Organ donations fall in Germany after scandal

BERLIN (AP) — Organ donations have dropped sharply in Germany following a scandal over alleged corruption at several transplant clinics.

The German Foundation for Organ Transplantation says the number of organs donated fell almost 13 percent to 3,917 last year, the lowest figure in a decade.

Several German clinics are being investigated over allegations that doctors manipulated waiting lists to help some patients appear sicker than they were and so receive transplants sooner.

The foundation said Monday that the scandal had "massively shaken" the public's faith in the transplant system.

Some 12,000 people in Germany require organ transplants each year.

Read More..

Taylor Swift & Harry Styles: Did They Split?

01/07/2013 at 05:30 PM EST

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles

Tom Meinelt/Splash News Online

Have Taylor Swift and Harry Styles headed to splitsville already?

The musical lovebirds, who spent time vacationing in the snow and sun together over the holidays, have broken up, according to multiple reports.

After visiting the British Virgin Islands together following a New Year's Eve smooch, Swift left by herself on Jan. 4, according to the New York Post's Page Six, which cites a source confirming the split.

Meanwhile, a photo of Styles in a hot tub with multiple people, including Richard Branson, surfaced Monday.

Reps for both stars have not commented.

Swift, 23, and Styles, 18, debuted as a couple during a taping of The X Factor in November, and were seemingly inseparable after that. They packed on the PDA at a party in New York on Dec. 6, and spent her birthday together visiting northern England.

Although the pair appeared to fall for each other fast, a source who knows Swift told PEOPLE of the romance, "No one is taking it seriously."

Both Swift and the One Direction hottie kick off world tours soon.

Read More..

Mark Zuckerberg faces fine in Germany over Facebook privacy violations

Title Post: Mark Zuckerberg faces fine in Germany over Facebook privacy violations
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/mark-zuckerberg-faces-fine-in-germany-over-facebook-privacy-violations/
Link To Post : Mark Zuckerberg faces fine in Germany over Facebook privacy violations
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Obama Picks Hagel as Defense Secretary, Brennan for C.I.A.

WASHINGTON — Risking a potentially rancorous battle with Congress at the start of his second term, President Obama on Monday nominated Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska whom Mr. Obama hailed as “the leader that our troops deserve,” to be secretary of defense.

Mr. Obama also nominated John O. Brennan, his chief counterterrorism adviser, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, putting a close aide who was at his side during the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden into the top job at the agency.

The president extolled Mr. Hagel’s record as a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, describing how he once dragged his brother to safety after he struck a landmine.

“Just as Sergeant Hagel was there for his brother, Secretary Hagel will be there for you,” said Mr. Obama, who was flanked by Mr. Hagel and the current defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, at the White House ceremony.

“More than most, Chuck understands that war is not just an abstraction,” Mr. Obama said.

Of Mr. Brennan, the president said he was one of the architects of the counterterrorism strategy that dealt setbacks to the leadership of Al Qaeda.

“Think about the results,” Mr. Obama said, noting that Mr. Brennan had been a tireless sentry for the American people.

The president also emphasized that Mr. Brennan had embedded counterterrorism within a legal framework, saying, “he understands we are a nation of laws.”

The announcements, which were widely expected, complete a troika of personnel moves, along with that of Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was named as secretary of state last month, that fill out Mr. Obama’s national security team for his second term.

The nomination of Mr. Hagel sets up a showdown between the president and Congress, with Republican senators predicting he will face a bruising confirmation because of his views on Israel, Iran and Islamic militant groups. He has also faced criticism from gay rights organizations forremarks he made 14 years ago – for which he has since apologized – about an openly gay diplomat.

Conservative and Jewish groups say that Mr. Hagel has opposed sanctions on Iran, has inadequately supported Israel and has advocated engagement with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They also fault him for having once referred to pro-Israel lobbying groups on Capitol Hill as “the Jewish lobby.”

Still, it was not clear how hard those groups would fight to block Mr. Hagel’s nomination after having failed to derail his candidacy since he emerged as front-runner for the job.

“We’re not in the opposition camp, we’re in the concerned camp,” said David A. Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, a centrist Jewish group. “We’re going to count on the Senate to examine, as it must, key issues of concern.”

