease, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester found.

"Indeed, they have been exposed to consistent and high profile media campaigns, endorsed by medicine and a variety of interest groups, that have indoctrinated them into the concepts that mammograms lead to early detection and early detection saves lives," Autumn Davidson and other researchers wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The controversy over screening mammography flared up in late 2009, when a government-funded group of independent experts decided to change its recommendations.

Instead of advising annual mammograms in all women age 40 and above, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said women shouldn't routinely get screened until they hit 50, and those between 50 and 74 should only have mammograms every two years.

What the group didn't say, though, is that no women under 50 should be screened -- it left that up to the individual woman and her doctor to decide, based on her personal risk factors and preferences.

But the USPSTF recommendations flew in the face of many years of aggressive PR campaigns, and met staunch resistance from advocacy groups, news organizations and medical groups.

To find out what women themselves thought, Davidson and her colleagues gave questionnaires to 247 women in their 40s who came to the hospital for an annual well-woman exam.

More than eight out of 10 of the women said they wanted yearly mammograms, felt the new guidelines were unsafe, and wouldn't delay screening until they were 50.

Most of them also had an inflated sense of their breast cancer risk. On average, they put U.S. Women's lifetime risk of developing the disease at 37 percent.

But scientists agree that over their lifetime, 12 percent, or one in eight women, will get breast cancer.

According to Michael LeFevre of the USPSTF, about 30 out of 1,000 40-year-olds will die from breast cancer in the absence of screening. But if screening is started at 50 and done every two years until the women hit 75, seven of those deaths would be prevented.

Starting at age 40 instead would stave off one more death.

That extra risk reduction is real for individual women, but comes with a price tag.

LeFevre said that mammography is painful for some women, and there will be a false alarm for one in two who are screened annually in their 40s. That is, the mammogram shows a suspicious mass that turns out not to be dangerous.

In the meantime the woman has gone through additional testing, which exposes her to more radiation, and sometimes had a painful, invasive and expensive biopsy done.

"Some women respond with increased stress and anxiety. The decision should be an individual one," he said.

"To encourage women to have mammography there have been some fairly strong public relations campaigns."

Elizabeth Thompson, president of advocacy group Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said her group worried that the new recommendations would prevent women in their 40s from being reimbursed for screening.

It recommends, as do many others, that women in their 40s should have an annual mammogram each year if they are of average risk.

"I don't think today that we have fear-mongering when one in three women will be diagnosed with (any form of) cancer in their lifetime, and one in two men," she told Reuters Health, adding that the survey size was small and perhaps not representative.

(Reporting by Frederik Joelving at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 3:02am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - More than eight out of 10 women say new guidelines recommending against routine breast cancer screening of women under 50 are "unsafe," according to an opinion poll.

But most of the women also seriously overestimate their risk of developing the disease, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester found.

"Indeed, they have been exposed to consistent and high profile media campaigns, endorsed by medicine and a variety of interest groups, that have indoctrinated them into the concepts that mammograms lead to early detection and early detection saves lives," Autumn Davidson and other researchers wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The controversy over screening mammography flared up in late 2009, when a government-funded group of independent experts decided to change its recommendations.

Instead of advising annual mammograms in all women age 40 and above, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said women shouldn't routinely get screened until they hit 50, and those between 50 and 74 should only have mammograms every two years.

What the group didn't say, though, is that no women under 50 should be screened -- it left that up to the individual woman and her doctor to decide, based on her personal risk factors and preferences.

But the USPSTF recommendations flew in the face of many years of aggressive PR campaigns, and met staunch resistance from advocacy groups, news organizations and medical groups.

To find out what women themselves thought, Davidson and her colleagues gave questionnaires to 247 women in their 40s who came to the hospital for an annual well-woman exam.

More than eight out of 10 of the women said they wanted yearly mammograms, felt the new guidelines were unsafe, and wouldn't delay screening until they were 50.

Most of them also had an inflated sense of their breast cancer risk. On average, they put U.S. Women's lifetime risk of developing the disease at 37 percent.

But scientists agree that over their lifetime, 12 percent, or one in eight women, will get breast cancer.

According to Michael LeFevre of the USPSTF, about 30 out of 1,000 40-year-olds will die from breast cancer in the absence of screening. But if screening is started at 50 and done every two years until the women hit 75, seven of those deaths would be prevented.

Starting at age 40 instead would stave off one more death.

That extra risk reduction is real for individual women, but comes with a price tag.

LeFevre said that mammography is painful for some women, and there will be a false alarm for one in two who are screened annually in their 40s. That is, the mammogram shows a suspicious mass that turns out not to be dangerous.

In the meantime the woman has gone through additional testing, which exposes her to more radiation, and sometimes had a painful, invasive and expensive biopsy done.

"Some women respond with increased stress and anxiety. The decision should be an individual one," he said.

"To encourage women to have mammography there have been some fairly strong public relations campaigns."

Elizabeth Thompson, president of advocacy group Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said her group worried that the new recommendations would prevent women in their 40s from being reimbursed for screening.

It recommends, as do many others, that women in their 40s should have an annual mammogram each year if they are of average risk.

"I don't think today that we have fear-mongering when one in three women will be diagnosed with (any form of) cancer in their lifetime, and one in two men," she told Reuters Health, adding that the survey size was small and perhaps not representative.

(Reporting by Frederik Joelving at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 3:02am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - More than eight out of 10 women say new guidelines recommending against routine breast cancer screening of women under 50 are "unsafe," according to an opinion poll.

But most of the women also seriously overestimate their risk of developing the disease, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester found.

"Indeed, they have been exposed to consistent and high profile media campaigns, endorsed by medicine and a variety of interest groups, that have indoctrinated them into the concepts that mammograms lead to early detection and early detection saves lives," Autumn Davidson and other researchers wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The controversy over screening mammography flared up in late 2009, when a government-funded group of independent experts decided to change its recommendations.

Instead of advising annual mammograms in all women age 40 and above, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said women shouldn't routinely get screened until they hit 50, and those between 50 and 74 should only have mammograms every two years.

What the group didn't say, though, is that no women under 50 should be screened -- it left that up to the individual woman and her doctor to decide, based on her personal risk factors and preferences.

But the USPSTF recommendations flew in the face of many years of aggressive PR campaigns, and met staunch resistance from advocacy groups, news organizations and medical groups.

To find out what women themselves thought, Davidson and her colleagues gave questionnaires to 247 women in their 40s who came to the hospital for an annual well-woman exam.

More than eight out of 10 of the women said they wanted yearly mammograms, felt the new guidelines were unsafe, and wouldn't delay screening until they were 50.

Most of them also had an inflated sense of their breast cancer risk. On average, they put U.S. Women's lifetime risk of developing the disease at 37 percent.

But scientists agree that over their lifetime, 12 percent, or one in eight women, will get breast cancer.

According to Michael LeFevre of the USPSTF, about 30 out of 1,000 40-year-olds will die from breast cancer in the absence of screening. But if screening is started at 50 and done every two years until the women hit 75, seven of those deaths would be prevented.

Starting at age 40 instead would stave off one more death.

That extra risk reduction is real for individual women, but comes with a price tag.

LeFevre said that mammography is painful for some women, and there will be a false alarm for one in two who are screened annually in their 40s. That is, the mammogram shows a suspicious mass that turns out not to be dangerous.

In the meantime the woman has gone through additional testing, which exposes her to more radiation, and sometimes had a painful, invasive and expensive biopsy done.

"Some women respond with increased stress and anxiety. The decision should be an individual one," he said.

"To encourage women to have mammography there have been some fairly strong public relations campaigns."

Elizabeth Thompson, president of advocacy group Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said her group worried that the new recommendations would prevent women in their 40s from being reimbursed for screening.

It recommends, as do many others, that women in their 40s should have an annual mammogram each year if they are of average risk.

"I don't think today that we have fear-mongering when one in three women will be diagnosed with (any form of) cancer in their lifetime, and one in two men," she told Reuters Health, adding that the survey size was small and perhaps not representative.

(Reporting by Frederik Joelving at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Cost aparat dentar

Australian robots have learned to talk the talk

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''Lingodroids'' chat to each other at the University of Queensland campus in Brisbane May 30, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/University of Queensland/Handout

By Amy Pyett

SYDNEY | Mon May 30, 2011 7:55am EDT

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - They're not discussing the latest celebrity gossip or passing on stock tips just yet, but Australian robots have begun talking to each other -- and in a language of their own devising.

The two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.

"In their current state all they can talk about is spatial concepts, which I think is pretty cool as a starting point," said Ruth Schulz, director of the project. "But the important part is that they are forming these concepts, they are starting to really understand what words mean and this is actually all up to the robots themselves."

Schulz describes the robots as "basically a laptop on wheels," but each is equipped with sonar, a camera, a laser range finder, microphones and speakers that allow them to speak to each other as they move around and map out their environment in "where are we" games.

With a small whirring sound the robots whiz around the maze-like office environment, negotiating obstacles such as desks and chairs and beeping when they are within hearing distance of each other.

