fiber agrippina: June 2013

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Refresh Roundup: week of June 24th, 2013

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

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Proposition 8 backers petition Supreme Court to block gay marriages in California

A federal appeals court cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin in California. Opponents of gay marriage are crying foul, however. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.

By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

The legal team behind Proposition 8, California?s gay marriage ban, on Saturday filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a flurry of weddings that began weeks before many?thought possible because of a surprising federal appeals court ruling.

Lawyers with the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom claim in a petition that 9th Circuit Court of Appeals acted too early and and unfairly when it let same-sex marriage resume in California on Friday.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks wrote that the Supreme Court's consideration of the case is not over because his clients still have 22 days to ask the justices to reconsider their decision, saying that Proposition 8's backers did not have legal authority to defend the ban.

The filing took place as hundreds of same-sex couples were lined up to get marriage licenses in San Francisco ? where it was Gay Pride Weekend -- and other cities around the state.

Click here to read the emergency motion filed Saturday?

?Today's petition asks the Supreme Court to find that the Ninth Circuit had no jurisdiction to order same-sex marriages on Friday since the case had not yet come back down from the nation's highest court,? the attorneys wrote in a statement.

?We see this as illegitimate and lawless,? John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, told NBC News. ?The 9th circuit had no jurisdiction to lift its stay.?

But ?John Davidson, the legal director at Lambda Legal, which supports same-sex marriage, disagreed.

?I think the decisions of this week give us huge momentum,? Davidson told NBC News. ?I?m very excited by how this is going to help in the legal battles but as well help in public opinion.?

On Friday afternoon, the two couples who challenged Proposition 8 were married after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court dissolved its stay blocking same-sex marriage in the state.

Friday, State Attorney General Kamala Harris declared Sandra Stier, 50, and Kris Perry, 48, "spouse and spouse" shortly before 5 p.m. (8 p.m. ET) at San Francisco City Hall. About 90 minutes later in Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa married the other couple, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, on his last day in office.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted a stay two days after the Supreme Court declined to rule on Proposition 8, thereby upholding a lower court's decision overturning the ban. The appeals court had blocked enforcement of that ruling pending the Supreme Court decision.

The Supreme Court also struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 federal law that barred recognition of same-sex marriages.
Supreme Court rulings generally don't take effect for 25 days.

But Harris had called on the 9th Circuit to lift its stay as soon as possible Wednesday after Brown told the state's 58 counties to prepare for same-sex marriages.

Brown issued an order Friday afternoon making that official, declaring that "marriage licenses must be issued to same-sex couples immediately."

NBC News' Pete Williams and Alex Johnson contributed to this report.

Related:?Prop 8 challengers wed in California after stay is lifted

This story was originally published on Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:18 PM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663306/s/2dfb26d6/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C290C1920A81610Eproposition0E80Ebackers0Epetition0Esupreme0Ecourt0Eto0Eblock0Egay0Emarriages0Ein0Ecalifornia0Dlite/story01.htm

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Salinas, Gordon help Earthquakes beat Galaxy 3-2

STANFORD, Calif. ? Shea Salinas and Alan Gordon scored in second-half stoppage time to give the short-handed San Jose Earthquakes a 3-2 victory against the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday night.

Salinas knocked in a loose rebound in the 92nd minute and Gordon scored on a header a minute later to give San Jose (5-7-6) a second comeback victory in two seasons against the Galaxy at Stanford. The Earthquakes came from two goals down to beat LA 4-3 last June 30.

Marcelo Sarvas scored in the 20th minute and Hector Jimenez in the 65th for Los Angeles (7-7-3).

Gordon scored his first goal of the season in the 68th minute to pull San Jose to 2-1. The Earthquakes' chances looked dire after defender Victor Bernardez saw two yellow cards in the space of eight minutes and was sent off in the 77th minute, leaving San Jose down to 10 players.

On the tying goal, Salinas pounced on a free ball after Galaxy goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini was unable to corral a deflected flick header from San Jose rookie Adam Jahn.

Gordon got the game-winner moments later off a chipped cross from just inside Los Angeles' penalty area by San Jose midfielder Sam Cronin.

Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane assisted on both goals for the Galaxy, but L.A. was left to deal with failed opportunities after Bernardez's ejection, especially an 88th-minute save by Busch on Jimenez.