Mr. Harris said that Iran topped his list of concerns because Mr. Hagel had voted against American sanctions against the Iranian government over its nuclear program and had argued against using military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement that Mr. Hagel “would not have been my first choice, but I respect the president’s prerogative.”

However, Mr. Foxman said that the senators should challenge Mr. Hagel on his positions on Israel and Iran, which he said were “so out of sync” with those of the president. “I particularly hope Senator Hagel will clarify and explain his comments about the ‘Jewish lobby’ that were hurtful to many in the Jewish community,” Mr. Foxman added.

Mr. Obama referred obliquely to the controversy swirling around Mr. Hagel, saying that soldiers in the field were far away from the politics of Washington, but should not be handicapped by it.

Mr. Obama’s choices for the Pentagon and the C.I.A. reflect a determination to fill his central national security jobs with people in whom he has deep trust and with whom he has personal rapport, according to White House aides.

Mr. Brennan, these advisers said, has developed exceptionally close ties to the president in his four years at the White House, briefing him on terrorist plots, pushing to expand the strategy of using unmanned drones to kill suspected terrorists and advising him on decisions like authorizing the Bin Laden raid.

Mr. Obama’s rapport with Mr. Hagel goes back to their days in the Senate. In July 2008, Mr. Hagel and Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, accompanied Mr. Obama on a trip to Afghanistan that helped establish the Democratic presidential nominee’s foreign policy credentials.

Like the president, Mr. Hagel is deeply suspicious of a lingering American military presence in Afghanistan, and would most likely be comfortable with a more rapid drawdown of American troops after the United States and its allies turn over responsibility for security to the Afghans at the end of 2014.

John Nagl, a retired Army officer and professor of history at the United States Naval Academy, recalled Mr. Hagel addressing a class he was teaching at West Point. “He said, ‘I was that 19-year-old rifleman. Look me in the eye and tell me that if you send a kid to get killed, it will be for a mission that matters.’ ”

“He’ll be a voice for G.I. Joe, and that’s a very valuable thing,” Mr. Nagl said.

At Monday’s ceremony, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Panetta, the outgiung defense secretary, whom he said earned a break after heading both the Pentagon and the C.I.A.

The president also thanked Michael J. Morell, who stepped in to run the C.I.A. as acting director after David H. Petraeus resigned in the wake of a sex scandal last fall.

“I hope the Senate will act on these nominations promptly,” he said. “When it comes to national security, we don’t like to leave gaps.”

Read More..

LAPD cops allegedly forced women to have sex in their cars

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers are under investigation for allegedly preying on women over a period of five years, luring them into an unmarked car and forcing them to perform sex acts, according to court records.

Detectives from the LAPD’s internal affairs unit suspect that Officers Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols targeted at least four women whom they had arrested previously or who worked for them as informants, according to a search warrant reviewed by The Times.

The pair repeatedly used the threat of jail to get women into their car and drove them to secluded areas where one of the officers demanded sex while the other kept watch, the warrant alleges.

Valenzuela and Nichols worked together until recently as narcotics officers in the Hollywood Division. Investigators have identified four women who encountered the pair and made similar independent accusations against them.

The warrant cites sexually explicit text messages that one alleged victim claims she exchanged with the officers after their encounters. Last month, investigators obtained the woman’s cellphone and computers in hopes of finding the messages the officers are alleged to have written. The department has yet to examine the electronic devices, a police official said.

Investigators had planned to confront the officers in a surprise operation early next week, but were forced to accelerate those plans Thursday, when one of the women unexpectedly filed a lawsuit against the officers. Fearing that Valenzuela and Nichols might destroy evidence, investigators rushed to sequester the officers and seize their computers and phones, police confirmed.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck emphasized Thursday that the investigation was ongoing, but added that he was “saddened by the allegations. If they are true, it would be horrific,” he said.

Valenzuela, a 15-year department veteran, and Nichols, a 12-year veteran, were expected to be assigned to their homes pending the outcome of the probe, the head of the internal affairs group said. The officers could not be reached for comment.

