Factbox: Obama, Romney solutions to stimulating the economy

(Reuters) – The health of the U.S. economy has been central to the campaign for the White House, with both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney seeking to convince voters they have a plan to usher in faster growth and job creation.

The economy has struggled to break above a 2 percent annual growth pace since the 2007-09 recession and unemployment remains uncomfortably high at 7.9 percent. About 23 million Americans are either unemployed, working only part-time although wanting full-time work, or want a job but have given up the search.

Here are Obama’s and Romney‘s key plans for the economy:

JOBS

Obama has said his job plan would strengthen American manufacturing, grow small businesses, improve the quality of education and make the country less dependent on foreign oil.

He envisions 1 million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 and more than 600,000 jobs in the natural gas sector, as well as the recruitment of 100,000 math and science teachers.

Repairing and replacing old roads, bridges, runways and schools are part of his plan to put Americans back to work. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to fund infrastructure projects.

Romney has promised 12 million jobs in his first term, or about 250,000 jobs a month. Economists say the economy would likely generate that amount of jobs anyway.

His plan focuses on tax reform, pushing the economy toward energy independence, cutting regulations and boosting trade, especially by reducing barriers to trade with China.

Romney says Obama has not been aggressive enough in challenging unfair Chinese trade practices and that he would use both the threat of U.S. sanctions and coordinated action with allies to force China to abide by global trade rules.

HOUSING

Even though the housing crisis is at the heart of the economy’s woes, Obama and Romney did not spell out detailed plans for how they would address it.

Obama has promoted efforts to help troubled borrowers refinance and win record low interest rates, but his initiatives have fallen far short of their originally intended market.

He has battled the independent regulator of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Edward DeMarco, trying to convince him to allow those mortgage finance firms to reduce principal for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. A quick resolution of the standoff is unlikely after the election.

Romney said at one point in the campaign that the housing market needed to hit bottom on its own without government intervention and he has offered few clues on his likely approach to foreclosures.

Democrats and Republicans agree the government’s heavy hand in the mortgage market should be reduced, but neither candidate has outlined a plan to do that.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Obama can be expected to offer Chairman Ben Bernanke a third term should he want it, but Fed watchers believe the former Princeton professor would prefer to depart after a grueling eight years in the job. Bernanke’s term as chairman expires on January 31, 2014.

Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen is viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Bernanke, and would be at least as dovish in terms of being prepared to keep monetary policy ultra-stimulative until the labor market has improved substantially.

Romney has said explicitly he would not reappoint Bernanke to a third term. Fed watchers expect whoever is chosen by Romney to be slightly more hawkish than Bernanke in terms of readiness to raise interest rates to keep inflation at bay.

Romney advisers Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw and John Taylor are all viewed as top contenders to replace Bernanke. Hubbard and Mankiw may be a bit more hawkish than the current chairman, but not much, and neither would likely start an aggressive tightening campaign the moment he arrived. Taylor, however, has criticized the Bernanke Fed’s policy stance as too loose.

FISCAL POLICY

Obama has proposed cutting the government budget deficit by more than $ 4 trillion over the next decade by allowing the Bush tax cuts for upper-income Americans to expire and by eliminating loopholes. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to reduce the deficit.

Romney wants to cut marginal tax rates for individuals by 20 percent and broaden the tax base by closing loopholes. He would keep all the Bush tax cuts in place in a plan he says would be revenue-neutral. Obama has charged the numbers do not add up.

Romney has also said he wants to reduce federal spending to 20 percent of U.S. GDP over four years from its current level of about 24 percent.

Both want to reduce the corporate tax rate, although Romney would reduce it further.

REGULATIONS

Obama is seen keeping on his current path as regulators work to put in place provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. It is not known whether Securities and Exchange Chairman Mary Schapiro will remain, but Obama would likely appoint a replacement who would not roll back investor protections to benefit corporations and financial firms.

Romney has pledged to repeal the entire law. But policy experts see that as a largely hollow campaign pledge because a wholesale repeal would be politically unpopular and Democrats are likely to retain control of the Senate.

Instead, they see Romney working with Congress to craft narrowly tailored bills targeting what Republicans see as the biggest problem spots: the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading, the impact on end-user companies of derivatives reforms and the continued existence of too-big-to-fail financial firms. Romney would also like to curb the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another creature of the legislation.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani, Alister Bull, Doug Palmer, Margaret Chadbourn and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Peter Cooney)

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As foreigners go, Afghan city is feeling abandoned

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — By switching from studying business management to training as a nurse, 19-year-old Anita Taraky has placed a bet on the future of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar — that once foreign troops are gone, private-sector jobs will be fewer but nursing will always be in demand.

Besides, if the Taliban militants recapture the southern Afghan city that was their movement’s birthplace and from which they were expelled by U.S.-led forces 11 years ago, nursing will likely be one of the few professions left open to women.

Taraky is one of thousands of Kandaharis who are weighing their options with the approaching departure of the U.S. and its coalition partners. But while she has opted to stay, businessman Esmatullah Khan is leaving.

Khan, 29, made his living in property dealing and supplying services to the Western contingents operating in the city. Property prices are down, and business with foreigners is already shrinking, so he is pulling out, as are many others, he said.

Many are driven by a certainty that the Taliban will return, and that there will be reprisals.   

“From our baker to our electrician to our plumber, everyone was engaged with the foreign troops and so they are all targets for the Taliban. And unless the government is much stronger, when the foreign troops leave, that is the end,” Khan said.

The stakes are high. Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, is the southern counterweight to Kabul, the capital. Keeping Kandahar under central government control is critical to preventing the country from breaking apart into warring fiefdoms as it did in the 1990s.

“Kandahar is the gate of Afghanistan,” said Asan Noorzai, director of the provincial council. “If Kandahar is secure, the whole country is secure. If it is insecure, the whole country will soon be fighting.”

Even though Kandahar city has traffic jams and street hawkers to give it an atmosphere of normality, there are dozens of shuttered stores on the main commercial street, it’s almost too easy to find a parking space these days, and shopkeepers are feeling the pinch.

Dost Mohammad Nikzad said his profits from selling sweets have dropped by a half or more in the past year, to about $ 30 a day, and he has had to cut back on luxuries.

He said that every month he would buy a new shalwar kameez, the tunic favored by Afghan men; now he buys one every other month.

“I only go out to eat at a restaurant once a week. Before I would have gone multiple times a week,” Nikzad said, as he stood behind his counter, waiting for customers to show.

The measurements of violence levels contradict each other. On the one hand, many Kandaharis say things are better this year. On the other hand, the types of violence have changed and, to some minds, gotten worse.

