Facebook announces new site search feature

Facebook announced that it is launching a search engine for the social network called "graph search."

At a press event in Menlo Park, Calif., Tuesday CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is launching a search engine that will run inside of Facebook.

"What is graph search? It's not web search," Zuckerberg told reporters.

During a comparison of graph search with a web search, Zuckerberg demonstrated that graph search will deliver answers to questions like, "Who are my friends that live in San Francisco?"

Graph search focuses on people, photos, places and interests. Users can type a question into the search bar on Facebook and ask questions. An option to refine searches is also provided.

Zuckerberg showed off other searched like: "Mexican restaurants in Palo Alto, Calif, my friends have been to" and "Photos of me and  Priscilla." The search is in still in its beta phase.

Facebook users can search for specific photos, like "photos of Berlin, German from 1989," "photos of my friends before 1990" or "photos I've liked."

Zuckerberg also touched on privacy concerns and pointed out to privacy shortcuts, which are located at the top right section of the website. The setting lets users see what photos have been uploaded, tagged and hidden from Timeline.

Facebook Graph Search is in the early stages of development. Because of a partnership with Bing, any results that cannot be found on Facebook will pull from Bing.com.

The social network was previously rumored to unveil a "Facebook phone," even though Zuckerberg has publically shot down speculation that Facebook was planning to build a smartphone.

"It is so clearly the wrong strategy for us," Zuckerberg said at a September technology conference in his first public interview after Facebook's May initial public offering. "It doesn't move the needle for us."

Facebook's graph search is in closed beta. Users who want to sign up for the test can join the waiting list on Facebook's website.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company reports 1 billion monthly active users, 240 billion photos and 1 trillion connections.

Read More..

Secret Revealed: Facebook Announces New Tool

How you search Facebook is about to change. In fact, just the act of searching Facebook is probably about to start.

Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called "Graph Search." It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.

For the social network's 170 million users in the U.S., it's bound to change the way people interact with their Facebook friends. It also could mean lots more time wasted at work.

Facebook allowed ABC News "Nightline" behind the scenes ahead of today's product launch, an event shrouded in secrecy and rife with speculation. Company officials had sent out a tantalizingly vague invitation: "Come and see what we're building."

IMAGES: Screenshots of Graph Search and the offices where it was built

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long wanted to develop a social search engine, even hinting back in September that one might be in the works. The new feature gives users the ability to easily search across the network and their friends' information. Company officials say they believe it has the potential to transform the way people use Facebook.

Graph Search: What Is It?
Until now, the search bar you saw when you logged in to your Facebook page wasn't very powerful. You could only search for Timelines -- your friends' pages, other peoples' public pages and business or product pages.

But now, after close to a year and a half of development, the new "Graph Search" will allow you to search and discover more about your friends and other information that's been put on the world's largest social site.

Inside the Crucial 24 Hours Before Facebook's Graph Search Launch: Watch Tonight at 12:35 a.m. on ABC News "Nightline"

The new tool, available only to a limited set of U.S. users at first, turns key information that nearly a billion people have shared on the site -- including photos, places, and things they "like" -- into a searchable database tailored to your individual social network.

The new tool allows you to search across your friends' Timelines, without having to go to each of their Timeline pages to find out if they like a specific place or thing.

"I can just type in a short, simple phrase, like friends who like soccer and live nearby," Facebook product manager Kate O'Neill, told ABC News "Nightline" in an exclusive behind-the-scenes interview. "And now I'm getting the exact group of people that I'm looking for, so I can play soccer and ask them if they want to kick the ball around with me after work." O'Neill was able to narrow down the search in a demonstration only to show women.

MORE: Guide to Facebook's New Privacy Settings

The tool can search your friends' publicly shared interests, photos, places and connections. O'Neill showed ABC News how you can search for different musical artists and see which of your friends like them. She also showed how you can search a company and see which of your friends, or friends of your friends, work there. Additionally, you can search for photos of a specific place -- like Big Sur -- and the Graph Search will return images your friends might have taken of the location.

Right now, you can't search for things that were shared in a Timeline post or an event. However, O'Neill confirmed that this would be added to Graph Search later.