The first woman to accuse Valenzuela and Nichols came forward in January 2010, when she told a supervisor in their narcotics unit that the officers had stopped her more than a year earlier, according to the warrant. The woman, who worked as a confidential informant for the narcotics unit and knew the men, said they were dressed in plainclothes and driving a Volkswagen Jetta. Valenzuela threatened to take the woman to jail if she refused to get in the car, then got into the back seat with her and exposed himself, telling the woman to touch him, the warrant said.

An investigation into the woman’s claim went nowhere when the detective assigned to the case was unable to locate her, according to the warrant.

A year later, however, another woman demanded to speak to a supervisor after being arrested and taken to the LAPD’s Hollywood station. Sometime in late 2009, according to the warrant, two officers driving a Jetta pulled up alongside her as she was walking her dog in Hollywood. The officers, whom she recognized as the same cops who had arrested her in a previous encounter, ordered her into the car, the woman recounted. It is not known why she was arrested.

Believing that the officers were investigating a case, the woman said she felt compelled to comply. Valenzuela then got into the back seat with the woman and handed her dog to Nichols, who drove the car a short distance to a more secluded area. “Why don’t you cut out that tough girl crap,” the woman recounted Valenzuela saying as he “unzipped his pants and forced [her] head down toward his lap and physically held her head down” as he forced her to perform oral sex on him, according to police records contained in the warrant.

The woman said she didn’t report the incident immediately because she felt humiliated, thought no one would believe her and feared for her safety. Police noted that the woman displayed erratic behavior while recounting the events. Later, she made violent threats while in custody and was transported to a hospital.

Based on this allegation, the department reopened the investigation into the pair. The investigator assigned to the case interviewed this second accuser and managed, as well, to find the first woman who had come forward the year before. She, too, gave a statement, saying she had refused Valenzuela’s commands to fondle him.

For reasons not explained in the warrant, the department’s investigation made little progress for the next 18 months. During this time, police records show, the officers were transferred, with Valenzuela being reassigned to the Olympic Division and Nichols to the Northeast Division. (Nichols was involved in the high-profile arrest last year of Brian C. Mulligan, an executive at Deutsche Bank, who alleged he was the victim of excessive force. Police contend that Mulligan, while deranged on drugs, charged at Nichols and suffered injuries while Nichols and his partner took him into custody).

Cmdr. Rick Webb, who heads the LAPD’s internal affairs group, declined to comment on the specifics of the probe, but said such cases are often difficult to complete.

The case picked up steam again in July 2012, when a man left a phone message for the vice unit at the Northeast station, saying he was a member of the Echo Park neighborhood watch and had been told by a prostitute that patrol officers in the area were picking up prostitutes and letting them go in exchange for oral sex, the warrant said.

Two more months passed before a third internal affairs officer was assigned to look into the Echo Park claim. The investigator was aware of the earlier allegations against Valenzuela and Nichols and “thought the circumstances and location were very similar.”

It is not clear how, but the investigator identified another two women who reported encounters in which Nichols and Valenzuela had sought sexual favors in exchange for leniency.

One said Nichols had detained her in July 2011, handcuffed her and driven her to a quiet location. Removing the restraints, Nichols exposed himself and said, “You don’t want to go to jail today, do you?” the woman recalled. Fearing she would be arrested, the woman performed oral sex on Nichols, who then released her, she said. She said Nichols had done the same thing to her six years earlier.

The other woman discovered by the internal affairs investigator alleged that she became a confidential informant for Valenzuela and Nichols after she was arrested, according to the warrant. Valenzuela, she said, told her that having sex with him would help her avoid jail, according to the warrant. She alleged that she had sex with the officer twice, once when he was off duty at her apartment in Los Angeles, and the second time in the back seat of an undercover police car while he was on duty. She said she was afraid he would send her back to jail if she refused.

She said Nichols contacted her in January 2011 and told her he would cancel her obligation to inform for him if she would have sex with him.

The woman filed a lawsuit against the city Wednesday, alleging that the officers forced her to have sex with them several times in exchange for keeping her out of jail. The Times in general does not name the victims of alleged sex crimes.