“Before, we were mostly worried about bomb blasts. Now … we are afraid of worse things like assassinations and suicide attacks,” said Gul Mohammad Stanakzai, 34, a bank cashier.

Prying open the Taliban grip on Kandahar and its surrounding province has cost the lives of more than 400 international troops since 2001, and many more Afghans, including hundreds of public officials who have been assassinated by the Taliban.

Kandahar province remains the most violent in the country, averaging more than five “security incidents” a day, according to independent monitors. In Kandahar city, suicide attacks have more than doubled so far this year compared with the same period of 2011, according to U.N. figures.

“They are not fighting in the open the way they were before. Instead they are planting bombs and trying to get at us through the police and the army,” said Qadim Patyal, the deputy provincial governor.

The Taliban have said in official statements that they are focusing more on infiltrating Afghan and international forces to attack them. In the Kandahar governor’s office, armed Afghan soldiers are barred from meetings with American officials lest they turn on them, Patyal said.

And many point out that the “better security” is only relative. By all measures — attacks, bombings and civilian casualties — Kandahar is a much more violent city now than in 2008, before U.S. President Barack Obama ordered a troop surge.

There are no statistics on how many people have left the city of 500,000, but people are fleeing the south more than any other part of the country, according to U.N. figures. About 32 percent of the approximately 397,000 people who were recorded as in-country refugees were fleeing violence in the south, according to U.N. figures from the end of May.

The provincial government, which is supposed to fill the void left by the departing international forces, has suffered heavily from assassinations. It suffered a double blow in July last year with the killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai who was seen as the man who made things work in Kandahar, and Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of the city.

Now, Noorzai says, he can neither get the attention of ministers in Kabul nor trust city officials to do their jobs.

He remembers 2001, when he and others traveled to the capital flying the Afghan flag which had just been reinstated in place of that of the ousted Taliban. “People were throwing flowers and money on our car, they were so happy to have the Afghan flag flying again,” he said.

“When we got power, what did we give them in return? Poverty, corruption, abuse.”

Mohammad Omer, Kandahar’s current mayor, insists that if people are leaving the city, it is to return to villages they fled in previous years because now security has improved.

Zulmai Hafez disagrees. He has felt like a marked man since his father went to work for the government three years ago, and is too frightened to return to his home in the Panjwai district outside Kandahar city. He refused to have his picture taken or to have a reporter to his home, instead meeting at the city’s media center.

“It’s the Taliban who control the land, not the government,” Hafez said. He notes that the government administrator for his district sold off half his land, saying he would not be able to protect the entire farm from insurgents. Many believe the previous mayor was murdered because he went after powerful land barons.

Land reform is badly needed, and the mayor is angry about people who steal land, but he offers no solution. Kandahar only gets electricity about half the day. The mayor says it’s up to the Western allies to fix that. But the foreign aid is sharply down. Aid coming to Kandahar province through the U.S. Agency for International Development, the largest donor, has fallen to $ 63 million this year from $ 161 million in 2011, according to U.S. Embassy figures.

The mayor prefers to talk about investing in parks and planting trees. “I can’t resolve the electricity problem, but at least I can provide a place in the city for people to relax,” he said.

The only people thinking long-term appear to be the Taliban.

“The Americans are going and the Taliban need the people’s support, so they are trying to avoid attacks that result in civilian casualties,” said Noor Agha Mujahid, a member of the Taliban shadow government for Kandahar province, where he oversees operations in a rural district. “After 2014 … it will not take a month to take every place back.”

One of the biggest worries is the fate of women who have made strides in business and politics since the ouster of the Taliban.

“What will these women do?” asked Ehsanullah Ehsan, director of a center that trains more than 800 women a year in computers, English and business. It was at his center where Anita Taraky studied before switching to nursing.

“Even if the Taliban don’t come back, even if the international community just leaves, there will be fewer opportunities for women,” he said.

On the outskirts of the city stands one of the grandest projects of post-Taliban Kandahar — the gated community of Ayno Maina with tree-lined cement homes, wi-fi and rooftop satellite dishes.

Khan, the departing businessman, says he bought bought 10 lots for $ 66,000 in Ayno Maina and has yet to sell any of them despite slashing the price,

He recalled that when he first went to the project office it was packed with buyers. “Now it is full of empty houses. No one goes there,” Khan said.

Only about 15,000 of the 40,000 lots have been sold, and 2,400 homes built and occupied, according to Mahmood Karzai, one of the development’s main backers and a brother of President Karzai. He argues, however, that prices are down all over Afghanistan, and that Ayno Maina is still viable, provided his brother gets serious about reform that will attract investors.

“Afghanistan became a game,” he said over lunch at the Ayno Maina office. “The game is to make money and get the hell out of here. That goes for politicians. That goes for contractors.”

He shrugged off allegations that he skimmed money from Ayno Maina, saying the claims were started by competitors in Kabul who assume everyone who is building something in Afghanistan is also stealing money.

He said the money went where it was needed: to Western-style building standards and security.

In downtown Kandahar, a deserted park and Ferris wheel serve as another reminder of thwarted hopes. Built in the mid-2000s, the wheel has been idle for two years according to a guard, Abdullah Jan Samad. It isn’t broken, he said, it just needs electricity. A major U.S.-funded project to get reliable electricity to the city has floundered and generators that were supposed to provide a temporary solution only operate part-time because of fuel shortages.

“The government should be paying for maintenance for the Ferris wheel,” the guard said. “When you build something you should also make sure to maintain it.”

____

Associated Press Writer Mirwais Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar.

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Nexus 7 Destroys iPad Mini in Drop Test [VIDEO]

The iPad mini hit stores Friday, and the folks at SquareTrade are back with a video of what the tablet does when it hits somewhere else: the pavement.

[More from Mashable: iPad Mini Launch in NYC Gets Late Start [VIDEO]]

The group dropped an iPad mini, Nexus 7, and iPad 3 onto concrete and into water to see how they survive.

Each tablet was dropped from the SquareTrade “drop bot” to ensure that each was dropped the same way.

[More from Mashable: iPad Mini and iPad 4 Teardowns Show They’re Hard to Fix]

When dropped on its corner, the iPad mini survived with minimal damage to just the corner where it came in contact with the pavement. The Nexus 7 screen cracked on the edge of the screen, and the iPad 3 took a serious beating, cracking in a number of places on the screen.

When dropped directly on the screen, the iPad mini took a pretty hard beating, cracking across the screen in a number of places, so much so that the screen would definitely need to be replaced before you could continue to use the tablet, the same for the iPad 3. The Nexus 7 survived the fall, however, with just a few bumps and bruises.

