Tensions Flare Between China and Japan Over Islands and Shrine

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Kyodo News, via Associated Press

Japanese vessels sailed near a Chinese surveillance ship near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China on Tuesday.

TOKYO Tensions between Japan and its Asian neighbors rose on Tuesday when a large group of Japanese lawmakers paid a symbolically charged visit to a Tokyo war shrine, while Chinese paramilitary ships and a flotilla of boats carrying Japanese nationalists appeared to converge on disputed islands.

The group of 168 mostly low-ranking conservative lawmakers visited the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo in what local news media described as the largest mass visit by Parliament members in recent memory. The shrine of the indigenous Shinto religion honors Japans war dead, including several who were executed as war criminals after World War II. This has made Yasukuni, and the political leaders who visit it, a target of criticism by China and South Korea, which suffered under Japans early 20th-century empire building.

Last year, a group of 81 lawmakers visited the shrine during the same season, when Yasukuni celebrates a three-day spring festival.

This years mass visit comes at a time when Japans relations with both those neighboring countries have frayed because of disputes over territory and history.

The shrine is viewed by many in China and South Korea as a symbol of how Japan remains unrepentant for its brutal wartime expansion across Asia. For many Japanese nationalists, visits to the shrine appear have become a way of standing up to what they see as the increasingly insistent demands of China, which has usurped their country as the dominant power in Asia.

Analysts said the size of the visit was partly a byproduct of Decembers landslide election victory by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which installed a hawkish prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and an increased number of rightists in Parliament. But they also called it the latest example of how Japanese ultraconservatives have become more vocal in recent years, amid growing unease in Japan over Chinas rising power and its increasingly forceful stance on their long-simmering dispute over the contested islands.

On Tuesday, that dispute appeared to heat up even further when the Japanese Coast Guard reported that eight Chinese patrol ships had entered waters near the islands, the largest number to appear at one time since the dispute flared up last summer. The Coast Guard said the Chinese ships converged from several different directions into waters near the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese.

The Chinese ships appeared at the same time as 10 boats carrying members of a Japanese fringe ultranationalist group also arrived off the islands. The boats were followed by Japanese Coast Guard ships apparently seeking to ensure that they did not attempt a landing, as some nationalists did last summer.

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Tensions Flare Between China and Japan Over Islands and Shrine

Islands, shrine stir up anti-Japanese backlash

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TOKYO Tensions flared between Japan and its Asian neighbours after a group of Japanese legislators visited a shrine, which is seen by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japans past militarism, and Chinese patrol vessels played cat-and-mouse with a flotilla of Japanese nationalists near disputed islands in the East China Sea on Tuesday.

Beijing protested over the voyage by 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists into waters near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

"Regarding the Japanese right-wing activists illegal entry into the waters of the Diaoyu islands that is causing trouble, the Chinese foreign ministry has lodged stern representations with Japan, and has strongly protested," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference.

Japan also protested at what it called an intrusion by eight Chinese patrol vessels into its waters near the uninhabited Japanese-controlled islands, which are near rich fishing grounds and potentially lucrative maritime gas fields.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pressed in parliament to say how Japan would react to a Chinese attempt to land on the tiny islands, said it would be "natural to force them to leave".

But Tokyo appeared keen to avoid a clash between the nationalists flotilla and the Chinese ships. Japans Coast Guard, which had 13 vessels shadowing the boats, urged them to leave and escorted them away.

Last year members of the same group, "Ganbare Nippon" (Stand Firm! Japan), landed on one of the rocky islets and triggered anti-Japanese protests in China, where lingering resentment over Japans wartime aggression has been rekindled in recent days.

China chastised Japan for Tuesdays visits by at least 168 legislators to Tokyos Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 14 leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal along with Japans war dead. The pilgrimage came after Mr Abe made an offering and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and two other ministers visited Yasukuni at the weekend.

Homage paid by leading Japanese politicians at the Tokyo shrine typically angers Japans neighbours, who contend that it glorifies wartime aggression.

"Regardless of what method or what identity these Japanese leaders take in visiting Yasukuni Shrine, fundamentally it is intentionally denying Japans militaristic invasionist history," Ms Hua said.

