Police and protesters clash in Egypt, army sent to Suez

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian protesters scuffled with police in Cairo on Saturday and troops were deployed in Suez after nine people were shot dead in nationwide protests against President Mohamed Mursi, exposing deep rifts two years after Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

After a day of clashes on Friday, tension remained high with a court expected to rule later on Saturday in a case against suspects accused of involvement in a stadium disaster that killed 74 people. Fans have threatened violence if the court does not deliver the justice they seek.

Eight people including a policeman were shot dead in Suez, east of the capital, and another was shot and killed in Ismailia, another city on the Suez Canal, medics said, after a day when police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths.

Another 456 people were injured across Egypt, officials said, in Friday's unrest fuelled by anger at Mursi and his Islamist allies over what the protesters see as their betrayal of the revolution that erupted on January 25, 2011.

"We want to change the president and the government. We are tired of this regime. Nothing has changed," said Mahmoud Suleiman, 22, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, near where youths were still hurling stones at police on the other side of a concrete barrier early on Saturday morning.

The protests and violence have laid bare the divide between the Islamists and their secular rivals. The schism is hindering the efforts of Mursi, elected in June, to revive an economy in crisis and reverse a plunge in Egypt's currency by enticing back investors and tourists.

Protesters accuse Mursi and his Islamist allies of hijacking Egypt's revolution that ended 30 years of Mubarak's autocratic rule. Mursi's supporters say their critics are ignoring democratic principles after elections swept Islamists to office.

"The protests will continue until we realize all the demands of the revolution - bread, freedom and social justice," Ahmed Salama, 28, a protester camped out with dozens of others in Tahrir Square, the cauldron of the 2011 revolt.

The court hearing over the Port Said stadium disaster in February last year has fuelled concerns of more unrest.

Live images were shown from inside the court shortly before the session began. Some of those attending chanted for justice and held up pictures of those killed.

The court on the outskirts on Cairo, and in the same police compound where Mubarak was tried and jailed, is due to rule on Saturday in the cases brought against 73 people, 61 of whom are charged with murder in what was Egypt's worst stadium disaster.

However, the public prosecutor has said new evidence has emerged, meaning a verdict may be postponed.

PRESIDENT URGES CALM

Alongside the 61 charged with murder, another 12 defendants, including nine police officers, are accused of helping to cause the February 1, 2012, disaster at the end of a match between Cairo's Al Ahly and al-Masri, the local side.

Expecting a verdict, hardcore Al Ahly fans, known as ultras, have protested in Cairo over the last week, obstructing the transport network. The Port Said disaster triggered days of street battles near the Interior Ministry in Cairo last year.

In a statement in response to Friday's violence, Mursi said the state would not hesitate in "pursuing the criminals and delivering them to justice". He urged Egyptians to respect the principles of the revolution by expressing views peacefully.

The president was due to meet later on Saturday with the National Defense Council, which includes senior ministers and security officials, to discuss the violence and deaths as a result of the protests.

Troops were deployed in Suez after the head of the state security police in the city asked for reinforcements. The army distributed pamphlets to residents assuring them the deployment was temporary and meant to secure the city.

"We have asked the armed forces to send reinforcements on the ground until we pass this difficult period," Adel Refaat, head of state security in Suez, told state television.

Street battles erupted in cities including Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and Port Said. Arsonists attacked at least two state-owned buildings. An office used by the Muslim Brotherhood's political party was also torched.

The Brotherhood decided against mobilizing for the anniversary, wary of the scope for more conflict after December's violence, stoked by Mursi's decision to fast-track an Islamist-tinged constitution rejected by his opponents.

Inspired by the popular uprising in Tunisia, Egypt's revolution spurred further revolts across the Arab world. But the sense of common purpose that united Egyptians two years ago has given way to internal strife that already triggered bloody street battles last month.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Marwa Awad, Ali Abdelatti and Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Body of last Japanese victim in hostage crisis arrives in Tokyo

TOKYO: The body of the last of 10 Japanese nationals killed in the Algerian hostage crisis arrived in Japan on Saturday as the prime minister proposed setting up a security council to deal with future threats.

The body of Tadanori Aratani, 66, a former vice president of engineering firm JGC, arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport on a commercial flight accompanied by vice foreign minister Minoru Kiuchi.

The seven Japanese survivors of the siege at the In Amenas gas plant in the Sahara desert and the bodies of nine of the ten dead arrived a day earlier as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke of the nation's "deepest grief".

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was at the airport on Saturday, along with JGC officials, to welcome back the body of Aratani. Flowers were laid on the coffin and mourners offered a one-minute silent prayer.

Dozens of foreigners were killed during a four-day standoff that ended in a bloody showdown with Algerian commandos last week, with reports of summary executions.

JGC employed, directly or indirectly, all the Japanese caught up in the siege.

Japan's body count of 10 is the highest of any nation whose citizens were caught up in the crisis and an unusual taste of Jihadist anger for a country that has remained far removed from US-led wars in the Muslim world.

Abe, at a meeting of his senior ministers on Friday, said the nation was in mourning for those killed, while at JGC headquarters in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, mourners paid respects in front of a makeshift altar.

In an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun published on Saturday, Abe proposed setting up a national security council to enable the government to take swifter action in times of crisis.

The plan to set up a Japanese version of the US National Security Council comes after the government struggled to collect information on the fate of Japanese nationals during Algeria siege.

"The function of the prime minister's office as a control tower should be strengthened," Abe said, adding that his government may submit legislation to parliament by July.

The aim is to improve the gathering of information relating to national security, enabling the government to take swifter action to reduce potential risks to national interests and its citizens overseas.

- AFP/fa

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Review: While "jOBS" fawns over subject, film falls flat

Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in "jOBS."

(Credit:
Five Star Feature Films)

PARK CITY, UTAH--The eagerly awaited biopic "jOBS" opens in 2001, when Apple's iconic co-founder arrives at Town Hall on Apple's Cupertino campus with good news. A secret team, Steve Jobs tells his employees, has built a product that will revolutionize the way everyone listens to music. Before he can even show them the iPod, the employees have sprung to their feet, wild-eyed and ecstatic, and their thunderous applause is eventually drowned out only by strings swelling in the background. It's a scene that sets the tone for all that is to follow: for most of the film's two hours, "jOBS" rarely stops clapping for its subject.

The team behind "jOBS," which was directed by Joshua Michael Stern, began working on the project shortly before Jobs retired from Apple in 2011. The script by first-time screenwriter Matt Whiteley covers Jobs' life from 1974, when Jobs attended classes at Reed College in Oregon, to 2001, when he announced the
iPod to Apple employees. Along the way "jOBS" covers most of the major milestones of its subject's time at Apple: the Apple I, the Apple II, the Lisa, and the Macintosh all are shown in development, as Jobs (a hard-working Ashton Kutcher) works to bring his vision of personal computing to the masses. Jobs hand-picks John Sculley to become Apple's CEO, hoping his marketing expertise will help the company overtake IBM in the PC market. But Sculley disappoints Jobs, who alienates his allies on Apple's board of directors and is ousted from the company he started. Only Apple's near-death experience in 1997 is enough to bring him back to Apple -- first as an adviser, then as an "interim" CEO -- and with the success of the Bondi blue iMacs, Apple was ascendant once again.

