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Her remaining ovary was only partially functioning following the chemotherapy and she went into early menopause. But at the age of 21, Matrooshi received a transplant of her frozen ovarian tissue that allowed her to undergo IVF at a CARE Fertility clinic. Now, aged 24, she has given birth to a baby boy. |
“Moaza has become the first woman in the world to give birth following the transplant of her own ovarian tissue removed before puberty,” says Rob Smith, at CARE London. |
“This is a ground-breaking step in this area of fertility preservation, and has the potential to help many young people who face cancer treatment preserve their fertility chances in the future,” says Adam Balen, at the British Fertility Society, an organisation that represents specialists in reproductive medicine. |
Currently in beta, Yahoo! Buzz measures consumer votes and search patterns to identify interesting and timely stories and videos from large news sources as well as niche blogs around the Web. Top stories are then given primary editorial consideration for feature placement on Yahoo.com. |
People, like Muhammad Saleem, consider this a great step for Yahoo for a variety of reasons. It's social search at its finest but only considers contributions from sites that are part of the Yahoo Publisher Network. |
Will this be the next social news site? Many people think that Digg is the forerunner (but personally, I'm open to new social sites). |
Digg is entrenched it would be very difficult for a new entrant to enter the market without showing that it is more capable and had more features than the incumbent. |
Therefore, Yahoo Buzz should have some serious potential, and the timing is good. |
Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and DigitalPoint Forums. |
Previous story: How Important is the Site Relevancy for Backlinks? |
A new trailer for next year’s Ghost Rider sequel has found its way online. |
Rumored casting of Juno Temple has been confirmed. |
Sony announces the release of The Mechanic, starring Jason Statham and Ben Foster. |
The Wolverines are getting new enemies! |
New Solomon Kane Featurette – "Fighting Scenes" |
"I am not yet ready to go to hell." |
Insane tracks, outrageous gadgets, and kung fu performed with cars—if Nascar was like this I'd be its biggest fan. |
The full, theatrical trailer for this fall’s highly anticipated Quantum of Solace has been released. Check it out. |
MANILA, AUGUST 10, 2009 (PHILIPPINE STAR) Migrant Filipino workers are paying “oppressive and burdensome” fees to send money back home to their families in the Philippines, a labor leader said yesterday. |
Quoting a World Bank (WB) study, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) secretary-general and former Sen. Ernesto Herrera said Filipinos in the United States spend an average of $12.79 to send $500 home to their families in the Philippines, and an average of $11.45 to remit $200. |
Filipino workers in the United Kingdom shell out an average of $17.75 to wire $500, and $14.40 to transfer $200. |
Those in Italy spend an average of $22.28 to send $500, and $19.05 to remit $200, while those in Germany pay out an average of $13.06 to forward $500, and $11.07 to convey $200. |
Those in Spain have to shell out an average of $12.42 to dispatch $500, and $10.64 to transfer $200. |
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Filipino workers spend an average of $6.93, whether they transmit $500 or $200. |
“They are definitely excessive, considering that in this day and age of modern technologies, seamless and cost-efficient money transfers are already possible through such platforms as the Internet and international mobile telephone short-messaging,” said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employ... |
He said any potential savings realized by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from lower remittance charges would surely allow more funds to flow into the Philippine economy. |
Herrera said the Philippines should combine forces with other top remittance-receiving countries such as India and Mexico, and find ways to step up pressure so that multinational banks would reduce their money transfer fees. |
Annual remittances from OFWs have steadily grown from just $105 million in 1975 to a whopping $16.426 billion in 2008, making the Philippines the world’s fourth-biggest collector of money from migrant workers. |
In the five months to May this year, remittances from OFWs reached $6.98 billion, up $190 million or 2.8 percent compared to the $6.79 billion they wired home in the same five-month period in 2008. |
Western Hemisphere leaders, at the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterey, Mexico, way back in January 2004, had called for the cost of remittances to be cut in half. |
MANILA, Philippines - Many predicted a grim future for the export-dependent Philippines as the global slump hit world trade, but recent data suggest it could avoid recession as the government remains defiant. |
The Philippines has talked up its resilience, while bodies such as the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) see the country economy contracting this year. |
