| |  | | | | | SHUTTING DOWN Feed My Inbox will be shutting down on January 10, 2013. To find an alternative service for email updates, visit this page. | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pete Souza, official White House photographer, captures the private moments behind some of the events of Barack Obama's re-election year of 2012
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Arizona congresswoman who was shot in January 2011 meets families of those killed in December tragedy The former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords met families of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims on Friday. Giffords was shot in the head at a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona in January 2011. Six people died in the attack. Giffords arrived in Newtown, Connecticut at around 3pm. She met town officials before spending time with the families of those who were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school on 14 December. Giffords met Newtown's chief administrator, first selectman Pat Llodra, and school superintendent Janet Robinson, Reuters reported. She planned to attend a private event at a local home later in the day. The visit came three weeks after 27 people died when Adam Lanza shot his mother before driving to Sandy Hook elementary, where he killed 20 children and six adults. Reuters reported that Giffords and a small group spent around 30 minutes at the town hall before driving away. More than 400 students of Sandy Hook elementary returned to classes for the first time on Thursday, at a school in Monroe. The school was heavily guarded by police – officers described it as the "safest school in America", according to the Associated Press. Giffords, 42, was shot at point blank range at a public meeting outside a grocery store in Tucson on 7 January 2011. A nine-year-old girl was among the six people killed. The congresswoman learned to walk and speak again in the months following the attack but announced that she would step down from Congress in January 2012. Giffords appeared in front of 20,000 delegates at the Democratic National Convention in September, to deliver the pledge of allegiance. Giffords and her husband, the astronaut Mark E Kelly, met the New York mayor Mike Bloomberg on Wednesday. The mayor's office, which tweeted a picture of the pair, did not specify the nature of the meeting but Bloomberg was one of the most outspoken voices in calling for stricter gun laws after the Newtown shooting.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Move likely to prompt strong opposition from Republicans who feel Hagel, a former GOP senator, is too liberal on foreign policy Barack Obama is poised to nominate as defence secretary early next week a Vietnam combat veteran and former Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, in a move that would provoke strong opposition from Republicans and spark a tough nomination battle. Hagel, though he was a Republican senator, takes a liberal position on many foreign policy issues and was one of the leading voices in his party against George W Bush's Iraq policy. He had been approached by the White House about replacing Leon Panetta as defence secretary and successfully vetted. Obama, in an interview last Sunday, spoke highly of him but said he had not made up his mind. "I've served with Chuck Hagel. I know him. He is a patriot. He is somebody who has done extraordinary work both in the United States senate, somebody who served this country with valour in Vietnam," Obama said. Various sources in the administration and friends of Hagel said the president finally made his decision last week and an announcement will be made on Monday or Tuesday. NBC also said it had confirmed the news. Others who had been considered included the former under-secretary for defence Michele Flournoy. Obama announced before Christmas that senator John Kerry will replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. While Kerry will almost certainly sail through the nomination process, Hagel's hearings are likely to be more awkward. The main opposition to his appointment comes from Republicans, who see him as insufficiently supportive of Israel and intent on recalibrating the US position to take more account of Arab opinion. As a former infantry sergeant, Hagel takes a dovish approach to conflict, being a strong advocate of talks with Iran rather than military strikes over its disputed nuclear programme, potentially the biggest foreign policy issue of Obama's second term. As defence secretary, Hagel would not be directly responsible for either diplomatic moves involving Israel-Palestine or Iran. But as defence secretary he would have a voice at the table. In the case of Iran, he would also have to provide the military muscle to back up diplomatic moves by Obama and Kerry. One of his biggest challenges for the incoming defence secretary will be be to oversee a huge reduction in spending planned for the Pentagon. Even though US involvement in the war in Iraq is over and its role in Afghanistan winding down, the administration is seeking deep cuts, especially in big, expensive air and sea projects, one that would be heavy resisted by the defence industry and by members of Congress who fear job losses in their states and districts. Republicans predict there will be few votes for Hagel from their side in the nomination process. GOP senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, told Fox last week that though all of them liked Hagel as a person, "I think a lot of Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about Chuck Hagel's positions on Iran sanctions, his views towards Israel, Hamas and Hizbollah – and there is wide and deep concern about his policies".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rivals welcome news that European commission will pursue investigation despite findings of America's FTC After the US regulator this week dismissed allegations that Google gives unfair prominence to its own services in search results, the European commission has denied that the decision will affects its own investigation into the claims. The US federal trade commission (FTC) ruled after a two-year investigation that "Google's primary purpose … was to improve the user experience". The decision drew immediate condemnation from Microsoft. EC spokesman Michael Jennings said on Friday: "We have taken note of the FTC decision, but we don't see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing." But Microsoft, one of the companies that raised Google's dominance with the FTC, has complained publicly that the agency had not met its own standard procedures, which would require any measures planned against Google to be shown to complainants. "The FTC's overall resolution of this matter is weak and – frankly – unusual," said Dave Heiner, Microsoft's chief lawyer. "We are concerned that the FTC may not have obtained adequate relief even on the few subjects that Google has agreed to address." Heiner claimed the weakness of the FTC's strictures showed itself in Google's reaction: "The litmus test of any antitrust outcome is the set of statements made by a company on the day the outcome is announced … Google seems to be walking with a new spring in its step.'' Google is still being investigated by the EC over allegations that it favours its own products in searches, and downgrades those of potential rivals in search and other areas such as shopping. Heiner greeted the EC's announcement as "good news", claiming that antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia "has made clear that he will close his investigation of Google only with a formal binding order that addresses search bias and other issues". The FTC decided that any bias shown by Google in search results was done to benefit the consumer, and so did not constitute an abuse of its power. But it required Google not to penalise the search ranking of companies that withdraw their data from some of its products, such as Shopping or Local, and to allow advertisers to move data between multiple platforms. Microsoft was critical of the lack of consultation there: "We would have explained that Google's promise on ad campaign portability falls short of the mark in various ways. For example, Google inexplicably has not promised to allow all advertisers to port their campaign data to other ad platforms – only those with a primary billing address in the United States." Many firms advertising there have non-US addresses, Heiner pointed out. Under the terms of the consent with the FTC, Google also has to license essential patents owned by itself or Motorola to any willing licensee – in theory putting an end to lawsuits where its Motorola subsidiary has sought US sales and import bans against the iPhone, iPad and Microsoft's Xbox 360. But Microsoft was critical of that too, saying that it did not amount to a complete commitment never to seek sales bans over essential patents – which it said itself, Apple and Bosch have previously pledged to do.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols of Hollywood division are accused of targeting at least four women Two Los Angeles police officers are under investigation for allegedly using blackmail and intimidation to force women to have sex with them while on duty. Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols, veteran LAPD officers in the Hollywood division, are accused of targeting at least four women, in some cases taking them into an unmarked car to secluded areas. The accusations, if confirmed, will taint the image of a force that has shed much of its reputation for thuggery since the Rodney King riots of 1992. The LAPD chief, Charlie Beck, said on Thursday that he was saddened by the allegations and that investigations were continuing. "If they are true, it would be horrific," he said. Detectives from the department's internal affairs unit suspect the officers preyed on women whom they had arrested previously or who worked for them as informants, according to a search warrant reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. The pair lured victims into their car and used the threat of jail to coerce sex, the warrant alleges. Four women have made independent accusations. Detectives intended to confront the officers next week but rushed to do so this week, after one of the women filed a lawsuit. The detectives sequestered the officers and seized their computers and phones. Valenzuela and Nichols were expected to remain off duty pending the investigation's outcome. The first accusation was made in January 2010, when a woman who worked as a police informant told a narcotics unit supervisor that the officers, wearing plain clothes, had lured her into a Volkswagen Jetta. One allegedly exposed himself and demanded she touch him. Another woman subsequently told a supervisor that the two officers ordered her into a Jetta while she walked her dog in Hollywood. They had arrested her in a previous encounter and she said she felt compelled to get in. Valenzuela allegedly got into the back seat with her, unzipped his trousers, forced her head into his lap and demanded oral sex, saying: "Why don't you cut out that tough girl crap." In July 2012, police were tipped off by a member of the Echo Park neighbourhood watch that patrol officers were allegedly picking up prostitutes and releasing them in exchange for oral sex, the warrant said. Investigators interviewed a third woman, who said Nichols had detained her in July 2011 and demanded oral sex, saying: "You don't want to go to jail today, do you?" Fearing arrest, she complied. She said Nichols had done the same thing to her six years earlier. A fourth woman, a police informant, said she had sex with Valenzuela twice, once in her apartment, once in the back of an undercover police car. She said she feared going to jail if she refused. In fact she was sentenced to jail in April 2011, reportedly for cocaine possession, and lodged the lawsuit from jail. The story broke just a week after the LAPD celebrated a drop in overall crime for the 10th consecutive year, which was seen by many as vindication of the force's rehabilitation since the 1990s.