All that’s well and good, but what happens when you drop your tablet in water? The iPad mini appeared to survive a 10-second dunk with no problem. The iPad 3 survived the dunk, but had a few malfunctions, and the Nexus 7 reset itself and appeared unresponsive after getting wet.

Check out the video above to see the test for yourself. Let us know what you think of the results in the comments.

Apple iPad Mini Hands-on

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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“Fringe” Two-Hour Finale Set for January

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Fringe” might be on its way out, but it’s leaving with a bang.

The series, co-created by J.J. Abrams, will end its five-season run with a two-hour finale on January 18 starting at 8 p.m., Fox said Friday. The finale, which will also mark the series’ 100th episode, will bring the series to “a climactic conclusion,” the network said.

“It has been an absolute honor to have been a part of the weird and wonderful world of ‘Fringe,’ Abrams said in a statement. “I will always owe the cast and crew for pouring their hearts and souls into every dimension of this series. Creating the show with Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman was a joy, but watching it evolve over the years into such an imaginative, insane and heartbreaking ride is nothing less than a thrill.”

The supernatural series, which stars Joshua Jackson, was a fan favorite, but has suffered in the ratings, and was renewed for a fifth and final season of 13 episodes in April.

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Nurses Who Saved NICU Babies Remember Harrowing Hurricane Night

Nurses at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at New York University’s Langone Medical Center have challenging jobs, even in the best of times. Their patients are babies, some weighing as little as 2 pounds, who require constant and careful care as they struggle to stay alive.

On Monday night, as superstorm Sandy bore down on Manhattan, the nurses’ jobs took on a whole new sense of urgency as failing power forced the hospital’s patients, including the NICU nurses’ tiny charges, to evacuate.

“20/20″ recently reunited seven of those nurses: Claudia Roman, Nicola Zanzotta-Tagle, Margot Condon, Sandra Kyong Bradbury, Beth Largey, Annie Irace and Menchu Sanchez. They described how they managed to do their jobs – and save the most vulnerable of lives – under near-impossible circumstances.

On Monday night, as Sandy’s wind and rain buffeted the hospital’s windows, the nurses were preparing for a shift change and the day nurses had begun to brief the night shift nurses. Suddenly, the hospital was plunged into darkness. The respirators and monitors keeping the infants alive all went silent.

For one brief moment, everyone froze. Then the alarms began to ring as backup batteries kicked in. But the coast wasn’t clear – the nurses were soon horrified to learn that the hospital’s generator had failed, and that the East River had risen to start flooding the hospital.

Vanishing America: Jersey Shore Boardwalks Washed Away Watch Video

“Everybody ran to a patient to make sure that the babies were fine,” Nicola Zanzotto-Tagle recalled. “If you had your phone with a flashlight on the phone, you held it right over the baby.”

For now, the four most critical patients – infants that couldn’t breathe on their own – were being supplied oxygen by battery-powered respirators, but the clock was ticking. They had, at most, just four hours before the machines were at risk of failing.

Annie Irache tended to the most critical baby — he had had abdominal surgery just the day before – as an evacuation of 20 NICU babies began.

“[He] was on medications to keep up his blood pressure,” Irache said, “and he also had a cardiac defect, so he was our first baby to go.”

One by one, each tiny infant, swaddled in blankets and a heating pad, cradled by one nurse and surrounded by at least five others, was carried down nine flights of stairs. Security guards and secretaries pitched in, lighting the way with flashlights and cell phones.

The procession moved slowly. As nurses took their careful steps, they carefully squeezed bags of oxygen into the babies’ lungs.

“We literally synchronized our steps going down nine flights,” Zanzotto-Tagle said. “I would say ‘Step, step, step.”

With their adrenaline pumping, the nurses said, it was imperative that they stay focused.

“We’re not usually bagging a baby down a stairwell … n the dark,” said Claudia Roman. “I was most worried about, ‘Let me not trip on this staircase as I’m carrying someone’s precious child, because that would be unforgivable.”

When the medical staff and the 20 babies emerged, a line of ambulances was waiting. A video of Margot Condon cradling a tiny baby as she rode a gurney struck a chord worldwide. But Condon said she had a singular goal.

“I was making sure the tube was in place, that the baby was pink,” she said. “I was not taking my eyes off that baby or that tube.”

Like other nurses, she did not feel panic. Her precious patient helped keep her calm.

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Obama’s Billion-Dollar Bet

From the moment the presidential race started taking shape, it was clear that along with being a contest between two candidates, the election would also be a contest between two different approaches to winning. Team Romney and its super PAC allies signaled that they would raise a ton of money to run a traditional campaign heavy on television advertising. Team Obama chose to build an elaborate ground operation—a big advantage in 2008—that would rely heavily on technology to register and turn out the vote.

While the two campaigns began with different outlooks on the race—Romney framing it as a referendum on the president, Obama as a choice between the two candidates—this divergence was also driven by necessity. Romney had to spend his time and money securing the GOP nomination and lacked the resources to develop the kind of turnout operation that could match his opponent’s. Obama knew he was saddled with a weak recovery and a more formidable foe than last time and would have to grind out an ugly victory unlikely to inspire as many voters. He’d have to find other ways of getting them to the polls.

Anyone who lives in a swing state—or near enough to one to catch the local network affiliates—can see for themselves what the Republicans’ approach has yielded. According to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks television ads, combined ad spending this election could reach $ 3.3 billion (eclipsing the 2008 total of $ 2.5 billion).

But gauging the Democrats’ turnout operation is much trickier at this stage, and the strategy has not been well understood. A year ago, one popular motif among pundits was to point out that the Obama campaign had a high “burn rate”—that is, it was spending as much money as it was bringing in. This was generally taken as a sign of an inefficient, possibly troubled campaign. What it really reflected was the premium that Obama’s brain trust placed on building, as early as possible, what its members call a “snowflake” model of organizing: It planned to seed swing states with paid field staffers, each of whom would recruit five unpaid “neighborhood team leaders,” who in turn would recruit networks of 20 volunteers. (Each outward-extending network would resemble a snowflake.)

It would take time to organize these networks and then persuade voters. So the Obama finance team leaned heavily on big donors to contribute the maximum $ 35,800 by the end of 2011 and also commit a similar sum for 2012—money that was quickly spent on field organizers: hence the high burn rate.

