The Lede Blog: Clashes in Cairo After Morsi Supporters Attack Palace Sit-In

Label:

Video, said to show a Morsi supporter firing a shotgun in the direction of protesters in Cairo on Wednesday night, was posted on YouTube by the Mosireen film collective.

Last Updated, 6:55 p.m. Street battles erupted in Cairo on Wednesday night, after Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Morsi attacked protesters camped outside the gates of the presidential palace, according to journalists and activists who witnessed the raid.

Morsi supporters reportedly attempted to stifle coverage by attacking journalists and bloggers, but activists from the Mosireen film collective managed to record video of tents being ripped down, which was quickly posted on YouTube.

Raw footage of an attack on a sit-in outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Wednesday posted on YouTube by Mosireen, a collective of activist filmmakers.

Egypt’s ON TV, which posted a live stream of the scene outside the palace on YouTube, also broadcast video of the president’s supporters clearing the sit-in and putting up barriers to block the return of protesters to the area.

Video from Egypt’s ON TV showed Islamists driving away protesters camped outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Wednesday

Activists and journalists posted images on Twitter showing the president’s supporters dispersing the sit-in and taking control of the area outside the palace, with the apparent acquiescence of the police.

The attack on the sit-in came one day after tens of thousands of protesters rallied outside the gates of the palace to protest the president’s decree granting himself unchecked power to help push through a new constitution written by Islamists.

Before the attack, a message posted on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official @Ikhwanweb Twitter account called for a million-man counter-demonstration at the same location.

As several journalists noted, the Morsi supporters cleared the sit-in just as the vice president told reporters that the crisis could be resolved by allowing a referendum on the draft constitution to proceed and then passing amendments to the document after a new Parliament convenes.

While Muslim Brotherhood officials denied that they were responsible for the violence, claiming that “both sides” engaged in attacks, opposition activists blamed the Islamist president for the escalation and compared the use of force by civilian supporters of the Islamist movement to the tactics of the Mubarak regime and the way Iran’s government deploys members of the Basij militia to attack protesters there.

After the Morsi supporters cleared the small number of protesters who had camped outside the palace walls following Tuesday night’s protest, they moved on to erasing graffiti left by the revolutionaries, including a portrait of Jika Gaber, a young man who was killed at the start of the protests against the president’s decree.

As opposition protesters rallied nearby in response to the attack, activists reported that the president’s supporters remained on the offensive. Video streamed live from the scene to the video-sharing site Bambuser by the activist blogger Tarek Shalaby seemed to capture the sound of shots being fired.

Raw footage posted online later by the activist filmmakers from Mosireen appeared to show clear images of one of the Morsi supporters firing a shotgun in the direction of the protesters.

Later, a researcher for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights reported that Morsi supporters were firing shotgun pellets at the protesters on the other side, and one blogger took cover under a car to avoid being attacked.

After reports of serious casualties accompanied by graphic images began to circulate online, the journalists Sharif Kouddous and Sarah Carr reported on clashes between supporters and opponents of the president from the front line between the two groups.

More footage of the street battle posted online late in the evening by Mosireen appeared to show a police officer firing at protesters from the Morsi supporters’ side of the barricades.

Mosireen video of the street battles on Wednesday night in Cairo.

Late in the evening, the blogger who writes as @Egyptocracy on Twitter drew attention to video that appeared to show a protester who had been captured by the president’s supporters. Refusing to give into the demands of his captors to confess to having been paid to take part in the demonstration, the man shouted instead, “I will voice my opinion.”

After the violence escalated, Brotherhood officials, including Essam el-Erian, a senior leader of the group’s political party, and the young, Islamist bloggers running the official Twitter account tried to blame opposition politicians, and were met with jeers from activists.

Read More..

Microsoft #DroidRage Tweet Shows How Malware Has Moved Past Windows

Label:











“Do you have an Android malware horror story?” Microsoft asks through its @windowsphone Twitter account, in what may be one of the most ironic tweets of the year.


After all, it wasn’t that long ago that “virus” and “worm” stories made headlines on a regular basis, all of them about “computer viruses” which were really Windows viruses. Just a few years ago, Apple advertised the fact that a Mac “Doesn’t get PC viruses” as a reason to buy one.












