NRA: Guns in schools would protect students

Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET

In a press conference reflecting on last week's massacre in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre today called on Congress to put armed law enforcement agents in every American school, insisting that guns in schools -- not tougher gun laws -- would most effectively protect children from school shootings.

Play Video

A "good guy with a gun" in every school?

LaPierre, who did not take any questions and whose remarks were interrupted twice by pro-gun control protesters, disdained the notion that stricter gun laws could have prevented "monsters" like Adam Lanza from committing mass shootings, and wondered why students, unlike banks, don't have the protection of armed officials. He also called for a "national database of the mentally ill."

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said.

Twenty first-grade students were gunned down at their Connecticut elementary school last Friday, when 20-year-old Lanza reportedly opened fire in the school. Six adult faculty members were killed in his rampage, and Lanza also took his own life. Shortly before entering Sandy Hook Elementary School, Lanza is believed to have killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in her bed. In the aftermath of the shootings, there has been much speculation as to the state of Adam Lanza's mental health, but no concrete evidence has been established that he was mentally ill.

Play Video

60 Minutes archives: Understanding the NRA

In the aftermath of the shooting, the NRA stayed largely silent, making only a brief comment earlier this week when announcing today's press conference. In his remarks today, however, LaPierre vehemently defended the pro-gun agency against critics and offered up a solution of his own.

"We must speak for the safety of our nation's children," said LaPierre. "We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses, even sports stadiums, are all protected by armed security. We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress works in offices surrounded by Capitol police officers, yet when it comes to our most beloved innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless. And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it."

"That must change now," argued LaPierre, moments before being interrupted by a protester carrying a large pink sign proclaiming that the "NRA is killing our kids." "The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters -- people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?"

Play Video

60 Minutes archives: The anti-gun lobby

Alternately criticizing politicians, the media, and the entertainment industry, LaPierre argued that "the press and political class here in Washington [are] so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners" that they overlook what he claims is the real solution to the nation's recent surge in mass shootings -- and what, he said, could have saved lives last week.

"What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?" he asked. "Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?"

LaPierre called on Congress to put a police officer in every school in America, which according to a Slate analysis would cost the nation at least $5.4 billion. LaPierre recognized that local budgets are "strained," but urged lawmakers "to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school." He offered up the NRA's unique "knowledge, dedication, and resources" to assist in efforts to train those forces, but made no mention of a fiscal contribution. 

Columbine High School employed an armed guard, Neil Gardner, at the time of the 1999 school shootings. According to CNN, Gardner was eating lunch in his car when violence broke out in the school, and 13 people were killed.

Play Video

Protesters disrupt NRA press conference

Gun control advocates immediately decried LaPierre's comments, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the press conference a "shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country."

"Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe," he said. "Leadership is about taking responsibility, especially in times of crisis. Today the NRA's lobbyists blamed everyone but themselves for the crisis of gun violence."

On Twitter, Senator-elect Chris Murphy, D-Ct., called LaPierre's comments "the most revolting, tone-deaf statement I've ever seen."

1/2

Read More..

Obama Still an 'Optimist' on Cliff Deal

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON D.C. – Ten days remain before the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” take effect, but President Obama said he is still a “hopeless optimist” that a federal budget deal can be reached before the year-end deadline that economists agree might plunge the country back into recession.

“Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us – every single one of us -agrees that tax rates shouldn’t go up for the other 98 percent of Americans, which includes 97 percent of small businesses,” he said.

He added that there was “no reason” not to move forward on that aspect, and that it was “within our capacity” to resolve.

The question of whether to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 remains at an impasse, but is only one element of nuanced legislative wrangling that has left the parties at odds.

For ABC News’ breakdown of the rhetoric versus the reality, click here.

At the White House news conference this evening, the president confirmed he had spoken today to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, although no details of the conversations were disclosed.

The talks came the same day Speaker Boehner admitted “God only knows” the solution to the gridlock, and a day after mounting pressure from within his own Republican Party forced him to pull his alternative proposal from a prospective House vote. That proposal, ”Plan B,” called for extending current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year, a far wealthier threshold than Democrats have advocated.

