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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Syria opposition weighing negotiations with Assad

US Secretary of State John Kerry, fourth from right, attends a meeting Tuesday Oct. 22, 2013, hosted by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, fourth from left, of the 'London 11', from the Friends of Syria Core Group, in Lancaster House, central London, aimed at ending the brutal civil war in Syria.(AP Photo/Oli Scarff, pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets Syrian National Coalition President Ahmed al-Jarba at the U.S. Ambassador's residence in London Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. How to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down will be part of the focus Tuesday at a London meeting of 11 nations from the West and Mideast seeking a negotiated settlement to the war. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool)

In this photo, which AP obtained from Syrian official news agency SANA and which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, President Bashar Assad gestures as he speaks during an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV, at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Syria’s president said Monday that the factors that would allow a landmark conference aimed at ending the country’s civil war do not yet exist, throwing further doubt on international efforts to hold peace talks that have already been repeatedly delayed. (AP Photo/SANA)

LONDON (AP) — Moderate opposition leaders seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad from power have not yet committed to negotiations to create a new government, America's top diplomat said Tuesday, casting new doubt on flagging hopes to end the civil war as quickly as possible.

A refusal by the Syrian National Coalition to participate in the diplomatic talks would further delay attempts by most of Syria's regional neighbors and the West to stop the bloodshed that has so far killed 100,000 people over the last 2½ years. It also could boost the legitimacy of Assad, who after stonewalling has told allies he is prepared to negotiate — despite a near-certainty that he would be removed from power as a result of the talks.

At the close of diplomatic meetings on the issue in London, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he remains optimistic that the coalition would agree, potentially as soon as next week, to participate in talks tentatively set for late November in Geneva with members of Assad's government.

But he said the Western-backed Syrian opposition members have "to make up their own mind."

"None of us are going to pre-judge or pre-condition what they will choose to do in that process," Kerry said after the meetings of the diplomats from 11 Western and Mideast nations who are trying to broker a Syrian settlement.

Kerry's comments came after his meeting with the coalition's president, Ahmad al-Jarba, who attended the discussions.

Al-Jarba told reporters that the coalition does not want to negotiate with Assad directly or agree to negotiations without a set timetable. He also said he wanted only the SNC at the table to represent opposition — not extremist groups who have joined against Assad. And he objected to Iran's participation.

The diplomats also released a communique outlining goals for the negotiations' outcome. They include a mandatory requirement that Assad and his close aides will have no role in a new Syrian government.

Assad has shown no sign he is ready to give up power, and declined in an interview this week to rule out running for re-election next year. He also questioned the legitimacy of the opposition and said the factors needed for a proposed peace conference to succeed do not yet exist.

"Who are the groups that will participate? What is their relation with the Syrian people? Do they represent the Syrian people or they represent the country that made them?" Assad said during an interview with Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV. "There are many questions about the conference."

The process of removing Assad from office has been frustrated partly by a rise of violent extremists who have joined rebel groups and opposition leaders who are working to oust him.

U.S. officials say the extremists, including groups linked to al-Qaida, may instead have hurt negotiations and jeopardized foreign support. They argue it is difficult to identify moderate rebel groups and ensure that the weapons they are supplied with will not fall into al-Qaida hands.

Extremist groups, including the al-Qaida-linked cross-border Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, have damaged the credibility of the fractured opposition to Assad and drawn battle lines among once-allied rebel forces. As a result, that likely has boosted Assad's confidence to resist yielding at the negotiating table.

In comments to reporters after the talks, British Foreign Secretary William Hague has emphasized Western leaders' support for Syria's moderate opposition and stressed that efforts are being made to bring all sides to a negotiating table in Geneva.

Hague said the focus is on securing a transitional government for Syria, and said the opposition has the full support of Britain, the U.S. and the other leaders gathered in London. He urged the opposition to commit itself fully to talks.

Moderate groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, a loose coalition of rebel brigades, are in disarray. Last week, 65 rebel groups, including many linked to the FSA, announced they would not recognize the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition in what was widely seen as a rebuke to the West for failing to send more support.

It's also feared that Assad's recent willingness to let United Nations inspectors examine his government's chemical weapons stockpile — a cache that earlier this year he denied even existed — has helped his own credibility and worldwide image.

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Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-22-United%20States-Syria/id-576d0ff6e6da4f3ca5852dc9a5a6ef03
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Haunting Aerial Photographs of Drowned Villages in Canada

Louis Helbig is cataloging aerial photographs of Canadian villages drowned by the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway on his website Sunken Villages. The photos are haunting and gorgeous, almost emerald-like, but often difficult to read. Outlines of houses and roads barely emerge from the silt like scenes from a dream by J.G. Ballard, resembling flooded stage sets in the water that, in some photos, are lazily criss-crossed by boats.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Judge declines to halt 'Obamacare' insurance subsidies

By David Ingram and Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foes of President Barack Obama's healthcare law lost a bid on Tuesday to put an immediate stop to a key part of the law - the insurance subsidies in the 34 U.S. states that declined to establish their own online marketplaces.