But this year, 600,000 Macs were infected by the Flashback trojan, an epidemic which exceeded the scale of history’s single largest Windows infection. And now ​Microsoft​ is implying that its phones don’t get malware, as a way to advertise them. How did things get to be this way, and what will malware and virus authors do next?


​When virii attack


For years, Microsoft’s DOS and Windows operating systems were the biggest targets for virus and malware authors simply because they were the least secure. Today’s PC security best practices had yet to be built into them, and trying to bolt features on to ancient programming code was a half-baked solution at best. HugeWindows malware epidemics spread as the malware programs were able to install themselves without explicit permission and operate without user intervention.


​Network effects


One reason Microsoft Windows dominated the computing world for years and years was simply because it was dominant. More people using Windows meant more profits for Windows app developers, which meant more games and apps for Windows, which meant more people buying Windows PCs so they could use Windows games and apps.


Like with apps, malware is a business that makes money for the people who write it. And while it was theoretically possible to infect a computer running a more secure operating system, like OS X (used on Macs) or Ubuntu (powered by Linux), it was considered impossible to get it to spread far enough to be profitable. Whereas on Windows it was (and still is) possible to infect vast numbers of PCs, even chaining them into zombified “botnets” which act as supercomputers-for-hire.


​How the mighty have fallen?


OS X’s more secure design makes it extremely hard to infect with malware — normally. The Flashback trojan sneaked in this year using the Java web browser plugin, which is bundled with the Mac’s Safari web browser and was poorly maintained.


Plugins like Java and Flash open up new ways to infect a computer, which was one reason why Apple stopped including the Flash plugin (already absent on its iPhone and iPad) by default. Apple created a fix for the problem, but not before over half a million Macs were infected.


​What about on smartphones?


Unlike Apple and Microsoft’s app stores, the Google Play store allows anyone to submit anything with no review. It’s up to Android smartphone and tablet users to look at the “permissions” each game or app requests, as well as the reputation of their developers, and decide whether or not to install them.


While some consider this approach more “trustworthy” and respectful of users, it’s also helped lead to a comparatively enormous number of malware infections on Android, including “The Mother of All Android Malware,” which completely took over tens of thousands of phones last year.


​Are you #DroidRage-ing yet?


Microsoft’s tweet says “we may have a get-well present” for people who send it their best or worst stories of Android malware. Even if all the apps in the Windows Store are virus-free, however, there are still far fewer of them than there are for Android.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

Label:








12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST







James and Pippa Middleton


Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online


The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.

Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where a pregnant Kate, 30, was admitted for hyperemesis gravidarum, her sister, Pippa Middleton, brother James and mom Carole (not pictured), also dropped by to keep the mom-to-be company.

Pippa was bundled up in a coat, sporting a tan-colored ensemble, while her brother was casually dressed in jeans and layered tops.

The Palace announced the Duchess's pregnancy Monday in a statement. "Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby," it said. "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

Read More..

Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

Label:

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.


A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities by gene scans, the study found. The gene flaws can cause anything from minor defects such as a club foot to more serious ones such as mental retardation, heart problems and fatal diseases.


"This isn't done just so people can terminate pregnancies," because many choose to continue them even if a problem is found, said Dr. Ronald Wapner, reproductive genetics chief at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "We're better able to give lots and lots of women more information about what's causing the problem and what the prognosis is and what special care their child might need."


He led the federally funded study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.


A second study in the journal found that gene testing could reveal the cause of most stillbirths, many of which remain a mystery now. That gives key information to couples agonizing over whether to try again.


The prenatal study of 4,400 women has long been awaited in the field, and could make gene testing a standard of care in cases where initial screening with an ultrasound exam suggests a structural defect in how the baby is developing, said Dr. Susan Klugman, director of reproductive genetics at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, which enrolled 300 women into the study.


"We can never guarantee the perfect baby but if they want everything done, this is a test that can tell a lot more," she said.


Many pregnant women are offered screening with an ultrasound exam or a blood test that can flag some common abnormalities such as Down syndrome, but these are not conclusive.


The next step is diagnostic testing on cells from the fetus obtained through amniocentesis, which is like a needle biopsy through the belly, or chorionic villus sampling, which snips a bit of the placenta. Doctors look at the sample under a microscope for breaks or extra copies of chromosomes that cause a dozen or so abnormalities.


The new study compared this eyeball method to scanning with gene chips that can spot hundreds of abnormalities and far smaller defects than what can be seen with a microscope. This costs $1,200 to $1,800 versus $600 to $1,000 for the visual exam.