Boehner acknowledged that even the conservative-leaning “Plan B” did not have the support necessary to pass in the Republican-dominated House, leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in doubt.

“In the next few days, I’ve asked leaders of Congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction,” Obama said. ”That’s an achievable goal.  That can get done in 10 days.”

Complicating matters: The halls of Congress are silent tonight. The House of Representatives began its holiday recess Thursday and Senate followed this evening.

Meanwhile, the president has his own vacation to contend with. Tonight, he was embarking for Hawaii and what is typically several weeks of Christmas vacation.

However, during the press conference the president said he would see his congressional colleagues “next week” to continue negotiations, leaving uncertain how long Obama plans to remain in the Aloha State.

The president said he hoped the time off would give leaders “some perspective.”

“Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones,” he said. “And then I’d ask every member of Congress, while they’re back home, to think about that.  Think about the obligations we have to the people who sent us here.

“This is not simply a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t,” he added later. “There are real-world consequences to what we do here.”

Obama concluded by reiterating that neither side could walk away with “100 percent” of its demands, and that it negotiations couldn’t remain “a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t.”

Boehner’s office reacted quickly to the remarks, continuing recent Republican statements that presidential leadership was at fault for the ongoing gridlock.

“Though the president has failed to offer any solution that passes the test of balance, we remain hopeful he is finally ready to get serious about averting the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said. “The House has already acted to stop all of the looming tax hikes and replace the automatic defense cuts. It is time for the Democratic-run Senate to act, and that is what the speaker told the president tonight.”

The speaker’s office said Boehner “will return to Washington following the holiday, ready to find a solution that can pass both houses of Congress.”

Read More..

Venezuela's VP Maduro a "poor copy" of Chavez: opposition

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition mocked President Hugo Chavez's chosen successor Nicolas Maduro on Friday as a "poor copy" of his boss who should be promoting national unity rather than insulting opponents during a delicate time for the South American nation.

In power since 1999, Chavez named vice president and foreign minister Maduro as his preferred replacement should he be incapacitated by the cancer he is battling in Cuba.

Since the December 11 operation, Maduro, 50, a former bus driver and union leader who shares Chavez's socialist politics, has been fronting day-to-day government in Venezuela while the president has been neither seen nor heard from in public.

Though lacking Chavez's booming charisma, Maduro has borrowed elements of his style - speaking regularly and lengthily on live TV, inaugurating public works, rallying supporters and attacking "bourgeois" opponents at every turn.

He even used one of Chavez's old catch phrases to gloat that Sunday's regional vote, where Chavez allies won 20 of 23 governorships, smashed the opposition into "cosmic dust."

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition reacted angrily.

"Vice President Nicolas Maduro has begun his temporary rule badly," it said in a withering statement, accusing him of ignoring Venezuela's pressing social, economic and political problems while falling back on antagonistic speeches.

"Mr. Maduro, the country expects better from you than a bad imitation of your boss. ... In his rhetoric, Maduro hides the leadership crisis in government given President Chavez's absence. He hides his weakness with shouts and threats."

"Don't waste the opportunity to create a wide national consensus," the statement said.

After an extraordinary year - in which Chavez proclaimed himself cured from the cancer that has dogged him since mid-2011, won a presidential election, then disappeared for new surgery - Venezuelans are heading into an uncertain 2013.

Government officials say Chavez, 58, is lucid and recovering in a hospital, but have acknowledged he is still suffering a respiratory infection after his operation and needs total rest.

Speculation is rife that his condition is life-threatening, and there is uncertainty over whether Chavez will be able to return to start his new term on January 10.

IN-FIGHTING?

The stakes are huge in Venezuela's political drama.

Beyond its borders, Venezuela helps sustain an alliance of left-wing Latin American governments from Cuba to Bolivia via oil subsidies and other economic aid.

Should Chavez be forced to vacate power, a new election would be held within 30 days, with the probable scenario a straight competition between Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October vote.