Communicating through the beeps, the robots have an internal lexicon table that associates experiences, where they think they are in the overall map of the office, and place names they already know.

When a robot finds an area without a name it randomly generates a word for it. When the robots talk to each other, they tell the other robot about the area they have discovered, slowly building up an agreed lexicon. So far, the robot language includes words such as "pize," "jaya" and "kuzo." The research has proved so advanced that each robot can direct the other robot to a chosen location in the office, using only their shared language.

Schulz hopes the project will progress still further, with the next phase likely to be robots interacting with objects, such as by gripping them, and not just spatial concepts. "The long term vision is robots that you can use in a domestic environment, a sort of you know, real people interacting with real robots in a natural way," she said. Robots currently being used in households are reliant on button pushing, but Schulz feels this must be carried further so communication becomes more natural. "You don't want to be pressing buttons to communicate with your robot in the home that you just want to clean your kitchen," she said.

"If you want it to clean your kitchen, you just have to say, 'can you please clean my kitchen.'"

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

''Lingodroids'' chat to each other at the University of Queensland campus in Brisbane May 30, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/University of Queensland/Handout

By Amy Pyett

SYDNEY | Mon May 30, 2011 7:55am EDT

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - They're not discussing the latest celebrity gossip or passing on stock tips just yet, but Australian robots have begun talking to each other -- and in a language of their own devising.

The two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.

"In their current state all they can talk about is spatial concepts, which I think is pretty cool as a starting point," said Ruth Schulz, director of the project. "But the important part is that they are forming these concepts, they are starting to really understand what words mean and this is actually all up to the robots themselves."

Schulz describes the robots as "basically a laptop on wheels," but each is equipped with sonar, a camera, a laser range finder, microphones and speakers that allow them to speak to each other as they move around and map out their environment in "where are we" games.

With a small whirring sound the robots whiz around the maze-like office environment, negotiating obstacles such as desks and chairs and beeping when they are within hearing distance of each other.

Communicating through the beeps, the robots have an internal lexicon table that associates experiences, where they think they are in the overall map of the office, and place names they already know.

When a robot finds an area without a name it randomly generates a word for it. When the robots talk to each other, they tell the other robot about the area they have discovered, slowly building up an agreed lexicon. So far, the robot language includes words such as "pize," "jaya" and "kuzo." The research has proved so advanced that each robot can direct the other robot to a chosen location in the office, using only their shared language.

Schulz hopes the project will progress still further, with the next phase likely to be robots interacting with objects, such as by gripping them, and not just spatial concepts. "The long term vision is robots that you can use in a domestic environment, a sort of you know, real people interacting with real robots in a natural way," she said. Robots currently being used in households are reliant on button pushing, but Schulz feels this must be carried further so communication becomes more natural. "You don't want to be pressing buttons to communicate with your robot in the home that you just want to clean your kitchen," she said.

"If you want it to clean your kitchen, you just have to say, 'can you please clean my kitchen.'"

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

''Lingodroids'' chat to each other at the University of Queensland campus in Brisbane May 30, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/University of Queensland/Handout

By Amy Pyett

SYDNEY | Mon May 30, 2011 7:55am EDT

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - They're not discussing the latest celebrity gossip or passing on stock tips just yet, but Australian robots have begun talking to each other -- and in a language of their own devising.

The two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.

"In their current state all they can talk about is spatial concepts, which I think is pretty cool as a starting point," said Ruth Schulz, director of the project. "But the important part is that they are forming these concepts, they are starting to really understand what words mean and this is actually all up to the robots themselves."

Schulz describes the robots as "basically a laptop on wheels," but each is equipped with sonar, a camera, a laser range finder, microphones and speakers that allow them to speak to each other as they move around and map out their environment in "where are we" games.

With a small whirring sound the robots whiz around the maze-like office environment, negotiating obstacles such as desks and chairs and beeping when they are within hearing distance of each other.

Communicating through the beeps, the robots have an internal lexicon table that associates experiences, where they think they are in the overall map of the office, and place names they already know.

When a robot finds an area without a name it randomly generates a word for it. When the robots talk to each other, they tell the other robot about the area they have discovered, slowly building up an agreed lexicon. So far, the robot language includes words such as "pize," "jaya" and "kuzo." The research has proved so advanced that each robot can direct the other robot to a chosen location in the office, using only their shared language.

Schulz hopes the project will progress still further, with the next phase likely to be robots interacting with objects, such as by gripping them, and not just spatial concepts. "The long term vision is robots that you can use in a domestic environment, a sort of you know, real people interacting with real robots in a natural way," she said. Robots currently being used in households are reliant on button pushing, but Schulz feels this must be carried further so communication becomes more natural. "You don't want to be pressing buttons to communicate with your robot in the home that you just want to clean your kitchen," she said.

"If you want it to clean your kitchen, you just have to say, 'can you please clean my kitchen.'"

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Cost aparat dentar

Unique classrooms support Chinese migrant children

birou notarial

By Tyra Dempster

BEIJING | Tue May 31, 2011 2:15am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - The school day has ended but class is not yet over for students heading for their local community center and a very different sort of classroom -- one built from shipping containers.

The children, who are from China's "floating population" of migrant workers, don't hold Beijing residency, which means they do not have the right to access free education at public schools.

Migrant families who have settled in Beijing are now so permanent that city officials tolerate, but do not certify, about 260 private schools dotted around the capital specifically to serve migrant children. These schools are also often located on marginal land earmarked for other projects, and can be subject to sudden demolition.

This was why Compassion for Migrant Children's Education has decided on the unusual solution of shipping containers for their latest community center, located in a grimy northeastern Beijing suburb called Heiqiao, where it runs after-school programs for children of migrant workers.

"In the event that we need to move because of urban development, we can just pick up these containers and move with the families," said Yin Chia, the NGO's Australian-Chinese manager.

"These classrooms, they are built out of shipping containers, they are completely renovated."

The charity has already lost one community center to Beijing's bulldozers as the migrant workers living around it were moved to make way for a shopping center.

All the programs and classes at the shipping container school are free, making the center popular. The after school program is limited to 200 students, though anyone can use the basketball court and sports equipment.

The evening is divided into hour-long sessions, with teachers spending the first hour overseeing homework, and sports and arts classes afterwards. The project aims to fill a gap for students who would otherwise spend their evenings home alone while their parents work.

"The homework the teacher gives us to do in the evenings is quite hard," said 9-year-old student Li Jianjing.

"Here we can ask the teacher if we can't do it. That is why we come here."

The Chinese government counted 261.4 million "migrant" workers in 2010, mostly farmers from poor inland areas who have moved to the booming cities and coastal areas to find work.

Lacking the option of state-run schools, migrant worker parents-- who earn around 2,000 yuan ($300) a month -- have to spend at least a month's salary to pay for private schools, where the standards are often lower.

Heiqiao's local private school has more than 600 students and class sizes range from 30 to 50 pupils. Many children drop out when they reach the age of 14 or 15 to join their parents, working long hours for little pay.

"Often the class sizes in the migrant schools are very, very big, often resources are quite limited, and the children are often not receiving the attention that they need," said Chia.

"Children love to learn and if you provide them with attention, you can do wonders with that interest for learning. With our after-school program what we are really trying to do is encourage interest in learning -- and hopefully that will encourage them to stay in the education system longer as well."

(Editing by Elaine Lies and Ben Blanchard)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Tyra Dempster

BEIJING | Tue May 31, 2011 2:15am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - The school day has ended but class is not yet over for students heading for their local community center and a very different sort of classroom -- one built from shipping containers.

The children, who are from China's "floating population" of migrant workers, don't hold Beijing residency, which means they do not have the right to access free education at public schools.

Migrant families who have settled in Beijing are now so permanent that city officials tolerate, but do not certify, about 260 private schools dotted around the capital specifically to serve migrant children. These schools are also often located on marginal land earmarked for other projects, and can be subject to sudden demolition.

This was why Compassion for Migrant Children's Education has decided on the unusual solution of shipping containers for their latest community center, located in a grimy northeastern Beijing suburb called Heiqiao, where it runs after-school programs for children of migrant workers.

"In the event that we need to move because of urban development, we can just pick up these containers and move with the families," said Yin Chia, the NGO's Australian-Chinese manager.

"These classrooms, they are built out of shipping containers, they are completely renovated."

The charity has already lost one community center to Beijing's bulldozers as the migrant workers living around it were moved to make way for a shopping center.

All the programs and classes at the shipping container school are free, making the center popular. The after school program is limited to 200 students, though anyone can use the basketball court and sports equipment.

The evening is divided into hour-long sessions, with teachers spending the first hour overseeing homework, and sports and arts classes afterwards. The project aims to fill a gap for students who would otherwise spend their evenings home alone while their parents work.

"The homework the teacher gives us to do in the evenings is quite hard," said 9-year-old student Li Jianjing.

"Here we can ask the teacher if we can't do it. That is why we come here."

The Chinese government counted 261.4 million "migrant" workers in 2010, mostly farmers from poor inland areas who have moved to the booming cities and coastal areas to find work.

