U.N. Security Council envoys in Yemen to bolster peace efforts

SANAA (Reuters) - U.N. Security Council envoys flew to Yemen amid tight security on Sunday to show support for a U.S.-backed power transfer deal in danger of faltering and plunging the country back into chaos.

Ending political turmoil in Yemen is an international priority - it flanks oil producer Saudi Arabia and major shipping lanes and is struggling with multiple conflicts including an al Qaeda insurgency, a Shi'ite Muslim rebellion in the north and separatist forces in the south.

Britain's U.N. representative Mark Lyall Grant, speaking at a news conference in Sanaa after talks with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, warned what he called a minority against spoiling reconciliation efforts in the Arab world's poorest country.

Witnesses said thousands of Yemeni troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters were deployed across Sanaa as the ambassadors arrived for the one-day trip. Grant said the visit was the first to Yemen by the Security Council and the first it had made for five years to the Middle East.

"We have noticed that a minority are trying to obstruct the political process," he said through a translator, adding that under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2014 the council had the power to take steps against those who blocked reconciliation.

He did not name anyone, but the political reforms being pursued by Hadi include restructuring the armed forces to weaken the influence of the family of his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh stepped down in February 2012 after 33 years in office under the U.S.-backed deal but he remains influential in the military and wider society. His continuing sway over Yemen worries Gulf neighbors and Western nations who fear the political transition could descend into chaos.

Efforts to convene a national reconciliation dialogue central to reform have met resistance from south Yemen separatist leaders who complain of discrimination by the north. Some are pressing for the revival of a separate southern state that merged with north Yemen in 1990.

Under the power transfer deal, Hadi is overseeing reforms for a two-year interim period to ensure a transition to democracy. Presidential and parliamentary elections are expected in 2014.

Yemen's Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said the Security Council's visit was to "help Yemen reach the general elections in February 2014 ... They will not allow anyone to stop the wheels of change."

Speaking to reporters after talks with the envoys, Hadi said dialogue was the only way to resolve Yemen's problems and urged international donors to meet their financial pledges.

Members of a Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda have launched a series of bombings in the capital since its members and allies were ejected from strongholds they occupied in southern Yemen during the turmoil of 2011.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari, writing by Sami Aboudi and William Maclean; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-security-council-envoys-yemen-bolster-peace-184412178.html

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Inventor Of The World Wide Web Calls For More Online Innovation ...

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the hyperlinked World Wide Web, isn?t entirely happy with what he has helped create ? and has thrown down the gauntlet to web developers to come up with more disruptive forms of online communication that can break down cultural not just geographical barriers.

Talking about the web as it is today, rather than the ?collaborative tool? he originally designed, he said:??World peace has not miraculously occurred. People still mainly talk to their neighbours, people still mainly talk to the people who have the same religion, and the same culture, so for all its breaking down geographical boundaries in principle it hasn?t really broken down cultural boundaries.?Can we develop systems on the web which will actually help solve that sort of ?challenge??

Berners-Lee was speaking in an interview at the World Economic Forum today,?entitled ?what?s wrong with social networking?? but he joked the title had been cooked up merely to draw in the crowds.

?As a universal platform the web wasn?t supposed to dictate what you did with it,? he told his audience in Davos. ?The world wide web is a platform and humanity does what it can with it??There?s lots of people who think we could do more. What do we really want to get out of this web thing? What do we really want to get out of human communication??

While it began as a collaborative tool, the web subsequently took off as a publishing medium ? or it did to a ?certain extent?, said Berners-Lee, pointing to the fact that publishing online remains a relatively elite activity and therefore, again, does not live up to his original collaborative vision for a truly global web.

?We?ve got wikis, we?ve got blogs, but still most people? aren?t publishing on the web. And actually when you go to most places you?re not in a position where you can take place in the conversation very much. Sometimes you can comment but actually the comment tends to be at a second level,? he said.

Asked about the erosion of online openness threatened by walled garden social networks, Berners-Lee said the networks both help humanity by providing the data that enables computers to help people but also highlighted how there is ?a lot of frustration, from a lot of people? that they can?t connect up the personal data they have entered into different services in all the ways they might like to.

