More than ever, Barca more than club for Catalans

affiliate marketing BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Nearly 20 minutes into the latest clash between Spain’s most popular football teams, Barcelona‘s 98,000-seat Camp Nou stadium erupted into a deafening roar. Tens of thousands of Catalans in the city at the heart of their separatist movement chanted in unison: “Independence!”More than ever,...

Read More..

In San Francisco, tech investor leads a political makeover

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - One morning in April, Ron Conway, the billionaire technology investor, sat in a conference room on the second floor of San Francisco's City Hall with about 50 representatives from the city's business community. On the agenda was a sweeping proposal by Mayor Ed Lee to reform the city's payroll tax, a plan that would favor companies with many employees but little...

Read More..

European fashion buyers look to Nigeria

affiliate marketing LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A model struts the runway wearing a flowing newspaper print gown in this African megacity where international high-end fashion buyers are looking beyond the country’s bleak headlines to uncover the next new thing.There have been steady efforts to turn Lagos, a city with a fearsome reputation,...

Read More..

GSK raises bet on AIDS drug with new Shionogi deal

affiliate marketing LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline has raised its bet on a promising drug for HIV/AIDS by redrawing a deal with Japan’s Shionogi which gives it a much bigger economic interest in the new product.Dolutegravir, a once-daily drug that has performed strongly in clinical trials, is seen by analysts as a potential...

Read More..

Hurricane Sandy puts 50M people at risk

Residents up and down the East Coast are preparing for what forecasters predict could be the worst storm in two generations as Hurricane Sandy is strengthening, putting 50 million people at risk.The eye of Sandy is forecast to make landfall late Monday night in Atlantic City, N.J., bringing with it life-threatening storm surges, forceful winds and rainfall that could cripple transportation and leave...

Read More..

Lithuania opens 2nd round of national election

affiliate marketing VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Voting stations have opened in the second round of Lithuania’s parliamentary elections, with the results likely to determine whether the small East European nation continues tough austerity measures in an effort to join the euro zone.Nearly half of Parliament’s 141 seats are at stake in single-mandate...

Read More..

SAP eyes "long" period of high sales growth: report

{ttle}

{cptn}","template_name":"ss_thmb_play_ttle","i18n":{"end_of_gallery_header":"End of Gallery","end_of_gallery_next":"View Again"},"metadata":{"pagination":"{firstVisible} - {lastVisible} of {numItems}","ult":{"spaceid":"7665149","sec":""}}},{"id": "hcm-carousel-1104274924", "dataManager": C.dmgr, "mediator": C.mdtr, "group_name":"hcm-carousel-1104274924", "track_item_selected":1,"tracking":{
"spaceid" : "7665149",
"events" : {
"click" : {
"any" : {
"yui-carousel-prev" : {
"node" : "a",
"data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"prev","itc":"1" },
"bubbles" : true,
"test": function(params){
var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel();
var pages = carousel._pages;

// if same page, don't beacon
if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false;

// keep track of current position within this closure
carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur;

return true;
}
},
"yui-carousel-next" : {
"node" : "a",
"data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"next","itc":"1" },
"bubbles" : true,
"test": function(params){
var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel();
var pages = carousel._pages;

// no more pages, don't beacon again
// if same page, don't beacon
if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false;

// keep track of current position within this closure
carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur;
return true;
}
}
}
}
}
}
}));
});
Y.later(10, this, function() {(function() {
try{
if (Math.floor(Math.random()*10) == 1) {
var loc = window.location,
decoded = decodeURI(loc.pathname),
encoded = encodeURI(decoded),
uri = loc.protocol + "//" + loc.host + encoded + ((loc.search.length > 0) ? loc.search + '&' : '?') + "_cacheable=1",
xmlhttp;

if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
else
xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

xmlhttp.open("GET",uri,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
}catch(e){}
})();
});
Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings = '"projectId": "10001256862979", "documentName": "", "documentGroup": "", "ywaColo" : "vscale3", "spaceId" : "7665149" ,"customFields" : { "12" : "classic", "13" : "story" }';
Y.Media.YWA.init(Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings);
});
Y.later(10, this, function() {if(document.onclick===YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.newClick){document.onclick=YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.oldClick;}
});
});
});

Read More..

Beethoven discovery gets first performance in UK

LONDON (Reuters) – A previously undiscovered musical arrangement by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the first time at a British university on Thursday.

The two-minute long piece is an organ harmony to the 1,000-year old Gregorian hymn “Pange Lingua”, University of Manchester Professor Barry Cooper told Reuters of the discovery he made while studying a copy of a 192-year-old Beethoven sketchbook.

“Other scholars looked at it without realizing what it was as it looks like a random collection of chords. When I looked at it I saw the series of chords and saw a tune there,” Cooper said.

“It’s a Gregorian chant that I happen to know so I realized that he’d obviously harmonized the chant and produced a new composition.”

The hymn had likely eluded other experts because the German composer had not included the words to the piece or the first line, which in a chant is usually sung unaccompanied, Cooper added.

“And Beethoven specialists tend not to be specialists in plainsong hymns and specialists in Gregorian chant don’t normally look at Beethoven sketches,” he said.

It is thought the hymn was penned for the composer’s friend Archduke Rudolph of Austria, for whom Beethoven also wrote the “Missa Solemnis”, or Mass in D, when the archduke was made an archbishop around 1820.

“The dates match up nicely: he transposed this Gregorian chant into an unusual key that fits well with his mass in D. It seems more than a coincidence,” Cooper said.

Cooper, a leading Beethoven expert, enlisted the help of a group of music students to put on the first known performance of the composition at Manchester University in northern England on Thursday afternoon.

The short hymn is significant because it marks a rare experiment into religious music for Beethoven, who died aged 57 in 1827.

“He wrote only two masses and didn’t write any simple, functional liturgical music like what we have here. It’s the first piece in this genre in his hand,” Cooper said.

“It doesn’t turn the knowledge we have about him upside down but adds a little and that is always interesting.

(Reporting by Clare Hutchison, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

IBA signs $40 million U.S. cancer facility deal

affiliate marketing BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian cancer treatment equipment maker IBA said it has signed a $ 40 million deal for the installation of a treatment facility in Louisiana.The treatment room, which will receive its first patients in early 2014, will use a system designed by Dutch group Philips, which will allow patients to...

Read More..

Big storm scrambles presidential campaign schedules

LAND O'LAKES, Fla. (AP) — The big storm taking aim at the East Coast a little more than a week before the election has scrambled campaign plans, with Mitt Romney ditching Virginia to campaign Sunday with running mate Paul Ryan in Ohio and President Barack Obama moving up his departure for Florida.In an extraordinarily tight race, Hurricane Sandy has forces the campaigns to toss out carefully mapped-out...

Read More..