They cite an expected downturn in remittances from Filipinos working abroad and a continuing fall in overseas shipments. |
Last year the economy posted 4.6 percent growth, markedly down from 2007’s roaring three-decade high of seven percent expansion. |
And the first quarter of this year saw growth fall to just 0.4 percent as sales of key exports to major markets in the United States and Europe evaporated. |
Electronics products and components, which make up almost 60 percent of Philippine exports, dropped 34.5 percent year on year in the first five months of 2009 although the government says the downturn is halting. |
Falling revenues and higher stimulus spending also caused the Philippines’ budget deficit to rocket to P153.4 billion, a 752.2 percent rise from the same period last year. |
The government also expects to resort to more foreign borrowing to finance its economic stimulus while still keeping the budget deficit within its ceiling of P250 billion. |
However, while the world’s leading economies were battered by the global meltdown, the Philippines economy has so far managed to avoid technical recession, seen as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. |
And contrary to the grim warnings of the IMF and World Bank, remittances from the eight million overseas workers have risen this year. |
Latest figures, released in May, show money sent back during the month rose 3.7 percent year-on-year to a record $1.48 billion. |
For the first five months, workers sent back $6.98 billion, a 2.8 percent rise on the year before. |
The Philippine Labour Department has forecast remittances – long the cornerstone of the economy – to exceed $17 billion this year, which would be a 3.6 percent increase from 2008. |
“There are a lot of good signs regarding the resiliency of the Philippine economy,” said presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde at a recent economic briefing in the Philippine capital. |
Even exports have shown signs of bottoming out while inflation has also slowed, he added. July inflation was 0.2 percent, a 22-year low, data showed earlier this week. |
Remonde said bank loans and the retail trade sector were both up in May and that he expected economic activity to accelerate as candidates for the national polls next year start spending. |
With thousands of people running for hundreds of posts from local government to president, spending for elections will likely be heavy. Senator Manuel Villar, a tycoon and presidential candidate, has said that one must spend at least one billion pesos ($20.9 million) just to run for president. |
In her annual state of the nation address to Congress on July 27, a beaming President Gloria Arroyo said recent reforms had fortified the economy. |
She said policies such as increasing Value Added Tax from 10 percent to 12 percent had brought necessary fiscal and monetary stability, allowing the country to weather the storm. |
She also pointed out that international credit rating agency Moody’s had upgraded the Philippines’ foreign and local currency ratings to “stable” from negative. |
Moody’s said “the relatively high degree of resiliency exhibited by the country’s financial system and external payments position” was behind this upgrade. |
Officials had originally faced the global economic turmoil with confidence that the country would be one of the few that would avoid a recession in 2009. |
But the first quarter GDP figures highlighted the problem of exports plunging while large factories announced huge lay-offs. |
Nevertheless, government analysts reject predictions of negative growth despite downwardly revising a 3.1-4.1 percent growth forecast for 2009 to only 0.8-1.8 percent in June. |
Economics professor Bernardo Villegas of the Manila-based University of Asia and the Pacific is even more optimistic, saying GDP will grow by at least 2.5 percent this year. |
“The World Bank and the IMF are absolutely wrong about the remittances. They assumed that because overseas remittances to other countries had fallen, they would fall in the Philippines as well,” he told AFP. |
He says remittances have remained resilient because Filipino overseas workers are in higher, more skilled positions and are therefore less disposable than other foreign workers. |
Other sectors such as the booming outsourcing industry, domestic tourism and even agriculture are still doing well, he adds. |
Luz Lorenzo of ATR-Kim Eng Securities forecasts two percent growth for 2009, citing government spending, increased private consumption, remittances and looser monetary controls. |
Critics of President Arroyo charge that the Philippines’ economic strength is still overly dependent on overseas workers while investment remains sparse and over a quarter of the population live in poverty. |
After teasing the clip on social media this week, Los Angeles rapper/artist Spanky Loco delivers a video for his new single “1-800-WAS-HATN”. |
The black-n-white clip finds the L.A. vet offering a look at the city’s streets. He smokes weed with the homies, walks his pitbull, and even rocks a late night show. |