Lacking the option of state-run schools, migrant worker parents-- who earn around 2,000 yuan ($300) a month -- have to spend at least a month's salary to pay for private schools, where the standards are often lower.

Heiqiao's local private school has more than 600 students and class sizes range from 30 to 50 pupils. Many children drop out when they reach the age of 14 or 15 to join their parents, working long hours for little pay.

"Often the class sizes in the migrant schools are very, very big, often resources are quite limited, and the children are often not receiving the attention that they need," said Chia.

"Children love to learn and if you provide them with attention, you can do wonders with that interest for learning. With our after-school program what we are really trying to do is encourage interest in learning -- and hopefully that will encourage them to stay in the education system longer as well."

(Editing by Elaine Lies and Ben Blanchard)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By Tyra Dempster

BEIJING | Tue May 31, 2011 2:15am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - The school day has ended but class is not yet over for students heading for their local community center and a very different sort of classroom -- one built from shipping containers.

The children, who are from China's "floating population" of migrant workers, don't hold Beijing residency, which means they do not have the right to access free education at public schools.

Migrant families who have settled in Beijing are now so permanent that city officials tolerate, but do not certify, about 260 private schools dotted around the capital specifically to serve migrant children. These schools are also often located on marginal land earmarked for other projects, and can be subject to sudden demolition.

This was why Compassion for Migrant Children's Education has decided on the unusual solution of shipping containers for their latest community center, located in a grimy northeastern Beijing suburb called Heiqiao, where it runs after-school programs for children of migrant workers.

"In the event that we need to move because of urban development, we can just pick up these containers and move with the families," said Yin Chia, the NGO's Australian-Chinese manager.

"These classrooms, they are built out of shipping containers, they are completely renovated."

The charity has already lost one community center to Beijing's bulldozers as the migrant workers living around it were moved to make way for a shopping center.

All the programs and classes at the shipping container school are free, making the center popular. The after school program is limited to 200 students, though anyone can use the basketball court and sports equipment.

The evening is divided into hour-long sessions, with teachers spending the first hour overseeing homework, and sports and arts classes afterwards. The project aims to fill a gap for students who would otherwise spend their evenings home alone while their parents work.

"The homework the teacher gives us to do in the evenings is quite hard," said 9-year-old student Li Jianjing.

"Here we can ask the teacher if we can't do it. That is why we come here."

The Chinese government counted 261.4 million "migrant" workers in 2010, mostly farmers from poor inland areas who have moved to the booming cities and coastal areas to find work.

Lacking the option of state-run schools, migrant worker parents-- who earn around 2,000 yuan ($300) a month -- have to spend at least a month's salary to pay for private schools, where the standards are often lower.

Heiqiao's local private school has more than 600 students and class sizes range from 30 to 50 pupils. Many children drop out when they reach the age of 14 or 15 to join their parents, working long hours for little pay.

"Often the class sizes in the migrant schools are very, very big, often resources are quite limited, and the children are often not receiving the attention that they need," said Chia.

"Children love to learn and if you provide them with attention, you can do wonders with that interest for learning. With our after-school program what we are really trying to do is encourage interest in learning -- and hopefully that will encourage them to stay in the education system longer as well."

(Editing by Elaine Lies and Ben Blanchard)

Cost aparat dentar

Palestinian makes artistic mark on passports

birou notarial

By Jihan Abdalla

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Mon May 30, 2011 1:05pm EDT

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - It is like no other passport control on earth.

No stern official sitting behind a glass wall, no scanning of travel documents, no terse questions about where you are going. Instead, a lone artist greets arriving visitors and politely asks them if they would like an entry stamp.

Living in occupied territory, the Palestinians do not have the right to set up their own frontier controls. Anyone who passes through Israeli checkpoints is swiftly absorbed into the bustling streets of West Bank cities like Ramallah.

But art student Khaled Jarrar has decided to fill the institutional void with a dainty entry stamp of his own design, which he offers to foreigners as they tumble out of the buses.

"I believe in art that makes a difference, that talks about change. My art is making a political statement," said Jarrar, spurning traditional galleries for Ramallah's chaotic central bus station.

While many tourists arriving from nearby Jerusalem appear enthusiastic about the project, few are willing to hand over their precious passports for the sake of art.

Jeff Reynolds, a visitor from Canada, listens intently as Jarrar explains the idea behind the unofficial stamp, then politely declines, fearful that Israeli authorities will give him grief when he tries to fly home.

"I'm just worried about missing my flight at Tel Aviv airport if they question me for a long time about it," he says, referring to security guards who grill passengers at length before they leave, asking where they went and whom they met.

SENDING A MESSAGE

Palestinians want to set up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital, on land the Israelis seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Nearly 20 years of on-off peace negotiations have failed to secure an accord, and the Palestinians say they will now seek United Nations' approval for a sovereign state in September.

His small, round stamp is circled with the words 'State of Palestine', written in Arabic and English. In the middle is a drawing of the Palestine Sun Bird flying near delicate flowers.

"In regards to the question of statehood, I think I have sent the message. I think I have done what I can," says Jarrar, who has set up a Facebook page to promote his stamp -- Live-and-work-in-Palestine.

After a string of polite rejections, Jarrar finally finds some foreigners eager to hand over their passports.

"I'm very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and I think this is occupation. So I find it outrageous that they don't have the right to have their own authority," says Morgana Benedetti, visiting the West Bank from Italy.

She asks Jarrar to put the stamp on page 9 of her passport -- her favorite number -- saying it is important for her to have both an Israeli and a Palestinian stamp.

"It's silly, but it's like a country. I get a stamp of Israel, but I don't get a stamp of Palestine?" she says.

(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Paul Taylor)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Jihan Abdalla

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Mon May 30, 2011 1:05pm EDT

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - It is like no other passport control on earth.

No stern official sitting behind a glass wall, no scanning of travel documents, no terse questions about where you are going. Instead, a lone artist greets arriving visitors and politely asks them if they would like an entry stamp.

Living in occupied territory, the Palestinians do not have the right to set up their own frontier controls. Anyone who passes through Israeli checkpoints is swiftly absorbed into the bustling streets of West Bank cities like Ramallah.

But art student Khaled Jarrar has decided to fill the institutional void with a dainty entry stamp of his own design, which he offers to foreigners as they tumble out of the buses.

"I believe in art that makes a difference, that talks about change. My art is making a political statement," said Jarrar, spurning traditional galleries for Ramallah's chaotic central bus station.

While many tourists arriving from nearby Jerusalem appear enthusiastic about the project, few are willing to hand over their precious passports for the sake of art.

Jeff Reynolds, a visitor from Canada, listens intently as Jarrar explains the idea behind the unofficial stamp, then politely declines, fearful that Israeli authorities will give him grief when he tries to fly home.

"I'm just worried about missing my flight at Tel Aviv airport if they question me for a long time about it," he says, referring to security guards who grill passengers at length before they leave, asking where they went and whom they met.

SENDING A MESSAGE

Palestinians want to set up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital, on land the Israelis seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Nearly 20 years of on-off peace negotiations have failed to secure an accord, and the Palestinians say they will now seek United Nations' approval for a sovereign state in September.

His small, round stamp is circled with the words 'State of Palestine', written in Arabic and English. In the middle is a drawing of the Palestine Sun Bird flying near delicate flowers.

"In regards to the question of statehood, I think I have sent the message. I think I have done what I can," says Jarrar, who has set up a Facebook page to promote his stamp -- Live-and-work-in-Palestine.

After a string of polite rejections, Jarrar finally finds some foreigners eager to hand over their passports.

"I'm very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and I think this is occupation. So I find it outrageous that they don't have the right to have their own authority," says Morgana Benedetti, visiting the West Bank from Italy.

She asks Jarrar to put the stamp on page 9 of her passport -- her favorite number -- saying it is important for her to have both an Israeli and a Palestinian stamp.

"It's silly, but it's like a country. I get a stamp of Israel, but I don't get a stamp of Palestine?" she says.

(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Paul Taylor)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By Jihan Abdalla

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Mon May 30, 2011 1:05pm EDT

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - It is like no other passport control on earth.

No stern official sitting behind a glass wall, no scanning of travel documents, no terse questions about where you are going. Instead, a lone artist greets arriving visitors and politely asks them if they would like an entry stamp.

Living in occupied territory, the Palestinians do not have the right to set up their own frontier controls. Anyone who passes through Israeli checkpoints is swiftly absorbed into the bustling streets of West Bank cities like Ramallah.

But art student Khaled Jarrar has decided to fill the institutional void with a dainty entry stamp of his own design, which he offers to foreigners as they tumble out of the buses.

"I believe in art that makes a difference, that talks about change. My art is making a political statement," said Jarrar, spurning traditional galleries for Ramallah's chaotic central bus station.

While many tourists arriving from nearby Jerusalem appear enthusiastic about the project, few are willing to hand over their precious passports for the sake of art.

Jeff Reynolds, a visitor from Canada, listens intently as Jarrar explains the idea behind the unofficial stamp, then politely declines, fearful that Israeli authorities will give him grief when he tries to fly home.