?Each of these social network systems is a silo so there is a frustration that I?ve told it all my data but I don?t have access to that,? he said.

Despite yearning for more openness and fewer shackles stifling the free flow of online data, Berners-Lee was careful to say he was not calling for an online data free-for-all. There do need to be ?reasonable boundaries?, he accepted ? whether it?s sensitive personal or government or military data. ?The web isn?t about just sharing everything, destroying privacy? [but] if I want to share something with you it shouldn?t be the technology that gets in the way.?

Turning to the economic argument, Berners-Lee conceded there is a problem with current online business models ? especially when it comes to finding ways to pay musicians. The web should be ?about spreading culture, music and getting payment back to musicians?, he said. ? We?ve got to find new ways of doing that.?

Specifically he called for new protocols to be developed to support online payments. ?We need to find a whole lot of new business models ? I think we should develop new payment protocols so that when you?re using a web browser it?s a lot easier to pay for things.?

He also argued for the economic value in opening up data that is unnecessarily locked away, pointing to a U.K. initiative to open up government data so that the citizens who have paid for the data to be created in the first place can have the benefit of using it ? and use it to create new businesses. ?You?re making a great common good, that?s making the world run more efficiently,? he argued.

Likewise, he argued that the benefit to humanity of opening up scientific data ? to ?scientists everywhere? ? would be ?huge?.??It?s a?question of unlocking this potential that we really already have ? it?s getting huge benefit for very little cost,? he said.

Berners-Lee was also asked about Internet activist?Aaron Swartz, who was arrested for downloading academic journals and subsequently committed suicide ? and argued that Swartz?s tragedy is an example of what can happen when ?legislation gets too strong?.

?He was an incredibly ethical person. He thought a huge amount about what was right and how the world should be? but because [the FBI] saw that what he was doing was accessing a computer system there seems to be a deep suspicion of that,? he said.

?He used his programming to try to make a point, in a way as a protest. But they ended up using a very unfair law which had been changed from its original form which said that if you break into a computer system in any way then you are guilty of a felony? ?People are thinking now about that law, and there already proposals to change it.?

?To be a hacker ? when I use the term ? is somebody who is creative and does wonderful things,? Berners-Lee added. ?We need more coders, we need more people who understand how to put data online.?

A graduate of Oxford University, England, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread. He is the 3COM Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science...

? Learn more

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/25/inventor-of-the-world-wide-web-calls-for-more-online-innovation-to-break-down-cultural-barriers-and-build-new-business-models/

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Elephants find sanctuary in Kenya amid rampant poaching

Workers at a Kenyan sanctuary for elephants who have lost their mothers, many through rampant poaching, talk about how they care for one of Africa's most endangered species. By NBC's William Angelucci.

By Ron Allen, Correspondent, NBC News

Kenyan police announced on Jan. 15 they had seized the biggest haul ever of smuggled elephant ivory. Two tons of ivory valued at around $1.5 million was stuffed in a container at the port of Mombasa.

"This is a big catch, the biggest ever single seizure of ivory at the port of Mombasa," Kiberenge Seroney, the port's police officer in charge of criminal investigations, told Reuters.

---

"We fail to understand where one gathers the courage to park such enormous quantities of ivory, hoping that they can slip through our security systems."

Earlier in the month, poachers killed a family of 11 elephants in the single biggest slaughter of the animals on record in the east African country.

The harrowing news prompted NBC News cameraman William Angelucci to pull out a video he had filmed at a unique elephant orphanage in the country.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has been trying to save African elephants since the 1970s. It takes in young elephants that have been orphaned by the slaughter of their mothers and fathers for their tusks. The staff essentially become surrogate parents, feeding the youngsters by hand. As they grow older, for some elephants, humans are the only "parents" they've known.

So far, more than 80 elephants have been reintroduced to the wild after reaching an age between eight to 10 years old. That, however, doesn't end the relationship. The trust?s handlers say many of the animals "keep in touch," and even have brought their own young to visit their human families.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related content:

'A big catch': Record two tons of ivory seized in Kenya

Elephants slaughtered, orphan found in latest Africa poaching

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/25/16699075-orphaned-elephants-find-sanctuary-in-kenya-amid-rampant-poaching?lite

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GOLDMAN'S JIM O'NEILL: Facebook Is To Blame ... - Business Insider

Every once in a while, since the economic crisis started, the phrase "currency wars" pops up.