The objective of this giant operation is to change the composition of the electorate in a way that favors Obama. But there’s no guarantee that it will. One reason for the sharp variance between Democratic and independent polls on the one hand, and Republican polls on the other, is that the two groups disagree about what the electorate ultimately will look like. If Obama’s ground game lives up to billing, the composition of voters should look something like it did in 2008. If Republicans are correct in assuming that it won’t, then the electorate will look less like 2008 and more like it did in 2010, when Republicans swept to victory.

There are a couple of complicating factors. First, Obama did not wind up being outspent to nearly the degree his campaign predicted. In fact, the most recent New York Times tally shows that Obama, the Democratic National Committee, and the main liberal super PAC raised $ 934 million, while Romney, the Republican National Committee, and the main conservative super PAC raised $ 882 million. But Obama’s vaunted operation has not yet changed the composition of the electorate in a way that makes victory seem assured. That’s because, in battleground states such as Virginia, Romney’s campaign is doing a better job of getting its supporters to vote early than John McCain’s did.

Whether Romney’s early vote strength will carry on through next Tuesday, or whether Obama’s operation will enable him to pull away, is the one great remaining unknown—and will probably decide the election.

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Gruesome video raises concerns about Syria rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — A video that appears to show a unit of Syrian rebels kicking terrified, captured soldiers and then executing them with machine guns raised concerns Friday about rebel brutality at a time when the United States is making its strongest push yet to forge an opposition movement it can work with.

U.N. officials and human rights groups believe President Bashar Assad‘s regime is responsible for the bulk of suspected war crimes in Syria‘s 19-month-old conflict, which began as a largely peaceful uprising but has transformed into a brutal civil war.

But investigators of human rights abuses say rebel atrocities are on the rise.

At this stage “there may not be anybody with entirely clean hands,” Suzanne Nossel, head of the rights group Amnesty International, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. has called for a major leadership shakeup of Syria’s political opposition during a crucial conference next week in Qatar. Washington and its allies have been reluctant to give stronger backing to the largely Turkey-based opposition, viewing it as ineffective, fractured and out of touch with fighters trying to topple Assad.

But the new video adds to growing concerns about those fighters and could complicate Washington’s efforts to decide which of the myriad of opposition groups to support. The video can be seen at http://bit.ly/YxDcWE .

“We condemn human rights violations by any party,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, commenting on the video. “Anyone committing atrocities should be held to account.”

She said the Free Syrian Army has urged its fighters to adhere to a code of conduct it established in August, reflecting international rules of war.

The summary execution of the captured soldiers, purportedly shown in an amateur video, took place Thursday during a rebel assault on the strategic northern town of Saraqeb, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

It was unclear which rebel faction was involved, though the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra was among those fighting in the area, the Observatory said.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows a crowd of gunmen in what appears to be a building under construction. They surround a group of captured men on the ground, some on their bellies as if ordered to lie down, others sprawled as if wounded. Some of the captives are in Syrian military uniforms.

“These are Assad’s dogs,” one of the gunmen is heard saying of those cowering on the ground.

The gunmen kick and beat some of the men. One gunman shouts, “Damn you!” The exact number of soldiers in the video is not clear, but there appear to be about 10 of them.

Moments later, gunfire erupts for about 35 seconds, screams are heard and the men on the floor are seen shaking and twitching. The spray of bullets kicks up dust from the ground.

The video’s title says it shows dead and captive soldiers at the Hmeisho checkpoint. The Observatory said 12 soldiers were killed Thursday at the checkpoint, one of three regime positions near Saraqeb attacked by the rebels in the area that day.

Amnesty International’s forensics analysts did not detect signs of forgery in the video, according to Nossel. The group has not yet been able to confirm the location, date and the identity of those shown in the footage, she said.

After their assault Thursday, rebels took full control of Saraqeb, a strategic position on the main highway linking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo — which rebels have been trying to capture for months — with the regime stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

On Friday, at least 143 people, including 48 government soldiers, were killed in gunbattles, regime shelling attacks on rebel-held areas and other violence, the Observatory said.

Of the more than 36,000 killed so far in Syria, about one-fourth are regime soldiers, according to the Observatory. The rest include civilians and rebel fighters, but the group does not offer a breakdown.

Daily casualties have been rising since early summer, when the regime began bombing densely populated areas from the air in an attempt to dislodge rebels and break a battlefield stalemate.

Karen Abu Zayd, a member of the U.N. panel documenting war crimes in Syria, said the regime is to blame for the bulk of the atrocities so far, but that rebel abuses are on the rise as the insurgents become better armed and as foreign fighters with radical agendas increasingly join their ranks.

“The balance is changing somewhat,” she said in a phone interview, blaming in part the influx of foreign fighters not restrained by social ties that bind Syrians.

Abu Zayd said the panel, though unable to enter Syria for now, has evidence of “at least dozens, but probably hundreds” of war crimes, based on some 1,100 interviews. The group has already compiled two lists of suspected perpetrators and units for future prosecution, she said.

Many rebel groups operate independently, even if they nominally fall under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. In recent months, rebel groups have formed military councils to improve coordination, but the chaos of the war has allowed for considerable autonomy at the local level.

“The killing of unarmed soldiers shows how difficult it is to control the escalation of the conflict and establish a united armed opposition that abides by the same ground rules and norms in battle,” said Anthony Skinner, an analyst at Maplecroft, a British risk analysis company.

Rebel commanders and Syrian opposition leaders have promised human rights groups that they would try to prevent abuses. However, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report in September that statements by some opposition leaders indicate they tolerate or condone extrajudicial killings.

Free Syrian Army commanders contacted by the AP on Friday said they were either unaware or had no accurate details about the latest video.

Ausama Monajed, a member of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, called for the gunmen shown in the video to be tracked down and brought to justice.

He added, however, that atrocities committed by rebels are relatively rare compared to what he said was a “massive genocide by the regime.”

Regime forces have launched indiscriminate attacks on residential neighborhoods with tank shells, mortar rounds and bombs dropped from warplanes, devastating large areas. In raids of rebel strongholds, Assad’s forces have carried out summary executions, rights groups say.

Rebels have also targeted civilians, setting off car bombs near mosques, restaurants and government offices. Human Rights Watch said in September it collected evidence of the summary executions of more than a dozen people by rebels.

In August, a video showed several bloodied prisoners being led into a noisy outdoor crowd in the northern city of Aleppo and placed against a wall before gunmen shot them to death. That video sparked international condemnation, including a rare rebuke from the Obama administration.

The latest video emerged on the eve of a crucial opposition conference that is to begin Sunday in Qatar’s capital of Doha. More than 400 delegates from the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups are expected to attend to choose a new leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a more unified and representative opposition, even suggesting the U.S. would handpick some of the candidates.