In the study, both methods were used on fetal samples from 4,400 women around the country. Half of the moms were at higher risk because they were over 35. One-fifth had screening tests suggesting Down syndrome. One-fourth had ultrasounds suggesting structural abnormalities. Others sought screening for other reasons.


"Some did it for anxiety — they just wanted more information about their child," Wapner said.


Of women whose ultrasounds showed a possible structural defect but whose fetuses were called normal by the visual chromosome exam, gene testing found problems in 6 percent — one out of 17.


"That's a lot. That's huge," Klugman said.


Gene tests also found abnormalities in nearly 2 percent of cases where the mom was older or ultrasounds suggested a problem other than a structural defect.


Dr. Lorraine Dugoff, a University of Pennsylvania high-risk pregnancy specialist, wrote in an editorial in the journal that gene testing should become the standard of care when a structural problem is suggested by ultrasound. But its value may be incremental in other cases and offset by the 1.5 percent of cases where a gene abnormality of unknown significance is found.


In those cases, "a lot of couples might not be happy that they ordered that test" because it can't give a clear answer, she said.


Ana Zeletz, a former pediatric nurse from Hoboken, N.J., had one of those results during the study. An ultrasound suggested possible Down syndrome; gene testing ruled that out but showed an abnormality that could indicate kidney problems — or nothing.


"They give you this list of all the things that could possibly be wrong," Zeletz said. Her daughter, Jillian, now 2, had some urinary and kidney abnormalities that seem to have resolved, and has low muscle tone that caused her to start walking later than usual.


"I am very glad about it," she said of the testing, because she knows to watch her daughter for possible complications like gout. Without the testing, "we wouldn't know anything, we wouldn't know to watch for things that might come up," she said.


The other study involved 532 stillbirths — deaths of a fetus in the womb before delivery. Gene testing revealed the cause in 87 percent of cases versus 70 percent of cases analyzed by the visual chromosome inspection method. It also gave more information on specific genetic abnormalities that couples could use to estimate the odds that future pregnancies would bring those risks.


The study was led by Dr. Uma Reddy of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.


___


Online:


Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org


___


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


Read More..

Man lived with dead girlfriend for months, faced murder charges

Label:


Devon Epps during a December 2011 court appearance.

A jury is being selected in Stockton to hear the murder case against a
man accused of living for months with his girlfriend's dead body.


Devon Epps was evicted from his apartment in December 2011. The next
day, when the apartment manager stopped by, they found a dead body in
the bathroom.


The body had been there for some time, authorities said.


Epps was arrested and then arraigned a few days later. At an earlier hearing, he yelled at a San Joaquin County judge, according to Fox 40.




Read More..

32% of Young People Use Social Media in the Bathroom

Label:











Read More..

Snooki Gives Kate Middleton Motherhood Advice

Label:










By Julia Haskins





12/04/2012 at 05:30 PM EST







Nicole Polizzi and Kate Middleton


Daniel Boczarski/WireImage; REX USA


Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is lending her expertise to Kate Middleton – as a mommy mentor!

The Jersey Shore star, who gave birth to son Lorenzo in August, offered the expectant Duchess of Cambridge a few tips on being a new mom.

"It's hard, but don't stress out,” Polizzi told the New York Daily News. "Enjoy your pregnancy and be excited."

Middleton is currently in the hospital to treat her severe morning sickness, but Polizzi encouraged her to take it easy out of the public eye. “Enjoy your time at home – or the castle, in her case – with the baby,” she said. “Especially the first few months.”

Nobody said it would be easy, but Polizzi knows from experience that it's worth the (baby) bumps along the way.

"You'll get to know him/her, keep them safe and fall more in love each day," she says.

Read More..

Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

Label:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.


That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.


The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.


Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.


Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.


___


Online:


Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv


Read More..

Decapitated body of man found at hospital

Label:

About L.A. Now



L.A. Now is the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news section for Southern California. It is produced by more than 80 reporters and editors in The Times’ Metro section, reporting from the paper’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters as well as bureaus in Costa Mesa, Long Beach, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Riverside, Ventura and West Los Angeles.



Have a story tip for L.A. Now?





Can I call someone with news?



Yes. The city desk number is (213) 237-7847.






Read More..

