Egypt: Deadly clashes follow soccer riot verdict

Last Updated 4:48 p.m. ET

CAIRO Relatives and angry young men rampaged through the Egyptian city of Port Said on Saturday in assaults that killed at least 27 people following death sentences for local fans involved in the country's worst bout of soccer violence.

Unrest surrounding the second anniversary of Egypt's revolution also broke out in Cairo and other cities for a third day, with protesters clashing for hours with riot police who fired tear gas that encompassed swaths of the capital's downtown.

The divisive verdict and bloodshed highlight challenges being faced by President Mohammed Morsi, who took office seven months ago following an Egyptian revolution that ousted autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. Critics say Morsi has failed to carry out promised reforms in the country's judiciary and police force, and claim little has improved in the two years after the uprising against Mubarak.

The Islamist leader, Egypt's first freely elected and civilian president, met for the first time with top generals as part of the newly formed National Defense Council to discuss the deployment of troops in two cities. The military was deployed to Port Said hours after the verdict was announced, and warned that a curfew could be declared in areas of unrest. The military was also deployed to the canal city of Suez, where protesters attacked the main security compound there after eight people were killed late Friday.

Smoke billows from a burning minibus belonging to a satellite channel after it was set on fire by Egyptian protesters outside the prison in Port said, Egypt, January 26, 2013. Twenty-one Egyptian football fans and club members were sentenced to death after a fatal post-match riot in Port Said last year, sparking new violence in the canal city that killed eight.

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AFP/Getty Images

Saturday's riot in Port Said stemmed from animosity between police and die-hard soccer fans know as Ultras, who also were part of the mass uprising against Mubarak that began on Jan. 25, 2011, and at forefront of protests against the military rulers who assumed temporary power after his ouster.

It also reflected tensions after the uprising that reached into all sectors of Egyptian life, even sports.

Survivors and witnesses said Mubarak loyalists had a hand in instigating last year's attack, which began Feb. 1 after Port Said's home team Al-Masry won a match, 3-1, against Cairo's Al-Ahly. Some say "hired thugs" wearing green T-shirts posing as Al-Masry fans led the attacks.

Others say, at the very least, police were responsible for gross negligence in the Feb. 1 soccer brawl that killed 74 Al-Ahly fans.

Families of the victims who died in last year's soccer violence react in court after the issuance of the death penalty for 21 accused in the Port Said incident, in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.

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AP/Ahmed Abd El-Latef, Shorouk Newspaper

Anger at police was evident in Port Said, home to most of the 73 men accused of involvement in the bloodshed, although the trial was held outside Cairo.

Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid did not give his reasoning when he handed down the sentences for 21 defendants. Executions in Egypt are usually carried out by hanging.

Verdicts for the remaining 52 defendants, including nine security officials, are scheduled to be delivered March 9. Some have been charged with murder and others with assisting the attackers. All the defendants — who were not present in the courtroom Saturday for security reasons — can appeal the verdict.

Supporters of those sentenced to death said they were being used as scapegoats. The rioters attacked the city's prison after the verdict was read live on state television to try and free the defendants. A police lieutenant and police officer were killed in the assault.

Residents also focused their anger against the government, attacking a power station, the governor's office and local courthouse. They staged a sit-in along the main road leading into the city and occupied a police station.

Security officials said a total of 27 people were killed and some 400 wounded, many by gunfire, throughout the city. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Victims were killed when police fired tear gas, bird shot and other live ammunition at the mob. Two soccer players who died- one from Port Said's Al-Marikh club and the other a former player of its Al-Masry club — apparently were killed on their way to do training near the prison. One of the players was shot three times, a local health official said.

Some 220 kilometers (135 miles) away in Cairo, the divisive nature of the trial was on display.

Relatives of those killed at the soccer game erupted in joy in the courtroom after the verdict was announced.