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sixty-seven Republicans vote against insurance-funding bill to bring tumultuous week for the GOP in the House to a close The US House of Representatives voted in favour of a $9bn package to fund insurance claims arising from hurricane Sandy on Friday, but only after a quarter of Republican congress members – including the former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan – voted against the legislation. The bill, which provides extra finance for victims in New Jersey and New York, passed by 354 votes to 67 against. All the no votes came from Republicans. The Senate later passed the bill. Friday's vote indicates that that there could be a fight looming when a larger package for $51bn of reconstruction aid comes before the House on 15 January. There is now a real prospect of an ugly debate over the details of that package. The passage of bill HR 41 came at the end of a tumultuous week for the GOP in the House. The was scheduled only after the outspoken governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and other Republicans from Sandy-affected states lined up to criticise their party's leadership after a plan to vote on a larger relief bill was dropped amid the turmoil over the fiscal cliff deal earlier this week. Christie said that Congress had shown "callous indifference" in delaying its consideration of Sandy relief. In the vote on Friday, Ryan was the highest-profile Republican to reject the measure. The Wisconsin congressman – who earlier this week voted in favour of the fiscal cliff deal – joined a list of mostly hardline conservative Republicans in expressing dissatisfaction with Sandy package. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had earlier warned that the its national programme for flood insurance would run out of money next week if Congress did not provide the additional borrowing authority provided in the bill. Fema has said that it has received about 140,000 insurance claims related to Sandy, which damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey, and more than 570,000 in New York. Many claimants have received only received partial payments. The row over the bill came after the House speaker, John Boehner, reversed a decision to allow a vote on the full $60bn package on Tuesday. Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, had threatened to leave the party before being soothed by Boehner and offered Friday's vote. Some Republicans had defended Boehner, arguing that the $60bn bill was full of "pork" – sweetener payments – that had little to do with Sandy, including $150m for fisheries in Alaska and $2m for a new roof for the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Frustration was evident on the floor of the House on Friday. "It took only 10 days after Katrina for President Bush to sign $60bn in Katrina aid," said New Jersey Democratic representative Bill Pascrell. "How dare you come to this floor and make people think everything is OK." The result of Friday's vote is unlikely to allay fears that the 113th Congress would be just as partisan as the 112th, with 29% of House Republicans voting against the deal. Some 67 GOP votes were against the bill, with 158 in favour. All 178 Democrat votes were in support of the package.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sixty-seven Republicans vote against insurance-funding bill to bring tumultuous week for the GOP in the House to a close The US House of Representatives voted in favour of a $9bn package to fund insurance claims arising from hurricane Sandy on Friday, but only after a quarter of Republican congress members – including the former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan – voted against the legislation. The bill, which provides extra finance for victims in New Jersey and New York, passed by 354 votes to 67 against. All the no votes came from Republicans. The Senate later passed the bill. Friday's vote indicates that that there could be a fight looming when a larger package for $51bn of reconstruction aid comes before the House on 15 January. There is now a real prospect of an ugly debate over the details of that package. The passage of bill HR 41 came at the end of a tumultuous week for the GOP in the House. The was scheduled only after the outspoken governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and other Republicans from Sandy-affected states lined up to criticise their party's leadership after a plan to vote on a larger relief bill was dropped amid the turmoil over the fiscal cliff deal earlier this week. Christie said that Congress had shown "callous indifference" in delaying its consideration of Sandy relief. In the vote on Friday, Ryan was the highest-profile Republican to reject the measure. The Wisconsin congressman – who earlier this week voted in favour of the fiscal cliff deal – joined a list of mostly hardline conservative Republicans in expressing dissatisfaction with Sandy package. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had earlier warned that the its national programme for flood insurance would run out of money next week if Congress did not provide the additional borrowing authority provided in the bill. Fema has said that it has received about 140,000 insurance claims related to Sandy, which damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey, and more than 570,000 in New York. Many claimants have received only received partial payments. The row over the bill came after the House speaker, John Boehner, reversed a decision to allow a vote on the full $60bn package on Tuesday. Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, had threatened to leave the party before being soothed by Boehner and offered Friday's vote. Some Republicans had defended Boehner, arguing that the $60bn bill was full of "pork" – sweetener payments – that had little to do with Sandy, including $150m for fisheries in Alaska and $2m for a new roof for the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Frustration was evident on the floor of the House on Friday. "It took only 10 days after Katrina for President Bush to sign $60bn in Katrina aid," said New Jersey Democratic representative Bill Pascrell. "How dare you come to this floor and make people think everything is OK." The result of Friday's vote is unlikely to allay fears that the 113th Congress would be just as partisan as the 112th, with 29% of House Republicans voting against the deal. Some 67 GOP votes were against the bill, with 158 in favour. All 178 Democrat votes were in support of the package.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | America is ready to follow the Crawleys once again – even if British viewers have already seen the show's two new shocks Over the past few weeks, whether by stumbling upon a friend's Facebook rant or catching a careless headline, even the most vigilant US-based Downton Abbey fan could have had ruined a key moment of the drama's new season, which airs on PBS from Sunday. The season three finale aired in the UK in late November, before another series-defining twist found its way into the final minutes of last week's Christmas special. A casting announcement related to that twist ensured wide publicity for what should have been the season's most gasp-inducing surprise. But US viewers should be reassured: the build-up to these moments is still worth a weekly hour of grandiose language, gilded dinnerware and resplendent costumes. And this season, that class-conscious hour promises to deliver more of the much desired drama and early-20th century charm than the sometimes outlandish season two. A main draw this season is the introduction of the legendary Shirley MacLaine, who as Cora Crawley's American mother provides an entertaining foil to the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Maggie Smith. MacLaine's brash American sensibilities and the very British reaction from Cousin Violet serve a purpose for US viewers – each of MacLaine's conquests serves as a nice national-rallying point towards British viewers able to reel from developments in the Christmas special while US-based viewers still wait to see the much-anticipated wedding of Mary and Matthew. The impending nuptials and newly united couples (Matthew and Mary, Bates and Anna, Branson and Sybil) provide a warm foundation for the new season, after seven episodes overshadowed by the first world war. In the wake of the war and its wrenching surprises, season three will test how Lord Grantham handles his forceful grasp on tradition as the 1920s proceed. Visually, this setting will provide flapper-esque costumes and Jazz Age conditions for the restless Crawley women to embrace, anchored by the show's exceptionally talented costumers and setmakers. One thing Downton Abbey's American audience has over its British counterparts is the promise in advance of a fourth season and a Christmas special. British broadcaster ITV only confirmed in November that the show would be renewed, just as the third season was wrapping up. The announcement was one of two bits of Downton Abbey information to appear online this winter that were safe for Americans to see. The other was this tremendous photo. Will season four, though, arrive after another spoiler-spilling gap? It seems so, as PBS executives have expressed faith in American Abbey addicts. "The Downton audience is very loyal," PBS's vice president of programming, Beth Hoppe, told the Hollywood Reporter. "They're coming back no matter what, and they're unlikely to be jumping on the internet and trying to watch it illegally." As you wait for this Sunday's Downton-fest, here's the season preview from the Guardian's Viv Groskop: Pilfered snuff boxes and ironed newspapers at the ready! Downton Abbey series three is upon us. What an exquisitely agonising wait it has been. There is a fear this series might actually be good, thereby spoiling all the cynical fun we had laughing at the series two plotlines involving amnesiac cousins with burnt-off faces, and war injuries that caused impotence and paralysis but then turned out to be temporary; easily cured by the sudden appearance of a Tingle.