"I'm just worried about missing my flight at Tel Aviv airport if they question me for a long time about it," he says, referring to security guards who grill passengers at length before they leave, asking where they went and whom they met.

SENDING A MESSAGE

Palestinians want to set up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital, on land the Israelis seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Nearly 20 years of on-off peace negotiations have failed to secure an accord, and the Palestinians say they will now seek United Nations' approval for a sovereign state in September.

His small, round stamp is circled with the words 'State of Palestine', written in Arabic and English. In the middle is a drawing of the Palestine Sun Bird flying near delicate flowers.

"In regards to the question of statehood, I think I have sent the message. I think I have done what I can," says Jarrar, who has set up a Facebook page to promote his stamp -- Live-and-work-in-Palestine.

After a string of polite rejections, Jarrar finally finds some foreigners eager to hand over their passports.

"I'm very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and I think this is occupation. So I find it outrageous that they don't have the right to have their own authority," says Morgana Benedetti, visiting the West Bank from Italy.

She asks Jarrar to put the stamp on page 9 of her passport -- her favorite number -- saying it is important for her to have both an Israeli and a Palestinian stamp.

"It's silly, but it's like a country. I get a stamp of Israel, but I don't get a stamp of Palestine?" she says.

(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Paul Taylor)

Cost aparat dentar

Taking the workout to the back of the body

birou notarial

The lunge stretch, from the book “Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence” is demonstrated in this undated file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Elizabeth Kreutz

By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 6:56am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Crunches, curls and sit-ups may be standard workout fare in gyms, basements and living rooms across the land.

But the authors of a new book suggest people get plenty of that movement in their daily lives. They say to get a really strong midsection the back of the body needs to be worked.

"Sitting at desks, working on computers, waiting in traffic, we are continually contracting our abs, throwing our shoulders forward and, ultimately, shutting down the back of the body, said Dr. Eric Goodman, co-author with Peter Park of "Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence."

"If we're going to keep our posture and our spines strong, it has to be done by exercising the back of the body as the core of the body," explained Goodman, a chiropractor based in Santa Barbara, California.

The exercises illustrated in the book require no machines or equipment and take the spine as the body's center of stability. In the signature, or founder exercise, knees are bent over ankles, the body hinges from the hip joint, and movement originates in the pelvis, hips and hip joints.

"You're sticking your butt out on everything," explained Park, a trainer and owner of Platinum Fitness gyms, said. "We're aiming for the posterior chain."

Park is cycling great Lance Armstrong's strength and conditioning coach. The seven-time Tour de France winner wrote the forward for the book.

"Lance needed it more than anybody," Park said of the workout. "It opened him up. (With his) rounded back, rounded shoulders he almost looked funny off the bike."

The exercises are designed to augment, rather than replace, a regular fitness regime, Goodman said.

"We don't want people to stop doing yoga or Pilates. If you're currently doing cardio or other training just add foundation to it," Goodman said. "If you're doing it properly, 20 minutes is plenty. It's hard."

Neal Pire, spokesperson for the American College of Sports Medicine, said the concept of "hinging" or loading the posterior chain while maintaining neutral spine is mainstream, but he's never seen a book entirely devoted to it.

"Extension is key, because we do indeed live in a flexed state," he said, adding that if the public perception is that abs are the core, the public is mistaken.

"The core involves two sets of muscles: deep muscles whose roles are primarily stabilizing the spine, or more generally the trunk, and shallower muscles whose primary role is movement," Pire explained.

Goodman advocates a four-to-one ratio of back-to-front training.

"For every four exercises you do for the back of the body, you get to do one for the front. I think that's the opposite of what most people are doing."

Park said too many workouts reinforce sedentary postures.

"You see a guy who is sedentary all day go to the gym, do bench presses and ride on a bike. He's reinforcing what he did all day," said Park.

"We're trying to bring everyone back to the center, where they should be. I think this is the missing link."

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

The lunge stretch, from the book “Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence” is demonstrated in this undated file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Elizabeth Kreutz

By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 6:56am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Crunches, curls and sit-ups may be standard workout fare in gyms, basements and living rooms across the land.

But the authors of a new book suggest people get plenty of that movement in their daily lives. They say to get a really strong midsection the back of the body needs to be worked.

"Sitting at desks, working on computers, waiting in traffic, we are continually contracting our abs, throwing our shoulders forward and, ultimately, shutting down the back of the body, said Dr. Eric Goodman, co-author with Peter Park of "Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence."

"If we're going to keep our posture and our spines strong, it has to be done by exercising the back of the body as the core of the body," explained Goodman, a chiropractor based in Santa Barbara, California.

The exercises illustrated in the book require no machines or equipment and take the spine as the body's center of stability. In the signature, or founder exercise, knees are bent over ankles, the body hinges from the hip joint, and movement originates in the pelvis, hips and hip joints.

"You're sticking your butt out on everything," explained Park, a trainer and owner of Platinum Fitness gyms, said. "We're aiming for the posterior chain."

Park is cycling great Lance Armstrong's strength and conditioning coach. The seven-time Tour de France winner wrote the forward for the book.

"Lance needed it more than anybody," Park said of the workout. "It opened him up. (With his) rounded back, rounded shoulders he almost looked funny off the bike."

The exercises are designed to augment, rather than replace, a regular fitness regime, Goodman said.

"We don't want people to stop doing yoga or Pilates. If you're currently doing cardio or other training just add foundation to it," Goodman said. "If you're doing it properly, 20 minutes is plenty. It's hard."

Neal Pire, spokesperson for the American College of Sports Medicine, said the concept of "hinging" or loading the posterior chain while maintaining neutral spine is mainstream, but he's never seen a book entirely devoted to it.

"Extension is key, because we do indeed live in a flexed state," he said, adding that if the public perception is that abs are the core, the public is mistaken.

"The core involves two sets of muscles: deep muscles whose roles are primarily stabilizing the spine, or more generally the trunk, and shallower muscles whose primary role is movement," Pire explained.

Goodman advocates a four-to-one ratio of back-to-front training.

"For every four exercises you do for the back of the body, you get to do one for the front. I think that's the opposite of what most people are doing."

Park said too many workouts reinforce sedentary postures.

"You see a guy who is sedentary all day go to the gym, do bench presses and ride on a bike. He's reinforcing what he did all day," said Park.

"We're trying to bring everyone back to the center, where they should be. I think this is the missing link."

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

The lunge stretch, from the book “Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence” is demonstrated in this undated file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Elizabeth Kreutz

By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK | Mon May 30, 2011 6:56am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Crunches, curls and sit-ups may be standard workout fare in gyms, basements and living rooms across the land.

But the authors of a new book suggest people get plenty of that movement in their daily lives. They say to get a really strong midsection the back of the body needs to be worked.

"Sitting at desks, working on computers, waiting in traffic, we are continually contracting our abs, throwing our shoulders forward and, ultimately, shutting down the back of the body, said Dr. Eric Goodman, co-author with Peter Park of "Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence."

"If we're going to keep our posture and our spines strong, it has to be done by exercising the back of the body as the core of the body," explained Goodman, a chiropractor based in Santa Barbara, California.

The exercises illustrated in the book require no machines or equipment and take the spine as the body's center of stability. In the signature, or founder exercise, knees are bent over ankles, the body hinges from the hip joint, and movement originates in the pelvis, hips and hip joints.

"You're sticking your butt out on everything," explained Park, a trainer and owner of Platinum Fitness gyms, said. "We're aiming for the posterior chain."

Park is cycling great Lance Armstrong's strength and conditioning coach. The seven-time Tour de France winner wrote the forward for the book.

"Lance needed it more than anybody," Park said of the workout. "It opened him up. (With his) rounded back, rounded shoulders he almost looked funny off the bike."

The exercises are designed to augment, rather than replace, a regular fitness regime, Goodman said.

"We don't want people to stop doing yoga or Pilates. If you're currently doing cardio or other training just add foundation to it," Goodman said. "If you're doing it properly, 20 minutes is plenty. It's hard."

Neal Pire, spokesperson for the American College of Sports Medicine, said the concept of "hinging" or loading the posterior chain while maintaining neutral spine is mainstream, but he's never seen a book entirely devoted to it.

"Extension is key, because we do indeed live in a flexed state," he said, adding that if the public perception is that abs are the core, the public is mistaken.

"The core involves two sets of muscles: deep muscles whose roles are primarily stabilizing the spine, or more generally the trunk, and shallower muscles whose primary role is movement," Pire explained.

Goodman advocates a four-to-one ratio of back-to-front training.

"For every four exercises you do for the back of the body, you get to do one for the front. I think that's the opposite of what most people are doing."

Park said too many workouts reinforce sedentary postures.

"You see a guy who is sedentary all day go to the gym, do bench presses and ride on a bike. He's reinforcing what he did all day," said Park.

"We're trying to bring everyone back to the center, where they should be. I think this is the missing link."