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Islands, shrine stir up anti-Japanese backlash

Chinese and Japanese ships cluster around disputed islands

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Hong Kong (CNN) -- The fragile relationship between China and Japan came under fresh strain Tuesday as ships from both sides crowded into the waters around a disputed group of islands and nearly 170 Japanese lawmakers visited a controversial war memorial.

The Japanese Coast Guard said eight Chinese government ships had entered waters near the contested islands in the East China Sea on Tuesday morning, the largest number to do so at any one time since tensions surrounding the territorial dispute escalated last year. China said its ships were there to monitor the movements of Japanese vessels in the area after a Japanese nationalist group chartered a flotilla of fishing boats to take dozens of activists there.

The Japanese foreign ministry responded by summoning the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo to lodge a strong protest about the Chinese ships' presence near the uninhabited islands that lie between Okinawa and Taiwan and are known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The Chinese ambassador, Cheng Yonghua, retorted that it was the Japanese vessels that were intruding in Chinese territory.

Will radar-rattling turn to conflict?

A day earlier, Beijing had protested to Tokyo about a visit at the weekend by three Japanese cabinet ministers to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japanese people killed while fighting for their country, including convicted war criminals.

Countries that suffered heavily at the hands of the Japanese military before and during World War II, such as China and South Korea, consider the shrine as an emblem of that aggressive period in Japanese history.

But China's representations failed to deter 168 Japanese members of parliament from visiting the shrine on Tuesday to pay their respects to the war dead, the most to do so in recent years.

How a remote rock split China and Japan

New men in charge

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Chinese and Japanese ships cluster around disputed islands

athenahealth Marketplace Brings Shopping to Health Care IT

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WATERTOWN, Mass., April 24, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management and care coordination, today announced the launch of athenahealth Marketplace, a one-stop shop for health care provider organizations and physician practices to browse and select health care IT (HIT) solutions that augment and complement athenahealth's suite of cloud-based services.

Available today, as part of athenahealth Marketplace, are a variety of workflow efficiency and care coordination solutions including technologies from leading HIT vendors Experian Healthcare, InHealth Clinical Documentation Solutions (ICDS), NHXS, iTriage, and Entrada.

At a time when providers are facing compounding pressure to deliver patient care in line with mounting government regulation, changing payment models, decreased budgets, and limited staff, it is increasingly important to arm them with IT that is easily accessible and supports workflows that do not distract from care delivery.

"Caregivers are faced with more burdens today than ever before, and it can be difficult to thrive. Too often, providers are spending time on the wrong types of work; this causes inefficiencies and negatively impacts quality and cost," said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman, athenahealth. "Our marketplace is all about bringing the best HIT solutions to the forefront. Similar to what Amazon.com is for consumers, our platform, with the immense support of our Marketplace partners, will serve as a one-stop 'shop' for high-value HIT solutions."

Added Kyle Armbrester, director, Business Development: "athenahealth Marketplace is central to our strategy to create an open, cloud-based platform that -- with the help of APIs, streamlined connectivity, and a growing list of best-of-breed applications -- can solve the challenges facing health care today. What's more, we're holding our partners to a higher calling by making sure they deliver real value to our clients. We're tracking our partners' effect by measuring changes in revenue, cycle time, impact on patient outcomes, as well as other key metrics that we believe are critical to drive the necessary improvements that health care desperately needs."

The athenahealth Marketplace includes both Technology and Clinical Exchange partners. Technology partners are broken out by category based on function and include companies specializing in transcription, scheduling, personal health records, communications, contract management, and more. Because the exchange of patient information is vital to managing patient populations, connections to labs and vaccine registries across the U.S. will also be available within the Marketplace via Clinical Exchange partners.

All live solutions featured within the athenahealth Marketplace have been pilot-tested across care environments, as part of the athenahealth workflow, and by More Disruption Please (MDP). MDP is athenahealth's business development program aimed at launching a massive surge of disruptive innovation in health care. The MDP advantage is that qualified innovators can gain access to athenahealth's growing cloud-based network of about 40,000 providers. Through the MDP program, athenahealth will continue to introduce new services and accelerate the introduction of high-value innovation via the cloud.

"We are excited that athenahealth is giving providers' choice and making it possible to select a clinical documentation solution based on their workflows and needs," said Dana Heller, executive director, ICDS. "We hear from many doctors that their frustrations over the limitations of EHRs are making them choose to retire earlier rather than later; which may sound crazy but is true. A large part of why we are partnering with athenahealth is because they ask providers what they need to thrive. This opened the doors for us to work together and give providers more choice and flexibility in documenting care. It's a huge step forward for the industry in making HIT work for today's providers."