And – with a spoiler alert! – here's the Guardian's episode one blog post... only to be clicked on as the credits roll on Sunday.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Demonstrators in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh join protest movement against sexual violence Protests against sexual violence are spreading across south Asia as anger following the gang rape and death of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi courses through the region. Inspired by the rallies and marches staged across India for nearly three weeks, demonstrations have also been held in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh – all countries where activists say women suffer high levels of sexual and domestic violence. In Nepal, the case of a 21-year-old woman who says she was raped and threatened with death by a police officer and robbed by immigration officials, prompted hundreds of demonstrators to converge on the prime minister's residence in Kathmandu. They called for legal reforms and an overhaul of attitudes to women. "We had seen the power of the mass campaign in Delhi's rape case. It is a pure people's movement," said Anita Thapa, one of the demonstrators. Bandana Rana, a veteran Nepalese activist, described the ongoing protests in Delhi as "eye-opening". "A few years back, women even talking about sexual violence or even domestic violence was a very rare," she said. Sultana Kamal, of the Bangladeshi human rights group Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), said the protests in Delhi had given fresh impetus to protests against sexual violence. One incident that has provoked anger in Bangladesh was the alleged gang rape of a teenager by four men over four days in early December in Tangail, 40 miles north-west of Dhaka. The men were said to have made videos of the attack before leaving their victim near a rail track where she was eventually found by her brother. On Friday a teenager who was said to have been repeatedly raped in a hotel died in hospital in Dhaka of injuries sustained when she subsequently tried to take her own life. But despite the widespread anger, the social stigma attached to rape victims remains a major problem throughout the region. Although Bangladesh police arrested suspects in both the cases and investigations are under way, activists fear that corruption as well as deep-seated misogyny among investigating officers and the judiciary make convictions unlikely. According to ASK's statistics, at least 1,008 women were raped in 2012 in Bangladesh, of whom 98 were later killed. Khushi Kabir, one of the organisers of a "human chain" in Dhaka to protest against violence to women, said its aim was "to show that people are not going to just let this [movement] die down". Kabir said although previous demonstrations on similar issues were largely dominated by women, men were now protesting too. The protests had also drawn people from a broad range of society. "We had lawyers, schoolchildren, teachers, theatre activists and personalities, industrialists," she said. One week after the Delhi rape victim died in a Singapore hospital, the widespread grief and outrage have moderated, but a fierce debate still rages over the country's sexual violence and attitudes to women. One politician from the opposition BJP party was forced to apologise after stating the women who did not stay "within moral limits … paid the price". A senior official in a hardline Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation provoked controversy when he claimed that westernisation was responsible for rapes in cities. The Delhi rape case is being heard in a special fast-track court inaugurated last week to deal with such offences in the capital. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Saturday. Protests however continue, albeit at a lower intensity than in previous weeks. The Indian media continue to give prominence to news items that would barely have received attention a month ago. On Friday it was reported that a 19-year-old woman had died in a hospital in the north-western city of Jaipur after she set herself on fire allegedly following aggressive harassment from a neighbour. She said the man had threatened to kill her brother and father if she did not marry him. In another incident reported on Friday a woman was said to have jumped from a moving train to escape an assault. Sexual harassment on public transport is endemic in India where men target single young women. Such abuse is described euphemistically as "eve-teasing" with perpetrators dubbed "railway Romeos". One persistent problem, women say, is men filming their faces or bodies on mobile phones in buses or trains. Indian activists have repeatedly argued that media descriptions of such activities as "eve-teasing" contribute to the widespread acceptance of sexual harassment in public places. A recent survey by the Hindustan Times newspaper found that nearly 80% of women aged between 18 and 25 in Delhi had been harassed last year and more than 90% of men of the same age had "friends who had made passes at women in public places". Nearly two-thirds of the latter thought the problem was exaggerated. It was also reported on Friday that though Delhi police had received 64 calls alleging a rape and 501 calls about harassment since 16 December, only four formal inquiries had been launched. Senior officials across the south Asian region have defended their government's records on tackling sexual violence against women. In Delhi, Sushilkumar Shinde, the Indian home secretary, said on Friday that crimes against women and marginalised sections of society were increasing, and it was the government's responsibility to stop them. "This needs to be curbed by an iron hand," he told a conference of state officials from across India convened to discuss how to protect women. He called for changes in the law and the way police investigate cases so justice could be swiftly delivered. Many rape cases are bogged down in India's overburdened and sluggish court system for years. "We need a reappraisal of the entire system," he said. Dr Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi minister for women and children's affairs, said her government was "taking this issue very seriously". "Just yesterday [Thursday] a sex offender … was given a very high punishment under the law," she said, "but sometimes the delay and the whole process of the trial takes a bit of time to ensure justice." Protests are expected on Saturday in Bangladesh following the news of a new incident: the rape and killing of a student in the south-east of the country. The 14-year-old is reported to have left home to bring in her family's cows in Rangamati district one evening earlier this week. Her uncle later found her body in a forest. An autopsy report later confirmed that she had been raped and then strangled. • Additional reporting: Ishwar Rauniyar in Kathmandu, Saad Hammadi, Dhaka.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | With no sign of the west relaxing its ban on arming opposition forces, rebels are forced to focus on a gradual war of attrition Despite widespread pledges of support from western and Arab states, the main Syrian opposition coalition says it has still not seen any significant increase in funding or arms supplies. Members of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, formed in November, say that there is still no sign of western capitals relaxing their ban on delivering weapons to the rebels and that even Gulf Arab governments, which helped arm opposition groups last year, are supplying less with every passing week. "The supplies are drying up. It is still Syrian expats – individuals - who are providing the funding by and large," said a Syrian businessman who has helped to fund the opposition since the uprising began 22 months ago. As a result, he said, the fragmented rebel forces have changed strategy, giving up hopes of a sweep through the country, and focusing instead on a gradual war of attrition: besieging isolated government military bases to stop the regime using planes and helicopters against them and ultimately to capture weapons, to compensate for the meagre supplies from abroad. Opposition groups claim to be close to overrunning a regime helicopter base near the northern town of Taftanaz, in Idlib province, posting a video online purporting to show a captured tank firing at government armoured vehicles and helicopters inside the perimeter walls of the base. "The battles now are at the gates of the airport," Fadi al-Yassin, an activist based in Idlib told the Associated Press, adding that the base commander, a brigadier general, had been killed in the fighting on Thursday. Yassin said that it had become very difficult for the regime helicopters to take off and land at the base, but warplanes from airfields further south, in the central province of Hama and the coastal region of Latakia, were bombarding rebel fighters besieging Taftanaz. President Bashar al-Assad's government also claimed to be advancing in Daraya, a Damascus suburb close to another military air base and some government headquarters. As it has become increasingly clear that large-scale external assistance is unlikely to materialise, the many locally-based rebel groups have found ways of sustaining themselves militarily and financially, but have largely given up hoping for a sudden breakthrough. "What you are going to see is one or two air bases beginning to fall, particularly in the north, in Aleppo and Idlib," the opposition financier said. "But there is a law of diminishing returns. As these bases are encircled there is less bounty in each one as the government has been moving out assets when it becomes clear the bases are going to fall." In November, the rebels succeeded in bringing down some government aircraft with shoulder-launched missiles captured in a regime base, but Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said sightings of such missiles have faded in recent weeks. "There was a spike late last year, but there have been no signs of any more since that capture, and there is no evidence we have seen of foreign-supplied missiles," he said. Over the past two months, the US, UK and France as well as other European states and the Gulf monarchies have declared the newly formed national coalition "the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people", in what they hoped would be a turning point in bringing some cohesion to the deeply divided opposition, and in forging links between those in exile and rebel commanders inside Syria. Such links have continued to be elusive, however, and both the new coalition and its backers are blaming each other, in rows reminiscent of the problems that dogged its forerunner, the Syrian National Council. Western governments have made disbursements of aid dependent on proven control over rebel forces in Syria and credible assurances that the assistance would not further the aims of extremist Islamist groups such as the Nusra Front, declared a terrorist organisation by the US. Opposition leaders complain that without significant aid they have little hope of rallying support or exerting any control over the chaotic anti-Assad effort. "We don't even money for airplane tickets," one complained. "It is little unfair of the international community and particular the French to bestow this title [of sole legitimate representative] on the coalition and not follow through," said Salman Shaikh, of the Brookings Institution's Doha centre thinktank, which played a role in bringing together disparate Syrian activist and opposition groups last year. "If they cannot provide for people in the north, which I suspect will come under full opposition control this year, then the people on the ground will question what is the point. And what you will get is just more factionalism." He added: "I see a very dark period ahead of us, with a total breakdown like Iraq in 2006, with sectarianism on a scale we have not yet seen in Syria." Mustafa Alani, the director of the national security and terrorism studies department at the Gulf Research Centre said: "The people fighting on the streets are not controlled by people outside. They feel they can topple the regime without any help. They feel they are able to self-finance and self-arm and they can survive. "Their focus has shifted. Their strategy is not to try to hold villages and towns so much, but to concentrate on air bases, to stop the aircraft flying and to build up pressure in Damascus. That is where the war will be decided."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow how the day unfolded after Lebanon's Hezbollah movement backed calls for political solution to end violence in neighbouring Syria
