Following another recent security issue with Java, Apple issued an update that added the latest versions to the system's browser plug-in blacklist to protect users from any potential threats; however, in doing so it silently blocked a number of people from accessing required Java content, such as banking and financial Web sites.
To manage this problem, if you need Java, then the latest version from Oracle (version 1.7.0_13) that was released yesterday should have addressed the security holes and get your system back up and running. You can download it for OS X Lion or Mountain Lion from Oracle at its Java Downloads page.
Unfortunately the Java 7 runtime is not available for those using Snow Leopard, for which the latest version is Java 6. However, Apple has issued its own separate update to Java 6 for Snow Leopard to address the vulnerabilities in this version. The update, which should be available through its Software Update service, should run automatically or can be invoked by going to the Apple menu.
Given the stream of recent security issues with Java, if you don't need Java, then you might consider avoiding using it on your system, or at least be sure to disable the Web plug-in for it. While Java is a powerful and useful runtime that a number of programs use, the avenue for exploiting it is almost exclusively through the Web plug-in component of the runtime, so if you find you do need it installed, then you might at least consider disabling the plug-in in the Java Control Panel (or in Apple's Java Preferences utility for Java SE 6).
Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or ! Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.
ANKARA, Turkey The suicide bomber who struck the U.S. Embassy in Ankara spent several years in prison on terrorism charges but was released on probation after being diagnosed with a hunger strike-related brain disorder, officials said Saturday.
The bomber, identified as 40-year-old leftist militant Ecevit Sanli, killed himself and a Turkish security guard on Friday, in what U.S. officials said was a terrorist attack. Sanli was armed with enough TNT to blow up a two-story building and also detonated a hand grenade, officials said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that police believe the bomber was connected to his nation's outlawed leftist militant group Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. And on Saturday DHKP-C claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a website linked to the group. It said Sanli carried out the act of "self-sacrifice" on behalf of the group.
The authenticity of the website was confirmed to The Associated Press by a government terrorism expert who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with rules that bar government employees from speaking to reporters without prior authorization.
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State Dept. had bomber of U.S. embassy in Turkey on terror list
CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports from Ankara that the DHKP-C is on the State Department's list of terror organizations. They are Marxists who believe that the United States is an imperialist state that's controlling Turkey. Their targets have included both the U.S. and the Turkish military.
Turkey's private NTV television, meanwhile, said police detained three people on Saturday who may be connected to the U.S. Embassy attack during operations in Ankara and Istanbul. Two of the suspects were being questioned by police in Ankara, while the third was taken into custody in Istanbul and was being brought to Ankara.
NTV, citing unidentified security sources, said one of the suspects is a man whose identity Sanli allegedly used to enter Turkey illegally, while the second was suspected of forging identity papers. There was no information about the third suspect.
Earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said Sanli had fled Turkey after he was released from jail in 2001, but managed to return to the country "illegally," using a fake ID. It was not clear how long before the attack he had returned to Turkey.
NTV said he is believed to have come to Turkey from Germany, crossing into Turkey from Greece. Police officials in Ankara could not immediately be reached for comment.
DHKP-C has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s, but it has been relatively quiet in recent years. Compared to al Qaeda, it has not been seen as a strong terrorist threat.
Sanli's motives remained unclear. But some Turkish government officials have linked the attack to the arrest last month of dozens of suspected members of the DHKP-C group in a nationwide sweep.
Speculation also has abounded that the bombing was related to the perceived support of the U.S. for Turkey's harsh criticism of the regime in Syria, whose brutal civil war has forced tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to seek shelter in Turkey. But Erdogan has denied that.
Officials said Sanli was arrested in 1997 for alleged involvement in attacks on Istanbul's police headquarters and a military guesthouse, and jailed on charges of membership in the DHKP-C group.
While in prison awaiting trial, he took part in a major hunger strike that led to the deaths of dozens of inmates, according to a statement from the Ankara governor's office. The protesters opposed a maximum-security system in which prisoners were held in small cells instead of large wards.
Sanli was diagnosed with Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and released on probation in 2001, following the introduction of legislation that allowed hunger strikers with the disorder to get appropriate treatment. The syndrome is a malnutrition-related brain illness that affects vision, muscle coordination and memory, and that can cause hallucinations.
Sanli fled Turkey after his release and was wanted by Turkish authorities. He was convicted in absentia in 2002 for belonging to a terrorist group and attempting to overthrow the government.
On Saturday, the U.S. flag at the embassy in Ankara flew at half-staff and already tight security was increased. Police sealed off a street in front of the security checkpoint where the explosion knocked a door off its hinges and littered the road with debris. Police vehicles were parked in streets surrounding the building.
The Ankara governor's office, citing the findings of a bomb squad that inspected the site, said Sanli had used 13.2 pounds of TNT for the suicide attack and also detonated a hand grenade. That amount of TNT can demolish "a two-story reinforced building," according to Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey.
Officials had earlier said that the bomber detonated a suicide vest at the checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the compound.
The guard who was killed was standing outside the checkpoint. The U.S. ambassador on Saturday attended his funeral in a town just outside of Ankara.
A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded and two other guards had lighter wounds.
DHKP-C's forerunner, Devrimci Sol, or Revolutionary Left, was formed in 1978 as a Marxist group openly opposed to the United States and NATO. It has attacked Turkish, U.S. and other foreign targets since then, including two U.S. military contractors and a U.S. Air Force officer.
The group changed its name to DHKP-C in 1994.
Friday's attack came as NATO deployed six Patriot anti-missile systems to protect its ally Turkey from a possible spillover from the civil war raging across the border in Syria. The U.S., Netherlands and Germany are each providing two Patriot batteries.
Ozcan, the terrorism expert, said the Syrian regime, which had backed terrorist groups in Turkey, including autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, during the Cold War era and through the 1990s, had recently revived ties with these groups.
As Turkey began to support the Syrian opposition, Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime began to try "rebuilding its ties with these organizations," Ozcan said.
Radikal newspaper reported that the DHKP-C had recently been taking an interest in "regional issues," reviving its anti-American stance and taking on "a more pro-Assad position."
Former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson speculated that the masterminds of the embassy bombing may have been partly motivated by U.S.-Turkish policy on Syria.
"A successful attack would embarrass the Turkish government and security forces, and it would have struck at the United States, which is widely — if wrongly — thought to have manipulated the Erdogan government into breaking with Bashar al-Assad and supporting efforts to remove him from power," Wilson, director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, wrote in an analysis. "That might rekindle public support for the group. Alas for DHPK/C, this seems unlikely."
Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey expert at St. Lawrence University in the United States, said the bombing showed that a "relatively isolated and obscure group" still has the capacity to cause havoc.
"They really fall outside of our comfortable narratives," Eissenstat wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "And they do seem to have been left in an ideological time warp. There is something distinctly cult-like about them."
The attack drew quick condemnation from Turkey, the U.S., Britain and other nations, and officials from both Turkey and the U.S. pledged to work together to fight terrorism.
It was the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months.
On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The attackers in Libya were suspected to have ties to Islamist extremists, and one is in custody in Egypt.
U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey have been targeted previously by terrorists. In 2008, an attack blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.
The body of an American woman who went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey has been pulled from a bay in Istanbul, and nine people have been held for questioning, according to local media.
Sarai Sierra, 33, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.
The state-run Andolu Agency reported that residents found a woman's body today near the ruins of some ancient city walls in a low-income district, and police identified the body as Sierra.
Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who with his staff had been assisting the Sierra family in the search, said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of her death.
"I urge Turkish officials to move quickly to identify whomever is responsible for her tragic death and ensure that any guilty parties are punished to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.
Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family
Footage Shows Missing New York Mom in Turkish Mall Watch Video
NYC Woman Goes Missing While Traveling In Turkey Watch Video
New York Mother Goes Missing on Turkish Vacation Watch Video
The New York City mother, who has two young boys, traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. Sierra, who is an avid photographer with a popular Instagram stream, planned to document her dream vacation with her camera.
"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul last Sunday to aid in the search.
Steven Sierra has been in the country, meeting with U.S. officials and local authorities, as they searched for his wife.
On Friday, Turkish authorities detained a man who had spoken with Sierra online before her disappearance. The identity of the man and the details of his arrest were not disclosed, The Associated Press reported.
The family said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.
She took two side trips, to Amsterdam and Munich, before returning to Turkey, but kept in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.
Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday.
Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard.
The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet".
"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.
It warned Erdogan that he too was a target.
Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation.
DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities.
Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed.
Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents.
Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.
Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said.
The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.
Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.
SYRIA
The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil.
The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.
"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.
Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda.
"Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News.
The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.
It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.
Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.
(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
BAMAKO: President Francois Hollande received a rapturous welcome in Mali on Saturday as he promised that France would stay as long as necessary to continue the fight against Islamist rebels in the country's north.
As troops worked to secure Kidal, the last bastion of radicals who occupied the vast desert north for 10 months before the French army's surprise intervention, Hollande told Malians it was time for Africans to take the lead but that France would not abandon them.
"Terrorism has been pushed back, it has been chased away, but it has not been defeated yet," said Hollande, whose decision to intervene in Mali three weeks ago won him accolades in the former French colony.
"France will stay by your side as long as necessary, as long as it takes for Africans themselves... to replace us," he told a large crowd in the capital, Bamako, at a monument commemorating Mali's independence from France.
Earlier, in the fabled city of Timbuktu, thousands gathered in the central square and danced to the beat of drums -- a forbidden activity during the extremists' occupation -- to welcome the French leader, with shouts of "Vive la France! Long Live Hollande!"
Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore thanked his counterpart for the French troops' "efficiency", which he said had allowed the north to be freed from "barbarity and obscurantism".
Hollande was offered a young camel draped in a French flag as he toured the city.
"The women of Timbuktu will thank Francois Hollande forever," said 53-year-old Fanta Diarra Toure.
"We must tell him that he has cut down the tree but still has to tear up its roots."
Hollande and Traore toured Timbuktu's 700-year-old mud mosque of Djingareyber and the Ahmed Baba library for ancient manuscripts.
As they visited the site of two ancient saints' tombs that the extremists tore down with pickaxes in July, considering them idolatrous, Hollande told the mosque's imam: "There's a real desire to annihilate. There's nothing left."
"We're going to rebuild them, Mr President," said Irina Bokova, the head of UNESCO, which is trying to assess the scale of the damage to Mali's ancient heritage -- particularly in Timbuktu, a caravan town at the edge of the Sahara that rose to fame in the 14th century as a gold and salt trading hub.
After Hollande's visit, Mali's national football team pulled off a win against Africa Cup of Nations hosts South Africa to go through to the continental championship semi-final, their best performance since 1972 and another welcome boost to national pride amid the crisis.
Traore congratulated the team on national television, and jubilant crowds took to the streets in Bamako despite a state of emergency in place since January 12.
"This victory... is going to help Mali find peace again," said Mamadou Traore in the capital's Same neighbourhood as his children jumped with excitement.
Reprisal attacks
With the rebels ousted from all major towns but Kidal in the northeast, France is keen to hand over to nearly 8,000 African troops slowly being deployed, which the United Nations is considering turning into a formal UN peacekeeping force.
But there are warnings Mali will need long-term help and fears the Islamists will now wage a guerrilla campaign from the sparsely populated north.
The joy of citizens throwing off the yoke of brutal Islamist rule, under which they were denied music and television and threatened with whipping, amputation of limbs and even execution, has been accompanied by a grim backlash against light-skinned citizens seen as supporters of the extremists.
Rights groups have reported summary executions by both the Malian army and the Islamists.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that Malian troops had shot at least 13 suspected Islamist supporters in Sevare and dumped them into wells.
Mali's military was routed at the hands of rebel groups in the north, whose members are mostly light-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs, before the French army came to its aid.
With fears of reprisal attacks high, many Arabs and Tuaregs have fled.
In all, the crisis has caused some 377,000 people to flee their homes, including 150,000 who have sought refuge across Mali's borders, according to the United Nations.
Hollande called on all troops in Mali to show "exemplary" conduct and respect human rights -- an appeal echoed interim president Traore, who promised to lead a national reconciliation process and repeated that he wants to hold elections by July 31.
The French-led intervention has met little resistance, with many of the Islamists believed to have slipped into the desert hills around Kidal -- likely taking seven French hostages with them, officials say.
While largely supported by the French public, the operation has not yet paid domestic political dividends for Hollande, failing to reverse a steep slide in his approval ratings as the economy struggles.
US Vice President Joe Biden praised the French intervention Saturday.
"That's why the United States applauds and stands with France and other partners in Mali, and why we are providing intelligence support, transportation for the French and African troops and refuelling capability for French aircraft," he told top military brass at a security conference in Munich.