"Teaming up with athenahealth and making our contract management and analysis solutions available to the nearly 40,000 providers on athenahealth's network is a great opportunity," said Dan Buell, general manager of Experian Healthcare. "We are dedicated to giving providers more visibility into their business operations so they can help ensure accurate reimbursement from third-party payers and make better financial decisions. We are excited to be a part of the Marketplace, because it reduces the time it takes to implement these solutions and get providers up and running."

Those interested in learning more about MDP, partnership opportunities and exploring athenahealth Marketplace, please visit http://www.athenahealth.com/disruption.

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athenahealth Marketplace Brings Shopping to Health Care IT

UMass Memorial Health Care Deploys MedAptus for Technical Charge Capture and Management

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BOSTON, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --MedAptus today announced that UMass Memorial Health Care is rolling-out the company's Technical Charge Capture (Tech) software. Tech, currently live in the departments of rheumatology and oncology at UMass Memorial Medical Center, helps to standardize the outpatient facility billing process by automating charge creation and operational management across the ambulatory care team.

UMass Memorial Health Care is the largest health care system in central and western Massachusetts, and the clinical partner of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The five-hospital system employs 12,530 individuals and has approximately 1,700 affiliated physicians.

With 1.4 million annual outpatient visits, UMass Memorial Health Care required a technical coding and billing process that was simple for clinicians to manage, effective for compliance and also promoted payment timeliness. This is why the organization sought a proven technology solution. Given that the MedAptus Tech product was created expressly for large outpatient hospitals eager to eliminate manual entry and reconciliation processes whilst leveraging existing system investments, the fit with UMass Memorial's needs was a good one.

"With more services shifting from the inpatient arena to the ambulatory environment, it is imperative for organizations such as ours to be efficient and effective in our billing operations. Clinical and administrative staff alike have adopted MedAptus because it simplifies technical coding of both procedure and E&M levels, and in a fashion that applies professional charge components for full compliance and streamlined workflows," said George Brenckle, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, UMass Memorial Health Care. "The deployment of MedAptus at our pilot departments has been successful and we are now gearing up for an enterprise roll-out to 100 other areas."

MedAptus Tech is populated by two inbound data feeds at UMass Memorial the first interface brings over appointment data and the second feed brings in professional charges as generated by the organization's Allscripts EMR. Once the latter data enters MedAptus Tech, the patented software translates the interfaced professional charge data into a facility component, greatly simplifying the process of split-billing for UMass Memorial. For procedural-only visits such as vaccinations, those are entered directly into MedAptus Tech since those visits have no corresponding professional component.

"The implementation of our Tech solution at UMass Memorial has been an exciting project for MedAptus. We have enjoyed the opportunity to help a very large institution, in our backyard no less, improve upon manual processes that otherwise would require significant, and increasing, administrative resources. With ICD-10 quickly approaching, the timing could not be better for UMass Memorial to fully deploy our software and eliminate paper from the outpatient coding workflow. As more and more outpatient centers convert to "provider-based" status we expect the Tech integration model deployed at UMass Memorial will intrigue other large groups looking to make improvements to how they execute split-billing," said Jeffrey Pagnini, MedAptus Vice President of Account Management.

About MedAptus

MedAptus is the Gold Standard in the healthcare revenue cycle for achieving effective charge management, compliance and workflow efficiency. With offerings that include powerful and easy-to-use charge capture and management technologies, it is no wonder that many of the nation's most prestigious healthcare organizations rely on MedAptus for financial optimization. Our full-scale Professional, Technical and Infusion applications increase revenue, enhance EMR investments, re-engineer manual processes and yield substantially improved productivity. For more information, visit http://www.medaptus.comor call 617.896.4000.

MedAptus Contact: Jennifer Crowley p. 617.896.4030 Email

This press release was issued through eReleases Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

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UMass Memorial Health Care Deploys MedAptus for Technical Charge Capture and Management

Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill – NBC40.net

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By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - An effort by House Republicans to highlight problems with President Barack Obama's health care law by bailing out a program for people with pre-existing medical conditions appeared to backfire Wednesday.