“1-800-WAS-HATN” will appear on Spanky Loco’s upcoming album, Loco OG, due out May 5. |
It was so far so good on the first morning commute with the shutdown of I-5 in downtown Sacramento… But what about the rest of the week? CalTrans Spokesman Mark Dinger says Monday morning may not be the best measurement—and warns things may change mid-week. |
Tim Wahl is a state worker who changed his route — he says he’s prepared to do even more to avoid traffic. |
The Northbound lanes will re-open June ninth—but then southbound lanes will shut down in mid-June. |
Alternating lane closures on the so-called Boat Section of I-5 downtown will continue through the middle of July. |
RIM is apologizing to developers for delaying the release of BlackBerry 10. Calling their dedication and excitement "gratifying and humbling," the company pledged that RIM would try to be worthy of their trust and support. |
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, after disappointing shareholders, is working to assuage another group hard hit by the news that the long-delayed BlackBerry 10 platform won t be released until early 2013. |
Alec Saunders, Research In Motion's vice president of developer relations, wrote in a June 30 post on the Inside BlackBerry Developer Blog that RIM remains strongly committed to its developers. |
"You've got businesses to run, rent to pay and investors to answer to," Saunders wrote. "You are the folks who have skin in the game now, and aren't just waiting for a new phone personally. We know this delay affects you, and we're sorry." |
During RIM's June 28 earnings call, CEO Thorsten Heins shared that the platform's release had to be pushed from late 2012 to early 2013. The integration of such a large volume of incoming code, he explained, would take more time than originally expected. |
"I will not deliver a product to the market that is ...anything less than an outstanding user experience with the quality I expect a BlackBerry product to have," Heins said in his opening remarks. "There will be no compromise on this issue." |
Heins went on to share that RIM had suffered a $518 million loss during the quarter, and to save money was cutting 5,000 jobs, roughly a third of its workforce. |
Michael Finneran, president of dBrn Associates, believes that in that pummeling of bad news, the delay of BlackBerry 10 was the death blow. |
"RIM's product line is simply not competitive. Even at its best, BlackBerry 10 would have challenges, as the initial devices were to be the first RIM smartphones without a keyboard, one of the features that had kept many of the remaining RIM fans loyal," Finneran wrote in a June 29 blog post on No Jitter. "With Apple p... |
RIM"s Heins, offering shareholders what good news he could, talked about how encouraged and excited the company is by the traction that BlackBerry 10 has received with developers and content partners. The company is currently hosting a 23-city BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour--a series of daylong events acquainting develop... |
How The Really Smart Money Invests Nobel Prize winners entrust their nest eggs to DFA, where investing is a science, not a spectator sport. |
(FORTUNE Magazine) – Suppose you made a list of the smartest people alive in finance--those who have done the most to advance our understanding of how the stock market really works. Somewhere near the top you'd surely place Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago, the leading champion of the efficient-market theory an... |
What would you give to know how these titans invest their own money? Well, don't give too much, because all you have to do is look at the funds of one Santa Monica money management firm, Dimensional Fund Advisors. Sinquefield and partner David Booth, both former students of Fama, founded DFA and now run the funds. Fama... |
If you want to invest like these giants, however, you may have to check one of your most cherished investment notions at the door. Unlike any other money management firm, DFA insists that each of its funds follow a strategy based on rigorous academic research. And for the past three decades that research has squarely c... |
Such talk may seem harsh in these stock-mad days--when top mutual fund managers are as celebrated as sports stars--but DFA has the numbers to back it up. Sinquefield and Booth will be happy to share the reams of academic research supporting the theory that stocks are, with a few exceptions, an efficient market, in whic... |
Sinquefield and Booth might also bring up the success of their own firm. After being hooted at by Wall Street 20 years ago, the pair today manage $29 billion in 22 funds, making their firm the ninth-largest institutional fund manager in the country. The client list includes the pension funds of PepsiCo, BellSouth, and ... |
If nothing else, DFA's success is a measure of how deeply the once thorny theories of academic finance have taken hold in mainstream investment practice. And that is due in no small part to the two founders' own tireless proselytizing. Sinquefield and Booth met in 1971 at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Bu... |