There are rumors of in-fighting within "Chavismo" - the wide movement of military men and hard-left ideologues that has ruled for the last 14 years. Yet in public, the senior figures have repeatedly vowed unity and loyalty to Chavez.

Apart from Maduro, the two most powerful men are Congress head Diosdado Cabello and Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez.

"You know, there is a campaign from abroad and by the national right wing to try and divide us," Maduro said in one of a string of speeches on Friday at ceremonies to celebrate the pro-Chavez governors' election wins.

"Every day, they say we're fighting, that Diosdado is Joseph Stalin and I am Leon Trotsky. Ridiculous, ridiculous and more ridiculous! ... We've never been more united."

Cabello, a former military comrade of Chavez viewed by Venezuelans as the hard man in government with possible presidential ambitions of his own, stirred controversy this week by suggesting that the January 10 inauguration date could be delayed to accommodate Chavez's recovery.

Confusion over that and any tensions within the ruling Socialist Party threaten to create a difficult transition to any post-Chavez government in the OPEC nation with the world's largest crude oil reserves.

Former soldier Chavez has vastly expanded presidential powers and built a near-cult following among millions of poor Venezuelans, who love his feisty language and pouring of funds into welfare projects in the nation's slums.

Smarting from defeats in the presidential and state polls in quick succession, the opposition coalition is trying to keep Venezuelans' attention on a raft of unresolved problems, from a soaring black market in currency to rampant crime.

"The economy is in dust. Citizens' security is in dust. Public services are in dust. The only thing that isn't is corruption in government," the coalition statement said.

(Additional reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asuncion; editing by Todd Eastham)

Read More..

Syria regime firing Scud-style missiles: NATO

DAMASCUS: NATO has accused the Syrian regime of firing Scud-style missiles at rebels, amid Russian criticism that the West's "dangerous" stance risks bringing chaos to the country and beyond.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday called the Syrian army's use of missiles against rebels an act of desperation.

"I can confirm that we have detected the launch of Scud-type missiles; we strongly regret that act," Rasmussen said. "I consider it an act of a desperate regime approaching collapse."

The latest launches were detected on Thursday, a source close to NATO said, and that was corroborated by an activist in the rebel-held town of Marea in the northern province of Aleppo.

Abu Hisham told AFP he had been awakened to "the sound of a very loud explosion. It was raining heavily and there were many clouds, so we knew it was unlikely to be aerial bombardment."

"The first missile fell outside Marea. Had it hit the town it would have caused a massacre. The second, my friends told me, fell outside (the nearby town of) Tel Refaat."

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday denounced the West's "dangerous" stance in support of Syrian rebels seeking to unseat President Bashar al-Assad.

"Our Western colleagues have started dividing terrorists into 'bad' and 'acceptable'. That is very dangerous," he said in an interview with the English-language Russia Today channel.

Lavrov reiterated Moscow's position that the Syrian people should be allowed to decide their own destiny without outside agencies seeking to help oust the regime.

"We are not in the business of regime change," he insisted.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow, one of the last supporters of the Assad regime, wanted to avoid "chaos" in Syria, calling for political talks between all parties to take the war-torn country towards a democratic regime.

"We are interested in this because this is all very close to our borders. We really would not like to see any potential changes in Syria to lead to the chaos we are witnessing in other countries of the region," Putin stressed after an EU-Russia summit in Brussels.

For the second time in two days, Putin denied propping up Assad's regime and appeared to acknowledge the possibility of change, saying: "We do not advocate the government of Syria."

In Damascus, Palestinian refugees streamed back to the Yarmuk camp after a reported deal to keep it out of the conflict, following fierce clashes earlier this week and briefly on Friday.

An AFP correspondent heard sporadic shooting, and a main road was blocked with boulders to keep out cars, although a van full of passengers still entered through a side street.

The fighting forced about 100,000 of Yarmuk's 150,000-strong population to flee, with many taking refuge in Damascus parks and squares, said the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.