A prone Cudicini blocked a 50th-minute rebound shot from 8 yards by San Jose midfielder Marvin Chavez. The veteran keeper, who joined LA this year, was unable to come up with the critical saves in the dying minutes, however.

Source: http://www.modbee.com/2013/06/29/2786497/salinas-gordon-help-earthquakes.html

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As Egypt nears boil, leading religious institution calls for calm

? A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Egypt's leading religious institution made an urgent appeal for calm and encouraged the defiant opposition to accept President Mohamed Morsi's calls for dialogue after a member of the Muslim Brotherhood was killed today. But there is little indication that tensions will ease as the country braces for what may be the biggest protests since the revolution that ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak ? and brought the Egyptian military onto the streets to restore order.

According to Reuters, Al Azhar University usually keeps itself separate from politics, but today it waded in. "Vigilance is required to ensure we do not slide into civil war," a statement from Al Azhar read. Al-Azhar scholar Hassan El-Shafei said the opposition, which plans to hold massive rallies across the country on June 30, should choose dialogue "for the benefit of the nation instead of the insistence on confrontation."

Al Azhar is not the only institution inserting itself into the fray in an attempt to turn down the heat.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Egypt? Take this quiz.

The powerful military, which maintains the respect of both government supporters and the opposition, has also made clear that it is willing to step in temporarily, invoking "national security," according to a separate Reuters report.

Earlier this week the head of the armed forces warned that Egypt was headed toward a "dark tunnel."

The warning at the start of the week from General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was presented as a wake-up call to the rival factions, President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies on one side, a disparate coalition of liberals and a mass of Egyptians simply frustrated by economic stagnation on the other.

But the velvet glove of Sisi's language, urging politicians to find consensus and avert bloodshed, could not conceal an iron-fist of possible intervention, even if he was widely believed when he said the generals, secure and prosperous in their new role, have no wish to go back to running the country.

?

Few believe Sisi and a new generation of leaders elevated by Mursi want to grab long-term control in a full coup by a military that is held in high regard by almost all Egyptians.

But many of the Islamists' adversaries, from hardline Mubarak nostalgists to liberal idealists, seem ready to welcome a short-term shove by the army to abort the direction the revolution has taken and give a second chance to efforts to agree an institutional framework to end the polarised deadlock.

Respect for the military is one of the only things that President Morsi's supporters and the opposition have in common. Whether it makes good on its threat to intervene will depend in part on whether there is violence.

"The army has made its position clear: it will not allow violence and won't stand by if things seem to be getting out of control," one military source told Reuters yesterday, noting that it doesn't seem that leaders on either side can control their supporters.

Also at play is what the military judges as "popular will," Reuters reports. The military source said that if the size of the June 30 protests rivals that of the 2011 uprising, Morsi will be forced to relent. "No one will be able to oppose the will of the people," he said. "At least, not for long."

Egypt expert Nathan Brown writes in Foreign Policy that the potential for violence and mass protest have made military intervention an "explicit option."

The message from the military leadership in recent months has been clear in its general thrust but generally short on specifics: the military does not wish to take a political role, but it does regard itself as responsible for security of Egypt. That vagueness has likely sprouted from a desire to communicate to the presidency that it needed to improve its governance performance without offering the opposition the incentive to be so disruptive as to provoke an intervention.

?

Much still remains unclear. What would provoke an intervention? And what would the military do? Military intervention can take many forms -- suppressing demonstrations or violence, imposition of a government of national unity, deposing the president, suspending the constitution, asserting temporary authority -- and since it is not clear that any of these options would solve or even alleviate Egypt's political crisis, it can hardly be taken for granted that the military would intervene.

But all signs point to escalation, Mr. Brown writes, painting a picture of deep polarization, rhetoric on both sides running at an alarmingly high temperature, and a conflict that has become deeply personal for all involved.

