Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella


NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.


In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.


The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.


Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.


Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.


In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.


Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.


Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.


The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.


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Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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Ala. Hostage Suspect Had Court Date Scheduled













The retired Alabama trucker who shot a school bus driver and is now holding a kindergarten student in an underground bunker was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to answer for allegedly shooting at his neighbors in a dispute over a damaged speed bump.


Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, has been holed up in a 6 by 8 foot bunker 4 feet underground with a 5-year-old autistic boy named Ethan since Tuesday, when he boarded a school bus and asked for two 6 to 8 year old boys. School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot several times by Dykes, and died trying to protect the children.


Police said that they do not think that Dykes had any connection to Ethan, and that SWAT teams and police are negotiating with Dykes.


"I could tell you that negotiators continue to communicate with the suspect and that there's no reason to believe the child has been harmed," Sheriff Wally Olson said late Thursday.


Dykes' neighbor Claudia Davis told The Associated Press that he had yelled at her and fired his gun at her, her son James Davis, Jr. and her baby grandson after he claimed their truck caused damage to a speed bump in the dirt road near his property. No one was hurt, but Davis, Jr. told the AP that he believes the shooting and kidnapping are connected to the scheduled court hearing.


"I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it," he said.








Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video









Alabama 5-year-old Hostage: Negotiations Continue Watch Video









Alabama Child Hostage Situation: School Bus Driver Killed Watch Video





This was not Dykes' only run-in with people in the neighborhood, where he had come to be known as a menacing figure. Neighbor Ronda Wilbur told the AP that Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe when it entered the side of the dirt rode his trailer sits on. Wilbur said her dog died a week later.


Early last year, two pit bulls belonging to neighbors Mike and Patricia Smith escaped and got into his yard. Patricia Smith said that Dykes threatened to shoot her children when they went to retrieve them.


Neighbor Ronda Wilbur said that Dykes would be seen on his property at all hours of the day.


"It could be 2 o'clock in the morning, it could be midnight. He was out there either digging or moving dirt," she said.


As the underground standoff moved into its fourth day, tensions grow in this small community near Midland City, Ala., which is now enveloped by SWAT teams and police.


"That's an innocent kid. Let him go back to his parents, he's crying for his parents and his grandparents and he does not know what's going on," Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper told ABC News. "Let this kid go."


Neighbor Jimmy Davis said that he has seen the bunker where Dykes has been known to hunker down for up to eight days.


"He's got steps made out of cinder blocks going down to it, Davis said. "It's lined with those red bricks all in it."


Police say he may have enough supplies to last him weeks.


Former FBI profiler and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said there's a distinct reason why authorities are keeping details about Dykes under wraps.


"One of reasons they are keeping negations closed and not releasing his picture, is to try to insulate the situation, so they don't have a situation where they don't have to deal with his anger and rage," he said.


Meanwhile, children are trying to understand why this happened to their friend


"He always comes up to my house to play," 10-year-old Trisha Beaty told ABC News. "I miss him. I miss him a lot."



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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey


ANKARA (Reuters) - A suicide bomber from a far-left group killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, blowing the door off a side entrance and sending smoke and debris flying into the street.


The attacker blew himself up inside U.S. property, Ankara Governor Alaaddin Yuksel said. The blast sent masonry spewing out of the wall and could be heard a mile away.


Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the bomber was a member of a far-left group. The U.S. State Department said it was working with Turkish police to investigate what it described as "a terrorist blast".


Islamist radicals, far-left groups, far-right groups and Kurdish separatist militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.


"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who was attending a ceremony in Istanbul when the blast happened.


"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.


Far-left groups in Turkey oppose what they see as U.S. influence over Turkish foreign policy.


Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism, and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.


Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.


U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy, which is surrounded by high walls, shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.


"We are very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, thanking the Turkish authorities for a prompt response.


A Reuters witness saw one wounded person being lifted into an ambulance as police armed with assault rifles cordoned off the area.


"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.


OPPOSED TO U.S. INFLUENCE


State broadcaster TRT said the attacker was thought to be from The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which wants a socialist state and is vehemently anti-American, according to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).


The group, deemed a terrorist organization by both the United States and Turkey, was blamed for a suicide attack in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.


Guler said the bomber could have been from the DHKP-C or a similar group.


The DHKP/C has in the past attacked Turkish official targets with bombs, but arrests of some of its members in recent years have weakened its capabilities, according to the NCTC.