That lawsuit was first reported by City News Service. Despite the officers’ promises, the woman was sentenced to jail in April 2011 and remains there, the lawsuit alleged. A district attorney’s spokeswoman said the woman is serving more than seven years in jail for possession of cocaine with intent to sell and identity theft.

ALSO:

Superman caught on video flying along Carlsbad beach

Teens drugged parents to use Internet past curfew, police say

Rare river otter a celebrity after settling near Golden Gate Bridge

-- Joel Rubin and Jack Leonard

Read More..

Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.

Wait, what?

If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.

Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.

"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.

He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.

It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.

Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.

Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."

She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.

Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.

She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.

Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."

Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.

A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.

Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.

"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.

NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.

Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.

Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."

Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.

___

Online:

Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Read More..

Jordana Brewster Is 'Enamored' with the Idea of Having Twins

01/06/2013 at 05:00 PM EST

Jordana Brewster has babies on the brain – yes, you read that right: plural.

The Dallas star, 32, who has been married to movie producer Andrew Form since 2007, tells Latina she "definitely" wants two kids and is "enamored" by the idea of having twins.

"My dad was a twin, so it runs in the family," she explains. "Fingers crossed. We're thinking about having kids but I don't know when it'll happen. I feel very ready now."

When the couple does eventually expand their family, the children will be raised in a loving home.

"We FaceTime all of the time," Brewster says, of keeping the romance alive long distance. "We love that. There are times when I just say, 'I need to see you now.' And so we FaceTime a lot, or I surprise him and visit him or he does the same. It's super important … Couples shouldn't be apart for too long. We've been married for five years now and we know how important that is because otherwise you just lose touch with each other."

A big part of their bond has come from the way Form inspires his wife on a professional level.

"It's so amazing to have a husband in the business who can challenge me and we can talk about his work and my work and understand each other in that way," Brewster says. "I love getting his feedback and he likes getting mine. And of course, that has pushed me more to consider producing in the future."

And she's not just talking about babies!

Read More..

Riches in niches: U.S. cops, in-flight movies may be model for Panasonic survival

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp’s answer to the brutal onslaught on its TV sales may be in a product the Japanese firm launched 17 years ago and which is a must-have for U.S. police cars.

Two thirds of the 420,000 patrol cars in the United States are equipped with the company’s rugged Toughbook computers, and Panasonic chief Kazuhiro Tsuga sees the niche product as a model for how the sprawling conglomerate can make money beyond a gadget mass market increasingly dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc.

“What we need are businesses that earn, and they don’t necessarily have to have big sales,” Tsuga told reporters after his appointment as company president was approved in June.

Tsuga also sees avionics – Panasonic is the world’s leading maker of in-flight entertainment systems – automated production machinery, and lighting as profit earners as income from TVs and other consumer electronics dwindles.

Panasonic, Sony Corp and Sharp Corp have been hit hard by South Korean-made TVs, Blu-ray players and mobiles and Apple tablets that threaten to wipe out Japan as a global consumer electronics hub. The Toughbook, sold only to businesses and governments, was conceived as a response to the type of profit sapping competition that is now roiling TVs.

“At the time, we were losing in personal computers to Compaq and IBM,” said Hide Harada, who heads the Toughbook unit from the group’s headquarters in Osaka, western Japan. IBM later sold its laptop business to China’s Lenovo Group and Compaq was absorbed by Hewlett Packard.

“It was a guerilla strategy,” Harada said, recalling the Toughbook’s launch in 1996. Panasonic’s promotion campaign included driving jeeps over its computers, dropping them on the ground and dousing them with coffee on morning TV shows.

At rival Sony, too, signs of a niche strategy are emerging in a battle with Apple and South Korean brands that are making gains from a weaker won currency. Combining technologies from several divisions – from projectors to video cameras and headphones – Sony’s 3D Viewer head-mounted visor gives users the feel they are sitting in the middle of a 500-seat movie theater.

The target audience, says product manager Hideki Mori, are those consumers looking to immerse themselves in computer graphics and high quality movies. “Demand has been greater than anticipated,” he said, declining to give specific sales numbers.

LOSING GROUND

The two Japanese firms will show off their wares at this week’s annual CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, an event usually dominated by prototypes for next-generation TV technology. Tsuga is due to deliver the event’s keynote speech.