Families yelled "Allahu Akbar!" Arabic for "God is great" and pumped their fists in the air. Others held up pictures of the deceased, most of whom were young men from Cairo's poor neighborhoods. One man fainted while others hugged. The judge smacked the bench several times to try to restore calm.

Supporters of Cairo's Al-Ahly celebrated the verdict in the team's club before heading toward Interior Ministry headquarters, which manages the police, for more protests.

Lawmakers had formed a fact-finding committee that found some evidence toward collusion from authorities, but the evidence was not conclusive.

Nine of those on trial are security officials, charged with assisting the attackers for failing to search for weapons as is customary and allowing known criminals to attend the game. One was a senior officer who locked the exit designated for Al-Ahly fans. Many victims suffocated or were trampled to death in the corridor trying to escape the violence. Others were thrown off bleachers, undressed, beaten with iron bars and had the words "Port Said" carved into their skin.

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Newtown Families March for Gun Control in DC

Jan 26, 2013 4:59pm

(YURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Near-freezing temperatures didn’t stop several thousand gun-control activists from bearing their pickets today, carrying signs emblazoned with “Ban Assault Weapons Now” and the names of gun violence victims in a demonstration organized as a response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. last month.

Walking in silence, the demonstrators trudged between Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument over a thin layer of melting snow. They were joined by politicians and some families of the Newtown victims.

March organizer Shannon Watts said the event was for the “families who lost the lights of their lives in Newtown, daughters and sons, wives and mothers, grandchildren, sisters and brothers gone in an unfathomable instant.”

“Let’s stand together and use our voices, use our votes to let legislators know that we won’t stand down until they enact common sense gun control laws that will keep our children out of the line of fire,” she told demonstrators.

Watts founded One Million Moms for Gun Control after the killing of 20 first graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in December. In a profile with the New York Times, Watts said her 12-year-old son had suffered panic attacks after learning of last summer’s Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, leaving her at an impasse over how to talk to him about the latest tragedy.

Also among the speakers was a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, Collin Goddard.

“We need to challenge any politician who thinks it’s easier to ask an elementary school teacher to stand up to a gunman with an AR-15 than it is to ask them to stand up to a gun lobbyist with a checkbook,” he said.

The demonstration comes amid a push by progressive lawmakers to enact stricter gun control measures as a response to the trend of recent mass killings, although any hypothetical bill would likely face strong opposition in Congress.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was among the demonstrators today.

“The idea that people need high-capacity magazines that can fire 30, 50, 100 rounds has no place in a civilized society,” he said. “Between the time we’re gathered here right now and this time of day tomorrow, across America, 282 Americans will have been shot.”

The congressman was quoting statistics compiled by the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns by the Numbers

Last week President Obama proposed a sweeping overhaul of federal measures regulating gun ownership, including a universal background check system for sales, banning assault weapons,  and curbing the amount of ammunition available in weapon clips.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Thursday found 53 percent of Americans viewed Obama’s gun control plan favorably, 41 percent unfavorably. The division was visible today, as a handful of gun-rights advocates also turned out on the National Mall to protest what they believe would be infringements on their Second Amendment liberties.

ABC’s Joanne Fuchs contributed to this report.

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Riots over Egyptian death sentences kill at least 32

PORT SAID, Egypt/CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed on Saturday when Egyptians rampaged in protest at the sentencing of 21 people to death over a soccer stadium disaster, violence that compounds a political crisis facing Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

Armored vehicles and military police fanned through the streets of Port Said, where gunshots rang out and protesters burned tires in anger that people from their city had been blamed for the deaths of 74 people at a match last year.

The rioting in Port Said, one of the most deadly spasms of violence since Hosni Mubarak's ouster two years ago, followed a day of anti-Mursi demonstrations on Friday, when nine people were killed. The toll over the past two days stands at 41.

The flare-ups make it even tougher for Mursi, who drew fire last year for expanding his powers and pushing through an Islamist-tinged constitution, to fix the creaking economy and cool tempers enough to ensure a smooth parliamentary election.

