Congress has approved an extended payroll tax holiday. One of the ways it will be paid for is through federal auctions of sections of the broadcast spectrum to wireless companies. But consumers are not likely to see the benefits for years.

Benchmark US light crude rose by $1.67 to $105.27 a barrel and Brent crude futures rose 44 cents to $120.49.

It marks the second day in a row of rises after Iran announced on Sunday oil export bans on the UK and France.

The European Union banned Iran's oil imports from 1 July over fears it is developing nuclear weapons.

The EU wants to stem Iran's oil revenues as part of sanctions which will restrict its ambitions to develop a nuclear capability.

However Tehran has dismissed the claims, insisting that it is using its nuclear plans to produce electricity.

Although Iran exports almost no oil supplies to the UK and France, it is retaliating against the planned sanctions and is expected to extend the ban to other European states who buy more of its oil.

Ian Taylor, chief executive of the world's largest oil trader Vitol, said a decline in the value of the euro against the US dollar had also raised the cost of oil sales to EU countries.

"The Iranians now want the price as high as possible as they've got less volumes to sell," he said.

"I reckon they are probably quite close to winning based on the numbers. The politicians are all avoiding the subject at the moment but… oil is extremely expensive, especially in euros."

He added that a price fall was unlikely. "My problem is I can't see what will bring it down… I just can't see enough pressure points to the downside."

The BlackBerry Porsche Design, also affectionately known as the P9981, is one such device which brings the power and performance of a BlackBerry with the design and elegance of a Porsche. Despite maintaining the same form factor as most other BlackBerry devices — screen and keyboard of the front — the P9981 is a considerable shift in design by the Canadian manufacturer.

The internals are identical to the Bold 9900 and feature a 1.2GHz processor, 768MB RAM, BlackBerry OS7, GPS, NFC, a 5-megapixel camera and a gorgeous 2.8 touch-enabled screen that has a resolution of 640×480. As a result, in terms of performance and battery life, the P9981 is identical to the Bold 9900 as well.

But what is not like the Bold 9900 is the design. To say the P9981 is an eye-catcher would be an understatement. The device is built around a stainless-steel frame with the front featuring a tan/earthy gold colouring. The keys are more defined and edgy, which makes the typing experience different from that on the Bold 9900, but it doesn’t take long to get used to. The back is all real leather, which in addition to giving a strong grip, adds to the luxury feel of the phone.

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Get used to it. Baseball, with its expanded postseason (which will expand again), surge in local television money and ease of movement in assets (players, executives, information, etc.), has a higher churn rate than ever. Expect the unexpected.

Musial never left St. Louis and Robin Yount never left Milwaukee, but Albert Pujols said goodbye to the Cardinals and Prince Fielder departed the Brewers — and neither of them wound up in the Philadelphia-New York-Boston corridor that has become the financial power base of the sport.

Likewise, the Phillies, Yankees and Red Sox can’t claim one of the three most intriguing newcomers, either, with pitcher Yu Darvish signing with Texas and outfielder Yoenis Cespedes with Oakland and teenaged outfielder Bryce Harper arriving with Washington.

I can’t remember another spring with more change and uncertainty on the table. The upside is greater competition for playoff spots — or at least the appearance of it — and greater star power. A year or two ago I wondered what had happened to the true drawing card ballplayer. The game lacked big personalities. But now the Nationals have two of them — Harper and Stephen Strasburg, who has the kind of stuff, if not the personality, to be a sensation — Pujols is an even bigger star for having changed teams, and Darvish might be an international sensation.

Change even has created stars who don’t actually play, including quotable managers Ozzie Guillen of Miami and Bobby Valentine of Boston, and president Theo Epstein of the Cubs. And who knew when we would see a season in which the Marlins, playing in a new ballpark, and the Nationals are compelling contenders and the Cardinals would not have Tony La Russa in the dugout?

One season used to blend into the next, like episodes of a TV serial. Now the change is head-snapping abrupt. Pitchers need six weeks of training to get their arms in shape; the rest of us need the entire time to get our minds around all the change. To assist you, here is my Ultimate Fan’s Guide to Spring Training, a 12-for-’12 rundown of the major spring storylines about to unfold in Arizona and Florida.

1. The spotlight stays on Pujols and Fielder.

Yes, they have been star players for years, so they have played under scrutiny and expectations before. But this is different. Ask Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth, Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Hampton, etc. what it’s like when you change teams by going to the highest bidder. You get too much attention and too much analysis. The responsibility grows without any goodwill reserve in the bank; you have to start a new account under your new fans. On top of all that, they are changing leagues (admittedly, not as a big a deal as it used to be). The room suddenly becomes very crowded.