Sorry, San Francisco. An annual Madden NFL Super Bowl simulation predicts the Ravens will trump the 49ers in the final seconds of Sunday's Big Game. Get on this, Vegas! And with "Star Wars" in the news, Crave asks if J.J. Abrams can pull off the impossible directing both "Star Wars Episode VII" and "Star Trek." Are you into it or not into it? Maybe a J.J. Abrams and "Star Wars"-themed musical will help you decide.
Crave stories:
- Student builds R2-D2 powered by Raspberry Pi
- Orbiting robot gas station gets closer to reality
- Creepy realistic vampire baby dolls are immortal
- Artists use real-time MRI footage to create music video
- Madden attempts to predict Super Bowl XLVII victor
- Forget Episode VII, watch 'JJ Abrams Star Wars -- The Musical'
- Crave giveaway: $200 shopping spree at KlearGear.com
(CBS News) NEW ORLEANS -- It was August 2005 when New Orleans nearly drowned. Hurricane Katrina broke through levees in 53 places, flooding 80 percent of the city. More than 1,100 people died.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
/ CBS News
But in catastrophe, there was opportunity. One of the biggest was recreating a school system from scratch. We asked Mayor Mitch Landrieu about that Friday.
SCOTT PELLEY: Paint the picture for me. What was the New Orleans school system the day after Katrina?
MITCH LANDRIEU: It was gone. It never existed. Every building was under water. But what also happened was structurally, in terms of governance, it just disappeared. Everybody that worked for the system didn't exist anymore, in terms of the jobs that were there or the schools. And we had to piece it back together.
They pieced it back, not as the traditional school system it was, but as a charter school system with teachers and principals hired, fired and promoted based on merit and parents given the freedom to choose schools they like.
LANDRIEU: One of the things that we had the ability to do was to actually physically rebuild every school with FEMA reimbursements and with other money. Now, we didn't put the school back like it was. We built a 21st century, state-of-the-art, knowledge-based school.
PELLEY: You've been doing this a little over five years. What have you accomplished?
LANDRIEU: What's happening now is the achievement level of the kids in the inner city is now beginning to match the kids on the statewide level in a very, very short period of time. And finally, if you go into any charter school in New Orleans right now, and you ask a kid when is he going to graduate, what he tells you is when he's going to graduate from college. And so they really have their eyes focused on, "I've got a future ahead of me. I intend to finish school. I don't intend to drop out."
Super Bowl hosting "big lift" post-Katrina, mayor says Restaurant industry boosts New Orleans' economy "Project Homecoming": Helping Katrina families get home at last
Simone Smith
/ CBS News
Simone Smith has applied to 13 universities. She's a senior who chose to go to a high-performing science school called Sci Academy.
SIMONE SMITH: I want to go to Princeton. I very much want to go to Princeton.
PELLEY: What are the dreams?
SMITH: I want to be an actress, an attaché, hopefully one day secretary of defense. Yeah, I've got big dreams.
PELLEY: That's a lot of dreams.
Before Katrina, the graduation rate was less than 50 percent. Now it's more than 75 percent. Test scores are up 33 percent.
PELLEY: What did it mean to you to be able to pick the high school that you went to?
SMITH: It meant everything. I don't think I would be here if I wasn't able to pick the high school that I wanted to go to. Because I don't feel like you can be truly educated without having a choice. I think having a choice is kind of education.
Mayor Landrieu gave great credit to the Teach for America program, which sent 375 teachers from all over the country to New Orleans.
After four years, nearly a million miles traveled and 112 countries visited, Hillary Clinton stepped down as the 67th secretary of state on Friday. But even on this, her final day as America’s top diplomat, she could not escape the questions about what she’ll do four years from now.
Many of the 1,000 employees who gathered to see her off expressed hope that this was not the end of her political career.
“2016! 2016!” the crowd chanted as Clinton waved and drove away. “We’ll Miss You!”
Right before her departure, Clinton gave the traditional farewell speech to staff on the steps of the State Department’s historic C street lobby. In a roughly 10 minute, often reflective speech she called the 70,000 State Department employees part of “a huge extended family.”
“I cannot fully express how grateful I am to those with whom I have spent many hours here in Washington, around the world and in airplanes,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.
Clinton’s trademark sense of humor was on display, even as she grew emotional speaking about how much the State Department had meant to her over the last four years.
PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton Through the Years
“I am very proud to have been secretary of state. I will miss you. I will probably be dialing ops just to talk,” she joked to a cheering and laughing crowd. “I will wonder what you all are doing, because I know that because of your efforts day after day, we are making a real difference.”
But Clinton also was somber when discussing the danger diplomats and foreign service officers face all over the world, using Thursday’s suicide bombing attack against the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, in which a Turkish guard was killed, as an example.
“We live in very complex and even dangerous times, as we saw again just today at our embassy in Ankara, where we were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals, and others injured,” said Clinton “But I spoke with the ambassador and the team there. I spoke with my Turkish counterpart. And I told them how much we valued their commitment and their sacrifice.”
Clinton was flanked by trusted deputies, Bill Burns and Tom Nides, whom she gave warm hugs to at the end of the speech. With a huge “Thank You” sign behind her she walked a rope line after finishing her speech, greeting the hordes of employees who wanted to shake her hand and say goodbye before she walked out of the State Department as secretary of state for the last time.
“It’s been quite a challenging week saying goodbye to so many people and knowing that I will not have the opportunity to continue being part of this amazing team,” Clinton said. “But I am so grateful that we’ve had a chance to contribute in each of our ways to making our country and our world stronger, safer, fairer and better.”
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Rescue workers pulled out more bodies from debris at the headquarters of Mexican state oil giant Pemex on Friday after a powerful explosion killed at least 33 people and threw a spotlight onto the state-run company's poor safety record.
Scenes of confusion and chaos outside the downtown tower block in Mexico City have dealt another blow to Pemex's image, just as Mexico's new president is seeking to court outside investment for the 75-year-old monopoly.
Thursday's blast occurred at a Pemex building next to the 50-story skyscraper, and senior officials said 33 people had so far been confirmed dead. A further 121 were injured, said the company's chief executive, Emilio Lozoya.
Officials have been unable to say how many people may still be trapped in the wreckage of the office block, which remains cordoned off. A military paramedic at the scene said there were likely many and expected the death toll to keep rising.
Lozoya said it was not clear what caused the midafternoon explosion, which has been the subject of speculation ranging from a bomb attack, to a gas leak, to a boiler blowing up.