Cost aparat dentar

Wooden boat traditions live on in Australia

birou notarial

A boat is seen at the Wooden Boat Centre Boatbuilding School in Franklin, Tasmania April 17, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Pauline Askin

By Pauline Askin

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia | Sun May 29, 2011 10:58pm EDT

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia (Reuters Life!) - On the banks of the Huon River, a small Australian boat building school is looking to the past to keep a centuries-old tradition of local boat-building alive, producing unique Tasmanian timber boats that shipwrights hope will last hundreds of years.

The vessels, fashioned with a combination of traditional wooden boat-building skills and a modern shipyard at one of only a handful of wooden boat-building schools in the world, are custom-built to buyer specifications.

In some cases, this means expensive carpets and, in the case of the latest boat, state of the art kitchen appliances.

"There is one school in the United States but this one here in Tassie is the major one, and I think it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that produces a large scale vessel as a major project," said John Allport, manager of The Wooden Boat Center Boatbuilding School.

Eager apprentices travel from around the world to learn the art of wooden boat building using traditional hand tools and contemporary power tools to produce a vessel in an economically viable time frame, usually about 12 months.

A rich smell of pine hangs in the misty southern air in the boat shed at Franklin, 48 km (30 miles) southwest of Hobart, the capital of Australia's island state Tasmania.

A shipwright wearing a bib and braces sits on a upturned milk crate at the bow of the boat he's working on, marking the Plimsoll line with his pencil. His student, using a clear garden hose filled with water as a spirit level, calls out the levels to be marked as a sleepy dog keeps an eye on the activity.

"A lot of teaching is with traditional type hand tools and traditional methods of boat building, but in the modern environment it's just too slow," said Allport, a bearded 56-year-old who has been at the school for six years as a manager.

"It's fine to be taught traditional methods but if the students have to go out into the modern workplace they can find they are lacking in some skills so we are using traditional hand tools in a contemporary manner."

LONG HISTORY, SUSTAINABILITY

Tasmania's tradition of boat building began within days of its settlement in 1803 as a penal colony, densely populated with ideal boat-building timbers in an era when wooden schooners plied the surrounding waters.

Vessels built by the convicts could withstand the notoriously rough Bass Strait, the stretch of water which runs between the southern tip of Australia's mainland and Tasmania.

The Wooden Boat Center, which advocates sustainability, uses Huon, King Billy, Celery Top, Blue Gum and Swamp Pines -- the same prized varieties used then. The current timber comes from a "Wood Bank" established by the Tasmanian government over 20 years ago dedicated to boat building and fine furniture.

"They're traditionally built vessels, mainly using Tasmanian timbers, in particular Huon Pine. It's got a natural oil in it that stops decay and worm attack. It will last for hundreds of years," said Allport.

While the atmosphere at the boatyard is calmly industrious, juggling the demands of finding sponsors and students, the size of the boat, and the all-important fees is a constant struggle.

In addition, while buyers seek out the school for its traditional boat building, they also require fitting out with state of the art equipment -- and catering to many whims.

In one case, a buyer wanted to lay expensive carpet, covering the beautiful timber floor. When the surprised boat builders asked why, the buyer's wife said she liked the color.

Buyers tend to be business people, with Australians dominating. International interest has often been expressed, but distance and the cost of shipping from Australia can prove a deterrent in many cases.

Currently under construction is a carvel planked, which means planks laid side by side, 38-foot motor cruiser for Tetsuya Wakuda, a renowned Australian chef whose wants included a seven-foot table and an induction stove in the galley.

"I wanted a boat built that looked traditional on the outside and modern on the inside. I've always loved boats," Wakuda said.

"I have every kitchen appliance you can imagine on the boat... I have made the best of the galley. I wanted a boat like they'd never built before, the best of the best."

Needless to say, such luxury does not come cheaply, though prices vary according to the buyer's desire. Wakuda's boat carries an A$700,000 ($749,000) price tag.

Completion of any boat becomes a community celebration, with the entire town of Franklin coming out for the launching of each boat as they slide into the Huon River.

Wakuda's boat, the largest the boatyard has made so far, is set for launching on June 1, Allgood said.

"It's going to be a squeeze to get out the door," he added.

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

A boat is seen at the Wooden Boat Centre Boatbuilding School in Franklin, Tasmania April 17, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Pauline Askin

By Pauline Askin

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia | Sun May 29, 2011 10:58pm EDT

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia (Reuters Life!) - On the banks of the Huon River, a small Australian boat building school is looking to the past to keep a centuries-old tradition of local boat-building alive, producing unique Tasmanian timber boats that shipwrights hope will last hundreds of years.

The vessels, fashioned with a combination of traditional wooden boat-building skills and a modern shipyard at one of only a handful of wooden boat-building schools in the world, are custom-built to buyer specifications.

In some cases, this means expensive carpets and, in the case of the latest boat, state of the art kitchen appliances.

"There is one school in the United States but this one here in Tassie is the major one, and I think it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that produces a large scale vessel as a major project," said John Allport, manager of The Wooden Boat Center Boatbuilding School.

Eager apprentices travel from around the world to learn the art of wooden boat building using traditional hand tools and contemporary power tools to produce a vessel in an economically viable time frame, usually about 12 months.

A rich smell of pine hangs in the misty southern air in the boat shed at Franklin, 48 km (30 miles) southwest of Hobart, the capital of Australia's island state Tasmania.

A shipwright wearing a bib and braces sits on a upturned milk crate at the bow of the boat he's working on, marking the Plimsoll line with his pencil. His student, using a clear garden hose filled with water as a spirit level, calls out the levels to be marked as a sleepy dog keeps an eye on the activity.

"A lot of teaching is with traditional type hand tools and traditional methods of boat building, but in the modern environment it's just too slow," said Allport, a bearded 56-year-old who has been at the school for six years as a manager.

"It's fine to be taught traditional methods but if the students have to go out into the modern workplace they can find they are lacking in some skills so we are using traditional hand tools in a contemporary manner."

LONG HISTORY, SUSTAINABILITY

Tasmania's tradition of boat building began within days of its settlement in 1803 as a penal colony, densely populated with ideal boat-building timbers in an era when wooden schooners plied the surrounding waters.

Vessels built by the convicts could withstand the notoriously rough Bass Strait, the stretch of water which runs between the southern tip of Australia's mainland and Tasmania.

The Wooden Boat Center, which advocates sustainability, uses Huon, King Billy, Celery Top, Blue Gum and Swamp Pines -- the same prized varieties used then. The current timber comes from a "Wood Bank" established by the Tasmanian government over 20 years ago dedicated to boat building and fine furniture.

"They're traditionally built vessels, mainly using Tasmanian timbers, in particular Huon Pine. It's got a natural oil in it that stops decay and worm attack. It will last for hundreds of years," said Allport.

While the atmosphere at the boatyard is calmly industrious, juggling the demands of finding sponsors and students, the size of the boat, and the all-important fees is a constant struggle.

In addition, while buyers seek out the school for its traditional boat building, they also require fitting out with state of the art equipment -- and catering to many whims.

In one case, a buyer wanted to lay expensive carpet, covering the beautiful timber floor. When the surprised boat builders asked why, the buyer's wife said she liked the color.

Buyers tend to be business people, with Australians dominating. International interest has often been expressed, but distance and the cost of shipping from Australia can prove a deterrent in many cases.

Currently under construction is a carvel planked, which means planks laid side by side, 38-foot motor cruiser for Tetsuya Wakuda, a renowned Australian chef whose wants included a seven-foot table and an induction stove in the galley.

"I wanted a boat built that looked traditional on the outside and modern on the inside. I've always loved boats," Wakuda said.

"I have every kitchen appliance you can imagine on the boat... I have made the best of the galley. I wanted a boat like they'd never built before, the best of the best."

Needless to say, such luxury does not come cheaply, though prices vary according to the buyer's desire. Wakuda's boat carries an A$700,000 ($749,000) price tag.

Completion of any boat becomes a community celebration, with the entire town of Franklin coming out for the launching of each boat as they slide into the Huon River.

Wakuda's boat, the largest the boatyard has made so far, is set for launching on June 1, Allgood said.

"It's going to be a squeeze to get out the door," he added.

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

A boat is seen at the Wooden Boat Centre Boatbuilding School in Franklin, Tasmania April 17, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Pauline Askin

By Pauline Askin

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia | Sun May 29, 2011 10:58pm EDT

FRANKLIN, Tasmania, Australia (Reuters Life!) - On the banks of the Huon River, a small Australian boat building school is looking to the past to keep a centuries-old tradition of local boat-building alive, producing unique Tasmanian timber boats that shipwrights hope will last hundreds of years.

The vessels, fashioned with a combination of traditional wooden boat-building skills and a modern shipyard at one of only a handful of wooden boat-building schools in the world, are custom-built to buyer specifications.

In some cases, this means expensive carpets and, in the case of the latest boat, state of the art kitchen appliances.

"There is one school in the United States but this one here in Tassie is the major one, and I think it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that produces a large scale vessel as a major project," said John Allport, manager of The Wooden Boat Center Boatbuilding School.