It's a story that will be familiar to readers of Walter Isaacson's recent Jobs biography or any number of other histories of the company. The opportunity "jOBS" had was to render these legendary events of Silicon Valley's history on screen, and to dramatize the contradictions of a man who remained unknowable even to some of those closest to him.

The movie gives it a shot. Kutcher drew skepticism when he was announced as the film's lead, despite an uncanny resemblance to the man he would be playing. But he throws himself into the role, inhabiting Jobs in his mannerisms and gestures while doing a more than creditable impression of the man's voice. Kutcher also captures Jobs' deliberate, slightly hunched-over walk. At moments, as during an enjoyable sequence in which Jobs recruits members for the Macintosh team, Kutcher disappears into the role.

The filmmakers do show Jobs being a jerk: he sleeps around, he yells at people, he parks in handicapped spaces. He persuades Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) to perform crucial work for him, but lies about how much he is being paid, so he can dramatically underpay his best friend. An hour into the movie, he fires someone during an argument over font availability on the Lisa.

Yet the filmmakers are more interested in showing Jobs going about the work of being a genius. Over and over again, minor characters explain to him why something can't be done; Kutcher-as-Jobs smiles enigmatically and waves away their concerns. (It is left to someone else, far off screen, to turn his visions into reality.) We watch Jobs out-negotiate a computer parts store owner, lecture the team making the Lisa, and ride to the rescue of the Macintosh. Each time, he speaks of how the technology Apple is building will improve the lives of average people. Co-workers argue with him, but they never get anywhere, because their parts are poorly written and the filmmakers have no interest in showing their subject being wrong about his work. The film mentions Lisa's failure but has no interest in what part Jobs played in that failure; all Apple failures in "jOBS" are portrayed as the result of conservative, backward-thinking executives beholden only to their shareholders. The result is that the viewer spends two hours watching cardboard cutouts lose arguments to Ashton Kutcher.

Kutcher speaks fully 40 percent of the lines in "jOBS." Unfortunately, he has almost no one to play off of. Dermot Mulroney, as early Apple investor Mike Markkula, shakes his head at Jobs' excesses without ever really challenging him. J.K. Simmons, as the Apple board chairman who oversees Jobs' ouster, is a cartoon villain. Women in the film barely exist; an actress playing Chris-Ann Brennan has a single under-written scene informing a young Jobs that she is carrying his baby; years later in the film, a small scene shows Jobs at home with his wife. Only Gad, as Wozniak, gets a scene standing up to the great man -- as Woz quits Apple, he criticizes Jobs for losing his humanity amid a single-minded pursuit of making great products. It's something even Jobs' staunchest admirers have to wrestle with, and the film could have used more of that.

Others will write of the things "jOBS" omits, gets wrong, or simply avoids. My primary disappointment was in how shallow the film felt, given the extensive historical record. In the early days Jobs' co-workers had to wrestle with a man who smelled bad, who cried often, who yelled constantly, who missed deadlines, who overspent his budget by millions. He did it in service of products we love and use daily, and yet his obsessions took a toll on those around him. It also inspired others to do the best work of their lives, pushing themselves further than they ever imagined they can go. There is great drama to be found in all that, but it is not to be found in the saccharine "jOBS."

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Notre Dame president defends handling of Te'o case

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Top administrators at Notre Dame decided within hours of hearing about the Manti Te'o dead girlfriend hoax that it did not involve a crime and within two days had concluded there was no NCAA violation, according to a letter sent by the university president to board of trustee members on Friday.

The Rev. John Jenkins told trustees that despite "the unrelenting scrutiny of hundreds of journalists and countless others — and repeated attempts by some to create a different impression- no facts relating to the hoax have been at odds with what Manti told us" on Dec. 27-28.

The letter was obtained Friday by The Associated Press from a university official who provided it on condition of anonymity because the private school's internal workings are confidential.

The eight-page document, including a four-page letter from Jenkins and a four-page outline of how Notre Dame handled the hoax, is both a defense and an explanation of the school's actions.

"We did our best to get to the truth in extraordinary circumstances, be good stewards of the interests of the university and its good name and — as we do in all things — to make the well-being of our students one of our very highest priorities," Jenkins concluded in his letter.

Some of the timeline Notre Dame outlined is well known, including that its star linebacker disclosed the scam to his coaches the day after Christmas and it remained unknown to the public until Deadspin.com broke the story on Jan. 16, long after the Fighting Irish lost the BCS championship to Alabama on Jan. 7.

Jenkins wrote that Notre Dame officials talked in the hours after hearing from Te'o on Dec. 26 and agreed there was no indication of a crime or student conduct code violation. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick spoke with Te'o the next day, and on Dec. 28 the school concluded there were no indications of an NCAA rules violation, which could have put Notre Dame's 12-0 regular season in jeopardy.

The school then made moves to find out who was behind the hoax, thereby protecting Te'o and itself.

"For the first couple of days after receiving the news from Manti, there was considerable confusion and we simply did not know what there was to disclose," Jenkins wrote.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

On Jan. 2, after several days of internal discussion and a week after Te'o's disclosure, Notre Dame retained Stroz Friedberg, a New York computer forensics firm to investigate the case and whether any other football players had been targeted. The firm did not return phone or email messages left Friday.

Notre Dame officials believed Te'o's girlfriend — whether alive or dead — was at least a real person until the next day, when Stroz Friedberg said it could not find any evidence that Kekua or most of her relatives ever existed. And by Jan. 4, two days after hiring Stroz Friedberg, Notre Dame officials concluded Te'o was the victim of the hoax, there was no threat to the school and the private investigation was suspended.

"We concluded that this matter was personal to Manti," Jenkins wrote, deciding it was up to Te'o to disclose, especially after he signed with Creative Artists Agency on the day after the BCS game.

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WH, Senators to Begin Push on Immigration Reform

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators next week plan to begin their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

President Barack Obama will make an announcement on immigration during a Tuesday trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, the White House said on Friday. The Senate group is expected make their plans public around the same time, the Associated Press reported.

See Also: Where Do Labor Unions Stand on Immigration?

For Obama, immigration reform is a campaign promise that has remained unfulfilled from his first White House run in 2008. During his 2012 re-election campaign, the president vowed to renew his effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system. It has long been expected that Obama would roll out his plans shortly after his inauguration.

The president's trip to Las Vegas is designed "to redouble the administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year," the White House said.

Ever since November's election, in which Latino voters turned out in record numbers, Republicans and Democrats have expressed a desire to work on immigration reform. Obama has long supported a bill that would make many of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants without criminal records eligible to apply for an earned pathway to citizenship, which includes paying fines and learning English.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

But the debate over a pathway to citizenship is expected to be contentious. Other flashpoints in an immigration reform push could include a guest-worker program, workplace enforcement efforts, border security, and immigration backlogs.