That vote is expected in the next few months and is meant to cement a democratic transition that has been blighted from the outset by political rows and street clashes.

The National Defense Council, which is led by Mursi and includes the defense minister who commands the army, called for "a broad national dialogue that would be attended by independent national characters" to discuss political differences and ensure a "fair and transparent" parliamentary poll.

The National Salvation Front of liberal-minded groups and other Mursi opponents cautiously welcomed the call.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE

Clashes in Port Said erupted after a judge sentenced 21 men to die for involvement in the deaths at the soccer match on February 1, 2012. Many were fans of the visiting team, Cairo's Al Ahly.

Al Ahly fans had threatened violence if the court had not meted out the death penalty. They cheered outside their Cairo club when the verdict was announced. But in Port Said, residents were furious that people from their city were held responsible.

Protesters ran wildly through the streets of the Mediterranean port, lighting tires in the street and storming two police stations, witnesses said. Gunshots were reported near the prison where most of the defendants were being held.

A security source in Port Said said 32 people were killed there, many dying from gunshot wounds. He said 312 were wounded and the ministry of defense had allocated a military plane to transfer the injured to military hospitals.

Inside the court in Cairo, families of victims danced, applauded and some broke down in tears of joy when they heard Judge Sobhy Abdel Maguid declare that the 21 men would be "referred to the Mufti", a phrase used to denote execution, as all death sentences must be reviewed by Egypt's top religious authority.

There were 73 defendants on trial. Those not sentenced on Saturday would face a verdict on March 9, the judge said.

At the Port Said soccer stadium a year ago, many spectators were crushed and witnesses saw some thrown off balconies after the match between Al Ahly and local team al-Masri. Al Ahly fans accused the police of being complicit in the deaths.

Among those killed on Saturday were a former player for al-Masri and a soccer player in another Port Said team, the website of the state broadcaster reported.

TEARGAS FIRED

On Friday, protesters angry at Mursi's rule had taken to the streets for the second anniversary of the uprising that erupted on January 25, 2011 and brought Mubarak down 18 days later.

Police fired teargas and protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs. Nine people were killed, mainly in the port city of Suez, and hundreds more were injured across the nation.

Reflecting international concern at the two days of clashes, British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt said: "This cannot help the process of dialogue which we encourage as vital for Egypt today, and we must condemn the violence in the strongest terms."

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the Egyptian authorities to restore calm and order and called on all sides to show restraint, her spokesperson said.

On Saturday, some protesters again clashed and scuffled with police in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities. In the capital, youths pelted police lines with rocks near Tahrir Square.

In Suez, police fired teargas when protesters angry at Friday's deaths hurled petrol bombs and stormed a police post and other governmental buildings including the agriculture and social solidarity units.

Around 18 prisoners in Suez police stations managed to escape during the violence, a security source there said, and some 30 police weapons were stolen.

"We want to change the president and the government. We are tired of this regime. Nothing has changed," said Mahmoud Suleiman, 22, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cauldron of the 2011 anti-Mubarak revolt.

Mursi's opponents say he has failed to deliver on economic pledges or to be a president representing the full political and communal diversity of Egyptians, as he promised.

"Egypt will not regain its balance except by a political solution that is transparent and credible, by a government of national salvation to restore order and heal the economy and with a constitution for all Egyptians," prominent opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter.

The opposition National Salvation Front, responding to the Defense Council's call for dialogue, said there must be a clear agenda and guarantees that any deal would be implemented, spokesman Khaled Dawoud told Reuters.

The Front earlier on Saturday threatened an election boycott and to call for more protests on Friday if demands were not met. Its demands included picking a national unity government to restore order and holding an early presidential poll.

Mursi's supporters say the opposition does not respect the democracy that has given Egypt its first freely elected leader.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to office, said in a statement that "corrupt people" and media who were biased against the president had stirred up fury on the streets.

