Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314690251?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Iraq attacks kill more than 30
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Shi'ite mosque in northern Baghdad killing at least 12 people during evening prayers, police and medics said, in the deadliest of a series of attacks that claimed more than 30 lives across Iraq on Saturday.
Sectarian tensions in Iraq and the wider region have been inflamed by the civil war in Syria, where mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.
Insurgents including al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate have been regaining ground and recruits from the country's Sunni minority, which feels sidelined since the U.S.-led invasion toppled former dictator Saddam Hussein and empowered majority Shi'ites.
"A suicide bomber blew himself up among the worshippers in the middle of evening prayer. There were bodies drenched in blood and others shouting for help while smoke filled the mosque," said a policeman at the scene.
A further 25 people were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Sab al-Bor district near Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.
Scattered attacks across the country throughout the day killed at least 22 others, around half of them in or near the northern city of Mosul, where a suicide bomber killed four people at a police checkpoint.
In the western province of Anbar, which shares a border with Syria, militants detonated two car bombs near a checkpoint and attacked it with rocket-propelled grenades, killing five policemen.
Two people were killed when gunmen hurled a hand grenade at a gathering of laborers in Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, and a roadside bomb near some restaurants in the center of the capital killed two more.
More than 1,000 people were killed in Iraq in May alone, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006-07.
(Reporting by Kareem Raheem, Kamal Naama and Ziad al-Sanjary; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-kills-12-shiite-mosque-baghdad-police-181517624.html
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When in doubt, NSA searches information on Americans
According to newly revealed secret documents, the NSA retains wide discretion over targeting individuals for surveillance?? including, potentially, Americans. Civil libertarians say 'it confirms our worst fears.'
This 2007 photo shows the National Security Agency building at Fort Meade, Md.
Charles Dharapak/AP
EnlargeEver since a former National Security Agency contractor blew the cover off two massive, top secret intelligence collection programs that targeted phone records and Internet data, President Obama and senior NSA officials have insisted that the programs target only foreign terror suspects.
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In any case, Mr. Obama and the NSA have argued, a warrant is required to target Americans? communications.
But according to newly revealed secret documents, the NSA retains wide discretion over targeting individuals for surveillance based on whether they are ?reasonably believed? to be outside the US ? as well as over what to do with communications data on Americans that are ?inadvertently acquired.?
The documents, which were published by The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers late Thursday, are purported to be from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington and focus on intelligence programs operated under section 702 of the Patriot Act ? which targets foreigners. The court, which was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), rules on overseas requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign agents or terror suspects.
The NSA surveillance programs were publicly revealed a week ago in top secret documents leaked to the Guardian and the Post. Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, said he leaked the documents to expose an overreaching spy program. The NSA is charged with spying overseas ? but by law may not spy on Americans at home or abroad ? without a warrant.
On Friday, US officials said federal prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint against Mr. Snowden, charging him with espionage and theft. The United States has also asked Hong Kong, where he is believed to be hiding, to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant.
Before the latest documents became public, the NSA sought to reassure the American public that its surveillance programs were beneficial.
In hearings Tuesday before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the NSA, told the committee that the surveillance had helped prevent ?potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11? and that 10 of the plots involved terror suspects or targets in the United States.
?In the 12 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation,? General Alexander said. ?That security is a direct result of the intelligence community?s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on 9/11.?
But even as the drama of the pursuit and possible prosecution of Snowden unfolds, the new details that came to light late Thursday, which spell out procedures for those programs, seem likely to spur further foment in Congress and the American public.
Determining whether a target is inside the US or not, is a key uncertainty addressed by one legal FISA court document on ?targeting non-United States persons.?
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Friends of Syria agree to give urgent rebel aid
DOHA (Reuters) - Western and Arab countries opposed to President Bashar al-Assad agreed at talks in Qatar on Saturday to give urgent military support to Syrian rebels fighting for his overthrow, and to channel it through a Western-backed rebel military command.
Ministers from the 11 main countries which form the Friends of Syria group agreed "to provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies".
They also condemned "the intervention of Hezbollah militias and fighters from Iran and Iraq", demanding that they withdraw immediately.
Guerrillas from Lebanon's Shi'ite pro-Iranian Hezbollah organization spearheaded the recapture of the strategic border town of Qusair from mainly Sunni Muslim rebels two weeks ago.
Hezbollah and Shi'ite Iraqi gunmen have also been fighting around the Shi'ite shrine of Sayyid Zainab south of Damascus, while Iranian military commanders are believed to be advising Assad's officers on their counter-offensives against the rebels.
The ministers said the growing sectarian nature of the conflict and the foreign interventions "threaten the unity of Syria (and) broaden the conflict" across the region. They also expressed strong concern at the increasing presence of "terrorist elements" and growing radicalization in Syria.
(Editing by Alison Williams)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/friends-syria-state-agree-urgent-rebel-aid-143858650.html
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Making Ice Brewed Coffee - A Craftsy Food & Cooking Tutorial
We?ve already talked about the intricacies of the right procedure for crafting the perfect cup of pour over coffee. We spoke of freshly roasted beans, the perfect grind and water temperature. Perhaps I even scared some of you away with all the scales, talk of grams and timers. For those of you who are still with me, I?m back with more coffee talk. This time we?re brewing the perfect cup of iced coffee.