"A fatal incident like yesterday's cannot be explained in two hours, we are working with the best teams in Mexico and from overseas, we will not speculate," he told a news conference.
Pemex, both a symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency and a byword for security glitches, oil theft and frequent accidents, has been hamstrung by inefficiency, union corruption and a series of safety failures costing hundreds of lives.
The latest Pemex disaster is also one of the first serious tests for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December saying overhauling the company was a top priority.
Investors have been closely following how far he will go in enticing private capital to boost flagging oil output in a country that is the world's number seven producer.
"This incident speaks very poorly of the image of Pemex management, and that's interpreted as additional risk in the market," said Miriam Grunstein, an energy researcher at Mexico's CIDE think tank.
COLLAPSE
A Pemex official said the damaged area was used for human resources in the corporate and refining divisions. It did not have a boiler or gas installations, the official said.
Former Pemex worker Ricardo Marin, 53, said there was nothing in the building which would explode and that the kitchen, where there would be gas, was on the other side.
"The only thing that occurs to me is that it was an attack - but against whom? There's no one with an important job down there," he said, waiting outside the Pemex hospital where a friend was in intensive care. "Maybe it could be a message to Pena Nieto, but not even that has any logic."
Pemex office worker Alfonso Caballero, who was one floor above the blast at the time, said he did not smell any gas and guessed it had been caused by machinery.
Mexican officials have not ruled out sabotage.
An official at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said an "international response team" was on its way to Mexico City at the request of the Mexican government. The team includes explosive specialists and fire experts.
Pemex CEO Lozoya said the four floors worst affected by the explosion normally had about 200 to 250 people working on them. That compared with about 10,000 staff in the entire complex.
Red Cross official Isaac Oxenhaut said the ceiling had collapsed in three lower floors of the Pemex building.
The blast followed a September fire at a Pemex gas facility near the northern city of Reynosa that killed 30 people. More than 300 were killed when a Pemex natural gas plant on the outskirts of Mexico City blew up in 1984.
Eight years later, about 200 people were killed and 1,500 injured after a series of underground gas explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico's second-biggest city. An official investigation found Pemex was partly to blame.
'NO PRIVATIZATION'
Whatever caused the explosion, the deaths and destruction will put the spotlight back on safety at Pemex, which only a couple of hours beforehand had issued a statement on Twitter saying it had managed to improve its record on accidents.
"I suspect this was a bomb," said David Shields, an independent Mexico City-based oil analyst. "There are clandestine armies across Mexico, not just the (drug) cartels."
Shields pointed to the bombing of several Pemex pipelines in the eastern state of Veracruz in 2007. A shadowy Marxist rebel movement took credit for some of the blasts.
Meanwhile, George Baker, director of Energia.com, a Houston-based energy research center, said past history suggested the government could seek to exploit the incident.
He pointed to the 1992 Guadalajara blast and the subsequent deal that followed to overhaul the Pemex administration led by then-President Carlos Salinas, like Pena Nieto a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
"Salinas said he wanted a response from Pemex, and months later Pemex announced a restructuring. The restructuring had nothing to do with the Guadalajara accident, but it was used as a pivot to do something," Baker said.
Pena Nieto has yet to reveal details of his Pemex reform plan, which already faces opposition from the left.
Both Pena Nieto and his finance minister were this week at pains to stress the company will not be privatized.
(Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera, Simon Gardner and Krista Hughes; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Louise Ireland, Vicki Allen and Eric Beech)
LONDON: Alex Ferguson admits he was surprised to see his former Manchester United star David Beckham sign for Paris St Germain.
Beckham had been looking for a new club since leaving LA Galaxy in November and snubbed interest from several Premier League clubs and other lucrative offers from around the world to join the French outfit on transfer deadline day.
Ferguson didn't think Beckham would come back to the Premier League as the boyhood United fan had previously said he could never play for another English club.
But the United manager was still shocked to see the 37-year-old former England captain unveiled by PSG on Thursday.
"I was surprised. I didn't see that," Ferguson told MUTV. "I didn't think he would join an English club.
"He always said he wouldn't after his career with United and he was true to his word. But I don't think anyone saw PSG coming."
While Beckham completed his high-profile move, English football was engaged in a typically frenzied finish to the January transfer window and Ferguson had no intention of being drawn into the mad scramble for new players.
"It is an absolute shambles," he said.
Referring to television coverage of the final hours of the window, which features reporters standing outside the training grounds and stadiums of all Premier League clubs, Ferguson said: "There is a young reporter being mobbed by 30 kids. It is humiliation. I am sure all the managers are glad it is all over."
Amazon Studios will produce pilots for five original children's shows that are expected to make their debuts on Amazon's Web-streaming services, the company announced today.
The new pilots, which include series from the creators of "Blue's Clues" and "Sid the Science Kid," add to the six Amazon Studios pilots -- original comedies announced in December -- that are already in production.
The children's series are "Creative Galaxy," an arts and music show from "Blue's Clues" creator Angela Santomero; "Oz Adventures," a problem-solving program featuring the kids of characters from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz;" "Teeny Tiny Dogs," a series produced by The Jim Henson Company and created by "Rugratz" director Howard Baker; "Tumbleaf," a stop-motion show for preschoolers; and an untitled series from "Dino Dan" creator J.J. Johnson about a young scientist named Anne who does experiments with the help of three robot assistants.
The 11 pilots will air on Amazon Instant Video, Prime Instant Video, Lovefilm UK, and Lovefilm Germany for free, so that Amazon Studios can gather feedback and decide which programs should get a full season of episodes. The completed shows will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers.
The efforts are in line with Amazon's push for original programming. The online retail giant pushed its way into the home-entertainment industry with its streaming services. It's now creating original content to compete with rival companies -- including Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube -- that are creating their own programming. The competition is fierce. Netflix outbid AMC and HBO to snag "House of Cards," a series starring Kevin Spacey that premieres tomorrow, as its first original TV series.
MEXICO CITY An explosion at the main headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil company in the capital Thursday killed 14 people and injured 80 as it heavily damaged three floors of the building, sending hundreds into the streets and a large plume of smoke over the skyline.
There were also reports that as many as 30 people were trapped in the debris from the explosion, which occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the iconic, 52-story tower of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. There was no immediate cause given for the blast.
"It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris," employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had been injured in the leg. "Co-workers helped us get out of the building."
The tower, where several thousand people work, was evacuated. The main floor and the mezzanine of the auxiliary building, where the explosion occurred, were heavily damaged, along with windows as far as three floors up.