The frequent violence and political schism between Islamists and secular Egyptians have hurt Mursi's efforts to revive an economy in crisis as investors and tourists have stayed away, taking a heavy toll on Egypt's currency.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Peter Griffiths in London and Claire Davenport in Brussels; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Germany has 'everlasting responsibility' for Nazi crimes: Merkel

 

BERLIN: Germany has "an everlasting responsibility" for the crimes committed by the Nazis, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, just days ahead of the 80th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's takeover of power.

"Naturally, we have an everlasting responsibility for the crimes of national-socialism, for the victims of World War II, and above all, for the Holocaust," Merkel said in a podcast on her website.

Her remarks came as the world prepares to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, the date in 1945 when the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in then occupied Poland.

In another significant date, Wednesday will mark eight decades since Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933 by then president Paul von Hindenburg.

"We must clearly say, generation after generation, and say it again: with courage, civil courage, each individual can help ensure that racism and anti-Semitism have no chance," Merkel added.

"We're facing our history, we're not hiding anything, we're not repressing anything. We must confront this to make sure we are a good and trustworthy partner in the future, as we already are today, thankfully," she said.

- AFP/jc

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Orbiting robot gas station gets closer to reality

Dextre is also handy for transferring cargo from spaceships such as the Kounotori2, above.

(Credit:
Canadian Space Agency)

It's a bummer running out of gas, especially when the nearest station is 22,000 miles away.

But a project to set up a gas station on the International Space Station made a big leap forward this week with the successful refueling of a mock satellite by a robot.

Dextre, a twin-armed robot from Canada, topped off the fuel tank in the mockup, showing how satellites' life can be extended, according to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Operating on the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) module, Dextre removed safety caps and cut through retaining wires before transferring liquid ethanol to the mockup, which is about the size of a washing machine.

The CSA-NASA achievement is the first of its kind, and may help reduce the growing pile of dead satellites and space junk orbiting overhead.

"The ability to refuel satellites in space could one day save satellite operators from the significant costs of building and launching new replacement satellites," the CSA said in a release.

"With over 1,100 active satellites currently operating in the near-Earth environment (many of them worth hundreds of millions of dollars), and an additional 2,500 inactive satellites still orbiting around our planet, the savings could be substantial."

Speaking of space junk, DARPA meanwhile has released a new video describing a rather different approach to the problem.

The agency's Phoenix Program, which began last July, proposes building small robots that would cannibalize dead satellites for their valuable parts.

The orbital recycling would involve "satlets" that would piggyback on commercial satellite launches. Other tender satellites would help by deploying grasping mechanical arms.

The animation below makes it all look very smooth and elegant, and there's been some progress in developing the necessary tools. The Swiss Space Center has a similar janitor satellite concept, but it's more focused on cleaning up and would send junk toward Earth to burn up on reentry.

We'll look forward to the first test of the DARPA idea, slated for 2015.

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FDA panel votes for more restrictions on Vicodin

WASHINGTONFederal health advisors want new restrictions on hydrocodone, the highly addictive ingredient found in Vicodin and other widely abused prescription painkillers.

The Food and Drug Administration's panel of drug safety specialists voted to subject hydrocodone drugs to the same restrictions as narcotics like oxycodone and morphine.

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Headlines: Vicodin may face tighter controls

The panel voted 19-10 in favor of the move, which is supported by the Drug Enforcement Agency. The FDA will weigh the vote in its decision-making process.

Hydrocodone is sold in combination pills like Vicodin, which mixes the drug with non-addictive painkillers like acetaminophen. The drug belongs to a family of drugs known as opioids, which include morphine, heroin, oxycodone, codeine and methadone.

Doctors prescribe the medicines to treat pain from injuries, surgery, arthritis and other ailments such as coughs.

Hydrocodone consistently ranks as the first or second most-abused medicine in the U.S. each year, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Panelists who voted for new restrictions said it would send a signal to doctors about the potential dangers of hydrocodone drugs.