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Founded in 1741, Wegelin pleaded guilty in court to helping wealthy Americans hide their income in secret offshore accounts Switzerland's oldest bank is shutting down permanently after pleading guilty to helping some of America's richest people evade paying taxes on at least $1.2bn (£750m) which was hidden in secret offshore accounts. Wegelin, which was founded in 1741, said it would "cease to operate as a bank" after it admitted it had allowed 100 US taxpayers to hide their money. The bank agreed to pay $57.8m in fines and restitution to the US authorities after admitting to conspiracy charges related to helping US taxpayers living overseas evade payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for almost a decade. Otto Bruderer, a managing partner of the bank, told a New York court: "Wegelin was aware that this conduct was wrong … From about 2002 through to about 2010, Wegelin agreed with certain US taxpayers to evade the US tax obligations of these US taxpayer clients, who filed false tax returns with the IRS." The bank, which started business 35 years before the US declaration of independence, released a statement confirming its closure late on Thursday night. "Once the matter is finally concluded, Wegelin will cease to operate as a bank," it said from its headquarters in the small town of St Gallen, near the Swiss border with Austria and Liechtenstein. It is the first foreign bank to close since the US authorities began a crackdown on those helping Americans dodge taxes. US authorities said Wegelin had wooed American clients fleeing Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, after it admitted in 2008 to helping Americans evade tax, paid a $780m fine and handed over information on more than 4,450 accounts. US prosecutor Preet Bharara said Wegelin became a haven for US tax evaders by hiding their money in secret offshore accounts. Bharara, who was described as the man "busting Wall St" on the cover of Time magazine, said Wegelin "willfully and aggressively jumped in to fill the void that was left when other Swiss banks abandoned the practice due to pressure from US law enforcement". He said Wegelin's closure and guilty plea was a watershed moment in US efforts to crack down on individuals and banks "engaging in unlawful conduct that deprives the US treasury of billions of dollars of tax revenue". "There is no excuse for wealthy Americans flouting their responsibilities as citizens of this great country to pay their taxes, and there is no excuse for foreign financial institutions helping them to do so," he said. It was alleged that Wegelin's scheme involved its bankers opening secret accounts for US clients under code names and setting up sham entities to avoid detection in various tax havens, including Panama and Liechtenstein. It is not yet known if the bank will be forced to hand over the names of US clients who held secret accounts at the bank. Until this week it had refused to appear in court to answer the charges, leading US district judge Jed Rakoff to declare it a fugitive from justice. In court papers, Bruderer said Wegelin "believed it would not be prosecuted in the United States for this conduct because it had no branches or offices in the United States and because of its understanding that it acted in accordance with, and not in violation of, Swiss law and that such conduct was common in the Swiss banking industry". Although Wegelin will cease to exist, the bank's partners sold its non-American client accounts to the Austrian bank Raiffeisen just before its indictment last January. Rakoff described the sale as a "fraud upon a fraud". William Sharp, a tax lawyer in Tampa, Florida, who advises many US clients of Swiss banks, described Wegelin's decision to change its plea to guilty as shocking and said it should serve as a wake-up call to foreign banks helping US clients to make sure they comply with US laws. SwissPrivateBank.com, a website Wegelin used to attract English-speaking clients, boasted that: "Swiss bank secrecy is not lifted for tax evasion … Neither the Swiss government nor any other government can obtain information about your bank account." Three of Wegelin's executives - Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller - who were also indicted last year, are expected to avoid the charges because the extradition treaty between Switzerland and the US does not include tax crimes. US authorities are currently investigating similar allegations at least 11 other banks, including Credit Suisse.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sony console launched in 2000 became most successful of all time, selling 150m It was the console that defined an era – but now Sony's PlayStation 2 has finally reached game over. The company has confirmed to the Guardian that after 12 years and 150m units sold worldwide, making it the most successful home games machine of all time, all PS2 manufacture has ended worldwide. Launched in 2000, the successor to the original PlayStation ended up with a library of more than 10,828 games titles by 2011, with 1.52bn individual games sold since launch. "It really is the end of an era," said Anna Marsh, a game designer who worked on key PlayStation titles such as Tomb Raider and Hitman. "At the height of the PlayStation 2's success, the word effectively came to mean video games for a lot of people." Its success was down to three core factors: cunning design, excellent games and great timing. Sony's decision to include a DVD player meant the machine found its way into family living rooms, exposing many more to gaming. It trounced its underpowered rivals, the Nintendo GameCube and Sega Dreamcast, and became the exclusive home of must-have games such as Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid – dominating a vital era in which developers were changing the rules of game design, crafting ambitious cinematic experiences and vast open-world adventures. Piers Harding-Rolls, a senior analyst at IHS Screen Digest, said: "Sony also had a hugely successful marketing strategy, especially its association with football, which saw it gain great penetration in many territories where console gaming was underdeveloped. The PS2 went beyond the first PlayStation by expanding its audience in its later years, introducing lifestyle and social games that helped drive adoption in the mid-2000s." However, the consumer technology market has changed dramatically since the PS2's glory days. "Game consoles used to be the only boxes you owned with any sizzle or personality," says Tom Bramwell, editor of the games site Eurogamer. "Nowadays smartphones, tablets, PCs and smart TVs all have amazing industrial design, features and content, and it's much harder to stand out if everyone else looks cool as well." Certainly, Sony is struggling with its latest handheld device, the PS Vita, which has only sold around 4m units since its arrival last February, while the iPhone, iPad and Android devices sold more than 200m in 2012. Consumers are now used to downloading cheap games on smartphones – hence the incredible success of titles such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. "The industry has become so fractured, I'm not sure we'll see another console that gets that sort of penetration into the public consciousness," said Marsh. That means problems for the home console market. The PlayStation 3, launched in 2006, has never matched its predecessor's success, so far selling around 70m units. It was ruinously expensive to develop, featuring both a proprietary central processor and a blue laser for its Blu-ray drive – a technology that was still being finalised and tested at the time. Released a year after Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's console has never caught up with its main rival, despite some strong games and a free multiplayer online service. Microsoft is also expected to announce a new console this summer, and industry rumours suggest both will resemble state-of-the-art PCs, with off-the-shelf processors and graphics chipsets from companies such as AMD, Intel and Nvidia, rather than expensive, purpose-built hardware. Developers suggest that the PS4 uses chipmaker AMD's "Accelerated Processing Units", which combine quad-core CPUs and graphics processors into one chip for smoother performance. With between 4GB and 16GB of RAM – more than many home PCs – also expected, it could run HD-quality graphics at a colossal 60 frames per second. "Sony is right to make the PlayStation 4 with off-the-shelf parts," says Matt Martin of the gaming news site Gamesindustry.Biz. "The company really doesn't have the money to manufacture a new home console, let alone create bespoke technology for it as it did with the PlayStation 3. The entire Sony Corporation [bonds] has been downgraded to junk status by Fitch." Something the PS4 and Xbox 720 will be the last console generation, with machines designed as customisable units. "I envisage them as scalable off-the-peg PC hardware," said Tim Clark, editorial director at Future Publishing and an ex-editor of the Official PlayStation Magazine. "You will be able to upgrade them very easily with plug-and-play graphics cards, CPUs and so on, but you would have the simple interface of traditional consoles. Certainly the idea of console cycles that last seven years seems like a busted flush now." Whatever the design philosophy, with increased competition from smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and digital download services such as Steam, it is unlikely the industry will ever manufacture a 150m seller again. The production line has stopped, not just on PlayStation 2, but on an idea of what games machines are.