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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa expects its budget deficit to widen further than previously thought in the current fiscal year ending in March as disruptions in the mining sector add to already subdued economic growth, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday.

In his three-year budget tabled to parliament, Gordhan said previous deficit estimates for the years to 2015/16 had also had to be raised as revenue collection from companies and individuals is expected to underperform.

Gordhan said the budget deficit for 2013/14 would be 4.6 percent of GDP, a shade lower than 4.7 percent forecast by economists.

Tax revenue for this year is now likely to be 16.3 billion rand below 2012 projections, while 2013/14 and 2014/15 is expected to underperform by 13.2 billion rand and 27.8 billion rand respectively.

"This underperformance began in August 2012 with the outcome in the second half of the year 5.7 percent lower than in the first half, owing to mining sector disputes and sluggish employment growth," the budget said.

Unrest in South Africa's platinum belt left more 50 people dead last year, and is estimated to have cost the economy $1.1 billion. Miners stayed away from work and went on strikes without pay.

Combined with the chronic joblessness limiting South Africa's tax base, Gordhan forecast the 2014/15 deficit at 3.9 percent.

The public sector borrowing requirement increases to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2012/13, from 7.1 percent projected last year, while the primary balance on the main budget - the gap between revenue and non-interest spending - is seen at 3 percent this year, narrowing to 0.9 percent in 2015/16.

Gordhan said expenditure would not increase, as announced in October. The government is drawing down on its contingency reserve while departments are trimming their spending projections on some projects, he said.

"With economic growth weaker than anticipated and revenue collections below projection, the fiscal environment is more constrained than before," he told parliament.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africa-2013-budget-deficit-seen-4-6-pct-131839561--business.html

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WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (AP) ? Police in suburban Denver are investigating a break-in at the gun shop featured on Discovery Channel's "American Guns."

Wheat Ridge police were notified of a silent alarm at the Gunsmoke Gun Shop just before 4:15 a.m. Wednesday. When they arrived, they found that the shop had been entered through a hole in the roof.

Police say a witness across the street reported seeing a silver two-door car leaving the gun shop's parking lot, shortly after the silent alarm was received.

Police say it appears more than one person may have been involved in the burglary. Investigators had no suspect descriptions Wednesday afternoon, and an inventory of stolen property was not yet complete.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives is assisting local investigators.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-27-Gun%20Shop%20Burglary/id-73a6b454fa0c4beeb2188bf4b7d86538

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Click here to read The World's Smallest Arm Chip Is Going To Be Inside You

Manufactured by Freescale, this chunk of silicon claims to be the world's smallest ARM-powered chip. Measuring just 2 x 2 x 0.5 millimeters, it's so small that it will likely end up inside... you. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/FuYthJ6JnS8/the-worlds-smallest-arm-chip-is-going-to-be-inside-you

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Google's Nexus One has dreamt of space travel for a while now, but on Monday it was finally launched into orbit aboard a CubeSat dubbed STRaND-1, which was developed by Surrey Satellite Technology and the University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre. STRaND-1 now holds the honor of being the first PhoneSat and UK CubeSat that has made it into orbit. Alongside the HTC-made handset are an altitude and orbit control system, two propulsion setups and a Linux-based computer with a "high-speed" processor. After the Tux-friendly rig conducts a battery of tests, it'll relinquish control of much of the satellite's functions to the smartphone, which still runs Android.

Not only will the mission test how commercial, off-the-shelf tech can survive in the vacuum and conduct experiments, but it'll squeeze in some fun courtesy of apps developed by winners of a competition held last year. An app called 360 will let folks back on terra firma request their own snapshots of earth taken with the phone's shooter and pin them to a map. Ridley Scott might like to say no one can hear you scream in space, but another application loaded onto the device will put that to the test by playing user-submitted shrieks and recording them with the handset's microphone as they playback. Hit the break for more details and a brief video overview of the satellite, or jab the more coverage links to partake in the app shenanigans.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: CNET

Source: Surrey Satellite Technology LTD

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/26/google-nexus-one-launched-into-space-cubesat-phonesat-strand-1/

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012.

The corrected numbers ? from the original reports of a 7 percent decline to one of no change ? could undercut the narrative promoted by the international coalition and the Obama administration of an insurgency in steep decline.

A coalition spokesman, Jamie Graybeal, attributed the miscounting to clerical errors and said the problem does not change officials' basic assessment of the war.