"I don't think reclassification is a panacea for the opioid abuse problem in this country, but I think it's an important step to get doctors to rethink their prescribing practices," said Mary Ellen Olbrisch, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The DEA has asked the FDA to reclassify hydrocodone as a schedule II drug, limiting which kinds of medical professionals can write a prescription and how many times it can be refilled. The Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970, put hydrocodone combination drugs in the schedule III class, which is subject to fewer controls.

An April, 2012 Drug Enforcement Administration report showed that 42 tons of pure hydrocodone were prescribed across U.S. pharmacies in 2010, enough to give 24 5-milligram Vicodins to every person in the United States.

In 2011, U.S. doctors wrote more than 131 million prescriptions for hydrocodone, making it the most prescribed drug in the country.

Currently a prescription for hydrocodone-containing Vicodin can be refilled five times before the patient has to see a physician again. If the drug is reclassified patients could only receive a single 90-day prescription, similar to oxycodone. The drug could also not be prescribed by nurses and physician assistants.

Panelists who voted against the classification change said it would have unintended consequences, driving addicted patients to obtain the drugs illegally.

"If prescribing decreases, illicit opioid use will increase, with dire consequences," said Dr. John Mendelson, of St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco. "I think this is a mistake and we will be back here with other problems."

Several physician and pharmacist groups also argued that new restrictions would burden medical professionals and disrupt patient care.

"Rescheduling the products to Schedule II would create significant hardships for all - leading to delayed access for vulnerable patients with legitimate chronic pain," said the National Community Pharmacists Association, in a statement.

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its expert panelists, though their input is often critical in its decisions.

FDA officials closed the meeting by acknowledging the difficulty of combating hydrocodone abuse, while keeping the drugs available for patients who legitimately need them.

"There is an unquestioned epidemic of opioid abuse, overdose and death in this country, an epidemic we need to address as a society," said Douglas Throckmorton, FDA's deputy director for regulatory programs.

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'Hot' Guns Fueling Crime, US Study Says

Christmas is the one day of the year that Wal-Mart is closed, but for a group of four New Mexico burglars, it was the perfect time to stop in for some firearms.

Video surveillance cameras caught the masked burglars red-handed, stealing rifle after rifle. Police arrested the four men, and were able to recover the guns. But all too often, stolen weapons end up in the hands of criminals.

The New Mexico caper is part of a flood of gun thefts nationwide. And it's not only commercial gun dealers vulnerable to theft.

Guns are a top target for home burglars looking for something they can easily sell on the street.

An estimated 230,000 guns per year are stolen in home burglaries and property crimes, according to a study by the Department of Justice.

"Any burglar that goes in a house and finds guns, their eyes are going to light up," says former ATF Assistant Director Mike Bouchard. "That's the first thing they're going to take."

The statistics for commercial thefts show that nearly 25,000 guns per year are lost or stolen from gun dealers.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), more than 4,000 gun stores and retailers have been targeted in the last three years, with 74,000 guns reported stolen or lost. And criminals will use any method possible to get their hands on some weapons, either for their own use, or to sell on the black market.

Minnesota Public Radio, Jeffrey Thompson/AP Photo

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Kansas Gun Shop Owner Reacts to Obama's Proposed Plan Watch Video

Recently, thieves have taken to using a stolen vehicle to ram down the front doors of a gun store. In North Charleston, S.C., for example, burglars smashed a stolen truck right through Guns and Gold Trading Post, stealing $4,500 worth of guns before making a quick getaway.

"Gun stores are like candy stores for criminals," says Mike Bouchard.

2012 was a record year for gun sales, with more than 19.5 million background checks run for gun purchases, up almost 20% from the previous year. But while legitimate sales skyrocket, huge numbers of illegal guns are hitting the streets.

According to the Justice Department, more than 1.4 million guns were stolen or lost between 2005 and 2010.

Former ATF Assistant Director Bouchard says crooks have easy access to cheap stolen guns on the street.