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Figures show continued trend of slow improvement and suggest employers were not put off by December's fiscal cliff negotiations The US economy added 155,000 jobs in December, continuing a trend of stubbornly slow improvement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the rate of unemployment remained steady at 7.8% in December. November's rate was revised up to 7.8% from an initially reported 7.7%. The figures are largely in line with analysts' expectations, with broadly distributed gains in employment across sectors from construction and manufacturing to healthcare. "It was a decent employment report", John Lanski, chief economist at Moody's Capital Markets said. "I cannot see any glaring negatives in this report." In all, employers added 1.84 million jobs in 2012, in line with the previous year. It represents steady, if not stellar, improvements ion the jobs market. Nonetheless the gains – at roughly 153,000 additional jobs a month – represents continued momentum in the recovery from the 2007 to 2009 recession. It also suggests that employers were not spooked by December's fiscal cliff negotiations, which had brought America to the brink of triggering an austerity package that many economists said could plunge the US back into recession. "Fiscal cliff related uncertainty isn't apparent. It certainly doesn't jump out of you in the report," Lanski said. There were some indications in the report of the sluggish and fragile nature of the recovery. Despite the headline rate holding steady, the number of Americans out of work increased by 164,000 to 12.2 million. And the number of long-term unemployed remained essentially unchanged at 4.8 million, accounting for 39.1% of those out of work. The unemployment figures come from a separate survey of households, while the payroll count comes from data from businesses. But Friday's data suggests that layoffs continue to decline. Meanwhile the number of people seeking unemployment aid in the past month dropped to a near four-year low. "It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," Jim O'Sullivan, economist at High Frequency Economics said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Proposal – to be followed by second vote in two weeks on $51bn in recovery money – comes after outrage over bill's original delay Congress was due to vote Friday on the first large aid package for victims of Hurricane Sandy. The newly seated Congress scheduled to consider a $9.7bn measure to pay flood insurance claims after a vote on Sandy aid by the outgoing, Republican-controlled House of Representatives was put off earlier this week. New Jersey's outspoken Republican governor, Chris Christie, railed against his own party and joined New York's Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo in calling the move a "disgrace". After Christie's outburst, House Speaker John Boehner assured angry lawmakers that votes on the states' entire request for more than $60bn in aid would be held by the middle of the month. Sandy was blamed for 120 deaths in several states, most in New York and New Jersey, and it was the most costly natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. Lawmakers have complained that it took just 10 days for Congress to approve about $50bn in aid for Katrina. The storm ripped apart the New Jersey shore and parts of the New York City area coastline, leaving thousands homeless. If the House of Representatives approves the flood insurance proposal as expected Friday, the Senate planned to follow with a likely uncontested vote later in the day. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned that the National Flood Insurance Program will run out of money next week if Congress does npt provide additional borrowing authority to pay out claims. Congress created the Fema-run program in 1968 because few private insurers covered flood damage. Northeast lawmakers say the money is urgently needed for storm victims awaiting claim checks from the late October storm. "People are waiting to be paid," said congressman Frank LoBiondo, whose district includes the casino-filled Atlantic City and many other coastal communities. "They're sleeping in rented rooms on cots somewhere, and they're not happy. They want to get their lives back on track, and it's cold outside. They see no prospect of relief." About 140,000 Sandy-related flood insurance claims have been filed, Fema officials said, and most have yet to be closed out. Many flood victims have only received partial payments. The storm damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey. In New York, 305,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed and more than 265,000 businesses were affected. The flood insurance measure is the first phase of a proposed Sandy aid package. The House will vote on 15 January on an additional $51bn in recovery money. Senate action on that measure is expected the following week. More than $2bn in federal money has been spent so far on relief efforts for 11 states and the District of Columbia struck by the storm.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Meanwhile, the Fed is split on whether to call a halt to QE3 before the end of 2013 – while today's US jobs data is expected to cheer markets
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | New York City mayor says reasoning that guns can combat guns is flawed after three police officers shot in one-hour span New York City's mayor has criticized the top US gun lobbying group after three of the city's police officers were shot in separate incidents that left one suspect dead and four under arrest. The shootings occurred in a one-hour span Thursday night. "In recent weeks, we've heard some people say that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But sometimes the good guys get shot and sometimes, they are killed," mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters Thursday. Bloomberg is outspoken on gun violence and has been critical of the National Rifle Association's suggestion last month that the solution to school shootings like the recent one in Newtown, Connecticut, should be addressed by putting an armed police officer in every school in the country. The Newtown shooting killed 20 children, ages six and seven, along with six adults at the school. The gunman also killed his mother before shooting himself. On Thursday, off-duty police officer Juan Pichardo was shot in the thigh at his family's car dealership. An hour later, two plainclothes transit officers were injured in a shootout on a subway car. One of the officers returned fire, killing the suspect. Last year, 11 of the city's police officers were shot while on duty and one while off duty, none of them fatal.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Customs officers find a tonne of elephant tusks hidden under rocks in shipping container in third big seizure in three months Hong Kong authorities have made their third big seizure of illegal ivory in three months, confiscating more than a tonne of elephant tusks worth $1.4m, customs officials said on Friday. Customs officers seized 779 pieces of ivory weighing 1,323kg (2,916lb) in a shipping container that arrived at Hong Kong's port from Kenya after passing through Malaysia. The officers discovered the ivory after x-raying the container, which was declared to be carrying architectural stones. Forty sacks holding the ivory were found inside five wooden crates, hidden under rocks. The investigation is still continuing. No one has been arrested. The discovery on 20 October of nearly four tonnes in two shipments, worth $3.4m, was the city's biggest seizure in a single operation. A shipment found in November was about the same size as the one found on Thursday. Hong Kong authorities also confiscated a shipment of ivory worth $2.2m in 2011. Wildlife activists say strong demand and high prices for ivory, which can fetch up to $1,000 a pound, have driven elephant poaching to record levels. Most illegal ivory is believed to be obtained through the wildlife trade in Africa and smuggled to China and Thailand for use as ornamental items.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Beijing-based French artist Thomas Sauvin has amassed more than 500,000 negatives from Chinese amateur photographers Recently, Thomas Sauvin has been a bit obsessed by women with fridges. Tourists in front of the Mona Lisa are another fascination: "You have a glass box in front of the painting, dozens of people fighting to see, the flash - it's the perfect horrible image," he said with delight. Over almost four years, the Beijing-based French artist has amassed more than 500,000 negatives from Chinese amateur photographers which had, until his intervention, been destined for destruction. "This time is from 1985, when everyday Chinese accessed film photography, to 2006, when digital started taking over," he said. "It's really the birth of post-socialist China." The rapid spread of cheap automatics allowed ordinary people to capture the country's changing face. But while the collection spans hundreds of thousands of lives, the same themes appear again and again. The portraits of women posing with their fridges emerged in the late 1980s, as people acquired more household goods. Later came shots with Ronald McDonald, as the Chinese discovered fast food. Photos of the Eiffel Tower followed as wealthier families began travelling abroad. "In the western understanding of photography now we see a good picture as something that is shot discreetly, without the person being aware … something where you steal the moment," said Sauvin. But in these photographs "you have complicity between the photographer and the person being photographed. It's not a stolen photograph. It's 3-2-1, looking at the lens … There's a complete absence of spontaneity. "It makes them very intriguing, very unpretentious. And they're just quite funny. All those are qualities pretty hard to find in photographs today." The artist was buying prints by contemporary Chinese photographers for the Archive of Modern Conflict in London when he decided he needed a change from the expense and ego of professional work and started seeking amateur images. When he came across an advert from a man seeking negatives, he assumed he had found a rival buyer. Instead, he discovered, Xiao Ma worked in the recycling trade and collected X-rays, negatives and CDs so he could drop them into a pool of acid and sell the resulting silver nitrate to chemists. These days he sells Sauvin the negatives, by the kilo, but is "super not interested" in the artistic results. Few Chinese friends beyond the art world care for the project, Sauvin said. He suspects the era is simply too close and familiar. But to outsiders the pictures are compelling. It is hard not to wonder what became of these smiling families, serious young men and perturbed-looking infants. "I really don't want to know. It would kill a bit of the magic," said Sauvin. One day, after combing through hundreds of pictures of the same couple, he decided to take a break and go for a walk. When he cut through the grounds of a hospital, he stopped short. On a billboard showing staff photographs, "there was my man" - the husband from the shots he had just been inspecting. "I was not very happy … it became so obvious. It was too soon," he said. Another time, a Chinese friend recognised the wedding photos of a childhood acquaintance, and then discovered the couple had divorced eight years ago. Sauvin has selected pictures for an exhibition at the Format photo festival in Derby in March, but the collection has grown beyond him. Collaborators see the negatives in different ways, picking out other images and finding new uses for them, he said. One, illustrator Ray Lei, created an animation from near-identical shots of different people. He wanted bulk and repetition, rather than distinctiveness. "I'm creating a historical archive. The worst thing that could happen is for it to be digested by me and me alone," said Sauvin.