The 7 percent figure had been included in a report posted on the coalition's website in late January as part of its monthly update on trends in security and violence. It was removed from the website recently without explanation. After The Associated Press asked last week about the missing report, coalition officials said they were correcting the data and would re-publish the report in coming days.

U.S. and allied officials have often cited declining violence as a sign that the Taliban has been degraded and that Afghan forces are in position to take the lead security role when the last U.S. combat troops leave Dec. 31, 2014.

[Related: America's homegrown terrorists]

In mid-December, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said "violence is down," in 2012, and that Afghan forces "have gotten much better at providing security" in areas where they have taken the lead role. He said the Taliban can be expected to continue to attack, "but overall they are losing."

On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman George Little said Panetta was "concerned to learn of the errors" and was only very recently briefed on the matter.

"This particular set of metrics doesn't tell the full story of progress against the Taliban, of course, but it's unhelpful to have inaccurate information in our systems," Little said.

The Taliban have lost a good deal of territory since a 2010 surge of U.S. forces in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, and they failed to recover it during the last two fighting seasons. Even so, they are resilient, and they are expected to severely test Afghan forces as the U.S. and its coalition partners step further into the background this year and complete their combat mission next year.

Graybeal did not fully explain ISAF's erroneous reporting of 2012 Taliban attacks. It was not clear, for example, at what point the data errors began or who discovered them.

[Related: U.S. troops engaged in 'torture' and murder?]

"During a quality control check, ISAF recently became aware that some data was incorrectly entered into the database that is used for tracking security-related incidents across Afghanistan," Graybeal said from Kabul, speaking for the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF.

Graybeal said an audit determined that portions of the data from unilateral Afghan military operations were "not properly reflected" in the trends ISAF had reported in its monthly updates.

"After including this unilateral ANSF (Afghan National Security Force) data into our database, we have determined that there was no change in the total number of EIAs (enemy initiated attacks) from 2011 to 2012," Graybeal said.

"This was a record-keeping error that we recognized and have now corrected," he added.

The coalition defines enemy initiated attacks as attacks by small arms, mortars, rockets and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But it does not include IEDs that are found and cleared before they explode.

Trends in Taliban attacks are one yardstick used by ISAF to measure war progress. Others include the state of security in populated areas, the number of coalition and Afghan casualties, the degree to which civilians can move about freely, and the performance of Afghan security forces.

Graybeal said even though the number of 2012 Taliban attacks was unchanged from 2011, "our assessment of the fundamentals of campaign progress has not changed. The enemy is increasingly separated from the population and the ANSF are currently in the lead for the vast majority of partnered operations."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-newsbreak-drop-taliban-attacks-incorrect-121946153--politics.html

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FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 file photo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, center, waves to supporters after attending Friday prayers at the Hassan Sharbatli mosque on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. Morsi, in a rambling 2.15-hour TV interview that aired in the early hours of Monday, Feb, 25, 2013, dismissed the masses protesting against his rule across much of the nation as "thugs" and "outlaws." (AP Photo/Ahmed Abd El Latif, Shorouk newspaper, File) EGYPT OUT

FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013 file photo, the President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, addresses the media during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, unseen, after a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday. Morsi, in a rambling 2.15-hour TV interview that aired in the early hours of Monday, Feb, 25, 2013, dismissed the masses protesting against his rule across much of the nation as "thugs" and "outlaws." (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)

CAIRO (AP) ? During a more than 2-hour television interview, Egypt's Islamist president sought to depict himself as a man of the people, his voice rising and tears welling in his eyes as he spoke of the country's poor and portrayed the masses protesting against his rule as "thugs" and "outlaws."

The long interview, aired after midnight in the early hours Monday, appeared to be a push by Mohammed Morsi to burnish his image amid widespread unrest ahead of parliamentary elections that begin in April.

But it illustrated the dynamic that has characterized Egypt's politics throughout political turmoil that has shaken the country for months. The Morsi administration, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, has pushed ahead offering no concessions to the opposition but has also presented little by way of a program to resolve the country's mounting troubles. A disorganized opposition has been unable to find a foothold to pressure the president or provide an alternative, while street protests grow angrier.

Critics on Monday denounced Morsi's comments as mere bluster and, worse, as reminiscent of the rhetoric of his autocratic predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. Morsi's depiction of the protesters as criminals will likely only deepen the hostility in the already dangerously polarized nation.