For Sinquefield, it was a case of one theology replacing another. Raised from age 7 in Saint Vincent's Catholic orphanage in St. Louis, he earned his keep there making beds and waiting on tables. He went on to study for the priesthood but left the seminary after three years. Sinquefield first encountered Fama's theorie... |
The object of their devotion, Eugene Fama, is a blunt, brilliant rebel, the scion of a working-class Boston family, whose greatest love is upsetting the status quo. As restless physically as he is mentally, Fama is a fanatic tennis player and athlete who rises at dawn to work out in his basement to blaring Wagner opera... |
While other thinkers had long questioned whether stock prices were really predictable, Fama's work gave the efficient-market hypothesis its most rigorous intellectual grounding (as well as its name). Fama argued that the stock market is a matchless information-processing machine, whose participants collectively price s... |
The efficient-market theory still raises hackles on Wall Street, for obvious reasons. But in academia the debate is all but over, and among pension fund fiduciaries Fama's theories are now so accepted that an estimated 24% of the trillions of dollars in pension assets is invested in index funds. |
When Sinquefield and Booth joined the work force after leaving Chicago, however, the efficient market was a revolutionary idea. While working as a trust officer at American National Bank in Chicago, Sinquefield evaluated the bank's money managers and discovered just what Fama had predicted: Funds that actively pick lar... |
Meanwhile, at investment firm A.G. Becker in New York City, Booth was advising pension fund managers on where to put their money. He noticed that almost all the managers invested in big companies. Booth pleaded to start a small-cap index fund, but his colleagues guffawed at his presentation. "They were saying, 'Don't l... |
As Booth began looking for clients, another of Fama's graduate students, Rolf Banz, was researching the performance of small stocks vs. large. Banz's research proved for the first time what most professional investors take for granted today: that small-cap stocks produce higher returns than big ones over long periods. ... |
Sinquefield, who had been following Banz's research, immediately proposed a small-cap index fund at American National. The bank nixed the idea. By coincidence, Booth called shortly afterward to say his fledgling firm was hatching a product just like the one Sinquefield's employer had deep-sixed. Sinquefield quit his jo... |
In keeping with Banz's research, the fund would own all the stocks that made up the smallest two deciles, measured by market capitalization, of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange. (The name, the 9-10 fund, derives from the two deciles.) True efficient-market believers, Sinquefield and Booth made no effort to ... |
One of DFA's first moves was to recruit Fama, Miller, Scholes, and Ibbotson as advisers. Fama was delighted with the idea of a fund based on his principles. "In class he kept telling us that the efficient-market theory was the most practical thing we'd ever learn," recalls Booth. "I think Rex and I were the only people... |
At first things went splendidly. From July 1982 to mid-1983, DFA's small-cap fund gained nearly 100%, and pension funds rushed to sign up. Then Sinquefield and Booth experienced a corollary of Banz's research: When small stocks fall, they fall harder than big ones. From 1984 to 1990, small caps went through the worst s... |
What saved DFA during this period was that Sinquefield and Booth had not overpromised when selling the fund. They never told clients that small stocks would outpace big ones in any given period, even one lasting seven years. They did pledge that DFA would beat most competing small-cap funds, saddled as they were by hig... |
Then as now, DFA owed much of its outperformance to a fierce attention to costs. After all, in an efficient market, costs are the one thing you can control. In addition to charging low management fees, DFA gains on the competition by sharp trading. Part of its advantage is size: As the nation's largest market maker in ... |
While the 9-10 fund remained a moderate success, it took another breakthrough by Fama to really push DFA into the big time. The study, conducted with Kenneth French, then of Yale, confirmed Banz's small-stock effect but also showed convincingly that the lower the company's ratio of price to book value, the higher its s... |
What makes the numbers so dramatic is that growth stocks--the Coca-Colas and Gillettes--are inevitably the most highly regarded issues, with the most predictable earnings streams. The only problem is that you have to pay for that reliability. That leaves less room for future appreciation. Value stocks, by contrast, hav... |
DFA was quick to launch a small- and a large-cap value fund based on Fama and French's research. The funds buy only stocks that fall into low price-to-book deciles, and they make no attempt to distinguish "better" value stocks from worse ones. Partly on the strength of Fama's research, the two funds have proved enormou... |
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