"If you talk to any criminal, they can find a gun within an hour or two. Cheaper guns that were stolen can be sold for $50. On the street, a typical good handgun will run you $200 to $300," Bouchard said.

Some thieves have even targeted gun shipments, stealing the weapons before they get to market.

Last November, for example, a rogue truck driver allegedly stole a shipment of 111 guns he was supposed to deliver from the Smith and Wesson factory in Springfield, Mass.

When police caught him, they recovered 28 of the stolen guns, but some had already been used in crimes.

When police arrested the alleged stick-up robber known as the Black Jacket Bandit, they found one of the stolen guns was allegedly used by him in a convenience store robbery within weeks of the delivery heist.

In November, more than 100 powerful AK-47s were stolen from a rail yard in Atlanta. The guns were in a box car containing more than 1,000 guns being shipped from an overseas manufacturer to a major U.S. distributor, authorities say.

A few of the weapons have been recovered, but police are deeply concerned about having scores of new assault rifles falling into the wrong hands.

Given all the gun thefts, police say it is critical for gun owners to secure their weapons in gun safes or locked cases. And authorities are urging gun retailers to fortify their buildings, to try to prevent "smash and grab" type robberies.

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North Korea threatens war with South over U.N. sanctions

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea threatened to attack rival South Korea if Seoul joined a new round of tightened U.N. sanctions, as Washington unveiled more of its own economic restrictions following Pyongyang's rocket launch last month.

In a third straight day of fiery rhetoric, the North directed its verbal onslaught at its neighbor on Friday, saying: "'Sanctions' mean a war and a declaration of war against us."

The reclusive North this week declared a boycott of all dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program and vowed to conduct more rocket and nuclear tests after the U.N. Security Council censured it for a December long-range missile launch.

"If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the U.N. 'sanctions,' the DPRK will take strong physical counter-measures against it," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to the South.

The committee is the North's front for dealings with the South. The North's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Speaking in Beijing, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies said he found North Korea's rhetoric "troubling and counterproductive," and that he and his Chinese counterparts had agreed a new nuclear test would be harmful.

"We will judge North Korea by its actions, not its words. These types of inflammatory statements by North Korea do nothing to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," he said.

"What North Korea has done through its actions, in particular through the launch on December 12 of a rocket in contravention of Security Council resolutions, is they have made it that much more difficult to contemplate getting back to a diplomatic process."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland urged North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-un to choose a different path, rather than "continue to waste what little money the country has on missile technologies and things while his people go hungry."

The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch on Tuesday and expanded existing U.N. sanctions.

On Thursday, the United States slapped economic sanctions on two North Korean bank officials and a Hong Kong trading company that it accused of supporting Pyongyang's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The company, Leader (Hong Kong) International Trading Ltd, was separately blacklisted by the United Nations on Wednesday.

Seoul has said it will look at whether there are any further sanctions that it can implement alongside the United States, but said the focus for now is to follow Security Council resolutions.

The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programs. It does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.

The United States had wanted to punish North Korea for the rocket launch with a Security Council resolution that imposed entirely new sanctions against Pyongyang, but Beijing rejected that option. China agreed to U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang after North Korea's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

Nuland declined to speculate whether the United States thinks the U.N. steps would change North Korea's behavior.

"What's been important to us is strong unity among the six-party talks countries; strong unity in the region about a positive course forward; and the fact that there will be consequences if they keep making bad choices," she said.

Long-dormant six-nation talks brought together the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas in negotiations to try to induce Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arms quest in exchange for economic aid and diplomatic normalization.

NUCLEAR TEST WORRY

North Korea's rhetoric this week amounted to some of the angriest outbursts against the outside world coming under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who took over after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in late 2011.

On Thursday, the North said it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test, directing its ire at the United States, a country it called its "sworn enemy".

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the comments were worrying.

"We are very concerned with North Korea's continuing provocative behavior," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

"We are fully prepared ... to deal with any kind of provocation from the North Koreans. But I hope in the end that they determine that it is better to make a choice to become part of the international family."