And now attitudes have grown hard indeed. I asked one leading [Morsi-allied] parliamentarian ? a figure I have come to respect as level headed, calm, introspective, and patient ? whether he thought he wished his side had done anything differently? . He replied with visible anger that not only did he think they would do it all over again but that in fact they will do it all over again if necessary. And when I remarked to a friend in a responsible position that I did not think Morsi would leave office voluntarily, he replied that he thought the Egyptian people would deal with him as Libyans had dealt with Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Calmer language was used in Europe in the summer of 1914.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Egypt? Take this quiz.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

A year in asylum, Assange digs in for the long haul

The Wikileaks founder says even if the Swedish investigation against him were dropped, he would not leave his 'space station' existence in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

By Sara Miller Llana,?Staff writer / June 19, 2013

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange show letters that read 'Free Assange' as they wait for his appearance in front of the Ecuadorian embassy in London Sunday. Today marks the anniversary of Mr. Assange seeking sanctuary in the embassy, where he is trying to avoid being extradited to

Frank Augstein/AP

Enlarge

It?s been a year since Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London and sought political asylum, living there ever since as if in a ?space station.?

Skip to next paragraph Sara Miller Llana

Europe Bureau Chief

Sara Miller Llana?moved to Paris in April 2013 to become the Monitor's Europe Bureau?Chief. Previously she was the?paper's?Latin America Bureau Chief, based in Mexico City, from 2006 to 2013.

EU leaders push banking union despite German reluctance

By Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders said on Friday they want agreement by the end of the year on a way to resolve failed banks at European rather than a national level, signaling work should go on despite German objections ahead of elections in September.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel cast doubt on whether that timetable could be respected, saying the creation of a European authority with such powers would require a change to the EU treaty - a lengthy and politically risky process.

EU finance ministers agreed on Thursday on an intermediate step towards what is known as European banking union, which involves tighter oversight of banks and coordinated resolution of any problems. Under the deal, investors and wealthy savers will share the costs of future bank failures before taxpayers.

That moves the EU closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have caused public outrage.

But the law only sets common rules that national authorities in the 27-nation bloc have to follow when dealing with their own banks. It does not allow for sharing power or the financial costs of closing down or rescuing banks at EU level.

It is only a stepping stone to creating a central EU body to deal with failing banks, including big financial institutions that operate across national borders.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is to propose how to create such a central agency, called the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), in July, although some officials indicate that it could be delayed beyond that date.

Merkel insisted that setting up a central authority with powers to close down banks in euro zone countries would require changing the EU's treaty, or else it could be challenged in Germany's constitutional court.

The European Commission believes no treaty change is needed and has floated the idea that it could itself take on the role of the resolution authority, to avoid the need to change laws for the creation of a completely new body.

But Berlin rejected that too.

"Germany has made clear that under the current treaties the Commission does not have the competence to run such a central authority or act as a resolution body. If we want new competencies then they must be linked to treaty changes," Merkel told a news conference after the summit.

France said work on the banking union should go as far as possible under existing treaties before considering any treaty change, but a treaty amendment could be done if necessary.

"If it appeared legally necessary to amend the treaty, we would do so, but it would only be from a legal perspective, and in no case from a political perspective," French President Francois Hollande told journalists after an EU summit in Brussels.

"Before we get there I think we must go as far as possible in the framework of existing treaties," he added.

WORK ON SRM SEEN STALLED BY GERMAN ELECTIONS

In an indication of acute political sensitivity on the issue, EU officials said Germany tried to have the term "banking union" removed from the final summit statement altogether.

"In this morning's draft conclusions the term banking union had disappeared and was replaced with more vague terms. We re-proposed our commitment towards a banking union," Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta told a press conference after the summit.

But there will be little progress on the SRM until after the September parliamentary elections in Germany, which wants to avoid discussions that could involve any form of financial support for institutions in other countries.

Taxpayers across much of Europe have had to pay for a series of deeply unpopular bank and government rescues since the financial crisis erupted in Greece in 2010 and spread across the bloc and even threatened the survival of the euro.

The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and - in the case of Ireland - almost bankrupting the country.

The SRM is to complement the work of the European Central Bank as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), responsible for looking after all euro zone banks.

"A fully effective SSM requires a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for banks covered by the SSM. The European Council looks forward to the Commission's proposal establishing an SRM with a view to reaching agreement in the Council by the end of the year so that it can be adopted before the end of the current parliamentary term," the leaders said, using the careful legal language employed in summit declarations.

The final version omitted at German insistence a reference to the features the SRM should have that were enumerated in earlier drafts.

The deleted phrase said that the SRM should have "strong resolution powers, allowing quick, effective and coherent decision-making at central level".

The European Parliament has its last plenary session in mid April 2014.