Origins
From what I found, New Orleans was the initiator of iced coffee. Although I imagine some Italian might want to argue against that. In their version they?d let coffee grounds along with ground chicory steep in water for at least 12 hours at room temperature before they strained it, and served a tall glass over ice with a healthy amount of milk or cream. Many people continue to drink it in this way and lucky for us, iced Toddy (as this method is referred to) or cold-brew coffee has made its way all over country. Some say this method eliminates some of the unwanted acidic or bright taste in coffee and gives a smooth, rich and full flavor.
Others scoff at this method urging that the iced method (I?ll explain in a second) is the only way to go. I?d take either but today we?re talking about brewing over ice.
The Iced Method
This method was originally created in Japan, and is favored by many as it allows the natural brightness and subtleties of the coffee to come through. Since we?ve already discussed the intricacies of the pour-over method, making iced coffee will be very easy. The basic idea is that you prepare the grounds in the same way as you would a pour over but you use half the amount of water as you would preparing a cup of hot coffee. The other half of the water is in the cup below in the form of ice. So when you are finished you have a perfectly chilled and balanced cup of iced coffee with all the same nuances and flavors that you would have gotten out of a hot cup of coffee.
The Recipe
The basic iced coffee recipe is as follows:
- 1 ounce of freshly ground medium-fine coffee
- 7 ounces ice
- 8 ounces of nearly boiling water
Place the ice in the bottom of your Chemex or cup ? depending on which method you are using. Then proceed as you would the pour over method. The resulting cup of coffee is perfectly chilled, bright, clean and completely refreshing. I like a splash of cream in mine and perhaps some agave or simple syrup but if you?re a purist forget I said that.
If you?re like me and you like the idea of crafting a simple syrup to sweeten your coffee, check out this post for a recipe and variations on that recipe.
Source: http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/06/how-to-make-ice-brewed-coffee/
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Walmart permanently drops iPhone 4S price to $39, iPhone 5 to $129
While brief sales on iPhones are relatively common, it's rare to see permanent price drops outside of a hardware refresh cycle. Walmart is willing to give those cuts a shot, however. Visit the company's stores from this point onward and you can pick up the 16GB iPhone 4S in its AT&T, Sprint or Verizon forms at $39 on contract, instead of $90. The 16GB iPhone 5 for those same networks is dropping to $129 from its usual $190; sorry, T-Mobile fans, you're out of the loop for now. It's not hard to understand Walmart's sudden generosity -- when the iPhone range is nearing its annual upgrade, the lower prices should keep current units moving.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T
Via: Mashable
Source: Walmart (1), (2)
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Acer Aspire R7-571-6858
The Acer Aspire R7-571-6858 might be the first desktop replacement laptop for the all-in-one desktop generation. Featuring an adjustable easel-style stand/hinge combination, it's the first laptop I've seen with a fully adjustable monitor, and more closely resembles a desktop than a laptop, with a flipping, folding, floating display design that is certainly unique. While this new design will turn heads and may hint at the shape of things to come, the overall design is dragged down by the decision to swap the touchpad and keyboard, resulting in a design that is awkward at best.
Design
With so many ultrabooks on the market, it's refreshing to see a full-bodied desktop replacement in the labs. The Aspire R7 is by no means svelte, measuring 1.1 by 14.8 by 10.0 inches (HWD) and weighing 5.22 pounds. The construction blends lightweight plastic on the lid and chassis with a metal hinge.
The most prominent feature on the Aspire R7 is the unique combination hinge and display stand, which Acer calls the "Ezel" hinge. Much like the multi-mode Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, the Aspire R7 uses the Ezel hinge to offer four different usage modes: Notebook Mode, Ezel Mode, Pad Mode, and Display Mode. In each mode, the 15.6-inch display flips and folds to present the 1,920-by-1,080 touch display at the most comfortable angle. As desk-bound systems go, it's one of the most comfortable implementations of touch that we've used.
Notebook mode is the closest of the four to a regular clamshell laptop, with the display lining up with the back edge of the laptop chassis. In this mode, it functions much like any other touchscreen-equipped laptop, aside from the unusual keyboard layout (more on that in a moment).
In Ezel mode, the display stand allows for a monitor-like setup much more like a desktop display. In addition to looking cool, this mode has the benefit of best utilizing the touch display, letting you bring the screen closer and put it at an angle more comfortable than a regular touch-enabled laptop screen. The Ezel hinge features two adjustable hinges, and both hold firmly enough that when touching and tapping the screen, there's no noticeable screen wobble. The unfortunate side-effect of the sturdy hinges, of course, is that they are just as stiff when adjusting the angle of the display and opening the closed laptop.