"We were talking and all of sudden we heard an explosion with white smoke and glass falling from the windows," said Maria Concepcion Andrade, 42, who lives on the block of Pemex building. "People started running from the building covered in dust. A lot of pieces were flying."
A reporter at the scene saw rescue workers trying to free several workers trapped. Television images showed people being evacuated by office chairs, and gurneys. Most of them had injuries likely caused by falling debris.
Police landed four rescue helicopters to remove the dead or injured. About a dozen tow trucks were furiously moving cars to make more landing room for the helicopters.
In an earlier Tweet, the company said it had evacuated the building as a precautionary measure because of a problem with the electrical system in the complex that includes the skyscraper. It tweeted that several workers were injured.
Streets surrounding the building were closed as evacuees wandered around, and rescue crews loaded the injured into ambulances.
Interior Department spokesman Eduardo Sanchez confirmed that an explosion in a basement garage damaged the first and second floors of the auxiliary building, which is located in a busy commercial and residential area.
If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.
Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.
But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.
"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"
New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term. See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace
"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.
Whitney Curtis/Getty Images
And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.
Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.
See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform
"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."
There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.
In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Not All Hispanics Vote for Democrats. Most do, but not all, and voter preferences vary from state to state. In Florida, 60 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama, according to 2012 exit polls; in Arizona, 74 percent voted for the president. Even if all 11.2 million had voted in 2012, Obama would only have picked up North Carolina if they simply hewed to Hispanic voter trends. Romney still would have carried Arizona, Georgia and Texas, although he would have won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point. (Note: There were no exit polls in Texas or Georgia, and here the national rate provides rough estimates of how results would have changed.)
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria protested to the United Nations on Thursday over an Israeli air strike on its territory and warned of a possible "surprise" response.
The foreign ministry summoned the head of the U.N. force in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to deliver the protest a day after Israel hit what Syria said was a military research centre and diplomats said was a weapons convoy heading for Lebanon.
"Syria holds Israel and those who protect it in the Security Council fully responsible for the results of this aggression and affirms its right to defend itself, its land and sovereignty," Syrian television quoted it as saying.
The ministry said it considered Wednesday's Israeli attack to be a violation of a 1974 military disengagement agreement which followed their last major war, and demanded the U.N. Security Council condemn it unequivocally.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "grave concern". "The Secretary-General calls on all concerned to prevent tensions or their escalation," his office said, adding that international law and sovereignty should be respected.
Israel has maintained total silence over the attack, as it did in 2007 when it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site - an attack which passed without Syrian military retaliation.
In Beirut on Thursday Syria's ambassador said Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes". He gave no details but said Syria was "defending its sovereignty and its land".
Diplomats, Syrian rebels and security sources said Israeli jets bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border on Wednesday, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target was a military research centre northwest of Damascus and 8 miles from the border.
Hezbollah, which has supported Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.
"Hezbollah expresses its full solidarity with Syria's leadership, army and people," said the group which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Russia, which has blocked Western efforts to put pressure on Syria at the United Nations, said any Israeli air strike would amount to unacceptable military interference.
"If this information is confirmed, we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the U.N. Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives," Russia's foreign ministry said.
Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian said the attack "demonstrates the shared goals of terrorists and the Zionist regime", Fars news agency reported. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad portrays the rebels fighting him as foreign-backed, Islamist terrorists, with the same agenda as Israel.
An aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday Iran would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself.
In battle-torn Damascus, residents doubted Syria would fight back. One mother of five said she had heard retaliation would come later. "They always say that. They'll retaliate, but later, not now. Always later," she said, and laughed.
"The last thing we need now is Israeli fighter jets to add to our daily routine. As if we don't have enough noise and firing keeping us awake at night."
BLASTS SHOOK DISTRICT
Details of Wednesday's strike remain sketchy and, in parts, contradictory. Syria said Israeli warplanes, flying low to avoid detection by radar, crossed into its airspace from Lebanon and struck the Jamraya military research centre.
But the diplomats and rebels said the jets hit a weapons convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon and the rebels said they - not Israel - attacked Jamraya with mortars.
One former Western envoy to Damascus said the discrepancy between the accounts might be explained by Jamraya's proximity to the border and the fact that Israeli jets hit vehicles inside the complex as well as a building.
The force of the dawn attack shook the ground, waking nearby residents from their slumber with up to a dozen blasts, two sources in the area said.
"We were sleeping. Then we started hearing rockets hitting the complex and the ground started shaking and we ran into the basement," said a woman who lives adjacent to the Jamraya site.
The resident, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity over the strike, said she could not tell whether the explosions which woke her were the result of an aerial attack.
Another source who has a relative working inside Jamraya said a building inside the complex had been cordoned off and flames were seen rising from the area after the attack.
"It appears that there were about a dozen rockets that appeared to hit one building in the complex," the source, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "The facility is closed today."
Israeli newspapers quoted foreign media on Thursday for reports on the attack. Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles on security and military issues to the censor, which has the power to block any publication of material it deems could compromise state security.
Syrian state television said two people were killed in the raid on Jamraya, which lies in the 25-km (15-mile) strip between Damascus and the Lebanese border. It described it as a scientific research centre "aimed at raising the level of resistance and self-defense".
Diplomatic sources from three countries told Reuters that chemical weapons were believed to be stored at Jamraya, and that it was possible that the convoy was near the large site when it came under attack. However, there was no suggestion that the vehicles themselves had been carrying chemical weapons.
"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, echoing others who said the convoy's load may have included anti-aircraft missiles or long-range rockets.
The raid followed warnings from Israel that it was ready to act to prevent the revolt against Assad leading to Syria's chemical weapons and modern rockets reaching either his Hezbollah allies or his Islamist enemies.
A regional security source said Israel's target was weaponry given by Assad's military to fellow Iranian ally Hezbollah.
Such a strike or strikes would fit Israel's policy of pre-emptive covert and overt action to curb Hezbollah and does not necessarily indicate a major escalation of the war in Syria. It does, however, indicate how the erosion of the Assad family's rule after 42 years is seen by Israel as posing a threat.
Israel this week echoed concerns in the United States about Syrian chemical weapons, but its officials say a more immediate worry is that the civil war could see weapons that are capable of denting its massive superiority in airpower and tanks reaching Hezbollah; the group fought Israel in 2006 and remains a more pressing threat than its Syrian and Iranian sponsors.