The date of the DHKP-C's most recent attack, on an Istanbul police station, was September 11, 2012, seen as a symbolic strike to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on the United States.


Despite some strains, Washington and Ankara have long had a strong strategic alliance. U.S. President Barack Obama chose Turkey as his first Muslim nation to visit after he took office five years ago.


Turkish support and bases have helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan, while Turkey hosts a NATO radar system, operated by U.S. forces, in its eastern province of Malatya to help defend against any regional threat from Iran.


More recently, it has led calls for international intervention in neighboring Syria and is hosting hundreds of NATO soldiers who are manning the Patriot missile defense system near the Syrian border, hundreds of kilometers from the capital.


The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".


The most serious bombings of this kind in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Authorities said the attack bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.


Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed a further 32 people a week later.


(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Jon Hemming)



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Scoot airlines to increase fleet, expand routes






SINGAPORE: Scoot, the low cost long haul subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, has flown about 600,000 passengers after seven months of operation.

This means carrying about 85,000 travellers per month.

The carrier also has a passenger load factor of about 81 per cent and currently flies to eight destinations, including Tianjin, Shenyang and the Gold Coast.

Speaking at the "world's low cost airlines" conference on Thursday, CEO of Scoot Airlines Campbell Wilson was asked if the airline will be increasing its fleet and expanding its routes to cope with the ever growing demand for low cost travel in Southeast Asia.

Mr Wilson said: "We're taking a fifth aircraft this year end of May, early June, and we'll use that to add two or three more routes to the network. In terms of partnership, currently we work most closely with Tiger Airways, they have affiliates in other countries that we would look to expand our routes to. And furthermore there are airlines outside of Singapore and indeed outside of Southeast Asia that are quite interested to work with us. But its too premature to reveal who."

Scoot has introduced ScooTV, streaming inflight entertainment for passengers, and was the first to introduce iPads for rent.

Mr Wilson said it does not add to their costs at all.

"We only introduce these where there is a business benefit to us. We target to get over 20 per cent of our revenue from ancillary products of which entertainment is one. But as well as earning us money, it also helps the passenger. It's a win-win all round," he said.

Mr Wilson also commented on Boeing's Dreamliner despite the latest safety hiccups.

"The next aircraft we take this year is a 777-200 and the ones after that are 787s. Boeing is keeping us fully informed of what's happening with the 787 investigations and rectification and we are confident in their ability to resolve the issue under the purview of the regulators, and we look forward to taking the aircraft on schedule in November 2014. We have commitment for 20 Dreamliners," he said.

Several Scoot flights were recently hit by a series of passenger complaints stemming from flight delays and alleged technical faults.

Mr Wilson said: "The challenges are real. When you have a small fleet flying high utilisation. Anything whether its a weather delay, whether its a typhoon, fog in Tianjin today or storms in Gold Coast on Monday, they do affect aircraft schedules and sometimes have consequential effects. There's no avoiding that with a small fleet, but the high utilisation of aircraft is what allows us to offer low fares, so it's a bit of a quid pro quo.

"We're very clear to people what it is that we offer, we also make no secret what it is that we give in terms of compensation. The compensation is not just S$50, it can be more ranging to a full refund depending on the circumstances.

"Clearly, unit costs is unavoidable for operating an airline, unit revenue and engagement. You can't operate a business if you don't have low cost, you can't cover those cost if you don't have decent revenue and you don't have revenue if people don't like you."

- CNA/de



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Pervez Musharraf remains adamant, claims Kargil was a big success militarily for Pak

ISLAMABAD: Claiming that his 1999 Kargil operation was a "big success militarily", former President Pervez Musharraf has said that if the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had not visited the US, the Pakistani army would have "conquered" 300 square miles of India.

He defended his action to launch the operation in Kargil in the wake of fresh allegations that he masterminded the intrusions.

Referring to Lt Gen (retired) Shahid Aziz's allegations that he had kept other military commanders in the dark about the operation, Musharraf said, "Telling everyone about it was not necessary at all".

He claimed Aziz had an "imbalanced personality" and had resorted to character assassination by making these accusations.

"We lost the Kargil war, which was a big success militarily, because of (then premier) Nawaz Sharif...If he had not visited the US, we would have conquered 300 square miles of India," Musharraf said in an interview with Express News channel.