Eager apprentices travel from around the world to learn the art of wooden boat building using traditional hand tools and contemporary power tools to produce a vessel in an economically viable time frame, usually about 12 months.

A rich smell of pine hangs in the misty southern air in the boat shed at Franklin, 48 km (30 miles) southwest of Hobart, the capital of Australia's island state Tasmania.

A shipwright wearing a bib and braces sits on a upturned milk crate at the bow of the boat he's working on, marking the Plimsoll line with his pencil. His student, using a clear garden hose filled with water as a spirit level, calls out the levels to be marked as a sleepy dog keeps an eye on the activity.

"A lot of teaching is with traditional type hand tools and traditional methods of boat building, but in the modern environment it's just too slow," said Allport, a bearded 56-year-old who has been at the school for six years as a manager.

"It's fine to be taught traditional methods but if the students have to go out into the modern workplace they can find they are lacking in some skills so we are using traditional hand tools in a contemporary manner."

LONG HISTORY, SUSTAINABILITY

Tasmania's tradition of boat building began within days of its settlement in 1803 as a penal colony, densely populated with ideal boat-building timbers in an era when wooden schooners plied the surrounding waters.

Vessels built by the convicts could withstand the notoriously rough Bass Strait, the stretch of water which runs between the southern tip of Australia's mainland and Tasmania.

The Wooden Boat Center, which advocates sustainability, uses Huon, King Billy, Celery Top, Blue Gum and Swamp Pines -- the same prized varieties used then. The current timber comes from a "Wood Bank" established by the Tasmanian government over 20 years ago dedicated to boat building and fine furniture.

"They're traditionally built vessels, mainly using Tasmanian timbers, in particular Huon Pine. It's got a natural oil in it that stops decay and worm attack. It will last for hundreds of years," said Allport.

While the atmosphere at the boatyard is calmly industrious, juggling the demands of finding sponsors and students, the size of the boat, and the all-important fees is a constant struggle.

In addition, while buyers seek out the school for its traditional boat building, they also require fitting out with state of the art equipment -- and catering to many whims.

In one case, a buyer wanted to lay expensive carpet, covering the beautiful timber floor. When the surprised boat builders asked why, the buyer's wife said she liked the color.

Buyers tend to be business people, with Australians dominating. International interest has often been expressed, but distance and the cost of shipping from Australia can prove a deterrent in many cases.

Currently under construction is a carvel planked, which means planks laid side by side, 38-foot motor cruiser for Tetsuya Wakuda, a renowned Australian chef whose wants included a seven-foot table and an induction stove in the galley.

"I wanted a boat built that looked traditional on the outside and modern on the inside. I've always loved boats," Wakuda said.

"I have every kitchen appliance you can imagine on the boat... I have made the best of the galley. I wanted a boat like they'd never built before, the best of the best."

Needless to say, such luxury does not come cheaply, though prices vary according to the buyer's desire. Wakuda's boat carries an A$700,000 ($749,000) price tag.

Completion of any boat becomes a community celebration, with the entire town of Franklin coming out for the launching of each boat as they slide into the Huon River.

Wakuda's boat, the largest the boatyard has made so far, is set for launching on June 1, Allgood said.

"It's going to be a squeeze to get out the door," he added.

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Cost aparat dentar

Taiwanese "one girl band" gains fame as video goes viral

birou notarial

Taiwanese musician Shara Lin Yi-Hsin, 25, poses for a photograph during an interview with Reuters in Taipei May 25, 2011. A video of Lin, which showed her performing Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai's ''Dancing Diva'' by simultaneously playing the piano, violin, and zither, has attracted wide internet attention.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

TAIPEI | Mon May 30, 2011 12:42pm EDT

TAIPEI (Reuters Life!) - Though Asian girl bands such as Japan's AKB48 and South Korea's Wonder Girls are gaining fame around the world, Taiwanese performer Shara Lin goes them one better -- she is her own band, playing violin, zither and piano.

Now her musical multi-tasking is on global display in a training video of her performing Taiwanese artist Jolin Tsai's song "Dancing Diva" that has racked up more than 4 million views on YouTube within three weeks.

Lin, a 25-year-old actress who has a music degree, put the performance together within five days for a blend of classical and Taiwanese pop music that has her tucking the violin under her chin and stretching out as needed to both piano and zither.

"I think the toughest part is to play the piano and the zither simultaneously. We tried many times to figure out this position for my left hand to play the piano, and right hand to play the zither," Lin said.

"When I have to look at both the piano and the zither, I really wished my eyes could grow wider apart. If I have to play (them) together, I must play by feel."

Lin started to play the piano at age three. Her interest in music soon expanded into other instruments including the violin, zither, guitar, jazz drums and harmonica.

Lin said she is willing to try other creative performances in the wake of her YouTube success.

"After people saw this video, they suggested that I can play the drum with my foot and also add the harmonica," she said.

"I said okay, I will consider that."

(Reporting by Ben Tai and Christine Lu, editing by Elaine Lies)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

Taiwanese musician Shara Lin Yi-Hsin, 25, poses for a photograph during an interview with Reuters in Taipei May 25, 2011. A video of Lin, which showed her performing Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai's ''Dancing Diva'' by simultaneously playing the piano, violin, and zither, has attracted wide internet attention.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

TAIPEI | Mon May 30, 2011 12:42pm EDT

TAIPEI (Reuters Life!) - Though Asian girl bands such as Japan's AKB48 and South Korea's Wonder Girls are gaining fame around the world, Taiwanese performer Shara Lin goes them one better -- she is her own band, playing violin, zither and piano.

Now her musical multi-tasking is on global display in a training video of her performing Taiwanese artist Jolin Tsai's song "Dancing Diva" that has racked up more than 4 million views on YouTube within three weeks.

Lin, a 25-year-old actress who has a music degree, put the performance together within five days for a blend of classical and Taiwanese pop music that has her tucking the violin under her chin and stretching out as needed to both piano and zither.

"I think the toughest part is to play the piano and the zither simultaneously. We tried many times to figure out this position for my left hand to play the piano, and right hand to play the zither," Lin said.

"When I have to look at both the piano and the zither, I really wished my eyes could grow wider apart. If I have to play (them) together, I must play by feel."

Lin started to play the piano at age three. Her interest in music soon expanded into other instruments including the violin, zither, guitar, jazz drums and harmonica.

Lin said she is willing to try other creative performances in the wake of her YouTube success.

"After people saw this video, they suggested that I can play the drum with my foot and also add the harmonica," she said.

"I said okay, I will consider that."

(Reporting by Ben Tai and Christine Lu, editing by Elaine Lies)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Taiwanese musician Shara Lin Yi-Hsin, 25, poses for a photograph during an interview with Reuters in Taipei May 25, 2011. A video of Lin, which showed her performing Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai's ''Dancing Diva'' by simultaneously playing the piano, violin, and zither, has attracted wide internet attention.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

TAIPEI | Mon May 30, 2011 12:42pm EDT

TAIPEI (Reuters Life!) - Though Asian girl bands such as Japan's AKB48 and South Korea's Wonder Girls are gaining fame around the world, Taiwanese performer Shara Lin goes them one better -- she is her own band, playing violin, zither and piano.

Now her musical multi-tasking is on global display in a training video of her performing Taiwanese artist Jolin Tsai's song "Dancing Diva" that has racked up more than 4 million views on YouTube within three weeks.

Lin, a 25-year-old actress who has a music degree, put the performance together within five days for a blend of classical and Taiwanese pop music that has her tucking the violin under her chin and stretching out as needed to both piano and zither.

"I think the toughest part is to play the piano and the zither simultaneously. We tried many times to figure out this position for my left hand to play the piano, and right hand to play the zither," Lin said.

"When I have to look at both the piano and the zither, I really wished my eyes could grow wider apart. If I have to play (them) together, I must play by feel."

Lin started to play the piano at age three. Her interest in music soon expanded into other instruments including the violin, zither, guitar, jazz drums and harmonica.

Lin said she is willing to try other creative performances in the wake of her YouTube success.

"After people saw this video, they suggested that I can play the drum with my foot and also add the harmonica," she said.

"I said okay, I will consider that."

(Reporting by Ben Tai and Christine Lu, editing by Elaine Lies)

Cost aparat dentar

Sarajevo outlines planned museum after Mladic arrest

birou notarial

The wreckage of a tram stands in a street following shelling in the Skenderija district in Sarajevo March 1992.

Credit: Reuters/Danilo Krstanovic

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO | Mon May 30, 2011 1:14pm EDT

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Sarajevo announced plans on Monday to open a museum of its brutal siege by Bosnian Serb forces, saying the approaching trial of their commander Ratko Mladic made it all the more important to display the evidence.

The museum will open on the siege's 20th anniversary next year and organizers said the timing of the announcement, four days after Mladic's capture in Serbia after nearly 16 years evading war crimes charges, was coincidental but fortuitous.

"Now that Mladic is arrested and we see so many efforts to rewrite history, we see how important these testimonies are," said Suada Kapic, who began collecting documents early in Bosnia's 1992-5 war and is the project's creative force.