Hours after they returned on Friday, fighting again flared in the camp for about an hour and a half, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The fighting pitted anti-regime Syrian and Palestinian rebels against members of the pro-regime popular committees," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The clashes were between fighters who had not withdrawn from Yarmuk despite a reported agreement after talks that began on Wednesday aimed at removing both rebel and government fighters from the camp.

Newspapers in neighbouring Lebanon said an agreement had been reached under the auspices of Mokhtar Lamani, the representative of UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

The UN's World Food Programme said it was to start providing food to 125,000 "vulnerable Palestinians and displaced Syrians" in and around Yarmuk.

Elsewhere, violence raged in flashpoints across Syria, with the Britain-based monitor saying at least 82 people were killed. And a rebel attack on an electricity pylon caused a power outage in several areas of Damascus, state television said.

Despite the violence, protesters took to the streets in several anti-regime areas, renewing calls for the fall of Assad's regime, it said.

Last week, a former Syrian officer said regime forces had fired Scuds, despite the government denials.

Former first lieutenant Aaraba Idriss, who defected 10 months ago and has joined the rebels, said serving officers told him the army fired "Golan-1" missiles, either Russian-made or Russian modified," with a range of up to 300 kilometres (180 miles).

- AFP/al

Read More..

Why does my external hard drive only show 2.2TB?

External hard drives are exceptionally useful for expanding storage capabilities for both backups and data management. While external hard drives are often sold in preconfigured packages by manufacturers, another popular option is to purchase an external hard-drive enclosure and then use any drive of your choice in it. This is beneficial because as your demands for storage increase, you can replace the enclosure's drive with a larger one.

These days, the availability of hard drives with 4TB of storage are enticing for people to swap into their existing enclosures; however, when doing so they may find that the system will only recognize 2.2TB of the drive, regardless of how they partition or format the device.

While modern file-system formats such as HFS+, NTFS, and ExFAT ought to handle volume sizes of between hundreds of gigabytes to zettabytes, and though operating systems like OS X have increased the maximum volume size from 2TB to 8EB (exabytes) over the years, there are hardware limitations that may limit the size of the volume that can be used. If you are using an older drive enclosure for your large hard drive, then the controllers on it may not be capable of handling over 2.2TB, regardless of the software environment being used around it.

This problem happens because of the use of LBA (logical block addressing) in modern hard-drive controllers coupled with a hardware-based limit of how many blocks can be included in the LBA scheme. Early LBA controllers used 32-bit (or lower) addressing coupled with a maximum supported block size of 512 bytes. This means they support up to 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 blocks for a device, and with each block being 512 bytes, this translates to a maximum of 2,199,023,255,552 bytes, or 2.199TB.

Unfortunately in many cases these limits are hard-coded in enclosure's firmware, so even though modern drives use 4,096-byte sectors, the system will still only address these sectors as 512 bytes in size, resulting in both a waste of space and degraded performance.

The only way around this problem is to replace your drive enclosure with a new one that has proper support for both 48-bit (or greater) LBA and 4,096-byte sectors in hard drives. Luckily most enclosures on the market today do support this, so if you run into this problem, you should be up and running in no time.

---

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

Read More..

Obama to hold moment of silence for Conn. victims

President Obama speaks at a memorial service for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 16, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. / MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama plans to observe a moment of silence at the White House on Friday morning in honor of the victims of the Connecticut elementary school massacre.

The White House says the president will observe the moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. EST, about one week after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed at the school.

Obama has asked Vice President Joe Biden to produce recommendations on new gun laws by next month and pledged to push new legislation without delay.

The White House said the president's observance of the shootings would take place in private without press coverage.

Read More..

Boehner Pulls Plan B Option

In a surprise development late Thursday night, House Speaker John Boehner pulled his so-called "Plan B option" -- an extension of current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year -- from the House floor, admitting that it did not have the support necessary to pass and leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in question.

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with [Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote in a statement. "The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the Jan. 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt. The Senate must now act."

Immediately after the announcement that "plan B" had failed, Dow Jones Industrial futures traded down, with other stock indicators also signaling sharp losses and volatility for Friday morning's opening -- though stock futures generally are lightly traded in the evening. Indicators soon bounced off the initial lows but still signaled a rough start to the final trading session of the week.