In the past, the Japanese have showcased ultra high-definition 4K televisions, while Samsung and LG Electronics Inc have displayed their ultra-thin OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens. But, at a price tag likely 10 times that of conventional LCD screens, consumers will take a while to make the generational leap.

Meanwhile, losses at Panasonic, Sony and Sharp mount up. Panasonic has predicted a net loss of $ 8.9 billion in the year to end-March, while Sharp, which has been bailed out by banks, expects an annual loss of $ 5.24 billion. Helped by asset sales, Sony should eke out a small profit.

Japan’s share of the flat panel TV market has shrunk by around a quarter in the past two years, to around 31 percent, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association. Amid a prolonged strong yen squeeze, the industry lobby expects Japan’s share of the DVD and Blu-ray disc player market to have dropped to around half last year from nearly two-thirds in 2010. Just 8 of every 100 mobile phones sold globally are now Japanese. Manufacturers have shifted TV production overseas, with output in Japan now less than a tenth of what it was two years ago.

Tsuga, who acknowledges Panasonic is a “loser” in consumer electronics, has warned his business units they will be closed or sold if they fail to match Toughbook’s success, giving each two years to deliver at least a 5 percent operating margin.

Any niche-winning strategy that takes his company away from mass market products means Tsuga will need fewer workers, investors say. Panasonic is Japan’s biggest commercial employer with a workforce of more than 300,000. It plans to axe 10,000 jobs in the year to March on top of the 36,000 that were cut in the previous year. More big cuts in Japan, where major lay-offs are uncommon and severance packages expensive, won’t be easy, said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO at Fukoku Capital Management in Tokyo, which manages assets worth $ 18.4 billion, but doesn’t own Panasonic stock.

“It’s like trying to chase the course of a battleship. If they want to become a light cruiser or destroyer, they’ll have to lose employees,” Sakurai said.

GLOBAL STANDARD

Workers Panasonic will likely keep are those in Kobe in western Japan who build the Toughbook PCs – a category defined by a U.S. military quality benchmark that serves as a de facto global standard. Its market share is on a par with Apple’s in tablets, with most U.S. police departments willing to pay as much as $ 3,000 for the rugged laptops which can withstand bumpy high-speed chases and other rigors of street policing.

“They have been near bullet-proof. We had a patrol car catch fire and after all the heat, smoke and water dissipated the computer continued to function,” said Bill Richards, logistics commander for the Tucson police in Arizona, whose force owns close to 650 Toughbooks that connect patrol cars with dispatchers, license records and other police databases.

Other customers include the New York Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Brazilian Military Police and British and U.S. military, which use them on unmanned aerial drones.

“Panasonic is the bellwether, the most recognized brand. The Toughbook is almost synonymous with rugged notebooks,” said David Krebs, a vice president at VDC Research.

While margins in the global PC market are getting slimmer – research firm IHS iSuppli sees annual sales growth of around 7 percent over the next four years from about 216 million PCs last year – the premium-price, fatter margin, rugged PC niche is seen growing by around 10 percent a year to nearly 1.2 million computers by 2016, according to VDC Research.

ANALOG EDGE, DIGITAL SAMENESS

At the Kobe factory, Toughbooks are put through their paces: hosed down to test water resistance, baked to 50 degrees Celsius, chilled to minus 20 degrees and dropped on their tops, bottoms, sides and corners.

Harada describes it as an analog edge in digital products.

“Whoever makes them, the insides of a computer are pretty much the same. It’s the mechanical side that makes us different,” he explained.

The creators of Sony’s 3D Viewer, too, are looking for mechanical appeal as much as electronic prowess. A second, redesigned model, which is now on sale in Japan, is 25 percent lighter at 330 grams, has a better grip and gives users the option of headphones or earplugs, said Mori. “We want to make it lighter,” he added, noting engineers are looking to slim down the heaviest component, the lenses.

While Sony keeps chasing consumers, Panasonic is pursuing a business-to-business niche market model that Tsuga has put at the heart of his revival plan. High on Harada’s target list for the Toughbook are Japanese police forces, which don’t yet buy the computers.