Clinton’s comments reflected growing U.S. impatience with the Syrian opposition, which, in turn, has accused Washington of not having charted a clear path to bringing down Assad.

The Syrian National Council plans to elect new leaders during the four-day conference but is cool to a U.S. proposal to set up a much broader group and a transitional government, said Monajed, the SNC member who runs a think tank in Britain.

U.S. officials have said Washington is pushing for a greater role for the Free Syrian Army and representation of local coordinating committees and mayors of liberated cities in Syria.

Nuland said that it would be easier for the international community to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians and non-lethal aid to the rebels once a broader, unified opposition leadership is in place.

Such a body could also help persuade Assad backers Russia and China “that change is necessary” and that Syria’s opposition has a better plan for the country than the regime, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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IDC: Android on 75 pct of smartphones in 3Q

NEW YORK (AP) — Google‘s Android software for mobile devices was running on 75 percent of smartphones shipped in the third quarter, as the search company extended its lead over Apple, according to research firm IDC.

Apple‘s iOS system, used in iPhones, was second with a market share of 15 percent. Apple‘s new iPhone didn’t come out until late in the quarter, while Samsung Electronics Co. and other Android makers had major releases earlier.

A year ago, Android had just 58 percent to the iPhone’s 14 percent. Gains came largely at the expense of BlackBerry and Symbian phones, according to Thursday’s report from IDC.

“Android has been one of the primary growth engines of the smartphone market since it was launched in 2008,” said Ramon Llamas, a research manager for mobile phones at IDC. “In every year since then, Android has effectively outpaced the market and taken market share from the competition.”

Google makes its operating system software available to phone makers to use in their devices for free. In doing so, Google wins prime placement for its online services, including search and maps. Apple does not license its iOS system to others.

All other mobile operating systems were in the single digits: BlackBerry at 4.3 percent, Symbian at 2.3 percent and Windows at 2 percent. Research In Motion Ltd. plans to start selling devices running a new version of BlackBerry early next year, while Microsoft launched a new version of its Windows phone software this week. Symbian is mostly used by Nokia Corp., which is now focusing on Windows phones.

Companies making Android devices include Samsung, HTC Corp. and Motorola Mobility, which Google now owns.

Here are IDC’s top operating systems based on worldwide smartphone unit sales and market share in the third quarter of 2012.

— Android (Google Inc.) — 136 million units, 75 percent share (57.5 percent a year earlier)

— iOS (Apple Inc.’s iPhone) — 26.9 million units, 14.9 percent share (13.8 percent a year earlier)

— BlackBerry (Research in Motion Ltd.) — 7.7 million units, 4.3 percent share (9.5 percent a year earlier)

— Symbian (mostly used by Nokia Corp.) — 4.1 million units, 2.3 percent share (14.6 percent a year earlier)

— Windows (Microsoft Corp.) — 3.6 million units, 2 percent share (1.2 percent a year earlier)

— Linux — 2.8 million units, 1.5 percent share (3.3 percent a year earlier)

Source: IDC.

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NJ’s Springsteen, Bon Jovi join Sting in Sandy concert

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi will join Sting and other top music stars on Friday for a special television benefit concert on NBC to aid victims of Sandy, the giant storm that killed scores and devastated large sections of the U.S. Northeast.

The Walt Disney Co meanwhile announced a $ 2 million donation for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts on Thursday, while Disney/ABC Television Group designated November 5 as a “Day of Giving” wherein viewers of network and syndicated programming would be encouraged to help.

Entertainment giant Viacom Inc. also announced a $ 1 million donation to the Mayor’s Fund NYC and local organizations.

Springsteen and Bon Jovi are both New Jersey natives who have often taken inspiration from their home state and used their star platform to highlight both its charms and challenges.

NBC said on Thursday that the commercial-free one-hour telecast, “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together,” will air on Friday night and will include appearances by Christina Aguilera, Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon and NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

The telethon, also to be shown on NBC Universal networks Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA and live streamed on NBC.com, will benefit the American Red Cross, with proceeds going toward victims of Hurricane Sandy.

“Today” show anchor Matt Lauer, who announced the concert on air on Thursday, will host. Donors can also text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $ 10 contribution.

On Tuesday, Springsteen tweeted a picture of the legendary Stony Pony club in New Jersey, saying “The Stone Pony stands proud despite hurricane Sandy!”

The club, at the ocean’s edge in Asbury Park, N.J., one of the shoreline communities lashed by the storm, has been associated with Springsteen since he performed there early in his career, and he continues to make appearances.

Bon Jovi cut short a promotional tour in the United Kingdom to rush back to his home state, where he established a charity restaurant several years ago.

“I really need to get back home having spoken to my wife and kids,” he told Britain’s Daily Mail before flying out of London. “I need to be with my people. Thankfully, my family are safe,” he said, adding “The devastation is off the charts.”

Large sections of the state, especially its famous coastline, were devastated by the monster storm this week.

Most of the other telethon performers are also from areas hard-hit by the storm, which killed at least 82 people in the United States and Canada and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades. Millions remain without power, and emergency teams have struggled to reach the worst-hit areas.

Announcing ABC’s “Day of Giving” set for Monday, Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group, said, “This coordinated effort between network and syndicated programming spanning news, daytime, primetime and late night will reach tens of millions of viewers with a specific call to action,” such as encouraging viewers to donate to the Red Cross.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins, and Chris Michaud; Editing by Alden Bentley and M.D. Golan)

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Chicago’s Cook County is first metro area to levy gun tax

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The county that includes Chicago on Friday approved a tax on firearms to help pay the healthcare costs from gun violence, the first major U.S. metropolitan area to impose such a tax as a form of gun control.

Under the plan, Cook County, Illinois, will impose a $ 25 tax on each firearm sold. The tax is expected to raise $ 600,000 in revenue in 2013.

With Friday’s vote, the nation’s third most populous county with nearly 5.2 million residents becomes the first major U.S. metropolitan area to impose a tax as a form of gun control, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The Cook County board of commissioners voted 9 to 7 to approve the firearms tax.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who proposed the handgun tax, had earlier this week abandoned an additional proposed tax of 5 cents a bullet because the tax in some cases would have exceeded the price of ammunition.

Preckwinkle said that 670 victims of gun violence had been treated by the county’s health system last year. The average cost per patient was $ 52,000.

There have been 443 murders in Chicago so far this year, surpassing last year’s total of 435 and 22 percent more than in the same period a year ago, according to Chicago police.