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | After FTC investigation, US regulators force internet giant to agree to change how it presents some search results but exonerated over bias Google has been forced by regulators in the US to agree to legally binding changes to the way it presents some search results and runs its search advertising following nearly two years of investigation. But the internet search engine was exonerated of bias to push down competitors in its search results, leaving it untroubled by any government threat. The Federal Trade Commission attacked the behaviour of its Motorola Mobility (MMI) phone subsidiary, however, which used essential patents to try to block competition and extract huge payments. The watchdog said MMI had engaged in unfair conduct and that Google had continued to do so after buying the company in August 2012. Announcing the FTC's conclusions, Jon Liebowitz, FTC's director, said: "We exhaustively investigated whether [Google] uses search bias" to push its own products higher and rivals' down the search results. But after nearly two years, he said, "the commission has voted to close this investigation. Although some evidence suggested it was trying to remove competition, the primary reason was to improve the user experience." Rivals including Microsoft had said that Google promoted its own services, including videos, shopping and maps, over equally or better-qualified rivals, and pushed down results from competing "vertical search" companies.But the five FTC commissioners disagreed. The long-awaited decision will infuriate Microsoft, which has complained separately that Google is acting as a monopoly by refusing to build a YouTube app for the Windows Phone software it makes – a move that it complains directly harms consumers by restricting choice. Microsoft could demand an investigation by the US department of justice – which 15 years ago prosecuted Microsoft itself on monopoly charges. Google is still in talks with the European commission's antitrust arm over a similar investigation, which could enforce more far-reaching changes than the US regulator has. Google has a far bigger search share in Europe than it does in its home country. The EC has been investigating Google's position in search since November 2010. The FTC, which is the US government organisation meant to protect consumers' interests, had looked ready at the end of December last year to wind up the investigation with a settlement – but delayed the decision after Liebowitz met the EC's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia. Under the legally binding agreement with the US watchdog, Google will stop "scraping" content from other sites and presenting it as its own in results, and will allow sites and businesses to opt out of featuring in its "vertical" search results such as Google Local and Google Shopping without that resulting in their being pushed down in general search results. Allegations that Google had threatened to remove companies that opted out were "most troubling", Liebowitz said. He said the investigation had seen nine million pages of documents from Google and other parties, and heard sworn testimony from Google executives. David Drummond, Google's chief counsel, said in a statement: "the conclusion is clear: Google's services are good for users and good for competition" and added "we head into 2013 excited about our ability to innovate for the benefit of users everywhere. But that was not enough for Microsoft. "Hopefully, Google will wake up to a New Year with a resolution to change its ways and start to conform with the antitrust laws," Microsoft's deputy general counsel Dave Heiner wrote in an angry posting on Microsoft's site. "If not, then 2013 hopefully will be the year when antitrust enforcers display the resolve that Google continues to lack." Heiner pointed to Google's continued reluctance to build a dedicated YouTube app for Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile platform — something which it has done for Apple's iPhone after Apple banished YouTube as its default video player. "Google continues to block Microsoft from offering its customers proper access to YouTube. This is an important issue because consumers value YouTube access on their phone — YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile apps in 2012," Heiner said. The FTC was hugely critical of Motorola Mobility's (MMI) use of so-called "standards-essential patents" (SEPs) to seek to block sales of smartphones, tablets, games consoles and computers. SEPs must be used to make a device conform to standards such as 3G or Wi-Fi networking — but MMI has sued Apple, Microsoft and others, and demanded swingeing licence fees beyond the perceived value of the patent itself, simply because it is essential to meet the standard. "Years ago, Motorola promised to license those patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," Liebowitz said. "Other companies took Motorola at its word. They invested billions. Motorola then changed the rules of the game — it sought injunctions and exclusion orders over those SEPs. Google inherited those and continued them." Liebowtiz explained: "Google's unfair conduct threatened to block [US consumer] access to laptops, smartphones, tablets and gaming systems or raise their prices which would have been passed on to consumers — for example an iPad, BlackBerry smartphones are all under threat if this practice continued." Instead, Google would be obliged to license the patents on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms. "We stopped that abuse," Liebowitz said. Google will have to agree that the changes are legally binding rather than voluntary. That would allow the FTC to enforce the commitments and monitor them — and fine Google if it varied from them. Fairsearch, a lobby group of companies including Microsoft and Oracle, as well as smaller travel and search companies, who complain Google is "abusing its search monopoly" said in a blogpost that it "remains convinced that US consumers and innovators deserve the same protections that the European Commission may adopt in Europe. Consumers will fail to reap the benefits of a truly competitive online marketplace if Google is allowed to pick and choose where it biases its search results."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | After FTC investigation, US regulators force internet giant to agree to change how it presents some search results but exonerated over bias Google has been forced by regulators in the US to agree to legally binding changes to the way it presents some search results and runs its search advertising following nearly two years of investigation. But the internet search engine was exonerated of bias to push down competitors in its search results, leaving it untroubled by any government threat. The Federal Trade Commission attacked the behaviour of its Motorola Mobility (MMI) phone subsidiary, however, which used essential patents to try to block competition and extract huge payments. The watchdog said MMI had engaged in unfair conduct and that Google had continued to do so after buying the company in August 2012. Announcing the FTC's conclusions, Jon Liebowitz, FTC's director, said: "We exhaustively investigated whether [Google] uses search bias" to push its own products higher and rivals' down the search results. But after nearly two years, he said, "the commission has voted to close this investigation. Although some evidence suggested it was trying to remove competition, the primary reason was to improve the user experience." Rivals including Microsoft had said that Google promoted its own services, including videos, shopping and maps, over equally or better-qualified rivals, and pushed down results from competing "vertical search" companies.But the five FTC commissioners disagreed. The long-awaited decision will infuriate Microsoft, which has complained separately that Google is acting as a monopoly by refusing to build a YouTube app for the Windows Phone software it makes – a move that it complains directly harms consumers by restricting choice. Microsoft could demand an investigation by the US department of justice – which 15 years ago prosecuted Microsoft itself on monopoly charges. Google is still in talks with the European commission's antitrust arm over a similar investigation, which could enforce more far-reaching changes than the US regulator has. Google has a far bigger search share in Europe than it does in its home country. The EC has been investigating Google's position in search since November 2010. The FTC, which is the US government organisation meant to protect consumers' interests, had looked ready at the end of December last year to wind up the investigation with a settlement – but delayed the decision after Liebowitz met the EC's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia. Under the legally binding agreement with the US watchdog, Google will stop "scraping" content from other sites and presenting it as its own in results, and will allow sites and businesses to opt out of featuring in its "vertical" search results such as Google Local and Google Shopping without that resulting in their being pushed down in general search results. Allegations that Google had threatened to remove companies that opted out were "most troubling", Liebowitz said. He said the investigation had seen nine million pages of documents from Google and other parties, and heard sworn testimony from Google executives. David Drummond, Google's chief counsel, said in a statement: "the conclusion is clear: Google's services are good for users and good for competition" and added "we head into 2013 excited about our ability to innovate for the benefit of users everywhere. But that was not enough for Microsoft. "Hopefully, Google will