Folding the Ezel hinge flat with the screen out puts the laptop into Pad Mode, which converts the Aspire R7 into something like a tablet. It's too large to simply pick up and use on the go, though it can certainly be moved from one room to the next with relative ease. Though not exactly mobile, Pad mode does make for a more comfortable table-top touch experience, and the bulk of the hinge sets the display at an angle, more like a small All-in-One system laying nearly flat. Getting the Aspire R7 out of Pad mode is sometimes difficult, with the sturdy hinges requiring some force to pry the display up and manhandle it back into position.
Finally, the display can be tipped back and flipped over, to show the screen to someone on the opposite side. We've seen similar screen-sharing concepts on the Lenovo Yoga and the Asus Taichi 21, but the Aspire R7 doesn't do much to make this dubious concept seem more reasonable?showing someone else the display requires giving up your own, and it still seems like more trouble than looking at the same screen while standing side-by-side. As with the Asus Taichi, the display sharing feature feels more like an afterthought based on the fact that the stand allows flipping the screen, added to pad out the feature list.
The layout?keyboard on bottom, touchpad on top?is almost as weird as the bizarre easel/stand and display/monitor. While the reasoning is at least logical?with a floating touchscreen you don't necessarily need a touchpad, and the angle of the floating display would block part of the keyboard in normal use?there's no ignoring the fact that the switch is otherwise difficult to justify. The traditional keyboard and touchpad arrangement wasn't arbitrary; properly placed palm rests make typing more ergonomic and on-the-go laptop use easier, and a touchpad located below the spacebar lets you navigate without having to hover over the keyboard or worry about unintentional keystrokes. This new design eliminates those important touches, and just feels like change for the sake of change.
The Aspire R7 boasts four speakers for fuller sound, with Dolby Home Theater v4 adding to the overall quality. The sound quality was actually quite good, and the volume was impressive?loud enough to disturb the neighbors, and clear enough that you might want to. Flip the display from Ezel mode to Display also switches the right and left stereo channels, to match the right and left of the person viewing the screen.
Features
The Aspire R7 places all of its ports and connectors in the bottom half of the system. While this isn't uncommon for a laptop, the desktop-like design makes it feel more like an all-in-one placing all of the ports in the monitor stand, as is seen on the Vizio All-in-One systems.
On the right is a power button and volume controls, one USB 2.0 port with power for charging devices, an SD card slot (SD, SDHC, SDXC), and a Kensington lock slot for physically securing the device. On the left is a mini DisplayPort and full-size HDMI output for connecting an external monitor or TV, and two faster USB 3.0 ports. Despite the Aspire R7's undeniably desktop-like nature, you'll have to use the built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi for networking because there's no Ethernet port to plug into. Also, the Aspire R7 has built-in Bluetooth 4.0, with support for stereo sound, as well as an integrated 720p webcam above the screen.
Though the Aspire R7 is pretty big, the storage is a bit on the small side, with a 500GB spinning hard drive paired with a 24GB solid-state drive (SSD) for snappy performance.
Acer loads up the Aspire R7 with a lot of media and social apps, like Zinio and Next Issue magazine readers, Ebay and Amazon for shopping, and an array of others, like iCookbook, Spotify, ChaCha, Netflix, HuluPlus, and Amazon Kindle all crowding the start screen. Dig in a bit more and you'll find some truely useful extras, like Skype, Acer Clear.fi (for networked media sharing), and Dragon Assistant (a voice recognition and dictation app). While the appeal of individual apps will vary by personal preference and usage patterns, it's clear that Acer has made an effort to be sure that there is plenty to do with the Aspire R7 right out of the box. Acer also covers the Aspire R7 with a one-year warranty.
Performance
The Aspire R7 planted itself firmly in the middle of the pack during multimedia tests, finishing in Handbrake in 1 minute 33 seconds and Photoshop in 5:43. By comparison, the Dell Inspiron 15z (I15Z-4801SLV) (1:33 Handbrake, 4:51 Photoshop) and the Sony VAIO T15 Touch (1:25 Handbrake, 5:21 Photoshop) both offer better performance with similar hardware. Though the use of Intel's integrated graphics solution isn't sufficient for high end gaming, a 3DMark score of 1,203 points (at Entry settings) indicate that it will do just fine handling Web browsing and video. Given the unusual design and layout of the Aspire R7, media consumption may be one of its best uses.
And while raw performance may not put the Acer Aspire R7 at the top of anyone's must-have list, it did eke out a bit more battery life than competitors, lasting 5 hours 41 minutes in our battery rundown test, outlasting the competition by nearly an hour or more.
Conclusion
In the end, however, the Acer Aspire R7 is a high-flying concept brought low by reality. While the design is daring and innovative, even among the many experimental designs being tried with convertible and touch-centric laptops, the end user experience shows it to be deeply flawed. With a swapped keyboard and trackpad layout that proves cumbersome, a floating touch screen display that adds little, and a bulky design that reduces portability, the Aspire R7 is more of a weird-looking proof of concept than a marketable product, and the middling to mediocre performance just cements it further as a product that may look cool on the shelf, but isn't the one shoppers should spend their money on.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/v19S-vp7Ags/0,2817,2420714,00.asp
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