Though Pakistan had initially claimed mujahideen were responsible for occupying strategic heights along the Line of Control in early 1999, Musharraf later revealed in his autobiography 'In The Line Of Fire' that regular army troops had participated in the operation.

Aziz, who headed the analysis wing of the ISI during the Kargil conflict, recently revealed that the operation was masterminded by a group of four generals led by Musharraf.

He has said details of the operation were hidden from other military commanders and the exact number of Pakistani casualties was still not known.

But Musharraf claimed the action in Kargil was a "localised" operation and not a major operation.

"Kargil was just one of many sectors under a Major General stationed in Gilgit, (who was) in charge of the area. Exchange of fire was routine there," he claimed.

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths


Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.


All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.


Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.


"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.


"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.


"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.


But some are pretty interesting.


Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.


That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.


Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:


—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.


—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.


—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.


—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.


—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.


—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.


Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.


"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.


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Online:


Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html


New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org


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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Negotiations Drag Out for 5-Year-Old Hostage













An Alabama community is on edge today, praying for a 5-year-old boy being held hostage by a retired man who police say abducted him at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon.


Nearly 40 hours have slowly passed since school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, heroically tried to prevent the kidnapping, but was shot to death by suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, a former truck driver, police said.


Dykes boarded the bus Tuesday and said he wanted two boys, 6 to 8 years old. As the children piled to the back of the bus, Dykes, 65, allegedly shot Poland four times, then grabbed the child at random and fled, The Associated Press reported.


The primary concern in the community near Midland City, Ala., is now for the boy's safety. Dale County police have not identified the child.


"I believe in prayer, so I just pray that we can resolve this peacefully," Dale County sheriff Wally Olson said.






Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser/AP











Alabama Child Hostage Situation: School Bus Driver Killed Watch Video









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Algeria Hostage Situation: Military Operation Mounted Watch Video





The boy is being held in a bunker about 8 feet below ground, where police say Dykes likely has enough food and supplies to remain underground for weeks. Dykes has been communicating with police through a pipe extending from the bunker to the surface.


It is unclear whether he has made any demands from the bunker-style shelter on his property.


The young hostage is a child with autism. Dykes has allowed the boy to watch television, and have some medication, police said


Multiple agencies have responded to the hostage situation, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said. The FBI has assumed the lead in the investigation, and SWAT teams were surrounding the bunker.


"A lot of law enforcement agencies here doing everything they possibly can to get this job done," Olson said.


Former FBI lead hostage negotiator Chris Voss said that authorities must proceed with caution.


"You make contact as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can," he said. "You don't try to be assertive; you don't try to be aggressive."


Voss said patience is important in delicate situations such as this.


"The more patient approach they take, the less likely they are to make mistakes," he said.


"They need to move slowly to get it right, to communicate properly and slowly and gently unravel this."



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Syrian rebels make slow headway in south


AMMAN (Reuters) - The revolt against President Bashar al-Assad first flared in Deraa, but the southern border city now epitomizes the bloody stalemate gripping Syria after 22 months of violence and 60,000 dead.


Jordan next door has little sympathy with Assad, but is wary of spillover from the upheaval in its bigger neighbor. It has tightened control of its 370-km (230-mile) border with Syria, partly to stop Islamist fighters or weapons from crossing.


That makes things tough for Assad's enemies in the Hawran plain, traditionally one of Syria's most heavily militarized regions, where the army has long been deployed to defend the southern approaches to Damascus from any Israeli threat.


The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels, loosely grouped in tribal and local "brigades", are united by a hatred of Assad and range from secular-minded fighters to al Qaeda-aligned Islamists.


"Nothing comes from Jordan," complained Moaz al-Zubi, an officer in the rebel Free Syrian Army, contacted via Skype from the Jordanian capital Amman. "If every village had weapons, we would not be afraid, but the lack of them is sapping morale."


Insurgents in Syria say weapons occasionally do seep through from Jordan but that they rely more on arsenals they seize from Assad's troops and arms that reach them from distant Turkey.


This month a Syrian pro-government television channel showed footage of what it said was an intercepted shipment of anti-tank weapons in Deraa, without specifying where it had come from.


Assad's troops man dozens of checkpoints in Deraa, a Sunni city that was home to 180,000 people before the uprising there in March 2011. They have imposed a stranglehold which insurgents rarely penetrate, apart from sporadic suicide bombings by Islamist militants, say residents and dissidents.