She was referring to allegations by Mladic's supporters and family that the siege, which lasted 43 months and killed more than 11,000 people, was a legitimate military operation.

In the early 1990s, the Bosnian capital became a symbol of suffering of its citizens, who remained stuck in the city for 3-1/2-years under daily shelling by heavy artillery and snipers from nearby hills, without water, power and food.

The terror was masterminded by Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Mladic. The latter was seen by Sarajevans as a ruthless commander who did not care about civilians, unless they were ethnic Serbs.

"Shoot over Velusici, there are not many Serbs there," Mladic's ordered during a heavy bombardment of Sarajevo in May 1992 in a communique intercepted by Bosnian security agents and replayed many times in Bosnia since.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for genocide during the Bosnian war, including the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

He is expected to be extradited there within days.

"With Mladic's arrest, it seems as one chapter has been closed and a new, different chapter is opening that is very important for future generations," said Dino Mustafic, the director of the museum project.

Mustafic said the announcement was made on Monday because he had just signed an agreement with the city mayor agreeing a location for the museum, to be named "The Survival House."

"We are so fortunate to have all those documents," said Kapic, the director of the Fama production agency which has assembled an extensive collection that will go into it.

The collection includes an encyclopedia on the siege, a map illustrating the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, a chronology of its dissolution and 1,400 filmed accounts of witnesses. A website will also give a virtual tour of the besieged city.

The museum will be housed in a modern building consisting of 130 thematic containers, where classes will be held for interested groups.

An interactive map of the siege will show how people coped with shortages of every kind. It will also show wartime parties and weddings, the rare moments of joy.

"When you enter it, it will be like getting into the siege and going through it until it's lifted," Mustafic said.

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

The wreckage of a tram stands in a street following shelling in the Skenderija district in Sarajevo March 1992.

Credit: Reuters/Danilo Krstanovic

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO | Mon May 30, 2011 1:14pm EDT

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Sarajevo announced plans on Monday to open a museum of its brutal siege by Bosnian Serb forces, saying the approaching trial of their commander Ratko Mladic made it all the more important to display the evidence.

The museum will open on the siege's 20th anniversary next year and organizers said the timing of the announcement, four days after Mladic's capture in Serbia after nearly 16 years evading war crimes charges, was coincidental but fortuitous.

"Now that Mladic is arrested and we see so many efforts to rewrite history, we see how important these testimonies are," said Suada Kapic, who began collecting documents early in Bosnia's 1992-5 war and is the project's creative force.

She was referring to allegations by Mladic's supporters and family that the siege, which lasted 43 months and killed more than 11,000 people, was a legitimate military operation.

In the early 1990s, the Bosnian capital became a symbol of suffering of its citizens, who remained stuck in the city for 3-1/2-years under daily shelling by heavy artillery and snipers from nearby hills, without water, power and food.

The terror was masterminded by Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Mladic. The latter was seen by Sarajevans as a ruthless commander who did not care about civilians, unless they were ethnic Serbs.

"Shoot over Velusici, there are not many Serbs there," Mladic's ordered during a heavy bombardment of Sarajevo in May 1992 in a communique intercepted by Bosnian security agents and replayed many times in Bosnia since.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for genocide during the Bosnian war, including the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

He is expected to be extradited there within days.

"With Mladic's arrest, it seems as one chapter has been closed and a new, different chapter is opening that is very important for future generations," said Dino Mustafic, the director of the museum project.

Mustafic said the announcement was made on Monday because he had just signed an agreement with the city mayor agreeing a location for the museum, to be named "The Survival House."

"We are so fortunate to have all those documents," said Kapic, the director of the Fama production agency which has assembled an extensive collection that will go into it.

The collection includes an encyclopedia on the siege, a map illustrating the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, a chronology of its dissolution and 1,400 filmed accounts of witnesses. A website will also give a virtual tour of the besieged city.

The museum will be housed in a modern building consisting of 130 thematic containers, where classes will be held for interested groups.

An interactive map of the siege will show how people coped with shortages of every kind. It will also show wartime parties and weddings, the rare moments of joy.

"When you enter it, it will be like getting into the siege and going through it until it's lifted," Mustafic said.

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

The wreckage of a tram stands in a street following shelling in the Skenderija district in Sarajevo March 1992.

Credit: Reuters/Danilo Krstanovic

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO | Mon May 30, 2011 1:14pm EDT

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Sarajevo announced plans on Monday to open a museum of its brutal siege by Bosnian Serb forces, saying the approaching trial of their commander Ratko Mladic made it all the more important to display the evidence.

The museum will open on the siege's 20th anniversary next year and organizers said the timing of the announcement, four days after Mladic's capture in Serbia after nearly 16 years evading war crimes charges, was coincidental but fortuitous.

"Now that Mladic is arrested and we see so many efforts to rewrite history, we see how important these testimonies are," said Suada Kapic, who began collecting documents early in Bosnia's 1992-5 war and is the project's creative force.

She was referring to allegations by Mladic's supporters and family that the siege, which lasted 43 months and killed more than 11,000 people, was a legitimate military operation.

In the early 1990s, the Bosnian capital became a symbol of suffering of its citizens, who remained stuck in the city for 3-1/2-years under daily shelling by heavy artillery and snipers from nearby hills, without water, power and food.

The terror was masterminded by Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Mladic. The latter was seen by Sarajevans as a ruthless commander who did not care about civilians, unless they were ethnic Serbs.

"Shoot over Velusici, there are not many Serbs there," Mladic's ordered during a heavy bombardment of Sarajevo in May 1992 in a communique intercepted by Bosnian security agents and replayed many times in Bosnia since.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for genocide during the Bosnian war, including the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

He is expected to be extradited there within days.

"With Mladic's arrest, it seems as one chapter has been closed and a new, different chapter is opening that is very important for future generations," said Dino Mustafic, the director of the museum project.

Mustafic said the announcement was made on Monday because he had just signed an agreement with the city mayor agreeing a location for the museum, to be named "The Survival House."

"We are so fortunate to have all those documents," said Kapic, the director of the Fama production agency which has assembled an extensive collection that will go into it.

The collection includes an encyclopedia on the siege, a map illustrating the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, a chronology of its dissolution and 1,400 filmed accounts of witnesses. A website will also give a virtual tour of the besieged city.

The museum will be housed in a modern building consisting of 130 thematic containers, where classes will be held for interested groups.

An interactive map of the siege will show how people coped with shortages of every kind. It will also show wartime parties and weddings, the rare moments of joy.

"When you enter it, it will be like getting into the siege and going through it until it's lifted," Mustafic said.

Cost aparat dentar

British Queen, Obama put Irish tourism back on map

birou notarial

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an Irish celebration at College Green in Dublin May 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN | Sun May 29, 2011 1:12am EDT

DUBLIN (Reuters) - After Barack Obama put it on the map by downing a gulp of Guinness, residents of the U.S. president's tiny ancestral home of Moneygall have spent the past week greeting busloads of tourists.

"It's still all happening. We're still buzzing," said Moneygall resident Marian Healy, whose son Henry welcomed his distant cousin Barack to the sleepy village during the president's day trip to Ireland last week.

"There was a busload of Japanese tourists this morning and there were Americans here earlier too, looking for Henry to have his photograph taken with them."

Restaurateurs, hoteliers and tour operators countrywide are now hoping for a "Moneygall effect" of their own.

Obama's morale-boosting stop-off, together with Queen Elizabeth's historic state visit just days earlier, have given Irish tourism a boost it desperately needed after three years of recession saw revenues and visitors drop by about a third.

After a record 1,200 foreign journalists arrived for the first visit of a British monarch since independence from London in 1921, global headlines took a rare positive turn -- a break from the relentless run of bad economic news that culminated in Ireland's IMF/EU bailout late last year.

WEB INTEREST

The renewed interest in a country famed for its beautiful coastlines and rich literary history seems to be working.

Internet searches by potential visitors from Ireland's two main overseas markets surged by almost 200 percent for some tourist spots included on the royal itinerary, according to Hotels.com, a leading provider of worldwide hotel accommodation.

The website said searches last week by UK tourists for the county of Tipperary, where the Queen visited the Rock of Cashel, a medieval national movement that attracts thousands of tourists each year, nearly trebled compared to a year ago.

Searches by U.S. tourists for Cork -- the last stop of the Queen's four-day trip -- doubled. Interest also jumped at home, with 225 percent more Irish tourists thinking of visiting Kildare, where the Queen spent an afternoon in the heartland of Irish horse-racing.

With state-funded Tourism Ireland increasing its advertising spend this month by 35 percent compared to a year ago, officials say they are prepared to capitalize on the publicity.

"If we were riding along normally, I'd say it's lovely to have the queen here and you're always delighted to have the President of the United States, but it would have a marginal impact on tourism," Eamon McKeon, chief executive of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC), told Reuters.

"But I think coming as it did at the tail end of six months when the news has just been awful every day, it's far more important. It's up to us to stretch the publicity out for months and milk the goodwill for all it's worth."