wake up to a New Year with a resolution to change its ways and start to conform with the antitrust laws," Microsoft's deputy general counsel Dave Heiner wrote in an angry posting on Microsoft's site. "If not, then 2013 hopefully will be the year when antitrust enforcers display the resolve that Google continues to lack." Heiner pointed to Google's continued reluctance to build a dedicated YouTube app for Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile platform — something which it has done for Apple's iPhone after Apple banished YouTube as its default video player. "Google continues to block Microsoft from offering its customers proper access to YouTube. This is an important issue because consumers value YouTube access on their phone — YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile apps in 2012," Heiner said. The FTC was hugely critical of Motorola Mobility's (MMI) use of so-called "standards-essential patents" (SEPs) to seek to block sales of smartphones, tablets, games consoles and computers. SEPs must be used to make a device conform to standards such as 3G or Wi-Fi networking — but MMI has sued Apple, Microsoft and others, and demanded swingeing licence fees beyond the perceived value of the patent itself, simply because it is essential to meet the standard. "Years ago, Motorola promised to license those patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," Liebowitz said. "Other companies took Motorola at its word. They invested billions. Motorola then changed the rules of the game — it sought injunctions and exclusion orders over those SEPs. Google inherited those and continued them." Liebowtiz explained: "Google's unfair conduct threatened to block [US consumer] access to laptops, smartphones, tablets and gaming systems or raise their prices which would have been passed on to consumers — for example an iPad, BlackBerry smartphones are all under threat if this practice continued." Instead, Google would be obliged to license the patents on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms. "We stopped that abuse," Liebowitz said. Google will have to agree that the changes are legally binding rather than voluntary. That would allow the FTC to enforce the commitments and monitor them — and fine Google if it varied from them. Fairsearch, a lobby group of companies including Microsoft and Oracle, as well as smaller travel and search companies, who complain Google is "abusing its search monopoly" said in a blogpost that it "remains convinced that US consumers and innovators deserve the same protections that the European Commission may adopt in Europe. Consumers will fail to reap the benefits of a truly competitive online marketplace if Google is allowed to pick and choose where it biases its search results."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Birmingham hospital says 15-year-old shot in the head by Taliban for 'promoting secularism' now well enough to be outpatient Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban, has been discharged from the Birmingham hospital where she was being treated. The Queen Elizabeth hospital said she was well enough to be treated as an outpatient for the next few weeks. She was discharged on Thursday to continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands. Dave Rosser, medical director at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust, said: "Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery. Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers. She will return to the hospital as an outpatient and our therapies team will continue to work with her at home to supervise her onward care." The hospital said she had been allowed home leave on a regular basis over the past fortnight to spend time with her father Ziauddin, mother Toorpekai and younger brothers, Khushal and Atul. Her family will be able to stay in the country for up to five years after her father was appointed to a diplomatic post at Pakistan's consulate in Birmingham. Malala is due to be to be readmitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery. She was admitted to the hospital on 15 October 2012, six days after she was wounded in a school bus shooting which provoked worldwide condemnation and revulsion. She was targeted for "promoting secularism" by championing girls' education. She had also highlighted Taliban atrocities in the Swat valley and, when younger, kept a diary for the BBC's Urdu service. There were calls for her to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. The foreign secretary, William Hague, said on Malala's arrival that her bravery was "an example to us all". The Taliban have vowed to target her again. She underwent a life-saving operation in Pakistan, but was moved to Birmingham for advanced medical attention from staff who specialise in treating wounded members of the armed forces. The Pakistani government has been paying for her treatment and the upkeep of her family since she arrived in the UK. She was flown from Pakistan in an air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates and was visited by Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari in December, when he described her as a "remarkable girl and a credit to Pakistan".
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as Lebanon's Hezbollah movement backs calls for political solution to end violence in neighbouring Syria
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaker wins 220 votes to Pelosi's 192 to prevent second ballot, but nine GOP members of 113th Congress vote against him John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, survived a re-election vote when the new Congress met for the first time Thursday, in spite of deep ideological divisions within his own Republican party that have left him badly wounded. In contrast with 2010 when he won the unanimous support of his own party, a small group in the GOP registered their unhappiness with him. He has lost a lot of support over his handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations, and other issues. Although on the surface his majority looks comfortable, Boehner won mainly because warring Republicans could not come up with alternative candidates to unite behind. Only Boehner and the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi were on the ballot. He won 220 votes, just three more than needed to prevent an embarrassing second ballot, to Pelosi's 192. Nine Republicans voted against Boehner. Ironically, he was saved by some of the members of Congress that have made life awkward for him over the past few years, in particular Tea Party favourite Michele Bachmann. Boehner, before being sworn in, signalled renewed battles with the White House over spending. "Our government has built up too much debt. Our economy is not producing enough jobs. And these are not separate problems. At $16tn, our national debt is draining free enterprise and weakening the ship of state. The American dream is in peril," he said. Boehner, an emotional man who has cried several times in public, almost broke down again during his short speech. His only reference to the bruising battles he has had with the White House and his own party came when he said the voters had not sent members to Congress to make a name for themselves but to act. "We are standing here not to be something but to do something or, as I like to call it, doing the right thing." The new Congress sworn in at noon on Thursday is more diverse by race, gender and sexual preference, and includes a Hindu, a Buddhist, and two female combat veterans. For the first time, white men are in a minority, at least among House Democrats. But, crucially, the political make-up is largely unchanged. There are a few more Democrats and fewer Tea Party-backed Republicans, but essentially the balance remains the same, with the Democrats in control of the Senate and warring Republicans with a majority in the House. The Congress looks on course to be as unproductive as the last one, paralysed by civil war being fought inside the Republican caucus in the House, between the Tea Party-backed members and more moderate and pragmatic ones. Barack Obama has a set out an ambitious second-term programme that includes immigration reform and gun control, but that could be jeopardised by looming battles over spending cuts and the debt ceiling, and the unwillingness of Republicans to work with the president. The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, put Obama on notice in speech from the floor of the Senate Thursday. "In a couple of months, the president will ask us to raise the nation's debt limit. We cannot agree to increase that borrowing limit without agreeing to reforms that lower the avalanche of spending that's created this debt in the first place," McConnell said. The standoff between Congress and the White House, and the feuding between Republican members of Congress, mirrors the wider conflict that the November election defeat failed to resolve: whether the Republicans shift even more to the right or pivot towards the centre. Boehner, an old-fashioned, country-club Republican who looks to work out deals with his Democratic counterparts, has struggled over the last two years to keep the two factions together. He was humiliated by his own members before Christmas when he could not persuade them to back his own fiscal cliff plan. He was exposed again this week when a fiscal cliff deal was finally voted on, with only 85 Republicans voting for, including Boehner himself, and 152 against. As well as alienating Tea Party-backed Republicans opposed to the deal, Boehner managed in the same week to alienate more moderate and pragmatic Republicans from the north-east by failing to schedule a vote on aid for towns damaged by Hurricane Sandy, opposed by some Republicans for containing unnecessary spending projects. In the ensuing outcry, Boehner hastily backed down and has scheduled a vote for Friday. One of the moderate Republicans, Steve LaTourette, interviewed by CNN, blamed the pattern of crisis after crisis in Congress – which made it one of the most unproductive sessions in recent US history – on the Tea Party conservatives unhappy with the failure to rein in spending and cut the federal debt. "So as a result, they have laid obstacles in front of the speaker for the last two years," LaTourette said. The divisions in the Republican party are unlikely to be resolved until at least the next congressional elections, the mid-terms in 2014. Democrats will urge voters to end the Washington deadlock to give them a majority in both the Senate and House. Voters could resolve it, too, by turfing out the Tea Party-backed members, as they did in November when they opted not to re-elect congressman Allen West, a Tea Party favourite who denounced Obama as a Marxist ideologue. Or they might opt to punish moderate Republicans, as representatives of the Tea Party movement threatened to on Thursday. Amy Kremer, the leader of Tea Party Express, expressed outrage over the fiscal cliff deal, said on Twitter: "There will be consequences." One of the