In Washington, all legislative business has concluded for the week. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office said that members could still return "after the Christmas holiday when needed" if a breakthrough is eventually reached.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Outgoing Sen. Joe Lieberman Criticizes Colleagues for Putting Party Above Country Watch Video

President Obama Promises Action to Reduce Gun Violence Watch Video

The outlook for a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" by Christmas has reached a new low, with no clear path forward, though lawmakers and the White House maintained hope this week for a deficit-reduction compromise by the end of the year.

A senior aide to the speaker confirmed late Thursday evening that Boehner and Obama still have not spoken since Monday evening, when the speaker told the president that he would move ahead with his backup plan, although staff-level talks have continued behind the scenes.

"Speaker Boehner tried to play hardball by asking his members to vote for a tax increase. He learned the hard way that you must find a bipartisan solution," one senior House Democratic leadership aide said reacting to the developments. "Walking away has considerably weakened him and put the country literally on the precipice of the cliff."

Republicans had sought to act to avoid an income tax hike on 99 percent of Americans in 2013, and leverage new pressure on President Obama in the ongoing talks for a broader "cliff" deal.

Obama has threatened to veto the legislation, calling it counterproductive and the cuts burdensome for the middle class, and Reid, D-Nev., has promised not to bring it up for consideration in the Senate.

"'Plan B' ... is a multi-day exercise in futility at a time when we do not have the luxury of exercises in futility," said White House spokesman Jay Carney Thursday.

Democrats complained that the posturing on "plan B" distracted the focus from a broader bargain on taxes, spending, entitlement reforms and other measures that had begun coming into focus earlier this week.

Reid said the Senate would break for the Christmas holiday but return to Washington one week from Thursday. President Obama will not join his family in Hawaii on Friday as planned if the "cliff" is not resolved, an administration official said.

"If you look at Speaker Boehner's proposal and you look at my proposal, they're actually pretty close," Obama said Wednesday, appealing for a big "fair deal."

"It is a deal that can get done," he said. "But it cannot be done if every side wants 100 percent. And part of what voters were looking for is some compromise up here."

Read More..

Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said.

The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect has dominated leadership of the Sunni Muslim majority - rumbles on.

Opposition sources said rebels had won some territory in the strategic southern town of Morek and were surrounding the Alawite town of al-Tleisia.

They were also planning to take the town of Maan, arguing that the army was present there and in al-Tleisia and was hindering their advance on nearby Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground in the conflict.

"The rockets are being fired from there, they are being fired from Maan and al-Tleisia, we have taken two checkpoints in the southern town of Morek. If we want to control it then we need to take Maan," said a rebel captain in Hama rural area, who asked not to be named.

Activists said heavy army shelling had targeted the town of Halfaya, captured by rebels two days earlier. Seven people were killed, 30 were wounded, and dozens of homes were destroyed, said activist Safi al-Hamawi.

Hama is home to dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, and activists said it may be necessary to lay siege to many minority areas to seize Morek. Rebels want to capture Morek to cut off army supply lines into northern Idlib, a province on the northern border with Turkey where rebels hold swathes of territory.

From an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, Alawites have largely stood behind Assad, many out of fear of revenge attacks. Christians and some other minorities have claimed neutrality, with a few joining the rebels and a more sizeable portion of them supporting the government out of fear of hardline Islamism that has taken root in some rebel groups.

Activists in Hama said rebels were also surrounding the Christian town of al-Suqeilabiya and might enter the city to take out army positions as well as those of "shabbiha" - pro-Assad militias, the bulk of whom are usually Alawite but can also include Christians and even Sunnis.

"We have been in touch with Christian opposition activists in al-Suqeilabiya and we have told them to stay downstairs or on the lowest floor of their building as possible, and not to go outside. The rebels have promised not to hurt anyone who stays at home," said activist Mousab al-Hamdee, speaking by Skype.

He said he was optimistic that potential sectarian tensions with Christians could be resolved but that Sunni-Alawite strife may be harder to suppress.