EMPLOYMENT-INTENSIVE

Ireland's new government is banking on a recovery in the tourism industry, having this month come up with a modest package of measures to revive the labor-intensive sector.

Dublin agreed the measures -- which include a temporary reduction in the sales tax on restaurants and hotels, an easing of visa restrictions and the scrapping of a travel tax -- with its creditors in the IMF and the European Union, on the basis that it would not derail efforts to cut the budget deficit.

ITIC predicts that these measures, along with the increased publicity and a regaining of some of the competitiveness lost during the heady days of the "Celtic Tiger" economy, when hotel prices jumped, will return the industry to revenue and visitor growth of between 4 and 6 percent this year.

McKeon said 10 percent growth in 2012 and a 6 percent rise per annum after that would -- all things being equal -- see the industry match its 2007 peak where it welcomed 7.7 million tourists to the country.

While economic recovery will be led by exports and a hoped-for recovery in consumer spending, economists say a pickup in tourism would do much to eat into Ireland's 14.6 percent unemployment rate, the second highest in the euro zone after Spain.

"It won't bring a huge amount of money into the economy on a national sense and it won't for example do a great deal to solve the budget deficit, but it gets at those industries that are hurting the most," said Ronnie O'Toole, chief economist at National Irish Bank.

"We have got a few very big problems right now and one of them is unemployment, so strong growth from the one export sector that's really employment-intensive would be very positive."

(Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Mark Trevelyan)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an Irish celebration at College Green in Dublin May 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN | Sun May 29, 2011 1:12am EDT

DUBLIN (Reuters) - After Barack Obama put it on the map by downing a gulp of Guinness, residents of the U.S. president's tiny ancestral home of Moneygall have spent the past week greeting busloads of tourists.

"It's still all happening. We're still buzzing," said Moneygall resident Marian Healy, whose son Henry welcomed his distant cousin Barack to the sleepy village during the president's day trip to Ireland last week.

"There was a busload of Japanese tourists this morning and there were Americans here earlier too, looking for Henry to have his photograph taken with them."

Restaurateurs, hoteliers and tour operators countrywide are now hoping for a "Moneygall effect" of their own.

Obama's morale-boosting stop-off, together with Queen Elizabeth's historic state visit just days earlier, have given Irish tourism a boost it desperately needed after three years of recession saw revenues and visitors drop by about a third.

After a record 1,200 foreign journalists arrived for the first visit of a British monarch since independence from London in 1921, global headlines took a rare positive turn -- a break from the relentless run of bad economic news that culminated in Ireland's IMF/EU bailout late last year.

WEB INTEREST

The renewed interest in a country famed for its beautiful coastlines and rich literary history seems to be working.

Internet searches by potential visitors from Ireland's two main overseas markets surged by almost 200 percent for some tourist spots included on the royal itinerary, according to Hotels.com, a leading provider of worldwide hotel accommodation.

The website said searches last week by UK tourists for the county of Tipperary, where the Queen visited the Rock of Cashel, a medieval national movement that attracts thousands of tourists each year, nearly trebled compared to a year ago.

Searches by U.S. tourists for Cork -- the last stop of the Queen's four-day trip -- doubled. Interest also jumped at home, with 225 percent more Irish tourists thinking of visiting Kildare, where the Queen spent an afternoon in the heartland of Irish horse-racing.

With state-funded Tourism Ireland increasing its advertising spend this month by 35 percent compared to a year ago, officials say they are prepared to capitalize on the publicity.

"If we were riding along normally, I'd say it's lovely to have the queen here and you're always delighted to have the President of the United States, but it would have a marginal impact on tourism," Eamon McKeon, chief executive of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC), told Reuters.

"But I think coming as it did at the tail end of six months when the news has just been awful every day, it's far more important. It's up to us to stretch the publicity out for months and milk the goodwill for all it's worth."

EMPLOYMENT-INTENSIVE

Ireland's new government is banking on a recovery in the tourism industry, having this month come up with a modest package of measures to revive the labor-intensive sector.

Dublin agreed the measures -- which include a temporary reduction in the sales tax on restaurants and hotels, an easing of visa restrictions and the scrapping of a travel tax -- with its creditors in the IMF and the European Union, on the basis that it would not derail efforts to cut the budget deficit.

ITIC predicts that these measures, along with the increased publicity and a regaining of some of the competitiveness lost during the heady days of the "Celtic Tiger" economy, when hotel prices jumped, will return the industry to revenue and visitor growth of between 4 and 6 percent this year.

McKeon said 10 percent growth in 2012 and a 6 percent rise per annum after that would -- all things being equal -- see the industry match its 2007 peak where it welcomed 7.7 million tourists to the country.

While economic recovery will be led by exports and a hoped-for recovery in consumer spending, economists say a pickup in tourism would do much to eat into Ireland's 14.6 percent unemployment rate, the second highest in the euro zone after Spain.

"It won't bring a huge amount of money into the economy on a national sense and it won't for example do a great deal to solve the budget deficit, but it gets at those industries that are hurting the most," said Ronnie O'Toole, chief economist at National Irish Bank.

"We have got a few very big problems right now and one of them is unemployment, so strong growth from the one export sector that's really employment-intensive would be very positive."

(Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Mark Trevelyan)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an Irish celebration at College Green in Dublin May 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN | Sun May 29, 2011 1:12am EDT

DUBLIN (Reuters) - After Barack Obama put it on the map by downing a gulp of Guinness, residents of the U.S. president's tiny ancestral home of Moneygall have spent the past week greeting busloads of tourists.

"It's still all happening. We're still buzzing," said Moneygall resident Marian Healy, whose son Henry welcomed his distant cousin Barack to the sleepy village during the president's day trip to Ireland last week.

"There was a busload of Japanese tourists this morning and there were Americans here earlier too, looking for Henry to have his photograph taken with them."

Restaurateurs, hoteliers and tour operators countrywide are now hoping for a "Moneygall effect" of their own.

Obama's morale-boosting stop-off, together with Queen Elizabeth's historic state visit just days earlier, have given Irish tourism a boost it desperately needed after three years of recession saw revenues and visitors drop by about a third.

After a record 1,200 foreign journalists arrived for the first visit of a British monarch since independence from London in 1921, global headlines took a rare positive turn -- a break from the relentless run of bad economic news that culminated in Ireland's IMF/EU bailout late last year.

WEB INTEREST

The renewed interest in a country famed for its beautiful coastlines and rich literary history seems to be working.

Internet searches by potential visitors from Ireland's two main overseas markets surged by almost 200 percent for some tourist spots included on the royal itinerary, according to Hotels.com, a leading provider of worldwide hotel accommodation.

The website said searches last week by UK tourists for the county of Tipperary, where the Queen visited the Rock of Cashel, a medieval national movement that attracts thousands of tourists each year, nearly trebled compared to a year ago.

Searches by U.S. tourists for Cork -- the last stop of the Queen's four-day trip -- doubled. Interest also jumped at home, with 225 percent more Irish tourists thinking of visiting Kildare, where the Queen spent an afternoon in the heartland of Irish horse-racing.

With state-funded Tourism Ireland increasing its advertising spend this month by 35 percent compared to a year ago, officials say they are prepared to capitalize on the publicity.

"If we were riding along normally, I'd say it's lovely to have the queen here and you're always delighted to have the President of the United States, but it would have a marginal impact on tourism," Eamon McKeon, chief executive of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC), told Reuters.

"But I think coming as it did at the tail end of six months when the news has just been awful every day, it's far more important. It's up to us to stretch the publicity out for months and milk the goodwill for all it's worth."

EMPLOYMENT-INTENSIVE

Ireland's new government is banking on a recovery in the tourism industry, having this month come up with a modest package of measures to revive the labor-intensive sector.

Dublin agreed the measures -- which include a temporary reduction in the sales tax on restaurants and hotels, an easing of visa restrictions and the scrapping of a travel tax -- with its creditors in the IMF and the European Union, on the basis that it would not derail efforts to cut the budget deficit.

ITIC predicts that these measures, along with the increased publicity and a regaining of some of the competitiveness lost during the heady days of the "Celtic Tiger" economy, when hotel prices jumped, will return the industry to revenue and visitor growth of between 4 and 6 percent this year.

McKeon said 10 percent growth in 2012 and a 6 percent rise per annum after that would -- all things being equal -- see the industry match its 2007 peak where it welcomed 7.7 million tourists to the country.

While economic recovery will be led by exports and a hoped-for recovery in consumer spending, economists say a pickup in tourism would do much to eat into Ireland's 14.6 percent unemployment rate, the second highest in the euro zone after Spain.

"It won't bring a huge amount of money into the economy on a national sense and it won't for example do a great deal to solve the budget deficit, but it gets at those industries that are hurting the most," said Ronnie O'Toole, chief economist at National Irish Bank.

"We have got a few very big problems right now and one of them is unemployment, so strong growth from the one export sector that's really employment-intensive would be very positive."

(Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Mark Trevelyan)

Cost aparat dentar