The SRM is to have access to funds that it may need to help finance the restructuring or closure of banks, if losses imposed on shareholders and bondholders or even large depositors are not enough to cover the needs.

The central fund is to be built from fees paid in annually by banks, just like the national resolution funds created under the intermediate law. But until enough money accrues over the next 10 years, it may need to resort to the euro zone bailout fund for help.

The leaders remained vague on how the fund would work.

"It should include appropriate funding arrangements, based on contributions by the financial sector itself, and an appropriate and effective backstop which should be fiscally neutral over the medium term," they said.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin and Luke Baker; Editing by Luke Baker, Paul Taylor and Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-leaders-pledge-push-banking-union-120545301.html

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INSIGHT: From remote Mauritania, hacker fights for Islam worldwide

By Elise Knutsen

DAKAR (Reuters) - In Nouakchott, a dusty city wedged between the Atlantic ocean and western dunes of the Sahara, a young hip-hop fan coordinates a diverse group of hackers targeting websites worldwide in the name of Islam.

Logging on to his computer, he greets his Facebook followers with a "good morning all" in English before posting links to 746 websites they have hacked in the last 48 hours along with his digital calling card: a half-skull, half-cyborg Guy Fawkes mask.

He calls himself Mauritania Attacker, after the remote Islamic republic in west Africa from which he leads a youthful group scattered across the Maghreb, southeast Asia and the West.

As jihadists battle regional governments from the deserts of southern Algeria to the scrubland of north Nigeria, Mauritania Attacker says the hacking collective which he founded, AnonGhost, is fighting for Islam using peaceful means.

"We're not extremists," he said, via a Facebook account which a cyber security expert identified as his. "AnonGhost is a team that hacks for a cause. We defend the dignity of Muslims."

During a series of conversations via Facebook, the 23-year-old spoke of his love of house music and hip hop, and the aims of his collective, whose targets have included U.S. and British small businesses and the oil industry.

He represents a new generation of Western-style Islamists who promote religious conservatism and traditional values, and oppose those they see as backing Zionism and Western hegemony.

In April, AnonGhost launched a cyber attack dubbed OpIsrael that disrupted access to several Israeli government websites, attracting the attention of security experts worldwide.

"AnonGhost is considered one of the most active groups of hacktivists of the first quarter of 2013," said Pierluigi Paganini, security analyst and editor of Cyber Defense magazine.

An online archive of hacked Web sites, Hack DB, lists more than 10,400 domains AnonGhost defaced in the past seven months.

Mauritania, a poor desert nation straddling the Arab Maghreb and black sub-Saharan Africa, is an unlikely hacker base. It has 3.5 million inhabitants spread across an area the size of France and Germany, and only 3 percent of them have Internet access.

Much of the population lives in the capital Nouakchott, which has boomed from a town of less than 10,000 people 40 years ago to a sprawling, ramshackle city of a million inhabitants. In its suburbs, tin and cinderblock shanties battle the Sahara's encroaching dunes and desert nomads stop to water their camels.

In the past six months experts have noted an increase in hacking activity from Mauritania and neighbouring countries. In part, that reflects Mauritania Attacker's role in connecting pockets of hackers, said Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware.

"This one figure, Mauritania Attacker, is kind a figure who brings many of these groups together," Herberger told Reuters.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY, ANCIENT MISSION

Mauritania Attacker says his activities are split between cyber cafes and his home, punctuated by the five daily Muslim prayers.

Well-educated, he speaks French and Arabic among other languages and updates his social media accounts regularly with details of the latest defacements and email hacks. He would not say how he made a living.

His cyber threats are often accented with smiley faces and programmer slang, and he posts links to dancefloor hits and amusing Youtube videos. But his message is a centuries-old Islamist call for return to religious purity.

"Today Islam is divisive and corrupt," he said in an online exchange. "We have abandoned the Koran."

Mauritanian Attacker aims to promote "correct Islam" by striking at servers hosted by countries they see as hostile to sharia law. "There is no Islam without sharia," he said.

Mauritania is renowned for its strict Islamic law. The sale of alcohol is forbidden and it is one of only a handful of states where homosexuality and atheism are punished by death.

The quality of Mauritania's religious scholars and koranic schools, or madrassas, attract students from around the world. Mauritanians have risen to prominent positions in regional jihadist groups, including al Qaeda's north African branch AQIM.