SECTARIAN FEARS

U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.

"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of the U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.

Deeper sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.

Some activists privately voiced concerns of sectarian violence, but the rebel commander in Hama said fighters had been told "violations" would not be tolerated and argued that the move to attack the towns was purely strategic.

"If we are fired at from a Sunni village that is loyal to the regime we go in and we liberate it and clean it," he said. "So should we not do the same when it comes to an Alawite village just because there is a fear of an all-out sectarian war? We respond to the source of fire."

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.

The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.

Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.

A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.

Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.

Rebels said on Thursday they had negotiated to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.

Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.

A resident in Damascus said dozens of families were returning to the camp but that the army had erected checkpoints. Many families were still hesitant to return.

LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN

Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.

The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.

They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.

Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.

Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.

The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors from the government as well as from the army, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.

The conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces on Thursday arrested an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Read More..

S&P cuts Cyprus rating by 2 notches

NEW YORK: Standard and Poor's slashed Cyprus' credit rating on Thursday by two notches to CCC+, saying the eurozone member was facing increasing financial pressure, with bailout negotiations still unfinished.

"With the government's financing options increasingly limited -- coupled with what we view as the hesitant attitude of Cyprus' eurozone partners toward sharing the cost of a severe banking crisis -- we view the risk of a sovereign debt default as considerable and rising," the ratings agency said.

The S&P downgrade puts Cyprus even further into junk territory. It also issued a negative outlook.

"The downgrade reflects our view that Cyprus' creditworthiness has deteriorated further since the last downgrade on Oct 17, 2012, as financing pressures have intensified and uncertainty about the terms of any official support persists ahead of the February 2013 presidential elections," it said.

The agency acknowledged that while Cyprus' bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank had been slow, some progress had been made.

It also welcomed "far-reaching spending cuts" included in the government's 2013 budget proposal, but warned: "We believe the budget's underlying revenue assumptions may be too optimistic."

S&P said the negative outlook indicated that another downgrade was possible, should "external and fiscal financing pressures escalate."

"We see at least a one-in-three chance that we could lower the ratings again in 2013," the agency said, adding that the rating could stabilise if a bailout deal was "quickly agreed".

On Thursday, the IMF said bailout talks with Cyprus, which currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, were not expected to wrap up this year.

Nicosia requested a bailout in June when its two largest Greek-exposed banks asked for assistance after failing to meet EU capital buffer criteria.

The money needed by Cyprus has been widely reported to total 17.5 billion euros ($23.1 billion) -- 10 billion euros for the banks, 6.0 billion euros for maturing state debt and 1.5 billion euros for public finances.

On Monday, a finance ministry official warned that Cyprus could default on loan payments due this month unless it can reach an agreement on a bailout within days.

The country's entire GDP in 2011 was 17.97 billion euros and, according to 2013 budget projections, it is expected to shrink 2.4 percent this year.

- AFP/al

Read More..

Roku adds Spotify, Vevo to its streamed channel offerings

Vevo's music video channel on Roku's streaming platform.

(Credit:
Vevo)

Roku is getting its grove on to deliver music streaming service Spotify and music video service Vevo to living room TVs via its set-top boxes.

Available only to paying Spotify subscribers on select Roku devices, the new music streaming offering allows users to listen to music and manage playlists. However, Spotify says new customers can try the premium subscription free of charge for 30 days.

"Spotify wants to make all of the world's music available for people to enjoy whenever and wherever they are," Pascal de Mul, global head of hardware partnerships at Spotify, said in a statement today. "Spotify's collaboration with Roku means that our customers now have another convenient way to enjoy the perfect music for every moment on their TVs, which are often connected to the best sound system in their homes."

The new Spotify service is available now in the U.S. on Roku 2 players and the Roku Streaming Stick, with support for all Roku HD and Roku LT players coming soon.

Meanwhile, Vevo is also getting its Roku on, allowing users to search and play more than 50,000 videos from '80s hits to Christmas carols. The new channel is available on Roku 2, Roku LT, new Roku HD (model 2500x), and the Roku Streaming Stick in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.

Read More..