At a court hearing, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., declined to grant a preliminary injunction sought by a group of individuals and small businesses that in a lawsuit call the subsidies unlawful.

Friedman ruled their lawsuit could move forward and said he would rule on its overall merits by mid-February, rejecting an argument from the Obama administration that the suit was too speculative to be considered.

The latest round of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," focuses on whether the 2010 law allows for subsidies in all states or only in states that have set up exchanges.

Only 16 states and the District of Columbia chose to set up the online marketplaces where people without private health insurance can shop for it, forcing the federal government to create them in the remaining states.

Subsidies, in the form of tax credits, are available to people with annual incomes of up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or $94,200 for a family of four. The Obama administration views the subsidies as essential if the law is going to work, because otherwise many people could not afford private insurance.

The suit was brought by a mix of individuals and businesses from Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. The plaintiffs argue the subsidies are unlawful and impose a burden by forcing them to purchase the insurance or else pay a penalty.

SEEKING AN EXEMPTION

David Klemencic, who does flooring work in West Virginia, is one of the plaintiffs. In court papers, he said he cannot afford insurance and wishes to forgo coverage entirely in 2014, using an exemption in the healthcare law for people with low income.

But the availability of the tax credits means he is not eligible for the exemption, his lawyers said, so he must either buy subsidized insurance at about $18 a month or pay a penalty equal to about $12 a month.

In rejecting a preliminary injunction, Friedman said there was no need for such an emergency measure because Klemencic has until the end of March to apply for an exemption from Obamacare, by which time the lawsuit may be over.

"As long as we get a decision in a timely manner, that's what we've been looking for," Michael Carvin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told reporters after the hearing. Carvin was among the lawyers who appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 to argue that the healthcare law should be struck down entirely.

Two similar lawsuits are pending in federal courts in Oklahoma and Indiana. Neither has reached a final ruling.

Complicating the situation for the Obama administration is the wording of the law, parts of which were drafted in haste in 2010 as the legislation wound through Congress.

The law says subsidies may be given "through an exchange established by the state," not through one set up by the federal government, a point that the suit emphasizes.

The administration says the subsidies should be available to people in every state because Congress intended the online exchanges to be uniform.

At the core of this claim is what Congress intended when it wrote the law, not expecting that some states would fail to set up an exchange or would, as in the case of Texas and other Republican-controlled states, refuse to do so out of political opposition to Obamacare.

The case is Halbig v. Sebelius, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 1:13-cv-623.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West and Terry Baynes; Editing by Howard Goller and Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-declines-halt-obamacare-insurance-subsidies-183920540--sector.html
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Apple gears up for holidays with new Macs, iPads

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple Inc. is refreshing its iPad lineup in hopes of reclaiming lost ground in the tablet market and slashing the prices of its Mac computers to intensify the pressure on the beleaguered makers of PCs running Microsoft's Windows.

Tuesday's unveiling of Apple's latest products primes the company for a holiday shopping season onslaught aimed at a list of rivals that includes Google Inc., Samsung Electronics, Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

A thinner, lighter and faster-running tablet computer called the iPad Air highlighted the event in San Francisco. Apple Inc. also showed off a souped-up iPad Mini that boasts a faster microprocessor, a high-definition display screen and a higher price than its predecessor.

The iPad upgrades, coming a year after the release of the tablet's previous generation, fell largely in line with analyst expectations.

In a surprise, Apple is introducing slightly revamped MacBook Pros at prices 9 percent to 13 percent below the previous versions. What's more, Apple is giving away its latest Mac operating system — Mavericks — for free, as well as several pieces of software, including programs called iWorks and iLife that provide many of the same tools as Microsoft's Office.

"We are turning the industry on its ear," Apple CEO Tim Cook said of the company's strategy.

Technology analyst Patrick Moorhead predicted the discounted MacBook Pros will force personal computer makers to cut the prices of their machines by at least $100 for the holidays.

And Ovum analyst Jan Dawson thinks Apple's giveaway of the operating system and software programs "is now teaching people to expect both of those things to be free. While this won't disrupt Microsoft's business overnight, it will create further pressure on Microsoft to bring down prices."

If that happens, it would be another blow for Microsoft, which has seen its Windows revenue suffer in recent years as personal computer sales sink amid a shift to smartphones and tablets.

Apple triggered the upheaval with the 2007 release of the first iPhone followed up with the 2010 introduction of the iPad.