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Marcus George in Dubai; editing by David Stamp and Philippa Fletcher)
MEXICO CITY: At least 14 people died and 80 were injured in a blast that rocked the Mexico City skyscraper that houses the headquarters of oil giant Pemex on Thursday, Mexico's interior minister said.
"We have 13 dead at the scene and one more at the hospital. There are more than 80 wounded and we continue to look for survivors in the debris," Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters.
The InterLock, set to retail for $50, lives inside the seat post.
(Credit: Adrian Solgaard Janzen)
Here in bike-friendly Portland, hipsters tend to stash their U-locks in their back pockets, which makes for an unfortunate view for the rest of us -- the heavy-duty locks can make even the skinniest of skinny jeans sag.
Enter the InterLock, which hides inside the bike frame itself and, with just a few days left on the clock, is nearly funded on Kickstarter. (As of this writing, more than 800 backers have pledged almost $37,000 of the $48,000 needed.)
The lock was first thought up last year, when Vancouver-based product designer Adrian Solgaard Janzen -- who says he "loves everything with two wheels" -- had his bike stolen due to a faulty lock. He decided enough was enough: It was time to make a better lock, one that would be easy to cart around.
The resulting InterLock hides inside any bike frame via the seat post. Just pull the cable out as far as it will go, wrap it around the frame of the bike, and lock it to whatever post you'd deem sturdy enough when using any other lock.
Janzen admits his design can't withstand the rigors that those rigid metal U-Locks can. In fact, he recommends that it be used as a backup lock in high-risk areas.
"The intention of this lock is to make cycling more simple and enjoyable, and to make it possible to run errands and pop into random stores for ice cream, candy, chocolate, etc.," he writes in an e-mail from Europe, where he's meeting with potential distributors. (It helps that Janzen, who has lived in four countries, also speaks five languages.) "It's designed to be the simplest and most convenient bike lock ever!"
Riding with the InterLock alone, then, will always carry inherent risk. Whether that will deter the aforementioned hipsters, who are rarely seen donning helmets, only time and a little more Kickstarter funding will tell.
ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. A massive storm system raked the Southeast on Wednesday, spawning tornadoes and dangerous winds that overturned cars on a Georgia interstate and demolished homes and businesses, killing at least two people.
The storm system tossed vehicles on Interstate 75 in Georgia into the air, onto their roofs and into the grassy shoulder. The highway was closed for a time, and another main thoroughfare remained closed until crews could safely remove downed trees and power lines from the road. Authorities were working to rescue people reportedly trapped in homes and buildings.
The storm decimated that city's downtown area and wiped out parts of a large manufacturing plant, killing at least one person and sending nine to hospitals, Bartow County officials said. Residents said no traces remained of some roadside produce stands — a common sight on rural Georgia's back roads.
A funnel cloud in northern Georgia on Jan. 30, 2013
/ WGCL-TV
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for Bartow and Gordon counties. Georgia Power reports there are 10,200 outages statewide. Of the 10,200, 5,600 outages are in the Adairsville Area and 3,500 in metro Atlanta, reports CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta.
One other death was reported in Tennessee after an uprooted tree fell onto a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.
In Adairsville, the strange mix of debris in one yard showed just how dangerous the storm had been: a bathtub, table, rolls of toilet paper and lumber lay in the grass next to what appears to be a roof. Sheets of metal dangled from a large tree like ornaments.
"The sky was swirling," said Theresa Chitwood, who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza. She said she went outside to move her car because she thought it was going to hail. Instead, the passing storm decimated a building behind the travel plaza and ripped the roof off of a nearby bank.
"It sounded like a freight train coming through," she said. "It looks like a bomb hit it."
Juanita Carter told CBS News she was sleeping when the tornado hit; a dangerous situation. "I was hanging. My back was across those blocks," she said. "I don't remember nothing after that. I blacked out."
17 Photos
Massive storm system hits the South
Powerful winds ripped through the entire region, with gusts powerful enough to topple tractor-trailers in several places.
Conditions remained ripe for tornadoes into Wednesday afternoon, and authorities were still investigating several sites to determine if damage was caused by twisters. Since Tuesday, the system had caused damage across a swath from Missouri to Georgia.
In recent days, people in the South and Midwest had enjoyed unseasonably balmy temperatures in the 60s and 70s. A system pulling warm weather from the Gulf of Mexico was colliding with a cold front moving in from the west, creating volatility.
One person was reported injured by lightning in Arkansas during the storm's eastward trek. Two people suffered minor injuries when a mobile home was blown off its foundation in Kentucky. Only one minor injury was reported in Mississippi, where officials praised residents for heeding warnings and being prepared.
In Tennessee, officials confirmed that a tornado with peak wind speeds of 115 mph touched down in Mount Juliet. No serious injuries were reported there, though the path of damage was about 150 yards wide, including homes, a warehouse and an automotive business.
At a shopping center in Mount Juliet, large sheets of metal littered the parking lot, light poles were knocked down and bits of fiberglass insulation were stuck in the trees.
One wall of a Dollar General convenience store collapsed, and the roof was torn off. Mark Fulks Jr. runs Mark's Automotive with his father in a building attached to the Dollar General. The garage door was blown off his shop and sitting on one of the cars inside, and Fulks said several of the cars they were working on had their windshields blown out.
A nearby office building and a distribution center for The Tennessean newspaper also had severe damage. Rick Martin, who bags the newspapers and helps his wife deliver them, was shocked when he saw what was left of the distribution center.
The metal frame of the building still stood, but its cinderblock walls had crumbled, and papers and plastic bags littered the trees.
"We feel real lucky," he said on Wednesday morning as looked at the damage. "I would have hated to be in here when this happened."
The nation has had its longest break between tornado fatalities since detailed tornado records began being kept in 1950, according to the Storm Prediction Center and National Climatic Data Center. The last one was June 24, when a person was killed in a home in Highlands County, Fla. That was 220 days ago as of Tuesday.
The last day with multiple fatalities was June 4, when three people were killed in a mobile home in Scott County, Mo.
CBS meteorologist David Bernard reports there were tornado watches stretching from Tallahassee, Fla., through Georgia and the Carolinas Wednesday night. The Washington, D.C., area was also under a tornado watch.
President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.
In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.
See Also:What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?
When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."
"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.
"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.
Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.
But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.
"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."
Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.
"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."
The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.
The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.
While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.
"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."
The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.
DOUENTZA, Mali/PARIS (Reuters) - French troops seized the airport in Mali's northern town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist insurgents, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.