Rebel activity is minimal west of Deraa, where military bases proliferate near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.


Insurgents have captured some towns and villages in a 25-km (17-mile) wedge of territory east of Deraa, but intensifying army shelling and air strikes have reduced many of these to ruin, forcing their residents to join a rapidly expanding refugee exodus to Jordan, which now hosts 320,000 Syrians.


However, despite more than a month of fighting, Assad's forces have failed to winkle rebels out of strongholds in the rugged volcanic terrain that stretches from Busra al-Harir, 37 km (23 miles) northeast of Deraa, to the outskirts of Damascus.


Further east lies Sweida, home to minority Druze who have mostly sat out the Sunni-led revolt against security forces dominated by Assad's minority, Shi'ite-rooted Alawite sect.


"KEY TO DAMASCUS"


As long as Assad's forces control southwestern Syria, with its fertile, rain-fed Hawran plain, his foes will find it hard to make a concerted assault on Damascus, the capital and seat of his power, from suburbs where they already have footholds.


"If this area is liberated, the supply routes from the south to Damascus would be cut," said Abu Hamza, a commander in the rebel Ababeel Hawran Brigade. "Deraa is the key to the capital."


Fighters in the north, where Turkey provides a rear base and at least some supply lines, have fared somewhat better than their counterparts in the south, grabbing control of swathes of territory and seizing half of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city.


They have also captured some towns in the east, across the border from Iraq's Sunni heartland of Anbar province, and in central Syria near the mostly Sunni cities of Homs and Hama.


But even where they gain ground, Assad's mostly Russian-supplied army and air force can still pound rebels from afar, prompting a Saudi prince to call for outsiders to "level the playing field" by providing anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.


"What is needed are sophisticated, high-level weapons that can bring down planes, can take out tanks at a distance," Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former intelligence chief and brother of the Saudi foreign minister, said last week at a meeting in Davos.


Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state Qatar have long backed Assad's opponents and advocate arming them, but for now the rebels are still far outgunned by the Syrian military.


"They are not heavily armed, properly trained or equipped," said Ali Shukri, a retired Jordanian general, who argued also that rebels would need extensive training to use Western anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons effectively even if they had them.


He said two powerful armored divisions were among Syrian forces in the south, where the rebels are "not that strong".


It is easier for insurgents elsewhere in Syria to get support via Turkey or Lebanon than in the south where the only borders are with Israel and Jordan, Shukri said.


Jordan, which has urged Assad to go, but seeks a political solution to the crisis, is unlikely to ramp up support for the rebels, even if its cautious policy risks irritating Saudi Arabia and Qatar, financial donors to the cash-strapped kingdom.


ISLAMIST STRENGTH


"I'm confident the opposition would like to be sourcing arms regularly from the Jordanian border, not least because I guess it would be easier for the Saudis to get stuff up there on the scale you'd be talking about," said a Western diplomat in Amman.


A scarcity of arms and ammunition is the main complaint of the armed opposition, a disparate array of local factions in which Islamist militants, especially the al Qaeda-endorsed Nusra Front, have come to play an increasing role in recent months.


The Nusra Front, better armed than many groups, emerged months after the anti-Assad revolt began in Deraa with peaceful protests that drew a violent response from the security forces.


It has flourished as the conflict has turned ever more bitterly sectarian, pitting majority Sunnis against Alawites.


Since October, the Front, deemed a terrorist group by the United States, has carried out at least three high-profile suicide bombings in Deraa, attacking the officers' club, the governor's residence and an army checkpoint in the city centre.


Such exploits have won prestige for the Islamist group, which has gained a reputation for military prowess, piety and respect for local communities, in contrast to some other rebel outfits tainted by looting and other unpopular behavior.


"So far no misdeeds have come from the Nusra Front to make us fear them," said Daya al-Deen al-Hawrani, a fighter from the rebel al-Omari Brigade. "Their goal and our goal is one."


Abu Ibrahim, a non-Islamist rebel commander operating near Deraa, said the Nusra Front fought better and behaved better than units active under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.


"Their influence has grown," he acknowledged, describing them as dedicated and disciplined. Nor were their fighters imposing their austere Islamic ideology on others, at least for now. "I sit with them and smoke and they don't mind," he said.