There are no plans, he said, to make cheaper mass market models – which could protect some jobs in the group.

“We aren’t going to put it in Best Buy or Walmart. I don’t think it would turn out well.”

($ 1 = 85.9250 Japanese yen)

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Israel Plans to Build Syrian Border Fence

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Sunday that it was constructing a border fence along the length of its armistice line with Syria in the Golan Heights, and was coordinating its intelligence with the United States in light of the deteriorating security situation in Syria.

Pool photo by Uriel Sinai

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that "we will defend this border against both infiltration and terrorism."

In remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Syrian Army had moved away from the frontier and that jihadist forces had moved in.

“Therefore, we will defend this border against both infiltration and terrorism,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “I also submit to the cabinet the fact that the Syrian regime is very unstable, that the question of chemical weapons here worries us.” He said that Israel was coordinating with the United States and others “so that we might be prepared for any scenario and possibility that could arise.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s announcement came as he sought to reinforce his security credentials as a strong leader ahead of national elections on Jan. 22, and as he appealed to his traditional supporters to cast their ballots for the conservative Likud-Beiteinu ticket he is leading and not be lulled by polls showing that he is favored to win.

“Whoever wants me as a strong prime minister cannot have a strong prime minister while weakening me,” Mr. Netanyahu told Israel Radio in an interview broadcast Sunday. “I think there is only one way to guarantee that the right continues to govern Israel, and that is to vote for me.”

Political polls in recent weeks have consistently shown that Likud-Beiteinu is bleeding votes to the Jewish Home, a far-right party led by Naftalie Bennett, a dynamic newcomer to national politics who is a former Netanyahu aide, settler leader and technology entrepreneur. Mr. Netanyahu also warned of possible efforts by centrist and leftist parties to create a united bloc aimed at thwarting his chances of forming the next coalition government.

Last week, in a pre-election move intended to highlight one of his government’s achievements, the prime minister toured the new security fence that runs almost the entire length of Israel’s border with Egypt. Accompanied by a group of Israeli journalists, Mr. Netanyahu noted that the barrier had sharply stemmed the flow of African migrants into Israel and had provided more protection against militant groups operating in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

Mr. Netanyahu has pledged to erect a similar barrier along the Syrian frontier, with changes to suit the topography. A section of an old and rickety border fence near the Golan Druse village of Majdal Shams has already been fortified with a steel barrier after protesters, most of them Palestinians, breached the frontier in 2011, drawing deadly fire from Israeli soldiers.

Israel seized a large portion of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that overlooks northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move that has not been internationally recognized. The cease-fire line was established in the aftermath of the 1973 conflict, and though Israel and Syria are still technically at war, it has remained mostly quiet for decades.

Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting in Syria but in recent months a number of stray Syrian mortar shells crashed into the Israeli-controlled territory as Syrian government forces battled rebels across the line, prompting Israel to fire warning shots into Syria and in one instance aim tank fire at a Syrian artillery position.

But apprehension has been mounting, with Israeli experts warning that Syria is becoming a haven for Islamic extremists. Israel says that thousands of Islamic militants have entered Syria to fight against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and Israeli leaders have expressed particular concern that chemical weapons and advanced weaponry like ground-to-air missiles amassed by the Assad government could fall into the hands of radical groups.

As a result, Israel has been changing its military infrastructure along the frontier with Syria, planning a continuous fence and the installation of electro-optical devices and radar, and deploying some of its most highly trained troops there for the first time in more than 30 years.

Read More..

Girl found dead in snow after casino New Year's Eve party

After days of searching, the body of a teenager missing since New Year’s Eve was found in the snow near South Lake Tahoe.

Authorities said there was no evidence of foul play but stressed the investigation was continuing.

Alyssa Byrne, 19, went to the Snow Globe Music Festival in South Lake Tahoe on Monday night and hadn't been seen since.

"Our preliminary investigation with this morning's discovery, it would
tend to point in the direction that Alyssa had elected to walk home from
the event," Douglas County sheriff's official  Paul Howell told reporters at a news conference.

A utility worker found the body, later identified as Byrne's, about
10 feet from a road. The body was not visible from the road because of high piles of snow.

Read More..