Taxes on buyers or sellers of guns or ammunition have been proposed but failed in six states, including California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Tennessee has a hunting-related 10-cent tax on sealed packages of shotgun shells and cartridges that applies to sellers. The money is used to support wildlife resources.

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, has called the Cook County proposal another scheme to punish law-abiding firearm owners and dealers. He said it would prompt people to purchase weapons elsewhere.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Andrew Hay)

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Lloyds PPI bill up another £1bn

1 November 2012 Last updated at 08:18 ET

Continue reading the main story

Lloyds Banking Group has set aside a further £1bn to cover compensation for customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

It brings the bank’s PPI bill to £5.275bn so far.

The further provision means Lloyds has been pushed into a loss of £144m for the third quarter of the year.

After Barclays’ recent decision to set aside a further £700m for PPI compensation, the banking industry’s bill now stands at just over £12bn.

Despite the news, Lloyds’ shares rose 7% in morning trading, as investors took heart from the bank’s underlying financial position.

Lloyds described the further PPI provision as a disappointing “legacy issue”.

“The volume of complaints received in relation to legacy PPI business during the third quarter declined when compared to the previous quarter,” said Lloyds Banking Group’s chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.

“However, it remained above the level which we anticipated at the time of our half-year results and as a result the group believes it is appropriate to increase its provision for expected PPI costs by £1bn.

“This increases the expected cost of contact and redress, including administration expenses, to £5.3bn,” he explained.

The bank warned that the eventual final bill for PPI was still uncertain, suggesting it may rise further.

Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group said banks still had no incentive to avoid bad behaviour in the future.

Continue reading the main story

Ian Pollock Business reporter, BBC News

---

When, in April 2011, the banks lost their High Court challenge to the FSA’s rules on PPI mis-selling, the compensation cost was put at £4.5bn.

It has been rising ever since.

Initial estimates by the FSA itself were based on the assumption that just 20% of PPI victims would claim.

It seems that many more people – millions in fact – are now doing so.

In some cases they have been encouraged by claims management firms.

In others cases, the individual payments have been huge.

What the saga shows is just how much profit banks were able to squeeze out of their customers simply by getting them to buy an insurance policy.

“What the banks don’t reveal is that while they have had their hands on their customers’ money – the ill-gotten money – they have been lending it out at interest rates as high as 28% – compound,” he said.

“Yet they are only being required to refund at 8% simple.”

More complaints

The cost to the banking industry of compensating customers is rising fast, as complaints from aggrieved customers continue to pour in.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which handles grievances that banks reject, has now received half a million complaints from disgruntled people who claim they have been unfairly denied any compensation.

PPI was widely sold by banks in the last decade, and the insurance was supposed to make sure that mortgage and credit card borrowers would be able to repay their loans if they fell ill or lost their jobs.

However, it became apparent that many customers had been mis-sold the insurance because they either did not need it in the first place, or would have been automatically excluded from making a valid claim, typically because they were self-employed.

Under instruction from the financial authorities, the industry is now going back through past sales and alerting customers to the possibility that they can now make a claim for compensation – a process which is generating a huge bill for the UK’s banks.

MoneyBoomerang, an online claims management company, said banks like Lloyds were still stalling on many legitimate claims.

“Lloyds has made a huge additional provision and yet it is not showing any interest in dealing with the very valid claims it is receiving,” said the company’s managing director, Craig Lowther.

“We are just about to send roughly 8,000 Lloyds cases to the FOS. We firmly believe these are valid claims and if so they will cost the bank millions.”

But Lloyds replied that it every incentive to settle legitimate complaints, because banks have to pay for each case that goes to the ombudsman.

“We… have to pay the costs of each claim (£850) as well as incremental administrative costs regardless of who the FOS upholds in favour of,” a bank spokesman pointed out.

Improvement

Despite the loss in the third quarter, Lloyds said its underlying financial position was improving.

Although the bank’s income has fallen by 14% in the first nine months of the year, this was outstripped by further benefits from cost-cutting – which saw 4,796 jobs cut – and a reduction in the amount of money it has had to set aside for losses on past loans that have turned bad.

Those provisions in its accounts are down to £4.4bn, from £7.4bn in the first nine months of the previous financial year.

With restrictions on sales commission on financial policies being imposed by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) early in 2013, Lloyds has decided to stop offering independent financial advice to anyone who has less than £100,000 to invest.

“Customers with over £100,000 of investible assets who would benefit from holistic financial planning will be referred to our private banking service,” the bank said.

“For customers who hold less than £100,000 in savings and investments we will not offer an investment advice service but will continue to give these customers information and help with savings products on a non-advised basis.”

Lloyds is still partly owned by the UK taxpayer following its bail-out at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

As such, it is still not paying any dividends to its investors.

The bank is still in the process of negotiating the sale of 632 of its branches to the Co-operative Bank.

BBC News – Business

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Canada will push to keep bank capital rules on schedule

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will urge all countries to stick to the agreed schedule for implementing tougher bank capital rules at a November 4-5 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.

The so-called Basel III rules are the world’s regulatory response to the financial crisis, forcing banks to triple the amount of basic capital they hold in a bid to avoid future taxpayer bailouts.

They were to be phased in from January 2013 but areas such as the United States and the European Union are not yet ready and U.S. and British supervisors have criticized them as too complex to work.

The Canadian official, who briefed reports ahead of the meeting on condition that he not be named, said it was imperative that the rules, the timelines and the principles behind them be respected and said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would make that view known to his G20 colleagues.

Canada sees the European debt crisis as the biggest near-term risk to the global economy, and it also expects the U.S. debt crisis to be top of mind at the talks, the official said.

But the meeting takes place just before the U.S. presidential election and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be absent, so it remains unclear how much the G20 can pressure Washington on that front.

Some other countries have also scaled back their delegations, raising doubts about how meaningful the meeting will be.

The official dismissed that argument, saying high-level officials substituting for their ministers allowed for extremely important issues to be addressed anyway.

He said holding each country around the table accountable to its past commitments helped keep the momentum going toward resolving global economic problems.

(Reporting by Louise Egan; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by M.D. Golan)

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Microsoft pushes new Windows to developers

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Days after launching Windows 8, Microsoft Corp is mounting a strong campaign to win over the software developers it needs to kick-start its new operating system.

A lack of apps is Microsoft’s Achilles heel as it attempts to catch Apple Inc and Google Inc in the rush toward mobile computing.

Windows 8, the new Surface tablet and a range of Windows-based phones – all unveiled in the past week – are designed to close that gap, but the world’s largest software company still needs to convince developers to recreate the thriving ‘ecosystem’ that made PCs so successful.