Terms of Greek Bond Buyback Top Expectations

Label:




LONDON — In a bold bid to reduce its debt burden, Greece offered on Monday to spend as much as 10 billion euros to buy back 30 billion euros of its bonds from investors and banks.




While the buyback had been expected, the prices offered by the government were above what the market had forecast, with a minimum price of 30 euro cents and a maximum of 40 cents, for a discount of 60 percent to 70 percent.


Analysts said they expected that the average price would ultimately be 32 to 34 euro cents, a premium of about 4 cents above where the bonds traded at the end of last week.


Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, played down concerns that the Greek debt buyback might not go as planned.


“I have no particular anxiety about this,” Mr. Moscovici said Monday at the European Parliament ahead of the meeting in Brussels of euro zone finance ministers to discuss Greece. “It just has to be very quick.”


A successful buyback is critical for Greece. The International Monetary Fund has said that it will lend more money to Greece only if it is reasonably able to show that it is on target to achieve a ratio of debt to annual gross domestic product of less than 110 percent by 2022.


Greece will have at its disposal 10 billion euros, or $13 billion, in borrowed money from Europe. Investors who agree to trade in their Greek bonds will receive six-month treasury bills issued by Europe’s rescue vehicle, the European Financial Stability Facility. The offer will close Friday.


If successful, the exchange will retire about half of Greece’s 62 billion euros in debt owed to the private sector. The country still owes about 200 billion euros to European governments and the I.M.F.


Analysts said that Greek, Cypriot and other government-controlled European banks, which have as much as 20 billion euros worth of bonds, were expected to agree to the deal at a price in the low 30s. That would mean that to complete the transaction, hedge-fund holdings of 8 billion to 10 billion euros in bonds would have to be tendered at a price below 35 cents. Any higher price would mean that Greece would have to ask its European creditors for extra money — an unlikely outcome at this stage.


Even though Greece is so close to bankruptcy, its bonds have become one of the hot investments in Europe. Large hedge funds, like Third Point and Brevan Howard, have accumulated significant stakes, starting this summer when the bonds were trading in the low teens. Shorter-term traders have been snapping up bonds at around 29 cents to make a quick profit by participating in the buyback.


In a research note published Monday, analysts at Nomura in London said it was “reasonable and likely” that enough hedge funds — especially those that might be more risk-averse and or have a shorter perspective — would agree to the deal at a price below 35 cents.


But there are also foreign investors looking to the longer term who may decide to hold onto most of their holdings in the hope that the bonds rally even more after a successful buyback.


“I think the bonds could go to as high as 40 cents in a nonexit scenario,” said Gabriel Sterne, an analyst at Exotix in London, referring to the consensus view that Greece will not leave the euro zone anytime soon.


Bondholders were encouraged by comments from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, reported in the German news media over the weekend, that raised the possibility that European governments might offer Greece debt relief in the future. A number of bondholders expect Greek bond yields to trade more in line with those of Portugal in the coming years, but without the prospect of a future buyback to push up the prices of Greek government bonds, the risk to such an approach is substantial.


Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the group of finance ministers whose countries use the euro, told a news conference late Monday in Brussels that ministers would meet again on the morning of Dec. 13 to make a final decision on aid disbursement to Greece.


Mr. Juncker said he was confident that Greece would receive its money on that date, but he declined to comment on the prospects for success of the buyback program because it was a sensitive matter for the financial markets.


Mr. Juncker has been the president of the group of ministers since 2005, and the post gives him significant power over what is discussed at the group’s meetings.


Mr. Juncker reiterated at the news conference that he would step down at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year. But he declined to signal his preference for any particular successor.


“I don’t have to endorse anyone,” Mr. Juncker said. “I was asking my colleagues to provide for my succession,” he said, referring to discussions held with ministers earlier in the evening.


Separately, Spain, which is also seeking to overcome crippling debt problems, began the process Monday of formally requesting 39.5 billion euros in emergency aid to recapitalize its banks. It also announced that a tax amnesty had yielded only 1.2 billion euros, less than half what the government had expected.


The request for emergency aid was being sent to authorities managing the euro zone bailout funds, according to Spanish officials, who added that no further approval would be needed from ministers meeting in Brussels.


The request follows the European Commission’s approval last week of a plan to make the granting of the aid conditional on thousands of layoffs and office closings at four Spanish banks: Bankia, Catalunya Banc, NCG Banco and Banco de Valencia.


James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.



Read More..

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)