France has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground and air offensive to break the Islamist rebels' 10-month grip on major northern towns. The mission is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.
The French military plans to gradually hand over to a larger African force, tasked with rooting out insurgents in their mountain redoubts near Algeria's border.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces using planes and helicopters defied a sandstorm late on Tuesday to capture the airport but had been prevented by the bad weather from entering the town itself.
"The terrorist forces are pulling back to the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains which are difficult to access," Le Drian told a news conference. "There is support from Chadian and Nigerian troops coming from the south."
The deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels, whose rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals. Le Drian said France had established good relations with local Tuareg chieftains before sending in troops.
MNLA leaders say they are ready to fight al Qaeda but many Malians, including the powerful military top brass in the capital Bamako, blame them for the division of the country. They view Paris' liaisons with the Tuaregs with suspicion.
French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.
There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.
The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.
The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.
"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.
A spokesman for the Malian army said its soldiers were securing Gao and Timbuktu and were not heading to Kidal.
The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.
After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al Qaeda North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.
RISK OF ATTACKS, KIDNAPPINGS
As the French wind up the first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al Qaeda-allied insurgents. Known as AFISMA, the force is now expected to exceed 8,000 troops.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned as a lightning mission lasting a few weeks.
"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."
One French soldier has been killed in the mission, and Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.
"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."
An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.
NEED FOR RECONCILIATION
The French operation has destroyed the Islamists' training camps and logistics bases but analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.
Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31. Paris is pushing strongly for Traore's government to hold talks with the MNLA, which has dropped its claims for independence.
"The Malian authorities must begin without delay talks with the legitimate representatives of the northern population and non-terrorist armed groups that recognize Mali's integrity," French Foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.
After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.
"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.
There have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.
(Additional reporting John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Rosalind Russell)
TOKYO: Japan on Thursday said the nation's factory output for December rose 2.5 per cent from the previous month thanks to brisk production of cars and semiconductors.
The gain -- still worse than a 4.0 per cent expansion expected by the market -- came as Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to breathe new life into the world's third-largest economy with huge stimulus and easing aimed at tackling long-running deflation.
"Industrial production shows signs of having bottomed out," said a statement from the economy ministry.
The ministry added that a survey of manufacturers found they expected another output increase for January and February of 2.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively.
Annual industrial output figures were not immediately released, but on a quarterly basis the country's factory output was down 1.9 per cent from the previous three months.
And the rosy monthly data comes just a week after Japan said it logged a record trade deficit for 2012 as exports were hit by a bitter diplomatic spat with its biggest market China and plunging demand in debt-wracked Europe.
Japan's economy contracted in the third quarter, meeting the technical definition of a recession.
The figures underscored the size of the task ahead for the new government which has heaped pressure on the Bank of Japan for aggressive easing measures to boost the country's fortunes.
Apple's Mac systems come with a basic audio controller for playing through the system's internal speakers or through the audio ports to headphones or a stereo system. However, if you would like to use a different controller such as a multi-channel USB interface for recording with GarageBand, Logic, or other use, then you can add it to the system and set it up to be used instead of Apple's controllers.
While useful to have, if you configure your system with multiple interfaces then you might run into an issue where the system could revert to its internal controller after a restart, if your external device loses power or there is some other configuration change to the system.
Holding the Option key when clicking the Audio menu will reveal the available audio devices for both Input and Output.
(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)
This is usually not a problem and can be dealt with by going to the Sound system preferences and choosing the device to use for alert sounds, default system output, and default input under the respective tabs for those settings. However, in addition to this approach, the system offers a quicker way to set a specific device for recording or playback.
If you enable the volume control in the menu bar (active by default, but it can also be enabled in the Sound system preferences) then you can access this to change the system's output volume. Additionally, if you hold the Option key when clicking this menu, the options will change from volume settings to a device selection menu where you should see the available audio controllers and be able to choose them. You can also select the option to open the Sound system preferences for more detailed settings options.
Unfortunately there is no option in this menu for accessing the Audio MIDI Setup utility that contains settings for aggregate devices, audio formats, and per-channel settings, but this can be accessed with a quick Spotlight search.
Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or ! Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.
(CBS News) LOS ANGELES - On Tuesday, President Obama laid out what would be the most sweeping reform of immigration law in decades. it would include a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants who already live in America. Here's how he described his plan in Las Vegas:
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on immigration reform at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, January 29, 2013. Obama Tuesday hailed a "genuine desire" among warring politicians to pursue immigration reform, ahead of a speech laying out his own approach to the politically fiery issue.
/ JIM WATSON / AFP / Getty Images
"We've got to lay out a path -- a process that includes passing a background check, paying taxes, paying a penalty, learning English, and then going to the back of the line behind all the folks who are trying to come here legally, that's only fair. So that means it won't be a quick process, but it will be a fair process. And it will lift these individuals out of the shadows and give them a chance to earn their way to a green card and eventually to citizenship."
President Obama also called for stronger enforcement on the borders. His plan is similar to a bill that both Democrats and Republicans are introducing in the Senate. This may be the best chance for immigration reform in decades. It would mean a lot of families would not live in fear of being split up.
Jaime Colin helps his mother Lupe at one of the family's two dry cleaners in Southern California.
Obama: "Now is the time" for immigration reform McCain: "We cannot have 11M people living in the shadows" Immigration proposal a "major breakthrough," senators say Is now the time for immigration reform?
"My parents have worked so hard," he said. "Everything I am, everything my sister is -- we owe to them."
The Colin family's immigration status is complicated. Jaime and his sister Diana were brought from Mexico as children. President Obama's deferred action program allows them to stay for work and school. Their younger siblings were born in the U.S. But their parents have been here illegally for 22 years.
Their father declined to appear on camera. Lupe Colin said they employ five workers and have earned a path to citizenship. "I have my own business," she said. "I am living here like an American citizen because I pay the taxes."
What would these changes in immigration policy mean for the Colin family? "We would be more secure, we don't have to live with the fear of being deported, having our family torn apart," Jaime Colin said.
"That's the calculation that they made when they came into the country illegally," said Jack Martin of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group that lobbies for strict immigration enforcement. "They've been in the country breaking the law all that period of time. And that should earn them no priority with regard to people who have been waiting outside the country
He said allowing the Colins to stay in the U.S. is no more effective at stopping illegal immigration than a 1986 law that allowed three million illegal immigrants to apply for legal immigrant status.