As hackers from the region organise into groups, the Maghreb is emerging as a haven for hacktivism as it lacks the laws and means to prosecute cyber criminals, Herberger said.

"There's a great degree of anonymity and there's a great degree of implied impunity," he said.

Security sources in Nouakchott said they were not aware of the activities of Mauritania Attacker.

He says he supports Islamists in Mauritania but opposes his government's support for the West, which sees the country as one of its main allies in its fight against al Qaeda in the region.

With tech-savy young Muslims in the Maghreb chafing under repressive regimes, analysts anticipate a rise in hacktivism.

Hacking is a way for young people to express religious and political views without being censored, says Aaron Zelin, fellow at the Washington Institute.

"These societies are relatively closed in terms of people's ability to openly discuss topics that are taboo," he said.

For disillusioned youth in countries like Mauritania, where General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz seized power in a 2008 coup before winning elections the next year, hacking has become "a way of expressing their distaste with status quo," Zelin said.

JURY OUT ON GROUP'S REACH

AnonGhost's global reach is its greatest weapon, but it has yet to stage a major attack on a Western economic target.

Most of AnonGhost's campaigns have simply defaced Web sites, ranging from kosher dieting sites to American weapon aficionado blogs, with messages about Islam and anti-Zionism.

It has attacked servers, often hosting small business websites, located in the United States, Brazil, France, Israel and Germany among others.

Mauritania Attacker and the AnonGhost crew say these countries have "betrayed Muslims" by supporting Israel and by participating in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We are the new generation of Muslims and we are not stupid," read a message posted on the Web site of a party supply business in Italy. "We represent Islam. We fight together. We stand together. We die together."

The team has also leaked email credentials, some belonging to government workers from the United States and elsewhere.

As part of a June 20 operation against the oil industry, carried out alongside the international hacking network Anonymous, Mauritania Attacker released what he said were the email addresses and passwords for employees of Total.

A spokesperson for the French oil major did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One security expert said AnonGhost's attacks exploited "well-known vulnerabilities in configurations of servers" in target countries rather than going after high-profile companies.

Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware, remains unconvinced AnonGhost has the technical skills to wage full-scale cyber terrorism by harming operational capabilities of companies or government agencies.

"The jury is still out," he said, but cautioned against underestimating the emerging group. "You're never quite sure what they're going to do on the offensive, so they have to be right only once and you have to be right always."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-remote-mauritania-hacker-fights-islam-worldwide-114622150.html

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Asia stocks rise after release of positive US data

A man walks by an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Stock markets from Sydney to Shanghai extended gains for a second day Thursday after the U.S. said quarterly growth may be weaker than expected, raising investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay plans to wind down its stimulus program.(AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A man looks at an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Stock markets from Sydney to Shanghai extended gains for a second day Thursday after the U.S. said quarterly growth may be weaker than expected, raising investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay plans to wind down its stimulus program.(AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A woman looks at an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Stock markets from Sydney to Shanghai extended gains for a second day Thursday after the U.S. said quarterly growth may be weaker than expected, raising investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay plans to wind down its stimulus program. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A currency trader smiles in front of screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and foreign exchange rate, right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 27, 2013. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 2.87 percent, or 51.25, to close at 1,834.70. Stock markets from Sydney to Shanghai extended gains for a second day Thursday after the U.S. said quarterly growth may be weaker than expected, raising investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay plans to wind down its stimulus program. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader walks by screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and foreign exchange rate, center right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 27, 2013. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 2.87 percent, or 51.25, to close at 1,834.70. Stock markets from Sydney to Shanghai extended gains for a second day Thursday after the U.S. said quarterly growth may be weaker than expected, raising investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay plans to wind down its stimulus program. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing.

Reports showing better-than-expected consumer spending, a jump in pending home sales and a drop in jobless claims emboldened investors to dive into riskier assets like stocks. Wall Street posted its third-straight gain of the week.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.3 percent to 13,648.81. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.3 percent to 20,708.18. South Korea's Kospi added 1.5 percent to 1,862.56. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3 percent to 4,826.40.

Investors were also encouraged by comments from key U.S. Federal Reserve officials. The president of the New York branch of the Fed said the central bank would likely keep buying bonds if the economy failed to grow at the pace expected. Jerome Powell, a member of the Fed's board in Washington, said investors appear to have incorrectly concluded that the Fed will taper its purchases soon.