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

South Korea and others who have been closely observing activities at the North's known nuclear test grounds believe Pyongyang is technically ready to go ahead with its third atomic test and awaiting the political decision of its leader.

The North's committee also declared on Friday that a landmark agreement it signed with the South in 1992 on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula was invalid, repeating its long-standing accusation that Seoul was colluding with Washington.

The foreign ministry of China, the North's sole remaining major diplomatic and economic benefactor, repeated its call for calm on the Korean peninsula at its daily briefing earlier on Friday.

"The current situation on the Korea peninsula is complicated and sensitive," spokesman Hong Lei said.

"We hope all relevant parties can see the big picture, maintain calm and restraint, further maintain contact and dialogue, and improve relations, while not taking actions to further complicate and escalate the situation," Hong said.

But unusually prickly comments in Chinese state media on Friday hinted at Beijing's exasperation.

"It seems that North Korea does not appreciate China's efforts," said the Global Times in an editorial, a sister publication of the official People's Daily.

"Just let North Korea be 'angry' ... China hopes for a stable peninsula, but it's not the end of the world if there's trouble there. This should be the baseline of China's position."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina, Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Editing by Jonathan Standing, Myra MacDonald and Jackie Frank)

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Obama praises 'extraordinary' Clinton in joint interview

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama Friday heaped praise on outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a rare joint interview set to renew speculation that she will run for president in 2016.

The joint sit-down interview with CBS television, which was filmed at the White House, was apparently Obama's idea.

"I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretaries of state we've had," Obama said in an excerpt shown on CBS ahead of Sunday's "60 Minutes" program.

"It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. I'm going to miss her," he added, saying he wished she was staying on.

Many people were surprised when Obama named Clinton to be his secretary of state, after the two fought a long and bitter battle for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the 2008 elections.

Clinton was just beaten by Obama in the historic race, which went down to the wire, and many observers believe she could well try again to become the nation's first woman president in the 2016 elections.

A public endorsement by the sitting president would give added weight to her candidacy -- although she is already riding high in the popularity stakes with an approval rating of around 65 per cent.

"I want the country to appreciate just what an extraordinary role she's played during the course of my administration and a lot of the successes we've had internationally because of her hard work," Obama added.

Clinton, who is tapped to be replaced in the coming days by Senator John Kerry, acknowledged that it would have seemed "improbable" that she would have joined forces with Obama a few years ago.

But she said she had used her 2008 defeat as a useful lesson about the workings of democracy in her travels.

"I think it helps them understand. I say, look, in politics and in democracy, sometimes you win elections; sometimes you lose elections," she said.

"I worked very hard but I lost and then President Obama asked me to be secretary of state and I said yes and why did he ask me and why did I say yes? Because we both love our country."

Obama rarely sits down for joint interviews with anyone other than his wife, Michelle. An exception was one he gave with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2011 on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes.

- AFP/jc

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Microsoft: We're going to broaden Surface lineup

Microsoft Surface RT. The Surface Pro version goes on sale February 9.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

During Microsoft's second-quarter earnings conference call today, the company's chief financial officer talked about broadening the Surface tablet lineup.

After Microsoft reported reported earning today, Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein spoke about future Surface products -- though he was mum about specifics.

"We had limited distribution this quarter in our stores and we're excited about expanding that [distribution]," he said, responding to an analyst's question.

"We're going to expand geographically, we're going to expand the product lineup, we're going to expand retail distribution and capacity," he said, in comments about Surface.

Klein repeated a number of times that Surface contributed to revenue. "Certainly this quarter it was a contributing factor to revenue growth in the Windows business," Klein said.

And he inserted some serious commentary inside an innocuous-sounding statement. "It highlights some interesting innovation that can happen...demonstrates the power of
Windows 8 when tightly integrated with hardware and software."

In short, in order for a product to be done right, one company must make both the hardware and software -- as Apple has done successfully.

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