2. Try to identify this year’s turnaround team.

It happened again last year for the sixth straight season and the 16th time in the 17 years since the last postseason expansion: a team made the postseason the year immediately after a losing record. Actually, two teams pulled off the losers-to-playoffs turnaround — the Diamondbacks and Brewers — making it 33 such turnaround stories in 17 years, or about one out of every four playoff teams.

Which 2011 loser will wind up in the 2012 postseason? Rule out the Orioles, Athletics, Mariners, Mets, Pirates, Cubs and Astros for various reasons and you are left with nine possibilities. The most likely? In order: Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Rockies, Indians and Royals. The Royals? Now that is upheaval.

3. Keep an eye (like everyone else) on Harper.

The Nationals outfielder is the most fascinating player in camp yet to make his big league debut. Washington would prefer Harper to start the season in Triple-A in keeping with their original blueprint to have him touch every minor league level. But some players are just too good for those kinds of conservative plans, and Harper may be one of the special ones to accelerate the timetable. Think Dwight Gooden with the 1984 Mets, Ken Griffey Jr. with the 1989 Mariners, Albert Pujols with the 2001 Cardinals and Jason Heyward with the 2010 Braves, all of whom forced their way onto Opening Day rosters with big springs.

The next generation of stars is standing by. In addition to Harper, Angels outfielder Mike Trout, 20, Braves pitcher Julio Teheran, 21, Rays pitcher Matt Moore, 22, Mariners DH Jesus Montero, 22, and Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado, 22, are among the most exciting young players in baseball who could quickly catapult to stardom.

4. Don’t buy the Cespedes hype just yet.

The A’s handed $36 million to a guy who hasn’t seen major league pitching, lost his job on the Cuban national team to Leonys Martin and may or may not be a legit centerfielder. (It’s hard to imagine he is a good enough centerfielder to push Coco Crisp to a corner.) Cespedes has received so much hype because he is impressive in workouts and has this element of mystery because he left Cuba. One executive compared him to Marlon Byrd — not exactly your franchise player

Cespedes, 26, is a free swinger with power, so you can expect many strikeouts this spring as well as a couple of jaw-dropping home runs in the light air of Arizona. (But wait until he sees the ballpark in Oakland.) Cespedes is going to need some time, perhaps even a bit in the minors.

5. The quality of the next free agent class will be determined now.

The best players who might be on the market come November are Josh Hamilton of Texas, Cole Hamels of Philadelphia, Matt Cain of San Francisco and Zack Greinke of Milwaukee. The time is now for their clubs to lock them up with extensions. Otherwise, as Pujols reminded us last year, the closer a star gets to the free agent process the closer he is to walking out the door.

6. The balance of power remains shifted toward the AL.

Of the six most expensive signings this winter, five of them were by AL teams: Pujols by the Angels, Fielder by the Tigers, CC Sabathia by the Yankees, C.J. Wilson by the Angels and Darvish by the Rangers. (Jose Reyes by the Marlins is the NL exception.)

The Rangers and Angels are waging a Yankees-Red Sox kind of warfare when it comes to spending money and competing for a division title. The Tigers made the kind of impulsive vanity buy — $214 million for Fielder only after Victor Martinez wrecked his knee — typically associated with New York and Boston.

The AL is more top-heavy; the NL is more unpredictable and has more parity. Let’s hope commissioner Bud Selig, with 14 days before the deadline, can secure the expanded postseason for this year to bring more teams into play. And let’s just say that more quality teams in the AL have been left out of postseason play over the years than have NL teams. Here is a quick rundown of teams that won 90 games over the past 10 years:

7. Get ready for a ton of stories to come out of the manager’s office regarding Red Sox and Marlins coverage.

In Valentine and Guillen, Boston and Miami hired veteran managers with strong personalities who not only can be blunt, but also are skillful at sending messages and defining narratives through the media. Though the Red Sox don’t have an everyday shortstop and have to live down the great chicken-and-beer September fest of 2011, and the Marlins need to convert Hanley Ramirez to third base and keep Josh Johnson healthy, the personality of those teams will be defined by the managers.

8. Pay no attention to spring training results.

The Cardinals and Rangers played losing baseball in spring training last year and wound up in the World Series. Four of the top five teams last year as ranked by spring training winning percentage didn’t sniff the playoffs: the Royals, Giants, Rockies and Twins, the champions of the Grapefruit League who turned out to be awful.