"We now have 11 or 12 million illegal aliens in the country," said Martin. "Instead of cutting down on illegal immigration, it led to an increase."
As for those say her family should get to the back of the line, Diana Colin responded: "We have been here as aspiring citizens for 22 years. Is that the back of the line? What is the back of the line?"
The Colin family believes the political muscle Hispanic showed at the polls in November will push Democrats and Republicans to actually pass immigration reform with a path to citizenship this year.
Accused murderer Jodi Arias borrowed two five-gallon gas cans from a former boyfriend the day before she drove to Arizona to kill another ex, Travis Alexander, according to testimony in Arias' murder trial today.
In cross examination, prosecutors also forced Arias' former live-in boyfriend Darryl Brewer to describe his sex life with Arias as "pretty aggressive."
Brewer, 52, dated Arias for four years and shared a home with her in California for two years. He told the court today that Arias called him in May 2008, asking to borrow gas cans, but would not explain why. She called him again at least two more times, and arrived at his house on June 2008, to borrow the cans.
On the day she picked up the gas cans she told Brewer that she was going to visit friends in California and Arizona.
Prosecutors argue that Arias then drove to Mesa, Ariz., where she allegedly had sex with Alexander, took nude photos of him, and then stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. She is charged with murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Arias, who claims she killed Alexander in self defense, had approached prosecutors two years ago offering to plea to a second degree murder charge, which could carry a 25 year term, but the state rejected the offer, Nancy Grace reported on Good Morning America today.
Brewer said that Arias never returned the gas cans. The pair had been broken up two years earlier and they had only spoken "sporadically," he said.
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Prosecutors also showed receipts from Arias' trip from her California home to Alexander's home in Mesa, showing that she purchased a 10 gallons of gas at one gas station the night before she drove to Arizona, and then another 10 gallons from a different gas station 10 minutes later. Prosecutors are expected to argue she brought the gas with her to fill up her car secretly on the way to Alexander's home, showing premeditation for the murder.
Arias' attorneys called Brewer as one of their first witnesses as they began mounting their case that Arias killed Alexander in self defense, arguing that Alexander was controlling and abusive toward Arias.
They asked Brewer to explain how he and Arias had been in a stable relationship for four years, from 2002 to 2006, and had bought a home together before Arias met Alexander at a business conference and began to change.
"I saw a lot of changes in Jodi. She became a different person than I had known previously," Brewer said, describing how Arias' behavior changed in May 2006 when she joined a company called Pre-Paid Legal. There, she met Alexander and began seeing him. She continued to live with Brewer.
"She had continued to pay the mortgage, but she was not paying other household bills, she began getting into debt or financial trouble," Brewer said. "For me it seemed she was not as rational or logical."
Arias also converted to Mormonism while living with Brewer, telling him that he could no longer curse and she would no longer have sex with him because she was saving herself for marriage.
The pair had previously had an "enthusiastic" and "aggressive" sex life, Brewer admitted to prosecutors. They had engaged in anal sex, Arias had taken nude photos of Brewer, and Arias had purchased breast implants in 2006, he testified.
Brewer said that after Arias began to change, he made arrangements to move closer to his son from his first marriage, and he and Arias broke up.
They kept in touch with occasional phone calls until Arias asked to borrow the gas cans in June 2008, and then called him a week after borrowing the cans to say that her friend had been killed.
Martinez, reading notes from an interview Brewer gave to authorities during the investigation into Alexander's death, asked if Arias had ever mentioned needing an "alibi." Brewer said he did not recall any conversation about alibis.
"After this date of June 4, 2008," Martinez asked, "you received a call from Jodi Arias, and she was very agitated?"
"She was sad," Brewer said.
"Did she tell you that her friend had been killed and she did not have an alibi?"
"I don't remember that," Brewer said.
Arias was arrested a month after Alexander was found dead, in July 2008.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday in a "new massacre" in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
Opposition campaigners blamed the government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible. Assad's forces and rebels have been battling in Syria's commercial hub since July and both have been accused of carrying out summary executions.
U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi told the U.N. Security Council "unprecedented levels of horror" had been reached in Syria, and that both the government and rebels had committed atrocious crimes, diplomats said.
He appealed to the 15-nation council to overcome its deadlock and take action to help end the civil war in which Syria is "breaking up before everyone's eyes".
More than 60,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago.
The U.N. refugee agency said the fighting had forced more than 700,000 people to flee. World powers fear the conflict could envelop Syria's neighbors including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, further destabilizing an already explosive region.
Opposition activists posted a video of at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in Aleppo's rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood.
The bodies had what looked like bullet wounds in their heads and some of the victims appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, dressed in jeans, shirts and trainers.
Aleppo-based opposition activists who asked not to be named for security reasons blamed pro-Assad militia fighters.
They said the men had been executed and dumped in the river before floating downstream into the rebel area. State media did not mention the incident.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the footage was evidence of a new massacre and the death toll could rise as high as 80.
"They were killed only because they are Muslims," said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him.
STALEMATE
It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports from inside Syria because of restrictions on independent media.
Rebels are stuck in a stalemate with government forces in Aleppo - Syria's most populous city which is divided roughly in half between the two sides.
The revolt started as a peaceful protest movement against more than four decades of rule by Assad and his family, but turned into an armed rebellion after a government crackdown.
About 712,000 Syrian refugees have registered in other countries in the region or are awaiting processing as of Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency said.
"We have seen an unrelenting flow of refugees across all borders. We are running double shifts to register people," Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters in Geneva.
The United Nations said it had received aid promises ahead of a donor conference in Kuwait on Wednesday where it is seeking $1.5 billion for refugees and people inside Syria. Washington announced an additional $155 million that its said brought the total U.S. humanitarian aid to the crisis to some $365 million.
Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said the bulk of the current aid was going to government-controlled areas in Syria and called on donors to make sure they were even-handed.
MISSILES
In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al Qaeda-linked Islamists captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist.
Some of the fighters were shown carrying a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq.
The war has become heavily sectarian, with rebels who mostly come from the Sunni Muslim majority fighting an army whose top generals are mostly from Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad has framed the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy and blames the West and Sunni Gulf states.
Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said.
In Turkey, a second pair of Patriot missile batteries being sent by NATO countries are now operational, a German security official said.
The United States, Germany and the Netherlands each committed to sending two batteries and up to 400 soldiers to operate them after Ankara asked for help to bolster its air defenses against possible missile attack from Syria.
(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Kuwait, Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Robin Pomeroy)