That brought a sign of relief to markets fearing that a pullback by the Fed would deflate stock and commodity markets, where investors have turned due to the low interest rates created by the bond buying program.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.8 percent, to 15,204.49. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.6 percent, to 1,613.20. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.8 percent, to 3,401.86.

Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 12 cents to $97.17 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.55 a barrel to close at $97.05 on the Nymex on Thursday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-27-World%20Markets/id-884a1993e0d14ebaa07c66c7a9c57941

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Activists say death toll in Syria now tops 100,000

BEIRUT (AP) ? The civil war in Syria has now killed more than 100,000 people, a grim new estimate Wednesday that comes at a time when the conflict is spreading beyond its borders and hopes are fading for a settlement to end the bloodshed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll through a network of activists in the country, said most of the 100,191 killed in the last 27 months were combatants.

The regime losses were estimated at nearly 43,000, including pro-government militias and 169 fighters from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group ? a recent entrant in the conflict.

The Observatory said 36,661 of the dead are civilians. Recorded deaths among the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad reached more than 18,000, including 2,518 foreign fighters.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said he suspected that the toll actually was higher, since neither side has been totally forthcoming about its losses.

The United Nations recently estimated that 93,000 people were killed between March 2011, when the crisis started, and the end of April 2013, concurring with Abdul-Rahman that the actual toll is likely much higher.

The Syrian government has not given a death toll. State media published the names of the government's dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.

Abdul-Rahman said that the group's tally of military deaths is based on information from medical sources, records obtained by the group from state agencies and activists' own count of funerals in government-held areas of the country. Other sources are the activist videos showing soldiers who were killed in rebel areas and later identified.

The new estimate comes at a time when hopes for peace talks are fading. The U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Tuesday an international conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.

Regime forces are pushing into rebel-held areas in an attempt to secure the seat of Assad's power in the capital of Damascus and along the Mediterranean coast in the heartland of the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs.

The offensive, along with new reports that Assad has used chemical weapons in 10 different incidents in the conflict, also prompted Washington and its allies to declare they have decided to arm the rebels.

On Wednesday, the Observatory said the regime drove rebels out of the town of Talkalakh, along the border with Lebanon. The town, which had a predominantly Sunni population of about 70,000 before the conflict, is surrounded by 12 Alawite villages located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.

The government takeover will likely affect the rebels' ability to bring supplies, fighters and weapons from Lebanon.

The town also lies on the highway that links the city of Homs to Tartus, in the coastal Alawite enclave that is home to one of Syria's two main seaports.

Syrian state TV showed soldiers patrolling the streets of Talkalakh, inspecting underground tunnels and displaying weapons seized from the opposition.

The governor of Homs, Ahmed Munir, told the private Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that some rebels in Talkalakh handed their weapons over to authorities. He said the town was a major area for infiltrators from Lebanon.

"Talkalakh is clear of weapons," Munir said.

Southeast of Talkalakh, government forces also took control of the village of Quarayaten on a highway that links the rebels to another supply route from Iraq, according to an activist who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

The regime victories are likely to help it advance on rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, he said. The activist, who is connected to rebels in Homs, spoke by Skype.

The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, urged the U.N. to help civilians in Talkalakh open routes to facilitate the rescue of women, children, the elderly and the wounded.

The fighting has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad's regime is dominated by Alawites, and has been backed by Hezbollah fighters, particularly in towns near the Lebanese borders.

The conflict has also polarized the region. Several Gulf states, including Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, back the rebels. Shiite powerhouse Iran is a major Assad supporter.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia after that country condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.

The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a "foreign invasion."

Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are "trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army."

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-death-toll-syria-now-tops-100-000-201432503.html

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Microsoft Build 2013 opening keynote liveblog!

Hello, and welcome to ~~sunny~~ San Franciscso where Microsoft is about to kick off its annual Build developer conference. We already know today is the day Windows 8.1 becomes available as a public preview, and the execs in Redmond have hinted they have even more to share about the big OS update. But what else? Will those rumors of WebGL support for IE11 come to fruition? And how 'bout some news indie gaming developers can use? We'll be giving you the blow by blow, starting around 12PM ET today. Stay tuned!

June 26, 2013 12:00:00 PM EDT

Filed under: Microsoft

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