In a statement, the White House said that "any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship."

Ahead of his immigration push next week, Obama met today with a group of lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), including chairman Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) , Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and CHC Immigration Task Force Chair Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the latter's office said. CHC members are expected to play a pivotal role in the debate.

"The president is the quarterback and he will direct the team, call the play, and be pivotal if we succeed. I am very optimistic based on conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate that we will do more than just talk about the immigration issue this year," Gutierrez said in a statement following the CHC meeting with Obama. "The president putting his full weight and attention behind getting a bill signed into law is tremendously helpful. We need the president and the American people all putting pressure on the Congress to act because nothing happens in the Capitol without people pushing from the outside."

A bipartisan group of eight senators, which includes Menendez, has also begun talks on drafting an immigration bill and will play an integral part in the process of passing a bill through Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been participating in talks with others senators, has also unveiled his own outline for an immigration proposal.

The group of senators have reportedly eyed Friday as the date when they'll unveil their separate proposal, according to the Washington Post.

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North Korea threatens war with South over U.N. sanctions

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea threatened to attack rival South Korea if Seoul joined a new round of tightened U.N. sanctions, as Washington unveiled more of its own economic restrictions following Pyongyang's rocket launch last month.

In a third straight day of fiery rhetoric, the North directed its verbal onslaught at its neighbor on Friday, saying: "'Sanctions' mean a war and a declaration of war against us."

The reclusive North has this week declared a boycott of all dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program and vowed to conduct more rocket and nuclear tests after the U.N. Security Council censured it for a December long-range missile launch.

"If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the U.N. 'sanctions,' the DPRK will take strong physical counter-measures against it," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to the South.

The committee is the North's front for dealings with the South. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch on Tuesday and expanded existing U.N. sanctions.

On Thursday, the United States slapped economic sanctions on two North Korean bank officials and a Hong Kong trading company that it accused of supporting Pyongyang's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The company, Leader (Hong Kong) International Trading Ltd, was separately blacklisted by the United Nations on Wednesday.

Seoul has said it will look at whether there are any further sanctions that it can implement alongside the United States, but said the focus for now is to follow Security Council resolutions.

The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programs. It does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.

The United States had wanted to punish North Korea for the rocket launch with a Security Council resolution that imposed entirely new sanctions against Pyongyang, but Beijing rejected that option. China agreed to U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang after North Korea's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

NUCLEAR TEST WORRY

North Korea's rhetoric this week amounted to some of the angriest outbursts against the outside world coming under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who took over after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in late 2011.

On Thursday, the North said it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test, directing its ire at the United States, a country it called its "sworn enemy".

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the comments were worrying.

"We are very concerned with North Korea's continuing provocative behavior," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

"We are fully prepared ... to deal with any kind of provocation from the North Koreans. But I hope in the end that they determine that it is better to make a choice to become part of the international family."

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

South Korea and others who have been closely observing activities at the North's known nuclear test grounds believe Pyongyang is technically ready to go ahead with its third atomic test and awaiting the political decision of its leader.

The North's committee also declared on Friday that a landmark agreement it signed with the South in 1992 on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula was invalid, repeating its long-standing accusation that Seoul was colluding with Washington.

The foreign ministry of China, the North's sole remaining major diplomatic and economic benefactor, repeated its call for calm on the Korean peninsula at its daily briefing on Friday.

"The current situation on the Korea peninsula is complicated and sensitive," spokesman Hong Lei said.

"We hope all relevant parties can see the big picture, maintain calm and restraint, further maintain contact and dialogue, and improve relations, while not taking actions to further complicate and escalate the situation," Hong said.

But unusually prickly comments in Chinese state media on Friday hinted at Beijing's exasperation.

"It seems that North Korea does not appreciate China's efforts," said the Global Times in an editorial, a sister publication of the official People's Daily.

"Just let North Korea be 'angry' ... China hopes for a stable peninsula, but it's not the end of the world if there's trouble there. This should be the baseline of China's position."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; editing by Jeremy Laurence and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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AXA, estate of Ma Chi reach deal on compensation

SINGAPORE: The insurers of the Ferrari car involved in a high-speed crash that left two others dead and two injured have reached a settlement with the estate of the deceased driver Ma Chi.

AXA Insurance Singapore and Ma's estate jointly announced that they have mutually agreed on a deal.

They will settle all financial claims between the parties.

All third-party victims or their families will get compensation.

AXA will not look towards the estate of Ma for any payment of compensation made to the third-party victims or their families.

These parties will not make any more claims against each other.

They have also agreed to keep the details of the settlement, including the amount that will be paid, confidential.

In the crash on May 12, 2012, Ma, a 31-year-old Chinese national, is said to have beaten the red light along Victoria Street.

His car hit a taxi, which then hit a motorcycle.

The taxi driver Mr Cheng Teck Hock and his passenger Ms Shigemi Hito died, while two others were injured.

In July, AXA Insurance Singapore notified the family of Ma that it regards the incident as a collision, not an accident.

It won't provide insurance coverage for the family but would settle the claims of third-party victims and then get Ma's family to reimburse it.

The family challenged AXA's stand.

AXA had also asked the injured victims - Mr Muhammad Najib Ghazali, 26, and Ms Wu Weiwei, in her 20s - and the families of Mr Cheng Teck Hock and Ms Shigemi Ito to submit their claims.

- CNA/fa

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Crave giveaway: Big bag of CES 2013 swag, the sequel

This week's giveaway: A messenger bag that charges gadgets, and comes with a whole lot in it.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

Congrats to Brent P. of Brookfield, Mass., for winning last week's prize, a bag of swag collected by CNET staffers on the CES 2013 show floor. And now, for part 2 of our awesome-stuff-from-CES giveaway...

This week's winner also gets a bag of swag. But not just any bag, a Powerbag Instant Messenger bag. The bag contains a built-in removable, rechargeable 6,000mAh battery system for charging smartphones, e-readers, and many
tablets. When it's time to recharge the Powerbag, just connect the included AC adapter and plug it into a wall outlet. I know lots of roving CNETers who would have liked having one of these at CES.

Inside the bag, you'll find two CNET T-shirts; an Incipio Stowaway credit card case with integrated kickstand for the
iPhone 5; a Nokia portable USB charger for power on the go; and a pair of touch-screen-friendly gloves that you can wear in winter while tapping away at your device. Plus a few other little surprises.

Normally, this bag of fun would cost you around $325, but you have the chance to get all of it for free. How do you go about doing that? There are some rules, so please read carefully.

• Register as a CNET user. Go to the top of this page and hit the Join CNET link to start the registration process. If you're already registered, there's no need to register again.


• Leave a comment below. You can leave whatever comment you want. If it's funny or insightful, it won't help you win, but we're trying to have fun here, so anything entertaining is appreciated.