“Please go out and write lots of applications,” Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pleaded with 2,000 developers on Tuesday, kicking off an annual, four-day meeting at its campus near Seattle.

The event, called ‘Build,’ is the equivalent of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference and Google’s I/O event.

Microsoft gave each paying attendee one of its Surface tablets and 100 gigabytes of free space on its SkyDrive online storage service. On top of that, handset partner Nokia threw in a free Lumia 920 smartphone running Windows Phone 8.

The unprecedentedly generous give-away signals the intent of what Microsoft openly calls “evangelism.” Most developers at the meeting, who paid up to $ 2,000 to attend, are already converted to the Windows religion. But this year there is a feeling that Microsoft can re-establish itself as a relevant platform for developers.

“The sessions are overflowing. Everybody wants to learn,” said Greg Lutz, product manager at development tools company ComponentOne, who is attending the conference.

“The Surface is really exciting. It’s been interesting to see people that would normally be critics of Microsoft surprised to see how good it is,” said Lutz, whose company makes features that developers can use in apps, such as calendars or charts.

Microsoft recognizes it needs apps to flesh out its new online Windows Store and make Windows 8 machines more attractive to users, said Russ Whitman, chief strategy officer at Ratio Interactive, a design agency that helps companies create apps.

“The catalog (of apps) is where they are weak, there’s no doubt,” he said. “But if Microsoft stays focused on quality not quantity, they can win.”

DEVELOPER DOUBTS

When Windows 8 launched on Friday, some major content providers had prominent apps in the Windows store, such as Netflix Inc, the New York Times and Rovio’s Angry Birds Space. But big names such as Facebook and Twitter were missing.

Twitter moved to rectify that on Tuesday, announcing that a native Windows app would be rolled out “in the months ahead.” Dropbox, a fast-growing cloud storage service, also announced it would soon have a Windows app, as did online payment firm PayPal and sports network ESPN.

But Facebook, which now has more than 1 billion users, has not yet made public any plans for a Windows app, despite the fact Microsoft is a minor shareholder.

And Microsoft still has to overcome indifference from many developers who do not see demand from users or simply do not have the resources to build Windows apps alongside iOS and Android.

“Windows 8 is getting good reviews and the tile user interface is a great fit with our geo-visual content,” said Jason Karas, CEO at website Trover, where users can share photos of interesting discoveries. “It’s on the roadmap for Trover, but we are still a very lean team, so we’re hesitant to support a third platform until we have all the innovations we want to see in iPhone and Android in place.”

Microsoft has yet to persuade other influential online services, for example car-rental firm Zipcar or real estate information firm Zillow, to develop for Windows 8.

To get more developers on board, Microsoft is spending this week demonstrating how it is making it easier to develop apps for Windows and get them into the real world.

A key part of that is a new set of tools tying in its Azure cloud service, which allows Windows apps to easily harness data stored in remote servers.

“Some of the new changes are pretty incredible and are going to make developing, especially some of the mobile apps, much easier,” said Mike Cousins, a software developer following the conference by webcast from Calgary, Canada.

“It just makes it super-easy to integrate mobile clients into your application,” said Cousins, who is developing Shuttr, a site for photographers to display and sell their work. “It’s been reduced from probably a week’s work to minutes.”

400 MILLION NEW MACHINES

Microsoft’s best argument to developers is the sheer size of the Windows user base.

Microsoft sold 4 million upgrades to Windows 8 in its first four days, a mere fraction of the 670 million or so machines running Windows 7. Ballmer said there would be 400 million new devices running Windows next year, including PCs, tablets and phones, and the company would be marketing heavily to consumers.

That is an attractive audience for developers, and Whitman at Ratio Interactive said he saw many new faces at Microsoft’s event this week who previously were more interested in web-based apps and other platforms.

“There’s a new generation of developers that can build on Windows 8 that have been building using JavaScript and HTML,” he said. “Seeing some of those developers show up and talk about building apps using other languages is pretty cool. It’s a whole different group than Microsoft has traditionally been able to court.”

One Wall Street analyst said developers may even be tempted to switch back to Microsoft after working with Apple’s iOS platform.

“There does seem to be some excitement about the new operating system and many of the new devices that are coming to market,” said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. “We have heard some developers talk about ‘re-Microsofting’ and moving from their Macs for app development.”

Cousins said that once developers see the user base for Windows 8 grow, the momentum will start to have an effect.

“All the new PCs people buy will be Windows 8, and people will start demanding Windows 8 apps from companies, and then they will start making them,” he said. “I think we’ll see a wave of apps coming out pretty soon.”

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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‘Wilfred’ Gets 3rd Season From FX

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Wilfred” will bark once more.

FX has given the series, which stars Elijah Wood as a struggling young man who befriends his neighbor’s curiously human-like dog, a third season, the cable network said Wednesday.

The 13-episode third season will debut in June 2013.

In addition to the third-season order, writers/producers Reed Agnew and Eli Jorné have been promoted to executive producers and showrunners for the show. David Zuckerman, who adapted the series for American television from the Australian show of the same name and served as executive producer/showrunner for the first two seasons, will remain as executive producer.

“Wilfred’ averaged 2.63 million total viewers for its second season, with 1.71 million of them in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic.

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Massachusetts tightens rules for compounding pharmacies

BOSTON (Reuters) – Massachusetts adopted new regulations on Thursday that it said will allow it to keep a closer eye on compounding pharmacies, a class of drug supplier linked to the U.S. meningitis outbreak that has so far killed 29 people.

The state, home to the New England Compounding Center that produced the injectable steroids at the heart of the outbreak, said the new rules give it the authority to track the volume and distribution of drugs that compounding pharmacies sell to determine if they are operating like manufacturers.

Compounding pharmacies – which are meant to assemble the raw ingredients of any medication one prescription at a time, not in industrial scale runs – had prior to this year’s outbreak largely escaped the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s attention.

“Together with our federal partners, we will ensure that Massachusetts fulfills its responsibility in overseeing this transforming industry,” said Dr. Lauren Smith, interim commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The outbreak of fungal meningitis was triggered by steroids used as a treatment for back pain. Health authorities have said the New England Compounding Center failed to make medications in sterile conditions in its facility in Framingham, Massachusetts, outside Boston.

Massachusetts has closed three compounding pharmacies since the start of the outbreak.

(Reporting By Scott Malone. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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Canadian dollar ends near flat after GDP data shows contraction

TORONTO (Reuters) – The Canadian dollar weakened below parity against the U.S. currency before clawing back to end little changed on Wednesday after data showed the Canadian economy contracted unexpectedly in August.