While both products have a fierce following, Apple has been losing market share to rivals who primarily make mobile devices running on Google's Android software. As Apple is now doing with its Mavericks software for Macs, Google gives away Android to device makers who can afford to undercut the prices for iPhones and iPads.

Despite the competitive pressure, Apple has steadfastly refused to cut prices on its top-of-the-line products. Instead, it has sold older versions of its Phones and iPads at slight discounts to consumers who are willing to settle for something less than state-of-the-art technology.

The Cupertino, Calif. company is hewing to that philosophy with its latest tablets. The iPad Air will start at $499, just like its predecessors, while the new iPad Mini will sell for $399 — a 21 percent increase from the price of the first Mini. The price of the original Mini, which runs at slower speeds and lacks a high-definition display screen, is falling from $329 to $299.

As it has done for more than year, Apple will continue selling the iPad 2 — a tablet that came out two-and-half years ago — for $399.

"Apple doesn't want to play in the mud with declining prices" on iPads, Moorhead said.

The strategy hasn't been a hit with investors who are unhappy with the Cupertino, Calif. company's slowing growth as it loses sales to lower-priced alternatives. Wall Street also is disillusioned with Apple's lack of another breakthrough product since the death of co-founder and chief visionary Steve Jobs two years ago.

Apple's stock dipped $1.49 to close at $519.87 Tuesday. The shares remain about 25 percent below their peak reached 13 months ago.

The iPad Air's main appeal is a more svelte design and a faster microprocessor, the same kind of chip in the iPhone 5S that Apple released a month ago. The new tablet weighs just 1 pound, compared with 1.4 pounds for the previous version. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller hailed it as a "screaming fast iPad," noting that it is eight times faster than the original model that came out in 2010.

The iPad Air will go on sale Nov. 1. The new iPad Mini will be available at a still-to-be-determined date later in November.

They are coming out at a time when Apple needs to reassert itself in a tablet market. Google, Amazon.com and Samsung have been winning over consumers with flashy tablets that sell for $200 to $400. None of the rivals boast the 475,000 apps that Apple says are made for the iPad, but that vast selection hasn't mattered to many cost-conscious consumers.

The research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that Android tablets will end 2013 with a 50 percent share of the worldwide market versus 49 percent for the iPad. Just two years ago, the iPad commanded a 65 percent market share compared to 30 percent for Android tablets.

Apple sold 14.6 million iPads during the three months ending in June, down 14 percent from the same time last year. It marked the first time Apple has posted a year-over-year decline in iPad sales.

It might have happened again in the latest quarter ending in September. Although Apple isn't scheduled to report its results for the latest quarter until next Monday, a statistic released at Tuesday's event gave a hint of how the iPad fared in the period.

Cook said Apple's total iPad sales since the device's inception surpassed 170 million units earlier this month. Given that Apple sold 155 million iPads through June, that means fewer than 15 million were sold in the quarter ending in September. Apple sold 14 million iPads in last year's quarter ending in September.

Ortutay reported from New York.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-gears-holidays-macs-ipads-233732301--finance.html
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As Smoke Blankets Sydney, Australians Brace For Worse Days

A general view of play as the Sydney skyline is shrouded in smoke during the Ryobi Cup match between the South Australian Redbacks and the Western Australia Warriors at Drummoyne Oval in Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

A general view of play as the Sydney skyline is shrouded in smoke during the Ryobi Cup match between the South Australian Redbacks and the Western Australia Warriors at Drummoyne Oval in Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Wildfires are burning to the north, south and west of Sydney, Australia, and smoke "has been rolling in for days," correspondent Stuart Cohen said Tuesday on Morning Edition.

While the fires are mostly in sparsely populated areas, Sydney is blanketed — "you can smell smoke inside buildings" and health authorities are expecting a surge in cases of people with respiratory problems, Cohen added.

Things may get worse.

The top headline today on the website of The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons saying that Wednesday (already underway in Australia) "will be as bad as it gets."

The weather in New South Wales state, which surrounds Sydney, is going to be "hotter, drier and windier than the dire predictions previously forecast," the Morning Herald writes.

"On days like [this]," Fitzsimmons says, "there's a very real potential for more loss of homes and life." So far, only one death has been linked to the fires — that of a man who died of a suspected heart attack while battling a blaze that threatened his home.

Looking ahead, correspondent Cohen notes that Australia "usually has its peak fire season in the middle of summer — December and January. ... The big worry now is that it's only October [and] there are still months and months ahead of the typical fire season."

The causes of the several dozen fires have varied. There have been lightning strikes and other natural starters. There have also been some cases of suspected arson.