• Leave only one comment. You may enter for this specific giveaway only once. If you enter more than one comment, you will be automatically disqualified.
  


• The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) CES swag bag, with a retail value of about $325.


• If you are chosen, you will be notified via e-mail. The winner must respond within three days of the end of the sweepstakes. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.


• Entries can be submitted until Monday, January 28, at 12 p.m. ET.

And here's the disclaimer that our legal department said we had to include (sorry for the caps, but rules are rules):

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. YOU HAVE NOT YET WON. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OLD OR AGE OF MAJORITY, WHICHEVER IS OLDER IN YOUR STATE OF RESIDENCE AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Sweepstakes ends at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, January 28, 2013. See official rules for details.

Good luck.

A closer look at the bag it all comes in.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

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Battery expert: "I would not fly in a Dreamliner"

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - Investigators say they still don't know what caused batteries to burn in two Boeing 787 Dreamliners, and until they figure that out and how to fix the problem, none of the planes will be allowed to fly.

More than any other plane, the Dreamliner relies on lithium ion batteries to help power its advanced electrical system. They're lighter and more powerful than older battery types, but they contain a highly flammable liquid electrolyte.

U.S. officials defend handling of 787 mishaps

Boeing 787 probe turns to battery companies

Boeing plans to carry on with Dreamliner production

Federal investigators are examining the disassembled battery from the 787 that caught fire in Boston January 7, spewing molten electrolyte.

George Blomgren worked for Eveready, a batteries and flashlights company, for 40 years. He says lithium ion batteries are bundled together for the 787, and that increases the risk.

"These fires burn at very high temperatures, so they are just very dangerous fires," he said.

George Blomgren, a battery expert for Eveready

/

CBS News

The Boston fire, and the burned-out battery on a Dreamliner in Japan, is not the first time lithium ion batteries have caused problems.

In 2011, a Chevy Volt lithium ion battery was damaged in a crash test. Three weeks later, it burst into flames. Chevrolet installed a number of fixes to prevent fires.

Safety features also were added to lithium ion batteries in some cell phones and laptops after 56 million were recalled for risk of overheating and exploding.

Boeing says lithium ion batteries "best met the performance and design objectives of the 787" and "Based on everything we know at this point, we have not changed our evaluation."

Blomgren considers the safety of lithium ion batteries on planes questionable.

"From what I know about incidents, I would not fly in a Dreamliner tomorrow. I just wouldn't feel that it was appropriate or safe," Blomgren said.

Many experts believe in the promise of lithium ion batteries, including for airlines, but they just aren't sure its safety has been perfected.

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It's Official: Women Will Serve in Combat

Women will soon be able to serve in combat, as things officially changed with the stroke of a pen today at the Pentagon.

At a joint news conference, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Charman Gen. Martin Dempsey signed a memorandum rolling back a 1994 directive prohibiting women from doing so.

"They serve, they're wounded, and they die right next to each other," Panetta said of women and men in the military. "The time has come to recognize that reality.

"If they're willing to put their lives on the line, then we need to recognize that they deserve a chance," Panetta said, noting that he wants his own granddaughters and grandsons to have the same opportunities in their lives and careers.

The change won't be immediate, however. While Panetta announced that thousands of new positions will now be open to women, he has asked the military branches to submit plans by May on how to integrate women into combat operations. He set a January 2016 deadline for branches to implement the changes, giving military services time to seek waivers for certain jobs.

Both Panetta and Dempsey said they believe the move will strengthen the U.S. military force.

Soaring With the First Woman Fighter Jet Commander Watch Video

Florida Judge Puts Debra Lafave Back on Probation After Year Off Watch Video

"Ultimately, we are acting to strengthen the armed forces," Dempsey said. "We will extend opportunities to women in a way that maintains readiness, morale and unit cohesion."

Women have already served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, as ABC News' Martha Raddatz and Elizabeth Gorman reported in 2009: Prohibited from serving in roles "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground," women in support roles, nonetheless, served in support roles on the frontlines, where they have fought, been wounded and died.

Women have also flown combat missions since 1993 and have served on submarines since 2010.

Panetta noted that 152 women have died serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dempsey said he realized a change was inevitable when he noticed two female turret gunners protecting a senior military officer.

"It's clear to all of us that women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military's mission of defending the nation," Panetta said. "Women represent 15 percent of the force of over 200,000 [and] are serving in a growing number of critical roles on and off the battlefield.

"I've gone to Bethesda to visit wounded warriors, and I've gone to Arlington to bury our dead. There's no distincton."

Panetta and Dempsey said President Obama supported the move, while warning them to maintain military readiness as they considered the change.

Obama hailed the move in a written statement

"Today, by moving to open more military positions -- including ground combat units -- to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens," he said.

"This milestone reflects the courageous and patriotic service of women through more than two centuries of American history and the indispensable role of women in today's military," Obama said.

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North Korea to target U.S. with nuclear, rocket tests

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".

The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.

North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

China, the one major diplomatic ally of the isolated and impoverished North, agreed to the U.S.-backed resolution and it also supported resolutions in 2006 and 2009 after Pyongyang's two earlier nuclear tests.

Thursday's statement by North Korea represents a huge challenge to Beijing as it undergoes a leadership transition with Xi Jinping due to take office in March.

China's Foreign Ministry called for calm and restraint and a return to six-party talks, but effectively singled out North Korea, urging the "relevant party" not to take any steps that would raise tensions.

"We hope the relevant party can remain calm and act and speak in a cautious and prudent way and not take any steps which may further worsen the situation," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing.

North Korea has rejected proposals to restart the talks aimed at reining in its nuclear capacity. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are the six parties involved.

"After all these years and numerous rounds of six-party talks we can see that China's influence over North Korea is actually very limited. All China can do is try to persuade them not to carry out their threats," said Cai Jian, an expert on Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Analysts said the North could test as early as February as South Korea prepares to install a new, untested president or that it could choose to stage a nuclear explosion to coincide with former ruler Kim Jong-il's Feb 16 birthday.

"North Korea will have felt betrayed by China for agreeing to the latest U.N. resolution and they might be targeting (China) as well (with this statement)," said Lee Seung-yeol, senior research fellow at Ewha Institute of Unification Studies in Seoul.

U.S. URGES NO TEST

Washington urged North Korea not to proceed with a third test just as the North's statement was published on Thursday.

"Whether North Korea tests or not is up to North Korea," Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korean diplomacy, said in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

"We hope they don't do it. We call on them not to do it," Davies said after a meeting with South Korean officials. "This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean peninsula."

The North was banned from developing missile and nuclear technology under sanctions dating from its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

A South Korean military official said the concern now is that Pyongyang could undertake a third nuclear test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, opening a second path to a bomb.

North Korea's 2006 nuclear test using plutonium produced a puny yield equivalent to one kiloton of TNT - compared with 13-18 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb - and U.S. intelligence estimates put the 2009 test's yield at roughly two kilotons

North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for about a dozen plutonium warheads, although estimates vary, and intelligence reports suggest that it has been enriching uranium to supplement that stock and give it a second path to the bomb.