GOP leaders postponed a scheduled vote after the measure met strong opposition from two directions: from conservative groups resistant to any federal role in health care and from Democrats who objected that the Republicans planned to pay for the high-risk patient program by raiding a disease prevention provision the administration says is essential to the overhaul.

The legislation, a departure from the usual GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Health Care Act outright, also faced a White House veto threat.

Erica Elliott, spokeswoman for Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, said in a statement, "We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress" on the bill. But she said there was "still work to do," and with members leaving for the Bush Presidential Library dedication, "we'll continue the conversations" when the House returns in May after a recess next week.

The GOP bill would provide up to $3.6 billion to shore up the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, or PCIP, which is intended to be a stopgap measure for uninsured high-risk patients until the end of this year, when full consumer protections under the health care act go into effect.

Under the plan, those who have been uninsured for six months would be subsidized so they could buy insurance at average rates. The original goal was for the plan to reach more than 300,000 before it disappeared at the end of this year, but the program's costs were higher than anticipated and it enrolled slightly more than 100,000 before the administration announced in February that it would stop taking new applications.

Republicans, who in the past session of Congress tried several dozen times to dismantle what they call Obamacare, sought to use their new "Helping Sick Americans Now Act" to point out defects in the pre-existing conditions program.

Their bill, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, is a "needed piece of relief for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who were promised by their president that they would be covered under the Affordable Care Act's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan and then were told as of Feb. 1 of this year, 'Sorry, we're closed.'"

The money for the plan would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a provision of the health care law that Republicans have assailed as a slush fund for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Republicans are also critical of the use of some $300 million from that fund to publicize the new health insurance markets coming this fall under the health care law.

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Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill - NBC40.net

Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill

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WASHINGTON (AP) An effort by House Republicans to highlight problems with President Barack Obamas health care law by bailing out a program for people with pre-existing medical conditions appeared to backfire Wednesday.

GOP leaders postponed a scheduled vote after the measure met strong opposition from two directions: from conservative groups resistant to any federal role in health care and from Democrats who objected that the Republicans planned to pay for the high-risk patient program by raiding a disease prevention provision the administration says is essential to the overhaul.

The legislation, a departure from the usual GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Health Care Act outright, also faced a White House veto threat.

Erica Elliott, spokeswoman for Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, said in a statement, We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress on the bill. But she said there was still work to do, and with members leaving for the Bush Presidential Library dedication, we'll continue the conversations when the House returns in May after a recess next week.

The GOP bill would provide up to $3.6 billion to shore up the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, or PCIP, which is intended to be a stopgap measure for uninsured high-risk patients until the end of this year, when full consumer protections under the health care act go into effect.

Under the plan, those who have been uninsured for six months would be subsidized so they could buy insurance at average rates. The original goal was for the plan to reach more than 300,000 before it disappeared at the end of this year, but the programs costs were higher than anticipated and it enrolled slightly more than 100,000 before the administration announced in February that it would stop taking new applications.

Republicans, who in the past session of Congress tried several dozen times to dismantle what they call Obamacare, sought to use their new Helping Sick Americans Now Act to point out defects in the pre-existing conditions program.

Their bill, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, is a needed piece of relief for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who were promised by their president that they would be covered under the Affordable Care Acts Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan and then were told as of Feb. 1 of this year, Sorry, were closed.'

The money for the plan would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a provision of the health care law that Republicans have assailed as a slush fund for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Republicans are also critical of the use of some $300 million from that fund to publicize the new health insurance markets coming this fall under the health care law.

We want to stop Obamacare and thats why were going to the fund, the slush fund, that Secretary Sebelius is using for the implementation of the bill, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.

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Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill

Gene Therapy Used in Dogs to Treat Type 1 Diabetes

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ALEXANDRIA, VA--(Marketwired - Apr 23, 2013) - In a major advance in the use of gene therapy for treating type 1 diabetes, researchers have shown that this approach can provide beneficial therapeutic effects in dogs for up to four years, without causing hypoglycemia, according to a study published in the May issue of the journal Diabetes.

Researchers from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, led by Dr. Fatima Bosch, had previously shown positive effects using gene therapy to regulate glycemic control in mice. This study was the first to show long-term beneficial effects in large animals (beagle dogs), a major step toward ultimately testing the procedure in humans.