Australian Broadcasting writes that "an 11-year-old boy appeared in court on Tuesday accused of setting fire to an abandoned mattress and lighting a grass fire in Newcastle, north of Sydney, last week. A 15-year-old boy will face court next month over the same fire. Police say the fire caused about 5,000 hectares of damage." According to the Metric Views blog, a typical Major League Baseball field is about one hectare. A typical cricket ground (see the photo we've attached to this post) is about 1.25 hectares.

Australian Broadcasting is live blogging here.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/22/239680205/as-smoke-blankets-sydney-australians-brace-for-worse-days?ft=1&f=1001
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Greek birth certificate probe in 'Maria' case

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A top Greek prosecutor on Tuesday ordered an emergency nationwide investigation into birth certificates issued in the past six years after a girl was discovered living with alleged abductors at a gypsy camp.

Supreme Court prosecutor Efterpi Koutzamani ordered the inquiry for birth certificates issued after Jan. 1, 2008, amid news media reports of benefit fraud by families declaring births in multiple regions. Experts have used the case to point out the severe weaknesses in the country's birth registration system.

A couple has been jailed on charges of abduction and document fraud in the case of the girl known only as "Maria." The girl, believed to be 5 or 6, was taken into protective care last week after DNA tests established the couple was not her biological parents.

The case has triggered international interest in missing children, with the girl's DNA entered into a database held by the international law enforcement agency Interpol to check for matches.

On Monday, the mayor of Athens ordered the suspension of three officials in charge of record-keeping. New parents have three months to declare their newborns. Investigators in Athens found a large number of babies had been recently declared at or near the end of that deadline, sending up a red flag because they suspected some were multiple declarations to claim benefits.

The two suspects, aged 39 and 40, deny the abduction allegations, claiming they received the child from a destitute woman to bring up as their own.

Authorities allege the female suspect claimed to have given birth to six children in less than 10 months, while 10 of the 14 children the couple had registered as their own are unaccounted for.

Police say the two suspects received about 2,500 euros ($3,420) a month in subsidies from three different cities.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/greek-birth-certificate-probe-maria-case-125212767.html
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VMware security advisories warn of multiple ESX, vCenter, and vSphere vulnerabilities

In response to a VMware user group security survey conducted earlier this year, VMware said it would consider certain initiatives aimed at increasing awareness of security updates to its customers and provide them with additional details by way of the company's VMware Security Advisories (VMSAs). Last week, the company made good on those promises.

VMware released a host of new security patches that address multiple security vulnerabilities impacting a range of the company's virtualization products, including vCenter Server, vCenter Server Appliance, vSphere Update Manager, ESX, and ESXi. Some of the identified flaws can be used to bypass security restrictions to elevate privileges, execute malicious code, or overwrite important files. Other vulnerabilities could lead to denial-of-service (DoS) on affected products.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Pivotal adds mobile platform development with Xtreme Labs acquisition | Cloud storage provider Nirvanix is closing its doors | Track the latest trends in virtualization in InfoWorld's Virtualization Report newsletter ]

One of those vulnerabilities is a bug in vCenter Server 5.0 and 5.1 that could enable an attacker to bypass the need for valid credentials under some circumstances. In order for the vulnerability to be exploited, the affected product must be deployed in an environment that uses Active Directory with anonymous LDAP binding enabled.

This type of setup doesn't properly handle log-in credentials. The VMware advisory warns, "In this environment, authenticating to vCenter Server with a valid user name and a blank password may be successful even if a non-blank password is required for the account."

The workaround is to discontinue the use of AD anonymous LDAP binding if it is enabled in your environment.

Organizations running version 5.1 of VMware's vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) on Linux should be aware of two other sets of vulnerabilities. The first is a remote code execution flaw that enables an attacker with stolen credentials to run existing files as root. The second vulnerability is found within the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI), where an authenticated remote attacker is allowed to upload files to an arbitrary location thereby creating new files or overwriting existing files. According to the VMware advisory, replacing certain files could result in a denial-of-service condition.

Certain versions of VMware's ESX and ESXi hypervisors (4.0, 4.1 and 5.0) are also affected. According to VMware, there is a flaw in the hostd-vmdb that could allow an attacker to cause a denial-of-service condition. In order to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to intercept and modify the management traffic.

The advisory also identified a session fixation vulnerability in the vSphere Web Client Server through which an attacker could gain elevated privileges within the environment. However, exploiting this flaw may not prove easy as it requires some knowledge of the target user's session. According to VMware, an attacker would have to know a valid session ID of an already authenticated user.

In either instance, VMware said users can reduce the likelihood of these vulnerabilities from causing a problem by running vSphere components in an isolated management network to ensure that traffic does not get intercepted.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/vmware-security-advisories-warn-of-multiple-esx-vcenter-and-vsphere-vulnerabilities-229127?source=rss_infoworld_blogs
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