According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

North Korea gave no time-frame for the coming test and often employs harsh rhetoric in response to U.N. and U.S. actions that it sees as hostile.

Its long-range rockets are not seen as capable of reaching the United States mainland and it is not believed to have the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.

The bellicose statement on Thursday appeared to dent any remaining hopes that Kim Jong-un, believed to be 30 years old, would pursue a different path from his father Kim Jong-il, who oversaw the country's military and nuclear programs.

The older Kim died in December 2011.

"The UNSC (Security Council) resolution masterminded by the U.S. has brought its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) to its most dangerous stage," the commission was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Dreamliner battery probe rules out voltage surge

TOKYO: Officials probing the emergency landing of a Boeing Dreamliner said Thursday they will dismantle its battery pack, after the investigation found no evidence of a sudden surge in voltage.

A fire risk from overheating powerpacks emerged as a major concern after pilots were forced to land the domestic All Nippon Airways flight in western Japan on January 16 due to smoke thought to be linked to the plane's battery.

Investigators later released a picture showing the blackened remains of the battery in the ANA plane.

But on Thursday, they said there were no signs of a battery fire, while data gleaned from the flight's digital data recorder showed the powerpack did not suffer a rapid surge in voltage.

The pack's voltage, in fact, had been at normal levels before it rapidly plunged just before the system alert that forced the emergency landing, a Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) official told AFP.

But he said the pack -- made up of eight individual lithium-ion batteries -- would have to be dismantled to inspect each of the units, which are similar to those used in mobile phones and tablet computers.

"It was a very normal level of voltage for a lithium-ion battery (shortly before the emergency landing)," the official said.

"But you still cannot rule out the possibility that some of the individual batteries might have been overcharged."

Officials from the JTSB and US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would dissect the pack at the offices of Kyoto-based GS Yuasa, the maker of the next-generation aircraft's batteries, he said.

The powerpack's charger would be sent to its US manufacturer for a closer look, investigators said.

Boeing's fuel-efficient planes suffered a series of problems earlier this month, prompting a global alert from the US Federal Aviation Administration that has seen all 50 operational Dreamliners grounded since last week.

An international team, including engineers from French multinational Thales, which designed the Dreamliner's electrical system, carried out a CT scan of the battery unit at a Japan space agency facility in Tokyo this week.

An NTSB-led investigation is also probing the cause of a fire on a Japan Airlines 787 Dreamliner in Boston on January 7.

That investigation has ruled out battery overheating as the cause, but the powerpack's charger and related components were still being tested.

- AFP/ck

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'jOBS' biopic starring Ashton Kutcher to hit theaters April 19

Ashton Kutcher as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

(Credit:
Sundance )

The Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher will open in theaters on April 19, the movie's distributor announced today.

The indie film, which is set to debut Friday at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Firday, covers Jobs' life during the years 1971 through 2000 -- a time frame that includes the founding of Apple, as well as his ouster, the forming of NeXT and Pixar, and then his return to the company when Apple acquired NeXT.

The movie should not to be confused with a separate production penned by "The Social Network" and "The West Wing" writer Aaron Sorkin. That movie is said to be based on Walter Isaacson's biography, while "jOBS" is based on widely available information.

Principal photography on "jOBS" began at Jobs' childhood home in Los Altos, Calif., in June. Photos from the production have since leaked out, showing Kutcher and others in costume.

Along with Kutcher, the movie also stars Matthew Modine as former Apple CEO John Sculley, Josh Gad as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and "The Help" star Ahna O'Reilly playing Chris-Ann Brennan, Jobs' girlfriend, and the mother of his daughter Lisa. Other additions include J.K. Simmons and Kevin Dunn, who will play venture capitalist Arthur Rock and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio respectively.

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Romney to be honored Friday at D.C. luncheon

Mitt Romney will make it to Washington, D.C. for inauguration week after all.

The 2012 GOP presidential nominee and his wife Ann are scheduled to attend a luncheon in their honor Friday at Washington's J.W. Marriott hotel, National Journal reported this afternoon. The reception will be hosted by two of Romney's biggest campaign fundraisers: Virginia philanthropist Catherine Reynolds and hotel tycoon Bill Marriott, Jr.

Romney, a longtime friend to the Marriott family, serves on Marriott International's board of directors. While on the trail, he and his traveling staff stayed almost exclusively at Marriott hotels.

Having opted to spend Inauguration Day at his home in La Jolla, Calif., on Monday, Romney became the first presidential nominee since Michael Dukakis in 1989 to not attend the ceremonial event. But he's made at least one appearance in the nation's capital since the election: Several weeks following his loss, he enjoyed a lunch of white turkey chili with President Obama at the White House.

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Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.

The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.

That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the implementation of the changes.

"We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn't get dragged out," said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.

The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs -- but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.

The move to allow women in combat, first reported by the Associated Press, was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the armed forces to women.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended in January to Secretary Panetta that the direct combat exclusion rule should be lifted.

"I can confirm media reports that the secretary and the chairman are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," said a senior Defense Department official. "This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey sent Panetta a memo earlier this month entitled, "Women in Service Implementation Plan."

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"The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service," the memo read.

"To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right," he said in the memo, referring to the 2016 horizon.

Women have been officially prohibited from serving in combat since a 1994 rule that barred them from serving in ground combat units. That does not mean they have been immune from danger or from combat.

As Martha Raddatz reported in 2009, women have served in support positions on and off the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, putting them at equal risk. Hundreds of thousands of women deployed with the military to those two war zones over the past decade. Hundreds have died.

READ MORE: Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

"The reality of the battlefield has changed really since the Vietnam era to where it is today," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat. "Those distinctions on what is combat and what is not really are falling aside. So I think that after having seen women, men, folks who -- cooks, clerks, truck drivers -- serve in combat conditions, the reality is women are already in combat."

Woman have been able to fly combat sorties since 1993. In 2010, the Navy allowed them on submarines. But lifting restrictions on service in frontline ground combat units will break a key barrier in the military.

READ MORE: Smooth Sailing for First Women to Serve on Navy Submarines

READ MORE: Female Fighter Pilot Breaks Gender Barriers

Panetta's decision will set a January 2016 deadline for the military service branches to argue that there are military roles that should remain closed to women.

In February 2012 the Defense Department opened up 14,500 positions to women that had previously been limited to men and lifted a rule that prohibited women from living with combat units.

Panetta also directed the services to examine ways to open more combat roles to women.

However, the ban on direct combat positions has remained in place.

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Cameron promises Britons straight choice on EU exit

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron promised on Wednesday to give Britons a straight referendum choice on whether to stay in the European Union or leave, provided he wins an election in 2015.

Cameron ended months of speculation by announcing in a speech the plan for a vote sometime between 2015 and 2018, shrugging off warnings that this could imperil Britain's diplomatic and economic prospects and alienate its allies.

Cameron said Britain did not want to pull up the drawbridge and retreat from the world but that public disillusionment with the EU is at "an all-time high".