"I am no longer optimistic about this presidency and I fear the days ahead because the anger is rising," prominent activist and rights lawyer Gamal Eid said of the interview. "We now have a presidency that does not listen, an opposition that is in tatters and, more importantly, a bloc of angry youth who are out of control."

Egypt has been mired in unrest for months, with protests over a wide range of issues, from demanding justice for slain protesters to anger over price hikes and fuel shortages.

Amid the instability, Egypt's economy has been in an unchecked decline. Economic reforms that Morsi is quietly, gradually taking ? including reducing subsidies on fuel and other items ? are likely to only stoke further protests.

In his interview, Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, gave no outlines for his economic plans or for bringing security amid increasing lawlessness. Instead, he sought to come across as a firm pair of hands, an uncompromising patriot and a compassionate leader in touch with his people.

"I will not allow anyone to harm the march of the revolution," Morsi said, referring to the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011. "Egyptians must be assured that I don't sleep and that I am keeping an eye on anyone who tries to resist the revolution," he said, raising his voice.

"I love Egypt very, very, very much," he said emotionally. "I feel the people with my entire being ... I live their suffering and feel for them."

Referring to a general strike in the Mediterranean city of Port Said that has entered its second week, Morsi said, "these are acts of thuggery and violence ... There is no place for thugs and no place for outlaws."

He suggested protesters were paid to take to the streets ? though he didn't say by whom. He said he had heard of a 13-year-old boy whose mother was given 600 Egyptian pounds ? a little under $100 ? to send him to a protest so he could throw firebombs. The mother, Morsi said, sent the son with his birth certificate in his pocket so he could be identified if he were killed.

Appearing to hold back tears, Morsi said he "wept profusely" when he heard the story. "I will never allow anyone to so cheaply take advantage of the needs of the Egyptian people."

For the political leadership of the mainly secular and liberal opposition, Morsi repeated his calls for them to join his national dialogue ? a new session of which is to be held to discuss how to ensure the integrity of the parliamentary elections. Most opposition have rejected his past calls to dialogue as empty gestures.

"It is all useless talk," said prominent democracy campaigner George Ishaq on the independent ONTV network.

Already, most opposition parties said they would boycott the vote on the grounds that the country could be mired deeper in unrest and violence if the vote was to go ahead without first tackling the issues at the root of the instability.

Political analyst Ammar Ali Hassan said Morsi seemed to be taking the same dismissive attitude toward the opposition that Mubarak did. "He takes his opponents lightly. It shows him to be arrogant and also raises questions on whether he sincerely believes in the peaceful transfer of power," said Hassan.

Morsi's interview, recorded on Sunday, was also marred by a long delay. It had been scheduled to air at 8 p.m. on the private state El-Mehwar, but it wasn't broadcast until 1:30 a.m. on Monday, well after the bedtime of most of Egypt's 85 million people. The station gave no explanation for the 5 ? -hour delay, fueling speculation in the press that Brotherhood leaders wanted to view it first.

Also in the style of interviews of Mubarak during his rule, the tone of the interview was decidedly soft-ball. The interviewer, TV celebrity Amr el-Leithi, asked few follow-up questions or challenge Morsi's responses. At times, he seemed to prompt Morsi to show his common-man principles, noting that the president continues to live in a rented apartment rather than move into the opulent presidential palace and pointing to Morsi's "limited income" in his former position as an engineering lecturer at a provincial university.

"This is where I work," Morsi said with a smile of the palace.

Morsi dismissed calls by protesters that he step down, pointing to what he called his popular mandate ? he won with just under 52 percent of the vote in last year's presidential election ? and to the adoption of the constitution supported by his Islamist allies, which was passed in a national referendum with 64 percent of the vote ? though turnout was only 32 percent.

"Impossible," he said, moving forward in his arm chair when he was asked whether he ever thought of stepping down. "I have a mandate for a massive task. I am continuing on this path until its end and I have a popular and constitutional mandate for four years."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-25-Egypt-Morsi's%20Image/id-4c9c51c484b043f8b46265d7de9beb0c

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jacintolopez · Feb. 25, 2013

Feb. 25, 2013 ? Non-volatile bistable memory circuits being developed by Satoshi Sugahara and his team at Tokyo Tech pave the way for highly energy-efficient CMOS logic systems. The details are described in the February 2013 issue of Tokyo Institute of Technology Bulletin.