Privacy and Opting Out
The new product raises obvious privacy questions. Will personal information now pop up in the Graph Search, even if you never wanted to share it? How about those photos you never wanted to have on Facebook in the first place, or the ones you thought you were sharing only with your close friends?

"[Privacy] is something, of course, we care a lot about, and so from the very beginning we made it so that you can only search for the things that you can already see on Facebook," Tom Stocky, one of the lead Graph Search senior engineers, told "Nightline."

Stocky also pointed ABC News to Facebook's recent privacy tool changes, which allow you better to see what personal information your friends and others can see on Facebook. O'Neill showed the new Activity Log tools as well as the photo "untag" tool, which lets you contact others who might have a photo of you posted that you'd wish they'd take down.

When asked if users can opt out of the new search in general, Stocky said that they can choose to change the privacy settings on each of their pieces of content.

Read More..

France to stay in Mali until stability restored

BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France will end its intervention in Mali only once stability has returned to the West African country, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a costly, drawn-out operation against al Qaeda-linked rebels.

Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out air raids since Friday in the northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for attacks by Islamist militants in Africa and Europe.

Thousands of African troops are due to take over the offensive but regional armies are scrambling to accelerate the operation - initially not expected for months and brought forward by France's bombing campaign aimed at stopping a rebel advance on a strategic town last week.

"We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory," Hollande told a news conference during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, accompanying Hollande, said the offensive against the Malian rebels could take some time, and the current French level of involvement could last weeks. Elections, however, would take months to organize.

French aircraft earlier hit rebels with fresh air strikes and a column of dozens of French armored vehicles rumbled into the dusty riverside capital of Bamako overnight, bringing to about 750 the number of French troops in Mali.

Paris has said it plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers in its former colony to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by West African states.

West African defense chiefs met in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans for speeding up the deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a United Nations-backed intervention plan to be led by Africans.

Nigeria pledged to deploy soldiers within 24 hours and Belgium said it was sending transport planes and helicopters to help, but West Africa's armies need time to become operational.

Mali's north, a vast and inhospitable area of desert and rugged mountains the size of Texas, was seized last year by an Islamist alliance combining al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with splinter group MUJWA and the home-grown Ansar Dine rebels.

Any delay in following up on the French air bombardments of Islamist bases and fuel depots with a ground offensive could allow the insurgents to slip away into the desert and mountains, regroup and counter-attack.

The rebels, who French officials say are mobile and well-armed, have shown they can hit back, dislodging government forces from Diabaly, 350 km (220 miles) from Bamako on Monday.

Residents said the town was still under Islamist control on Tuesday despite a number of air strikes that shook houses.

An eye witness near Segou, to the south, told Reuters he had seen 20 French Special Forces soldiers driving toward Diabaly.

Malians have largely welcomed the French intervention, having seen their army suffer a series of defeats by the rebels.

"With the arrival of the French, we have started to see the situation on the front evolve in our favor," said Aba Sanare, a resident of Bamako.

QUESTIONS OVER READINESS

Aboudou Toure Cheaka, a senior regional official in Bamako, said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week.

The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.

Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. Col. Mohammed Yerima, spokesman for Nigeria's defense ministry, said the first 190 soldiers would be dispatched within 24 hours.

But Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has already cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time.

Sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer, which already has peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur and is fighting a bloody and difficult insurgency at home against Islamist sect Boko Haram, could struggle to deliver on its troop commitment of 900 men.

One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military.

"The whole thing's a mess. We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes," the adviser said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

FRENCH LINING UP SUPPORT

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, said on Monday that the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support.

Fabius has said Gulf Arab states would help the Mali campaign while Belgium said on Tuesday it would send two C130 transport planes and two medical helicopters to Mali following a request from Paris.

A meeting of donors for the operation was expected to be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January.

Security experts have warned that the multinational intervention in Mali, couched in terms of a campaign by governments against "terrorism", could provoke a jihadist backlash against France and the West, and African allies.

U.S. officials have warned of links between AQIM, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Shabaab Islamic militants fighting in Somalia.

Al Shabaab, which foiled a French effort at the weekend to rescue a French secret agent it was holding hostage, urged Muslims around the world to rise up against what it called "Christian" attacks against Islam.