"It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe," Cameron said. His Conservative party would campaign for the 2015 election promising to renegotiate Britain's EU membership.

"When we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the European Union on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum."

Whether Cameron will ever hold the referendum remains as uncertain as the Conservatives' chances of winning the next election due in 2015.

They trail the opposition Labour party in opinion polls, and the coalition government is pushing through painful public spending cuts to try to reduce Britain's large budget deficit, likely to upset voters in the meantime.

Cameron's promise looks likely to satisfy much of his own party, which has been split on the issue, but may create uncertainty when events could put his preferred option - a looser version of full British membership - out of reach.

The move may also unsettle other EU states, such as France and Germany. European officials have already warned Cameron against treating the bloc as an "a la carte menu" from which he can pick and choose membership terms.

His speech in London is also likely to raise concerns in the United States, a close ally, which has said it wants Britain to remain inside the EU with "a strong voice".

Nor is it likely to help heal rifts with his pro-European Liberal Democrat junior coalition partners.

Cameron said he would prefer Britain, the world's sixth biggest economy, to remain inside the 27-nation EU but he also made clear he believes the EU must be radically reformed.

A new EU must be built upon five principles, he said: competitiveness, flexibility, power flowing back to - not just away from - member states, democratic accountability and fairness.

The euro zone debt crisis is a main reason why Britain must reassess its relationship with the wider EU, Cameron said, adding that ever closer union was not Britain's objective.

"WAFER THIN" CONSENT

Cameron said the EU faced three main problems: the debt crisis, competitiveness and faltering public support.

Democratic consent for the EU in Britain was now "wafer thin", reflecting the results of many opinion polls that have shown a slim majority would vote to leave the bloc and the rise of the UK Independence Party that favors complete withdrawal.

"Some people say that to point this out is irresponsible, creates uncertainty for business and puts a question mark over Britain's place in the European Union," said Cameron. "But the question mark is already there: ignoring it won't make it go away."

Avoiding a referendum would make an eventual British exit more likely, not less, he said. This would risk bottling up resentment towards the EU, compounding people's feeling that "the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to".

"Simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they have had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put - and at some stage it will have to be - it is much more likely that the British people will reject the European Union."

Many Britons resent the EU's interference in their daily lives and its "unnecessary rules and regulations", he added.

Cameron's speech has been marked by long delays, diplomatic rows and the postponement due to the Algerian hostage crisis.

"The Curse of TutanCameron's Europe speech" was how one political magazine summed up the repeated delays in a headline over a picture of a golden-faced Cameron superimposed on the death mask of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Peter Graff)

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Malaysia citizenship-for-votes probe stirs outrage

KUALA LUMPUR: For years, charges have swirled that a secret Malaysian scheme gave citizenship to huge numbers of illegal migrants in a politically important state in exchange for votes for the ruling coalition.

Now, an inquiry is finally airing detailed allegations that have the government on the defensive ahead of elections that pose the greatest threat yet faced by the ruling bloc that has controlled Malaysia for 56 years.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry opened last week with ex-officials admitting they gave citizenship to Filipinos and Indonesians in resource-rich Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on Borneo island.

One former official said some 100,000 identity cards (ICs) were handed out in 1993 ahead of a crucial state election, Malaysian news reports said. Another admitted signing hundreds of thousands of ICs in the 1990s.

The testimony has revived accusations of treason against former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is alleged to have masterminded the scheme to shore up support for his government.

As head of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, Mahathir dominated Malaysia for 22 years until he resigned in 2003.

Current prime minister Najib Razak is now battling to rally support for the BN ahead of polls he is expected to call within months, in an era when the coalition's power grip has slipped.

But outrage over "Project IC", as the alleged scheme is widely known, is undercutting his claims that the national electoral roll is free of fraud.

The opposition and election-reform advocates allege massive fraud in voter rolls nationwide and have seized on the testimony as proof of government vote-tampering.

"What we are concerned about is that this is still going on. That's what we want to stop," Ambiga Sreenevasan, head of the clean-elections activist coalition known as "Bersih", or "Clean", told a press conference on Tuesday.

The outlines of "Project IC" have been whispered about for three decades and have bolstered the view of Sabah as a reliable "fixed deposit" of votes for the BN to help it weather challenges elsewhere.

The government allegedly targeted Muslims from neighbouring Indonesia and the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines.

More than half of Malaysia's 29 million people are Muslim ethnic Malays, but indigenous tribes, many of them Christian, predominate in Sabah.

They have bridled at the foreigners, blaming them for crime, drug abuse and economic competition, and alleging their homeland was being stolen.

Najib last June gave in to calls for an inquiry, but the move could backfire, said Ibrahim Suffian, head of independent polling firm Merdeka Centre, calling the revelations "explosive".

"It probably will create a wave of resentment and dissatisfaction among native Sabah voters. This confirms their worst fears," he said.

The population of Sabah, a region of rugged mountains and powerful rainforest rivers that is about the size of Ireland, has surged from some 600,000 citizens in 1970 to more than three million -- more than double the national growth rate.

Malaysia's opposition alleges some 700,000 may have illegally received ICs. A one-time battleground state, Sabah has been pro-BN since the mid-1990s.

The once all-powerful BN suffered a shock setback in 2008 national elections, and analysts predict a close fight with a formidable opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy premier, raising fears that government fraud could play a role.

Najib insists the national electoral system is clean and has highlighted recent reforms such as plans to use indelible ink to prevent multiple voting.

"Let the commission do its work and find out," Najib was quoted as saying by state media, warning against a rush to judgement in Sabah.

Mahathir, still a vocal and influential conservative figure, has denied the existence of "Project IC," but admitted at a press conference last week that foreigners in Sabah were given citizenship, saying no laws were broken.

No one has yet directly implicated him before the commission, but witnesses said last week they were directed by officials close to Mahathir. There has been no testimony yet suggesting "Project IC" was still active.

Hearings will continue for weeks, with some 170 witnesses expected to testify. The commission has until late March to investigate.

The commission's final recommendations are not legally binding, but could lead to pressure for a crackdown on illegals.

- AFP/xq

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Google's Native Client reaches ARM-based Chromebooks

Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.

Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel or AMD's x86 chips.

Google's David Sehr announced NaCl for ARM today with version 25 of its NaCl software developer kit, which programmers use to build NaCl programs.

The technology is designed so that programmers can bring their existing code to the Web -- for example, game designers who have written a physics engine in C++. But NaCl has been at odds with the Web philosophy in one important way, namely, that NaCl software doesn't simply run on any device with a browser.

Extending to ARM is thus an important for NaCl, because ARM chips power almost every smartphone out there. But this version of NaCl doesn't do that -- it only works on the new ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks.

To reach mobile phones, Google is banking on a revamp called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl. It adopts a low-level translation technology called LLVM that adapts native code to a variety of processors.

"With Portable Native Client, we'll be able to support not just today's architectures, but also those of tomorrow - and developers won't have to recompile their app," Sehr said in the blog post.