"Moving from mice to large animals is a big step," said Bosch, who is the Director of the Center of Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy. "If something works well in large animals, we have reason to believe, based on the previous experience in the field of gene transfer, that it is likely that we will see a similar outcomes in humans. For example, gene therapy that worked well in large animals to treat hemophilia is now seeing positive results in clinical trials with humans. We hope that in a few years, we'll be able to test this therapy for type 1 diabetes in humans as well."

Bosch and her team injected five lab dogs with two genes -- insulin and glucokinase -- using an adenoassociated virus (AAV) vector. The vector, or vehicle for DNA transmission, comes from a virus that is non-pathogenic and is able to "infect" cells in the animal's skeletal muscle with the two genes. Because skeletal muscle cells do not divide, the genes remain there long-term. This means the animal only needs to be injected once and the genes can continue to do their work, acting as "glucose sensors", continuously releasing low levels of insulin and expressing glucokinase, which helps regulate glucose uptake in response to rising and falling circulating glucose levels, for years.

In this study, the treated dogs maintained normal blood glucose levels for more than four years after injection, without showing signs of hypoglycemia, a risk associated with other treatments that seek to achieve tight blood glucose control. This is also the first time a single therapeutic intervention has been used to achieve long-term maintenance of normoglycemia after development of diabetes, the authors said.

Treating the dogs with just one gene did not achieve the same results, the researchers said, noting that both were needed to keep blood glucose levels in the normal range. The next step is to test the procedure on "companion animals," different breeds of dogs that have type 1diabetes and live with families, rather than in the lab. In this study, researchers will test their ability to better adjust the insulin doses in different size and breeds of dogs living in "real life" situations. Once they are able to determine how to adjust the therapy in this context, the investigators will be ready to test the treatment on humans, Bosch said.

"Overall the report by Bosch and colleagues is a substantial advance in the attempts to develop clinical gene therapy for type 1 DM," writes Timothy O'Brien, Director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute, at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in a commentary accompanying the study in Diabetes. He notes that "substantial challenges" remain in pursuing this type of treatment, but that "they are worthy of pursuit given the ultimate prize if the approach is successful."

Bosch notes that gene therapy does not represent a "cure" for type 1diabetes because it does not regenerate beta cells, but rather could lead to an effective long-term treatment. Maintaining blood glucose levels in the normal range is critical for managing diabetes and for preventing serious complications associated with the disease, such as nerve damage, heart and kidney disease.

This study also holds promise for treating dogs with diabetes, Bosch said. As it has in humans, diabetes has been increasing in recent years in dogs, she noted.

To reach lead researcher Fatima Bosch, Center of Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy, Barcelona, Spain: email Fatima.bosch@uab.es or phone: 34 93 581 4182.

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Gene Therapy Used in Dogs to Treat Type 1 Diabetes

Freedom Credit Union Announces New “Party at the Ballpark!” Contest

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Now through the end of May, when an existing Freedom Credit Union Member goes paperless, he or she will automatically be entered into a random drawing for a chance to attend a Freedom "Party At The Ballpark!

(PRWEB) April 23, 2013

Its easy to get started: enter Online Banking through FreedomCU.org, select eStatements in the left menu bar, then click Sign up now! in the screen that appears. Follow the prompts, selecting which email address to send the eStatements to be mailed to, checking the box to stop receiving paper statements. For more information on the benefits of eStatements and complete contest rules, a person can visit their website.

Credit unions in Pennsylvania such as Freedom Credit Union make it their goal to guarantee Members very low rates. With Freedom, Members are also given the added security of knowing that they have one of the best, fixed rates available when it comes to their Visa Credit Card. To hear more about Freedom Credit Union, as well as the financial and credit services they offer, please visit http://www.freedomcu.org.

About Freedom Credit Union:

Freedom Credit Union, chartered in 1934, is a community-based, full-service, not-for-profit financial institution that offers a banking alternative to consumers. Anyone who lives, works, worships, performs volunteer service, or attends school in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia Counties is eligible to use its services. Freedom Credit Union has over $600 million in assets and more than 59,000 members, operating branch offices in Abington, Lansdale, Philadelphia and Warminster, Pennsylvania. As a respected Philadelphia based financial institution, they proudly offer a wide variety of financial programs to meet Member needs.

Freedom Credit Union Freedom Credit Union 215-612-5900 Email Information

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Freedom Credit Union Announces New “Party at the Ballpark!” Contest