Developments in low power, high performance CMOS logic technology are vital to the future of microprocessors and system-on-chip (SoC) devices for personal computers, servers, and mobile/smart phones. Much of the processing in these computing systems is carried out using a volatile hierarchical memory system in which bistable circuits such as static random access memory (SRAM) and flip-flop (FF) play an essential role for fast data-access. However, the power to these bistable circuits cannot be switched off without losing their data. This inability to turn off power is a fundamental problem for energy consumption in CMOS logic systems.

The method for saving energy in CMOS logic systems, called power-gating, uses architecture to cut the supply voltage to idle circuit domains, effectively putting them to power shut-off state to avoid leakage and thereby save static energy.

Satoshi Sugahara and his team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have proposed a new architecture of power-gating using non-volatile SRAM (NV-SRAM) and non-volatile FF (NV-FF) circuits, called non-volatile power-gating, so that the size of logic circuit domains for power-gating is optimally designed, supply voltages to the domains are cut at the optimum times, and the energy cost of the logic circuits is worthwhile.

Over the past few years, Sugahara and his team have been developing non-volatile bistable memory circuits (NV-SRAM and NV-FF) required to establish non-volatile power-gating systems with better overall performance and energy efficiency than conventional power-gating systems [1]. In particular, the researchers have built pseudo-spin metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (PS-MOSFETs) for use in the non-volatile bistable memory circuits.

The PS-MOSFET can be configured with an ordinary MOSFET coupled with a spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction (STT-MTJ), and it can reproduce the functions of spin-transistors -- in which different electrons spin states or magnetization configurations of the ferromagnetic electrodes are used to control transistor output1. Spin transistors can also store non-volatile information1. In a typical bistable memory circuit, an inverter loop consisting of cross-coupling two CMOS gates is used to store each memory bit. In the new non-volatile bistable circuits, PS-MOSFETs are added to the inverter loop.

Previous attempts to build non-volatile bistable circuits with STT-MTJs have resulted in performance degradation, because the STT-MTJs interfere with their fundamental circuits of the inverter loops. To overcome this problem, the team designed NV-SRAM and NV-FF circuits using PS-MOSFETs. In these circuits, the STT-MTJs can be electrically separated from the inverter loops by the PS-MOSFETs and thus have no degradation effects on the bistable circuit performance.

The NV-SRAM and NV-FF circuits built by Sugahara's team have performed well under tests so far, compared to conventional SRAM/FF circuits. They also developed architectures for minimizing break-even time (that is an important performance index of power-gating) of the NV-SRAM and NV-FF circuits, including a 'store-free' shutdown, wherein existing data is not rewritten, thereby dramatically saving energy.

These new transistor and circuit designs could be pivotal in the development of faster, more energy-efficient processing in future CMOS logic systems. Most importantly, as the researchers state in a recent publication2-5, "Proposed architectures have excellent compatibility with present microprocessor/SoC technologies," and "Proposed non-volatile bistable circuits using PS-MOSFETs can dramatically reduce the energy issues caused by static power dissipation in advanced CMOS logic systems"

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Tokyo Institute of Technology, via ResearchSEA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Satoshi Sugahara et al. High performance logic systems for less power. Tokyo Institute of Technology Bulletin., February 2013 [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/7k9H2VUmXU0/130225102139.htm

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FILE - In this Feb. 13, 2013 file photo, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaks during his last news conference as defense secretary. at the Pentagon. The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012. In mid-December, Panetta said "violence is down," in 2012, and that Afghan forces "have gotten much better at providing security" in areas where they have taken the lead role. He said the Taliban can be expected to continue to attack, "but overall they are losing." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

A security official stands guard the scene of a suicide car bomb attack which killed and injured several people at the National Directorate of Security in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb 24, 2013. A series of early morning attacks hit eastern Afghanistan Sunday, with three separate suicide bombings in outlying provinces and a shootout between security forces and a would-be attacker in the capital city of Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

A U.S. soldier, right, photographs the scene where an insurgent was shot to death near an Afghan intelligence office in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. A series of early morning attacks hit eastern Afghanistan Sunday, with three separate suicide bombings in outlying provinces and a shootout between security forces and a would-be attacker in the capital city of Kabul. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

A security official stands guard at the scene of a suicide car bomb attack which killed and injured several people at the National Directorate of Security in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb 24, 2013. A series of early morning attacks hit eastern Afghanistan Sunday, with three separate suicide bombings in outlying provinces and a shootout between security forces and a would-be attacker in the capital city of Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)