With PNaCl, programmers will be able to produce a single package (with the .pexe extension rather than NaCl's .nexe extension) that will run on all supported devices. With today's approach, programmers must produce separate .nexe files for ARM and for x86.

Another major challenge for Native Client is attracting support. It's built into Chrome, but no other major browser maker supports it, and Mozilla is downright frosty about NaCl.

So far you can only get NaCl software through Google's Chrome Web Store. That's also a big departure from the ordinary Web, where you simply point a browser at a Web page to fetch the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript software.

That'll change with PNaCl, too, Google said. The Chrome Web Store is required today to ensure software is compatible with different chip architectures, Google said in a statement. PNaCl sheds this chip-architecture constraint.

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Netanyahu likely clings to job in Israel election

JERUSALEM Israel's parliamentary election ended Wednesday in a stunning deadlock between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line bloc and center-left rivals, forcing the badly weakened Israeli leader to scramble to cobble together a coalition of parties from both camps, despite dramatically different views on Mideast peacemaking and other polarizing issues.

Israeli media said that with 99.8 percent of votes counted on Wednesday morning, each bloc had 60 of parliament's 120 seats. Commentators said Netanyahu, who called early elections expecting easy victory, would be tapped to form the next government because the rival camp drew 12 of its 60 seats from Arab parties who've never joined a coalition.

A startlingly strong showing by a political newcomer, the centrist Yesh Atid party, turned pre-election forecasts on their heads and dealt Netanyahu his surprise setback.

Yesh Atid, or There is a Future, a party headed by political newcomer Yair Lapid, is now Netanyahu's most likely partner. Lapid has said he would only join a government committed to sweeping economic changes and a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Addressing his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to form as broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the pursuit of a "genuine peace" with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.

Shortly after the results were announced, Netanyahu called Lapid and offered to work together. "We have the opportunity to do great things together," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Likud officials.

Netanyahu's Likud-Yisrael Beitenu alliance was set to capture about 31 of the 120 seats, significantly fewer than the 42 it held in the outgoing parliament and below the forecasts of recent polls.

With his traditional allies of nationalist and religious parties, Netanyahu could put together a shaky majority of 61 seats, results showed. But it would be virtually impossible to keep such a narrow coalition intact, though it was possible he could take an additional seat or two as numbers trickled in throughout the night.

The results capped a lackluster campaign in which peacemaking with the Palestinians, traditionally the dominant issue in Israeli politics, was pushed aside. Netanyahu portrayed himself as the only candidate capable of leading Israel at a turbulent time, while the fragmented opposition targeted him on domestic economic issues.

Israeli actor, journalist and author Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, speaks to supporters, Jan. 23, 2013 at his party headquarters in Tel Aviv.

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Getty

Netanyahu's goal of a broader coalition will force him to make some difficult decisions. Concessions to Lapid, for instance, will alienate his religious allies. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Lapid said he would not be a "fig leaf" for a hard-line, extremist agenda.

Lapid's performance was the biggest surprise of the election. The one-time TV talk show host and son of a former Cabinet minister was poised to win 19 seats, giving him the second-largest faction in parliament.

Presenting himself as the defender of the middle class, Lapid vowed to take on Israel's high cost of living and to end the contentious system of subsidies and draft exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews while they pursue religious studies. The expensive system has bred widespread resentment among the Israeli mainstream.

Thanks to his strong performance, Lapid is now in a position to serve as the kingmaker of the next government. He will likely seek a senior Cabinet post and other concessions.

Yaakov Peri, a member of Lapid's party, said it would not join unless the government pledges to begin drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the military, lowers the country's high cost of living and returns to peace talks. "We have red lines. We won't cross those red lines, even if it will cost us sitting in the opposition," Peri told Channel 2 TV.

Addressing his supporters, a beaming Lapid was noncommittal, calling only for a broad government with moderates from left and right. "Israelis said no to the politics of fear and hatred," he said. "And they said no to extremism and anti-democracy."

There was even a distant possibility of Lapid and more dovish parties teaming up to block Netanyahu from forming a majority.

"It could be that this evening is the beginning for a big chance to create an alternative government to the Netanyahu government," said Shelly Yachimovich, leader of the Labor Party, which won 15 seats on a platform pledging to narrow the gaps between rich and poor.

Although that seemed unlikely, Netanyahu clearly emerged from the election in a weakened state.

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Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.

According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.

No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.

PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave

READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports

Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.

READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.

At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.

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Israel goes to polls, set to re-elect Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election widely expected to win Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a third term in office, pushing the Jewish State further to the right, away from peace with Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran.

Netanyahu has vowed to pursue the settlement of lands seized during the 1967 Middle East war if he stays in power, a policy that would put him at odds with his international partners and worsen already tense ties with U.S. President Barack Obama.

Polls predict Netanyahu's Likud party, which has forged an electoral pact with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, will take the most seats in the parliamentary election, albeit considerably fewer than they had originally hoped.

"We want Israel to succeed, we vote Likud-Beitenu ... The bigger it is, the more Israel will succeed," Netanyahu said after casting his ballot alongside his wife and two sons.

Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote, with polling stations staying open until 10 p.m. Full results are due by Wednesday morning, opening the way for coalition talks that could take several weeks to wrap up.

No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning that Netanyahu, who says that dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions is his top priority, will have to bring various allies onboard to control the 120-seat Knesset.

The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to reach out to the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett who heads the far-right Jewish Home party.

Bennett's youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, most of whom no longer believe in the possibility of a Palestinian peace deal, and has eroded Netanyahu's support base.

Surveys suggest he may take up to 14 seats, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu, which was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday -- 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.

Such a result might embarrass Netanyahu, but would still leave him in pole position to form the next government. Acknowledging the threat, Netanyahu's son Yair urged young Israelis not to abandon the old, established Likud.

"Even if there more trendy parties, there is one party that has a proven record," he said on Tuesday after voting.

Portraying himself as a natural partner for the prime minister, Bennett has alarmed those who want to see an independent Palestinian state created alongside Israel, by calling for the annexation of chunks of the occupied West Bank.

"I pray to God to give me the power to unite all of Israel and to restore Israel's Jewish soul," Bennett said on Monday at a final campaign appearance before Jerusalem's Western Wall.

However, some political analysts have speculated that Netanyahu might seek to project a more moderate image for Israel on the world stage and look to share power with centrist parties, such as Yesh Atid (There is a Future) - a newly formed group led by former TV host Yair Lapid.

ARAB UPRISING

Israel's main opposition party, Labour, which is seen capturing up to 17 seats, has already ruled out a repeat of 2009, when it initially entered Netanyahu's cabinet, promising to promote peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

U.S.-brokered talks collapsed just a month after they started in 2010 following a row over settlement building, and have laid in ruins ever since. Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the failure and says his door remains open to discussions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he won't return to the table unless there is a halt to settlement construction.