9. The Rockies think age is the new market inefficiency.

Colorado added Michael Cuddyer, 32, Jeremy Guthrie, 32, Mark Ellis, 34, Ramon Hernandez, 35, Marco Scutaro, 35, Casey Blake, 37, and Jamie Moyer, 49, to a roster that includes Todd Helton, 37, and Jason Giambi, 40.

The NL West, with its bigger ballparks and comparable payrolls, for years has been a free-for-all. Three different teams have won the division in the past three years (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Arizona) and a fourth (San Diego) won it six years ago. The Rockies? They never have finished in first place. This is their 20th season. Well, this winter they did win this: they handed out the biggest free agent contract in the division — $31.5 million to Cuddyer.

10. Pray for the good health of your favorite team’s rotation.

We can talk all we want about tweaking a team around the edges, finding the perfect batting order, building a deep bullpen, having "character" guys in the clubhouse, mining advanced metrics or extracting good mojo from a uniform redesign, but nothing is more important to a championship season than having your top five starters take the ball as many times as possible. It really is that simple.

Over the past four seasons, 11 teams have had four starters make at least 30 starts. Ten of those teams made the playoffs, including six that wound up in the World Series — that’s 75 percent of pennant winners from 2008-11. Here are the teams with four pitchers to make 30 starts since 2008:

11. Try to find the next Lance Berkman.

Everybody loves comebacks, and this spring is full of possibilities. Wainwright, Josh Johnson of the Marlins, Clay Buchholz of the Red Sox, Tommy Hanson of the Braves and Johan Santana of the Mets all are important pitchers looking for a healthy spring.

Catcher Buster Posey of the Giants (broken leg) and outfielder Jason Heyward of the Braves (.227 average) are battling for the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award just two years after they finished 1-2 in NL Rookie of the Year voting.

Neftali Feliz (as a starter) will try to bounce back from blowing World Series Game 6, in which he needed only one strike to bring Texas its first championship. Manny Ramirez (currently unemployed) is trying to come back from a second drug penalty. Ichiro Suzuki, at age 38, is trying to come back from hitting .272. Crawford, recovering from wrist surgery and an awful debut season in Boston, still is mending. The comebacks of pitchers we used to know as Leo Nuñez and Fausto Carmona will occur, if at all, under their actual names.

Then there is poor Adam Dunn of the White Sox, trying to come back from one of the worst years in history (.159).

12. Always remember this: it’s a very, very long season.

The 2010 Giants were six games out of the playoffs as late as Aug. 28. The 2011 Cardinals were 10 ½ games out of the playoffs as late as Aug. 24. Both teams became World Series champions.

Don’t like the way your team looks this spring? Think your club needs another starter, a better closer or another bat? No problem. World championship teams can be made on the fly, not in the winter. Five of the 24 players St. Louis used in the World Series were in other organizations at the All-Star break. The Cardinals took an eraser to their spring plans to use Ryan Theriot at shortstop, Colby Rasmus in centerfield and Franklin as the closer. The changes, they proved, just keep on coming.

In a victory for the White House, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed an extension of the payroll tax cut on Friday after weeks of refusal. Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about the political reasoning behind the vote ref.

It will offer one-year tax-free securities valued at $500 million (Dh1,836 million) tomorrow, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. It raised $3.5 billion at auctions of similar-maturity bills starting in November at an average yield of about 3.9 per cent.

Egypt will sign an agreement with the IMF for a $3.2 billion loan in March, state-owned Al Ahram reported yesterday, citing Finance Minister Momtaz Al Saeed. Egypt needs to secure money from the fund as part of its drive to meet financing needs of about $11 billion by June 2013, he said February 10. The government is seeking parliament’s approval of the loan before signing the agreement.

"These dollar T-bill sales are attracting local banks for the most part because foreign investors want higher yields," Mustafa Assal, head of fixed income at Cairo-based Beltone Financial Holding, said by telephone. "They are a short-term alternative to financing their needs but the locals will start demanding higher yields soon, so Egypt is running out of time."

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The Academy Awards event is a big night for people in the MENA region, with a whopping 87% planning to tune in online or on TV to watch the Oscars, according to the latest survey in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by Yahoo! Maktoob Research. Whilst the majority says interest stems from a love of movies, 39% hope to spot their favorite stars and 23% are taking note of the latest red carpet fashions. Amidst mounting anticipation for the Academy Awards’ ceremony on Sunday 26th February, Yahoo! Maktoob has launched the ultimate Oscars destination to satisfy the region’s appetite for gossip, news, photos, videos and interviews.