The Nusra Front may be trying to avoid the mistakes made by a kindred group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, which fought U.S. troops and the rise of Shi'ite factions empowered by the 2003 invasion.


The Iraqi group's suicide attacks on civilians, hostage beheadings and attempts to enforce a harsh version of Islamic law eventually alienated fellow Sunni tribesmen who switched sides and joined U.S. forces in combating the militants.


Despite the Nusra Front's growing prominence and its occasional spectacular suicide bombings in Deraa, there are few signs that its fighters or other rebels are on the verge of dislodging the Syrian military from its southern bastions.


Abu Hamza, the commander in the Ababeel Hawran Brigade, was among many rebels and opposition figures to lament the toughness of the task facing Assad's enemies in the south: "What is killing us is that all of Hawran is a military area," he said.


"And every village has five army compounds around it."


(Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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BlackBerry 10 unveiled, with company name change






NEW YORK: BlackBerry launched its comeback effort Wednesday with a revamped platform and a pair of sleek new handsets, along with a company name change as part of a move to reinvent the smartphone maker.

Canadian-based Research in Motion said it had changed its name to BlackBerry as it launched the BlackBerry 10, the new platform aimed at helping the firm regain traction in a market now dominated by rivals.

"From this point forward RIM becomes BlackBerry," chief executive Thorsten Heins told a glitzy unveiling in New York, one of six global events for the product launch. "It is one brand, it is one promise."

The company unveiled two new devices for its new platform, one with a physical keyboard called the Q10, and a touchscreen handset dubbed Z10.

The new BlackBerry "will transform mobile communications into true mobile computing," Heins said.

"Today is a brand new day in the history of BlackBerry."

The launch is seen as critical to BlackBerry, which had been the dominant smartphone maker before Apple launched its iPhone and others began using the Google Android operating system.

RIM says the all-new system will break new ground by allowing customers to flip between applications seamlessly and without first passing through a home page, to boost efficiency and multitasking.

Another key asset of BlackBerry 10 is what RIM dubbed the "BlackBerry balance," a system that allows users to separate professional communications and applications from music, photographs and other personal items.

Such an option means that if a user changes job, his or her former company can disable the device's corporate side without affecting personal data.

RIM's recent performance on Wall Street suggests the market is open to the BlackBerry 10. Shares have risen more than 30 per cent since the start of the year, although they dropped back over the last two sessions.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for Gartner who specialises in consumer devices, said the aim of the launch "is to reinstill faith in the BlackBerry brand and capture both consumer and enterprises at the same time."

Milanesi said a successful launch will at least give them a shot to get into the game" but that BlackBerry has little room for error, after a launch delayed several months.

"They will not be forgiven for any mistakes," she said.

BlackBerry shares fell 4.4 per cent after the launch to US$14.98.

According to research firm IDC, BlackBerry's share of the global smartphone market slipped to 4.7 per cent in 2012, to 68 per cent for Android and 18.8 per cent for Apple's iOS.

- AFP/jc



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Wanting dhoti-clad PM may have caused 'Vishwaroopam' ban: Karunanidhi

CHENNAI: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) president M Karunanidhi on Wednesday wondered whether the Tamil Nadu government's ban on Kamal Haasan's movie "Vishwaroopam" was because the actor wanted a dhoti-clad Tamilian as prime minister.

In a letter to party cadres, Karunanidhi said some sections of people are of the view that the actor earned the ire of the state government after he said that a dhoti-clad Tamilian, referring to Union finance minister P Chidambaram, should become the country's prime minister.

Karunanidhi also said that there is a view among a section of people that a television channel close to the ruling party in the state had offered to buy the rights of "Vishwaroopam", which the actor declined as the price quoted was much lower than what the film was sold for to another channel.

The Tamil Nadu government had earlier banned the release of "Vishwaroopam" for 15 days as it feared the movie could spark a law and order problem because it contained references to the Muslim community that were allegedly derogatory.

Many Muslim organisations had opposed the movie, claiming that it presented the community in poor light.

Earlier in the day, Kamal Haasan told reporters that he was unable to understand why "Vishwaroopam" was banned. The film had cost Rs.95 crore to produce.

Kamal said he would scout for a truly secular Indian state; otherwise, he would settle in some other country that was secular.

"I don't understand what is happening. If I try to understand, I will turn into a politician. I don't want to," the 58-year-old actor said.

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