That looks unlikely, with Netanyahu approving some 11,000 settler homes in December alone, causing further strains to his already notoriously difficult relations with U.S. President Barack Obama, who was sworn in for a second term on Monday.

Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.

Netanyahu has said the turbulence - which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt - shows the importance of strengthening national security.

If he wins on Tuesday, he will seek to put Iran back to the top of the global agenda. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.

Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.

The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.

One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.

Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.

(This story has been corrected to add dropped word in paragraph four)

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Editing by Peter Graff)

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Wen urges "healthy" devt as China's economy slows

BEIJING: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has urged the central bank to promote "healthy" economic development, the government said, after the economy expanded at its slowest pace for 13 years in 2012.

Speaking on a visit to the headquarters of the People's Bank of China, Wen called on the central bank to push financial reform and use monetary policy to support the economy, the government said in a statement late on Monday.

"Financial work is still facing a severe and complicated domestic and overseas environment," Wen was quoted as saying.

"We must make full use of monetary policy for the economy to realise continued healthy development," he said, adding prices should be kept stable.

China's economy, the world's second largest, expanded 7.8 percent last year, the government announced on Friday, in the face of weakness at home and in key overseas markets.

The central bank last cut interest rates in July last year, and has instead used its open market operations to boost liquidity to support the economy as growth flagged in the second half.

Last week, the central bank said it would start carrying out short-term operations to manage liquidity in the money market, which analysts say will give policy-makers more flexibility.

Wen called for more financial reforms, including the long-held goals of further liberalising interest rates and making China's yuan currency freely convertible, but gave no details of such moves.

In June last year, the central bank gave banks more flexibility to set interest rates, effectively introducing greater competition and improving allocation of capital.

China last year also began allowing its tightly-controlled currency to trade in a wider band against the US dollar, on the long march for the yuan to become freely convertible.

But Wen also called for preserving financial stability, suggesting future reforms will continue to be incremental.

Wen is set to step down as premier in March, wrapping up a decade overseeing the government and economy.

Li Keqiang, a member of the ruling Communist Party's powerful Politburo Standing Committee, is touted to replace him amid hopes the new leadership might be more aggressive in promoting economic reforms.

- AFP/al

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North Korea lets foreigners bring in cell phones

North Korea's army.

(Credit:
CBS/Randy Schmidt)

North Korea is easing some of strict cell phone rules -- now, visitors can bring their own mobile devices into the country, according to the Associated Press.

While this may seem like a minor move on the part of the North Korean government, it is actually a big step for one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Despite the ease in regulations, foreigners are still not allowed to talk to any locals via mobile device.

For years North Korea's authorities made visitors leave their cell phones at the border or airport when arriving to the country, according to the Associated Press. Now, the new rules allow foreigners to bring their own WCDMA-compatible phones or rent a mobile and buy a local SIM card at the airport. These SIM cards allow calls to Japan and the U.S., but not South Korea.

This change in the rules may have been brought on by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's recent trip to the country in his push to get North Korea's government to give its citizens more Internet access. On his visit, Schmidt elected to leave his phone in China and rent a local handset.

"We left our phones and laptops behind in China, since we were warned they'd be confiscated in NK, and probably infected with lord knows what malware," Schmidt's daughter, who accompanied her father to North Korea, wrote in a blog post yesterday.

North Korea is known for restricting its citizens' access to cell phones. In 2008, the government banned the use of cell phones to prevent its residents from sharing news about a worsening food crisis. And in December 2010, after the death of president Kim Jong-il, all cell phone use was prohibited during a 100-day mourning period. Those people caught using a mobile device were considered war criminals and "punished accordingly."

The ongoing bans on cell phones seems to stem from the government's desire to keep a tight reign on information flow in and out of the country. According to the Associated Press, more than 1 million North Koreans now have cell phones and that number is growing. However, 1 million people is still less than 5 percent of the country's total population.

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Obama looks to past to set course for future

News Analysis

President Obama is a student of history - it was no coincidence that he formally announced his run to become the first African-American president back in 2007 at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "house divided" speech in 1858 - and his inaugural address today drew an unmistakable line between the nation's past and its prospects for the future.

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President Obama's second inaugural speech

The president opened his remarks by referencing Lincoln's words from that speech, stating that America came to realize at that point in history that "no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free." He grounded his remarks in the Declaration of Independence's claim that "all men are created equal," tying it to both the American Revolution and rules mandating that there is fair play in the free market, to the need for a great nation to "protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune."

Later, he again invoked the declaration - though this time, he referred to the notion that "all of us are created equal" - before referencing three landmark moments in the battle for civil rights: The Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights, the clashes in Selma for African-American rights and the riots at New York's Stonewall Inn for gay rights. (The speech marked the first presidential inaugural in which LGBT rights have been referenced.)

He then pivoted from the triumphs of the past to the necessity of continuing the fight, calling for equal pay for women, equal rights for gay men and women, an elimination of long lines to vote, better treatment of immigrants, and, in an indirect reference to his desire to pass gun control legislation, the necessity of children from Detroit to Appalachia to Newtown to know "that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."

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Brinkley on inaugural address: "A great civil rights speech"

At five separate moments in his second inaugural address, delivered to an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people at the Capitol, Mr. Obama uttered the words "We, the people" - the opening words to the preamble of the Constitution. Those words were deployed to underscore the president's argument that Americans need to recognize that we are all in it together - and that while America celebrates initiative and enterprise, "preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action."

"For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias," he said. "No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people." He went on to add that "we are made for this moment, and we will seize it - so long as we seize it together."

That idea underscored the positions Mr. Obama reiterated during the speech, which at times came closer to a policy-oriented State of the Union Address than an inaugural, which historically tends to be more about soaring rhetoric. (The president will offer his State of the Union on February 12.) In addition to arguing that economic inequality hampers the nation's success, he said that the future depends on harnessing "new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher."

"We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few," said the president. "We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other - through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security - these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

Mr. Obama also fit a call for a renewed focus on fighting climate change - an issue largely absent from his first-term agenda - into the notion of collective action for the common good, saying that "the failure to [address it] would betray our children and future generations."

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Axelrod on Obama's vision for economy

In addition to climate change, Mr. Obama's second term agenda involves pushing passage of gun control and immigration legislation, overseeing the further implementation of the health care law, winding down the war in Afghanistan, and continuing to try to find some way to come to a major agreement with Republicans to address the nation's massive debt and deficit.

He has signaled that to accomplish these goals, he will take a more confrontational approach with Republicans than he did in his first term -- an approach illustrated by his recent refusal to negotiate on raising the debt limit. His inaugural address offered little in the way of appeals for Washington bipartisanship; instead, Mr. Obama called on Americans in and out of the nation's capitol to come together to help the nation stay on the right path, even if the results are sometimes "imperfect."

"Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time - but it does require us to act in our time," he said. "For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay."

It was an appeal grounded in the notion that America's strength comes from all its citizens, no matter their status. And it was offered by a president who knows the debt he owes to history - a president who sees himself both as a symbol of American progress and a vessel to keep it moving forward.

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