It just means central banks trying to weaken their currencies (to make their countries more competitive) and other countries complaining about said weakening. It's not really that weird or that war-like.

Lately Japan has been the big easer, and interestingly some of the loudest complaints have come from the Germans, in part because Germans love hard money, but probably more likely because Germany is a big export powerhouse that could lose out if the Euro gets too strong against the yen.

And in fact, EURJPY has been going bananas, as the Euro is on a huge tear, and the yen is on just the opposite.

Here's a chart of the euro against the yen. It's been a rocket ride.

EURJPY via Bloomberg

So yes, that chart is not helpful to German exporters, but that's only half the story.

In his weekend note, Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs Asset Management partially blames the currency war on the "Facebook Times" because there's ever more interest in politicians saying soundbite things about economics that can go viral, and get posted by anyone with an internet connection.

Says O'Neill:

The Return of the Phrase ?Currency Wars?. Yet Another Sign of the ?Facebook Times?.

With the sharp fall of the Yen starting to get more and more attention and comment, one aspect that is back to the forefront is the notion of so-called ?currency wars? and the accusation that this time it is Japan that is supposedly engaging in them, with publicly the German policymakers, so far, being the most vocal on the topic. Some considerable time ago, I devoted a Viewpoint to the same topic when the Brazilian finance minister accused both Washington and Beijing at various times of similar supposed currency manipulation efforts, and just like them, I am going to be dismissive of such accusations.

At times, many countries and their governments do deliberately engage in efforts to change the price of their currency. It is quite amusing to read any continental European policymaker making such accusations when ? for much of floating rate history ? their own currencies have been managed very closely in semi-formal exchange rate systems, and, of course, today a large number of them kept in a formal monetary union, which, as we all know, has required intense focus and energy to keep alive. For most of the prevailing life between the end of floating in 1971 and the start of the European Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999, the Deutschmark versus the French Franc was held in very narrow ranges, except for the occasional FFR 2 devaluation and other occasional bouts of turbulence. Was that not currency manipulation?

I don?t recall either Chancellor Merkel or the Bundesbank recently accusing the Swiss authorities of deliberately manipulating the Swiss Franc?

Of course, much of what is often said, especially by a politician, is to use populist notions to either distract or sometimes attract attention to something that suits their purpose. And of course, it is especially easy and persistently tempting in this world of instant access to the internet and blogs where anyone can offer a view about almost anything.

Basically, 'currency wars' is a silly phrase with huge viral potential.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-jim-oneill-facebook-is-to-blame-for-the-outbreak-of-global-currency-wars-2013-1

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Moscow regrets US pullout from bilateral commission on human ...

RIA Novosti / Maxim Blinov

The United States has delivered the latest setback to Russia-US relations by announcing it will no longer participate in the Russian-American Bilateral Presidential Commission on Civil Society.

??We regret whenever a bilateral format is canceled without an appropriate substitute," presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Interfax.

Moscow did not receive the US announcement through official diplomatic channels, but rather via news agencies.

"[The US announcement] has until now reached us verbally; we have not yet received any written official documents on Washington's decision to withdraw from this format of dialogue with Russia," Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry's envoy on human rights, democracy and supremacy of law, told reporters on Friday.

The US decision to quit the Working Group on Civil Society of the Russian-American Bilateral Presidential Commission was announced by Thomas Melia, deputy secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, in an interview with Interfax.

Melia said the bilateral working group ?is no longer an appropriate or effective forum that would facilitate the development and strengthening of civil society." At the same time, he emphasized that the United States will continue to work ?in the field of human rights with the Russian government and civil society."

"We remain firmly committed to working with the Russian civil society in support of its objectives, including by further strengthening the links between the civil societies of Russia and the United States," Melia said. "The US government is prepared to be honest and open dialogue on civil society and human rights with the Russian government and Russian civil society.?

Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Washington will continue cooperating with Moscow ?on as many areas as we can where we see interest in cooperation, whether they are bilateral issues, whether they are regional issues, or whether they are global issues.?

?But we will also speak straight when we have disagreements, as we have, whether it was on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia, whether it was on human rights, whether it was on Syria,? she added.

The US?Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission was inaugurated on July 6, 2009 by US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as part of the so-called ?reset? in relations between the two former Cold War foes.

The declared Mission Statement of the Commission is, in part, "identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people?"

The US announcement came on the same day that the president of the Russian International Affairs Council, Igor Ivanov, said he expects US foreign policy to be more energetic and even tough during Barack Obama's second presidential term.

?In my recent conversation with John Kerry [who is anticipated to replace Hillary Clinton as the new Secretary of State], he said that now is not the time for loud statements, but a time for specific actions," Ivanov said.

Aside from the group on civil society, the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission has a multitude of other organizations that work in various diverse fields, including agriculture, arms control, counter terrorism, military technology, health and the environment.

Robert Bridge, RT

Source: http://rt.com/politics/russia-us-human-rights-adoptions-746/

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Citrix The Easy Help Guide To Internet Hosting Fun | Liberty

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Source: http://dwiminneapolis.com/business/citrix-the-easy-help-guide-to-internet-hosting-fun/

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JJ Abrams to direct Star Wars Episode VII?

Hollywood buzz claims that JJ Abrams, known for 'Lost,' 'Alias,' and the recent 'Star Trek' reboot, will direct a new Star Wars movie, Episode 7, due out in 2015.

By Associated Press / January 24, 2013

Contestants on an NBC show dress as Star Wars characters and pose in front of an in-store, interactive retail display promoting the DVD for 'Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.' According to the Hollywood rumor mill, J.J. Abrams will direct Episode VII, due out in 2015.

Alicia Hansen / NBC / AP / File

Enlarge

Another universe of sci-fi fans has been put in the hands of J.J. Abrams.

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According to multiple trade reports, Abrams, 46, is set to direct the next installment of "Star Wars," which Disney has said will be "Episode 7" and due out in 2015. Disney bought "Star Wars" maker Lucasfilm last month for $4.06 billion.

The Emmy-award-winning director of the TV show "Lost" also captained the reboot of "Star Trek" for rival studio Paramount Pictures, with the next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," set to hit theaters May 17.

Citing unnamed sources, the news was reported earlier by Hollywood trade outlets The Wrap, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.

Messages left by The Associated Press for Abrams' representatives as well as Disney and Lucasfilm were not immediately returned.

Soon after the news broke Thursday afternoon, websites were flush with chatter. On Twitter, "J.J. Abrams," ''Star Wars" and "#StarTrek" were all trending topics.

Roberto Orci, a producer and writer who has worked with Abrams on "Star Trek," ''Star Trek: Into Darkness," and "Mission: Impossible III," appeared to confirm the reports on Twitter. In response to a question about Abrams' involvement, Orci tweeted back "True!" He also responded to a Spanish-speaking questioner, "Creo que si!" ("I think so.")

Despite denying his interest in directing the next "Star Wars" following The Walt Disney Co.'s October announcement, many people pegged Abrams as the most obvious choice.

Abrams spoke about the plot of the original "Star Wars" in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007, and reportedly became enamored of "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof partly because Lindelof was wearing a "Star Wars" T-shirt when they first met.

In 2009, Abrams told the Los Angeles Times: "As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was."

Abrams also worked with Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic special effects division for "Mission: Impossible III."

He is the second big name associated with the new "Star Wars" films to be launched under the Disney umbrella. Late last year, Lucasfilm confirmed that Michael Arndt, who wrote "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Toy Story 3" would pen the screenplay for "Episode 7."

Adam Frazier, a staff writer for the entertainment website GeeksofDoom.com, said Abrams should be able to make the next "Star Wars" original but at the same time appease longtime fans.

"He took the 'Star Trek' franchise, which was just drowning in misery, and he was able to bring that back to life," Frazier said. "If there's anyone that can do it with 'Star Wars' I think it's him."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ifh1pU4uR_g/JJ-Abrams-to-direct-Star-Wars-Episode-VII

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