“There is keen interest in the Oscars in our region, and as the premier digital media company, we are ensuring that we provide the most compelling and relevant content on all the big events throughout the year. We package it in a way that keeps people entertained and informed, while enabling them to engage and share,” said Hosam El Sokkari, Head of Audience, Yahoo! Middle East.

Big plans for Oscar night

Oscars night is providing a highlight in many of the region’s households this week, with six out of ten people busy making plans to watch the awards. 44% will be stocking up on the traditional popcorn and diets are put to one side, as people also opt for candy and fast food to accompany movies’ biggest night.

Predicting the winners

In this week’s countdown to the ceremony on Sunday, 51% of those surveyed in MENA will be keeping up with nominations and 53% will cast a vote on who will be taking the trophies. Yahoo! Maktoob’s Oscars destination is providing a printable ballot for people to easily record their predictions, and start a competition with friends and colleagues.

The Yahoo! Maktoob Research survey also asked who is expected to win, and responses predicted the following:

Best Picture – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)

Best Actor – Brad Pitt, in Moneyball

Best Actress – Elizabeth Olsen, in Martha Marcy May Marlene, OR Emma Stone in The Help

Best Animated Feature – Kung Fu Panda

Best Documentary Feature – Paradise Lost 3

Fashion focus on the red carpet

Away from the ceremony itself, 39% will be eagerly watching the red carpet, where Nicole Kidman is a favorite to win the unofficial best dressed accolade this year. And post awards, 56% admit they will be searching online to find out what the critics have to say and taking another look at the fashion trends and who gets named for best and worst fashions.

Available in Arabic and English, the Oscars coverage site on Yahoo! Maktoob offers an array of news, photo and video galleries, reader polls and commentary to inform and entertain. The news and insight continues after the event so that those looking for post-ceremony critique, fashion trends and backstage gossip know where to find it!

The online survey was carried out by Yahoo! Maktoob Research among 2,235 residents of the GCC, Levant and North Africa.

 

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging Americans this January, as part of National Radon Action Month, to take simple and affordable steps to test their homes for harmful levels of radon gas. Radon, a colorless odorless gas, is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Radon can seep into a home from underground and if left to accumulate, high levels of radon can cause lung cancer. Improving indoor air quality by increasing awareness of environmental health risks, such as radon gas, supports healthier homes and communities.

“Testing for radon is an easy and important step in protecting the health of your family,” said Gina McCarthy, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. “Radon can be found in every single state. Nationally, elevated radon levels are in as many as one in 15 homes – a statistic that is even higher in some communities.”

Approximately 21,000 people die from radon related lung cancer each year in the United States, yet elevated levels of this health hazard can be prevented through these simple steps:
· Test: EPA and the U.S. Surgeon General recommend that all homes, both with and without basements, be tested for radon. Affordable Do-It-Yourself radon test kits are available at home improvement and hardware stores and online or a qualified radon tester can be hired.
· Fix: EPA recommends taking action to fix radon levels above 4 Picocuries per Liter (pCi/L). Addressing high radon levels often costs the same as other minor home repairs.
· Save a Life: By testing and fixing for elevated levels of radon in your home, you can help prevent lung cancer while creating a healthier home and community.

Radon is a natural, radioactive gas that comes from the breakdown of uranium in soil, rock and water. It can enter homes through cracks in the foundation or other openings such as holes or pipes. In addition to testing for radon, there now are safer and healthier radon-resistant construction techniques that home buyers can discuss with builders to prevent this health hazard.

In 2011, EPA announced the Federal Radon Action Plan, along with General Services Administration and the Departments of Agriculture; Defense; Energy; Health and Human Services; Housing and Urban Development; Interior; and Veterans Affairs. This action plan will demonstrate the importance of radon risk reduction, address finance and incentive issues to drive testing and mitigation, and build demand for services from industry professionals.

More information on how to Test, Fix, Save a Life, obtain a test kit, or contact your state radon office: http://www.epa.gov/radon or call 1-800-SOS-RADON

More information on the Federal Radon Action Plan: http://www.epa.gov/radon/action_plan.htmlReceive our News Releases Automatically by Email

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Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi met Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan in Beijing on Sunday.

Last month the IMF said it may need to increase lending by $600bn to counter the effects of the eurozone crisis.

However the two countries said members of the regional bloc would also have to do more.

"We agreed that Japan and China will coordinate closely and will jointly respond to the IMF," said Mr Azumi.

"European countries need to do more, although (the situation), including with Greece, is headed in a good direction", he added.

Mr Azumi said the two countries had not discussed the amount of any funding support through the IMF.

Earlier this month Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China was considering increasing its role in providing funds for Europe, but he said authorities were still deciding what form that would take.