The currency weakened to a session low shortly after the gross domestic product data pointed to slower growth in the third quarter and supported the Bank of Canada‘s message that interest rate hikes are not imminent. It later pared those losses.

“We are pretty much ending unchanged from where we started the day, but we saw a 50-point range and that’s the largest we’ve seen in a week,” said Dave Bradley, director of foreign exchange trading at Scotiabank.

The Canadian dollar ended the North American session at C$ 0.9990 to the greenback, or $ 1.0010, compared with C$ 0.9993, or $ 1.0007, at Tuesday’s close.

Bradley said the market was still suffering from poor liquidity due to the absence of many U.S. traders recovering from monster storm Sandy.

“Despite the U.S. equity markets opening again, a lot of New York based participants are out of the market … I think liquidity and general flow is at a minimum,” Bradley said.

With October 31 marking the end of the financial reporting year for Canadian banks, Bradley noted the Canadian currency was virtually unchanged from a year ago within a few basis points of parity.

Mark Chandler, head of Canadian fixed income and currency strategy at Royal Bank of Canada, said the currency could be weighed down by the August GDP numbers, which showed a 0.1 percent contraction, through to the end of the week.

“It’ll linger for a little bit, the only thing that could change the tune on this is we have payrolls,” he said.

Canada and the United States are set to release monthly employment data on Friday.

U.S. equity markets were mostly flat on Wednesday, opening for the first time this week after shutting their doors ahead of Hurricane Sandy. <.N>

With the GDP data backing up recent Bank of Canada comments that rate rises are “less imminent”, the price of Canadian government debt turned positive after the data, especially at the front end of the curve, and outperformed U.S. Treasuries.

The two-year bond was up 5 Canadian cents to yield 1.076 percent, while the benchmark 10-year bond rose 20 Canadian cents to yield 1.788 percent.

Overnight index swaps, which trade based on expectations for the central bank’s key policy rate, showed that after the data traders pulled their bets on the possibility of a rate hike in late 2013.

(With additional reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Chizu Nomiyama)

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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RIM starts carrier testing on BlackBerry 10 devices

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion has started carrier testing of its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices ahead of the launch of the devices in the first quarter of 2013, the company said on Wednesday.

“In the last week, BlackBerry 10 achieved lab entry with more than 50 carriers, a key step in our preparedness for the launch of BlackBerry 10 in the first quarter of 2013,” said RIM’s Chief Executive Thorsten Heins, in a brief statement.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM is seeking to turn around its faded fortunes with the launch of the BB10 devices, as its aging line-up of BlackBerry devices loses ground to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s line of Galaxy products, especially in the key North American and European markets.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman)

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A Minute With: Rapper RZA putting on “Iron Fists” for new movie

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rapper and music producer RZA is best known as the leader of the hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan which also includes such popular members as Method Man, Ghostface Killah and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

RZA branched out into film, taking on small acting roles and scoring music, including the soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino‘s “Kill Bill: Vol. 1.”

Now, nearly a decade later, 43-year-old RZA has combined his childhood love of martial arts movies to co-write with Eli Roth the feature film “The Man With the Iron Fists,” which he also directs and acts in the title role.

Shot on location in China, and co-starring Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu, Iron Fists is set during the 19th century and sees several groups of warriors and assassins descend on a village in search of gold. The quiet and unassuming local blacksmith (RZA) ends up being the village defender.

RZA, whose real name is Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, sat down with Reuters in Hollywood to talk about the film and the future of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Q: You had to pull double duty, working simultaneously in front and behind the camera. How did you balance that?

A: “My spirit had to be extra strong to pull this off. It was difficult because in the morning (as the director) I’m worrying about everybody else, I’m talking fast. Then I have to get ready for the scene and I gotta sync my voice down to this guy. I gotta sync my spirit to him. He doesn’t smile once in the film. I smile. I’m not this morbid dude. He’s almost empty.”

Q: This is your biggest acting role to date. What did you learn as an actor?

A: “The thing about playing him that I could attest to as an actor was that I was lonely in China. I was personally lonely. And I think that shows on screen (in the character).”

Q: You’re in an exotic location with Russell Crowe and some of the biggest names in martial arts. How could you be lonely?

A: “I had no love, yo. You know what I mean? Going into a massage parlor is not gonna give you no love. I was yearning for it. For a brief minute there, I learned why actors fall in love with their co-stars.”

Q: How’s that?

A: “Because the only girl I had was (co-star/love interest) Jamie Chung. We all went out one night after shooting and Jamie had a guy friend with her. I looked over and I was so jealous. I felt weird. I told my buddy, ‘I’m about to punch this guy in the face!’ In that moment, I just felt that she was my woman. And the sad thing for me is, it would have been a one way street because she wasn’t interested in me at all.”

Q: Looking back on your first experience directing a studio movie, what do you think?

A: “It was hard work. It was 18 hour days. It was cold. The food was terrible sometimes and the language was an issue. But I kept it fun. I didn’t let nothing deter me from this path. I’m grateful and happy I had a chance to learn this craft and express it. I feel that out of everything I do as an artist – I make music, I write lyrics, I’m into fashion and clothing – filmmaking is the perfect medium and accumulates it all. I found what I should be doing. I matured into being this kind of person.”

Q: So many members of the Wu-Tang Clan are doing their own thing. Will you be assembling again soon for another album?

A: “Only time will tell. For now, I will say Iron Fists is Wu-Tang. We have all the members participating on the soundtrack. And if you look closely, you’ll notice that when (Rick Yune’s character) needs a second suit of knives, there are W’s on that second suit. You gotta look closely though. So the Wu-Tang is there. I made it subtly into the film so fans can enjoy it and feel the energy.”

Q: Some groups have their time in the spotlight and disappear. Others manage to evolve and stay relevant. Where is Wu-Tang at?

A: “To me, film is the medium that Wu-Tang needs to be at. I don’t think Wu-Tang needs to be in clubs while we gettin’ drunk and dancing. We need to be in theaters now where we sitting with our families and really appreciating our childhood in a different way. This is the reason why (movies like) ‘Iron Man’, ‘Captain America’, ‘Thor’, ‘The Avengers’ all work. Because we are adults who read comics and now we want our children to understand what we love.”

Q: So Iron Fists is the beginning of that for Wu-Tang – having others understand and appreciate the martial arts you all love?

A: “If Iron Fists goes over well and people accept it, we got great ideas for part two already. We’ve got a great sequel for all the characters and back stories that are so remarkable.”

Q: Sounds like you’re creating your own Marvel universe in a sense.

A: “Essentially, yes.”

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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