biggest fears of moderate Republicans is finding themselves facing primary battles in their districts or states, up against Tea Party-backed candidates. If the civil war is not resolved in 2014, the battle then moves onto the 2016 presidential nomination, beginning with the Iowa caucus. That fight is already under way. The present favourite is Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida with the Cuban background, who might help the party win back some of the Latino vote from the Democrats. He is also a Tea Party favourite, and could be the figure that brings the warring factions together. Rubio was one of the few Republican senators to vote against the fiscal cliff deal, leaving him able to claim ideological purity and retain Tea Party support. On the other side of the spectrum is New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who spent most of a 40-minute press conference on Wednesday denouncing Boehner and Republicans in the House for failing to support aid for his state's devastated communities. He criticised the intrigue that has engulfed the House Republicans as one of the reasons why the public have come to hate Congress. Christie is often mentioned as a potential runner for 2016. Conservatives then face a dilemma, balancing Christie's popularity against his liberal views, including ambiguous positions on issues such as gun control. Boehner cannot even rely on his own lieutenants, the House majority leader Eric Cantor and the House whip Kevin McCarthy, both of whom voted against the fiscal cliff deal. Cantor is a another potential runner in 2016, but he will have lost the support of some of his colleagues, having encouraged them to vote for the deal and then voted against himself. Romney's vice-presidential running-mate Paul Ryan could also be among the runners in 2016. Generally regarded as a fiscal conservative, he surprised his colleagues by voting for the deal.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Year-long analysis of rock found in Sahara and nicknamed Black Beauty also reveals it is one of the oldest known specimens Scientists are excited about a coal-coloured rock from Mars that landed in the Sahara desert. A year-long analysis revealed it is quite different from other Martian meteorites: not only is it older than most, it also contains more water. The baseball-size meteorite, estimated to be 2bn years old, is strikingly similar to the volcanic rocks examined by the Nasa rovers Spirit and Opportunity on the Martian surface. "Here we have a piece of Mars that I can hold in my hands. That's really exciting," said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico who led the study published online on Thursday in the journal Science. Most space rocks that fall to Earth as meteorites come from the asteroid belt, but a number can be traced to the moon and Mars. Scientists believe an asteroid or some other large object struck Mars, dislodging rocks and sending them into space. Occasionally, some plummet through Earth's atmosphere. Short of sending a spacecraft or astronaut to the red planet to haul back rocks, Martian meteorites are the next best thing for scientists seeking to better understand how Earth's neighbour transformed from a tropical environment to a frigid desert. About 65 Martian rocks have been recovered on Earth, mostly in Antarctica or the Sahara. The oldest dates back 4.5bn years to a time when Mars was warmer and wetter. About half a dozen Martian meteorites are 1.3bn years old and the rest are 600m years or younger. The latest meteorite, NWA 7034 – nicknamed Black Beauty – was donated to the University of New Mexico by an American who bought it from a Moroccan meteorite dealer last year. Researchers performed a battery of tests on the meteorite and, based on its chemical signature, confirmed it was blasted to Earth from Mars. At 2.1bn years old, it is the second-oldest known Martian meteorite that formed from a volcanic eruption. There is evidence that it was altered by water. Though the amount released during testing at high temperatures was small – 6,000 parts per million – it was still much more than other Martian meteorites. Scientists said this suggested there was interaction with water near the surface during a time when the planet was mostly dry and dusty. More tests are under way to determine how long the rock floated in space and how long it had been sitting in the Sahara. University of Alberta meteorite expert Chris Herd, who had no role in the research, said the find was welcome since most Martian rocks that rain on Earth tend to be younger. And the latest find does not appear to be too contaminated, he said. "It's fairly fresh. It hasn't been subjected to a whole lot of weathering," said Herd.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | After two-year investigation, US regulators force internet giant to agree to change how it presents some search results but exonerated over bias Google has been forced by regulators in the US to agree to legally binding changes to the way it presents some search results and runs its search advertising following nearly two years of investigation. But the internet search engine was exonerated of bias to push down competitors in its search results, leaving it untroubled by any government threat. The Federal Trade Commission attacked the behaviour of its Motorola Mobility (MMI) phone subsidiary, however, which used essential patents to try to block competition and extract huge payments. The watchdog said MMI had engaged in unfair conduct and that Google had continued to do so after buying the company in August 2012. Announcing the FTC's conclusions, Jon Liebowitz, FTC's director, said: "We exhaustively investigated whether [Google] uses search bias" to push its own products higher and rivals' down the search results. But after nearly two years, he said, "the commission has voted to close this investigation. Although some evidence suggested it was trying to remove competition, the primary reason was to improve the user experience." Rivals including Microsoft had said that Google promoted its own services, including videos, shopping and maps, over equally or better-qualified rivals, and pushed down results from competing "vertical search" companies.But the five FTC commissioners disagreed. The long-awaited decision will infuriate Microsoft, which has complained separately that Google is acting as a monopoly by refusing to build a YouTube app for the Windows Phone software it makes – a move that it complains directly harms consumers by restricting choice. Microsoft could demand an investigation by the US department of justice – which 15 years ago prosecuted Microsoft itself on monopoly charges. Google is still in talks with the European commission's antitrust arm over a similar investigation, which could enforce more far-reaching changes than the US regulator has. Google has a far bigger search share in Europe than it does in its home country. The EC has been investigating Google's position in search since November 2010. The FTC, which is the US government organisation meant to protect consumers' interests, had looked ready at the end of December last year to wind up the investigation with a settlement – but delayed the decision after Liebowitz met the EC's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia. Under the legally binding agreement with the US watchdog, Google will stop "scraping" content from other sites and presenting it as its own in results, and will allow sites and businesses to opt out of featuring in its "vertical" search results such as Google Local and Google Shopping without that resulting in their being pushed down in general search results. Allegations that Google had threatened to remove companies that opted out were "most troubling", Liebowitz said. He said the investigation had seen nine million pages of documents from Google and other parties, and heard sworn testimony from Google executives. David Drummond, Google's chief counsel, said in a statement: "the conclusion is clear: Google's services are good for users and good for competition" and added "we head into 2013 excited about our ability to innovate for the benefit of users everywhere. But that was not enough for Microsoft. "Hopefully, Google will wake up to a New Year with a resolution to change its ways and start to conform with the antitrust laws," Microsoft's deputy general counsel Dave Heiner wrote in an angry posting on Microsoft's site. "If not, then 2013 hopefully will be the year when antitrust enforcers display the resolve that Google continues to lack." Heiner pointed to Google's continued reluctance to build a dedicated YouTube app for Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile platform — something which it has done for Apple's iPhone after Apple banished YouTube as its default video player. "Google continues to block Microsoft from offering its customers proper access to YouTube. This is an important issue because consumers value YouTube access on their phone — YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile apps in 2012," Heiner said. The FTC was hugely critical of Motorola Mobility's (MMI) use of so-called "standards-essential patents" (SEPs) to seek to block sales of smartphones, tablets, games consoles and computers. SEPs must be used to make a device conform to standards such as 3G or Wi-Fi networking — but MMI has sued Apple, Microsoft and others, and demanded swingeing licence fees beyond the perceived value of the patent itself, simply because it is essential to meet the standard. "Years ago, Motorola promised to license those patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," Liebowitz said. "Other companies took Motorola at its word. They invested billions. Motorola then changed the rules of the game — it sought injunctions and exclusion orders over those SEPs. Google inherited those and continued them." Liebowtiz explained: "Google's unfair conduct threatened to block [US consumer] access to laptops, smartphones, tablets and gaming systems or raise their prices which would have been passed on to consumers — for example an iPad, BlackBerry smartphones are all under threat if this practice continued." Instead, Google would be obliged to license the patents on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms. "We stopped that abuse," Liebowitz said. Google will have to agree that the changes are legally binding rather than voluntary. That would allow the FTC to enforce the commitments and monitor them — and fine Google if it varied from them. Fairsearch, a lobby group of companies including Microsoft and Oracle, as well as smaller travel and search companies, who complain Google is "abusing its search monopoly" said in a blogpost that it "remains convinced that US consumers and innovators deserve the same protections that the European Commission may adopt in Europe. Consumers will fail to reap the benefits of a truly competitive online marketplace if Google is allowed to pick and choose where it biases its search results."
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