"Our brothers in Mali, show patience and tolerance and you will win. War planes never liberate a land," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab's spokesman, said on a rebel-run website.

U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find any place to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe. Panetta later said the U.S. had no plans to send troops to Mali.

"I don't know what the French endgame is for this. What is their goal? It reminds me of our initial move into Afghanistan," a U.S. military source told Reuters.

"Air strikes are fine. But pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they head up into the mountains?"

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi; Felix Onuah in Abuja and Tim Cocks in Lagos; Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Michelle Nichols Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar; Joe Bavier in Abidjan; Jan Vermeylen in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Giles Elgood)

Read More..

Facebook launches search engine for friends' content

MENLO PARK: Facebook launched a search engine Tuesday for shared content as a way to find out more about friends on the huge social network in a potential challenge to Google and other Internet firms.

"We look at Facebook as a big social database," chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in announcing the so-called "graph search" function. "Just like any database, you should be able to query it."

The search engine aims to help members better navigate the vast amount of information on Facebook, which is not available on Web search engines such as Google.

Facebook emphasised that the new effort is not Web search, but can help find certain information archived within the network and in the content of friends.

"Every piece of content on Facebook has its own audience, and most content isn't public," a Facebook statement said.

"We've built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook. It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook."

Zuckerberg said that Facebook will also use its partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine for the new effort and to find content housed outside the social network.

"I don't necessarily think a lot of people will be coming to Facebook to do Web search because of this, but it is a very good search engine," he said.

He said Facebook had discussed working with Google but that "Microsoft was just more willing to do things that were specific to Facebook."

The social network offered examples of graph search queries including "friends who live in my city," "people from my hometown who like hiking," "friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park," "software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing," "people who like things I like," or "people who like tennis and live nearby."

Zuckerberg said the tool is aimed at "giving the people the power and tools to take any cut of the graph (of data) they want and make any query they want."

He added that "We are not indexing the Web here, we are indexing our map of the graph."

The company said the new function goes back to its original goals of helping people make connections.

"When Facebook first launched, the main way most people used the site was to browse around, learn about people and make new connections," the statement said.

"Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections."

Tech analyst Jeff Kagan said the new Facebook effort is a modest challenge to Google.

"If I were Google, I would see this as a Facebook warning shot across their bow. This is not an immediate attack, but nevertheless an attack is coming," Kagan said.

"Can Facebook transform the search engine world? If the answer is yes than this is a bigger threat to Google."

Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott said Facebook's initiative aims to get people more engaged on the social network.

"Facebook's worst nightmare is a static social graph; if users aren't adding very many new friends or connections... their personal network becomes less and less active over time," Elliott said.

"But that may be happening: We haven't seen significant growth in the average number of friends per user recently. Graph search seems designed to encourage users to add more friends more quickly. If it means users' personal networks change more frequently, and become more active, then that keeps them coming back to the site -- which is vital to Facebook's success."

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Why Facebook doesn't need its own phone

The HTC Status was one of two original "Facebook phones."

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

commentary Facebook ended yet another press conference without mentioning a smartphone or mobile operating system bearing its branding. Should we be surprised? No. Are we? Sadly, yes.

Months of rumors fueled expectations that Facebook would move into mobile in a bigger way, including unveiling, with a handset partner, a phone of its own. Such talk heated up in recent days after reports of a Facebook phone started popping up. Truth be told, it's a sexy enough story that everyone wants to believe it will happen.

Apparently, we all need to listen to CEO Mark Zuckerberg a little bit more. Zuckerberg has time and time again denied getting into the phone business, noting that it doesn't make sense.

Zuckerberg is right. Facebook has plenty of good reasons to steer clear of involvement in the mobile phone game, whether it's from the operating system side or with actual products.

Smartphones are a rough business


Have you followed the smartphone business? Unless you work for Apple or Samsung, it has not been a good run. Virtually every other handset vendor has lost money, and the only other notably profitable company, HTC, is on a downward slide.

It's easy to see why. It's getting increasingly difficult to stand apart from the legions of low-end and midtier
Android phones flooding the market, and the products that do face stiff competition from superphones made by everyone else. The smartphone game is increasingly about brand awareness, and Apple and Samsung have cornered the market.

Carriers are a headache


If Facebook were to enter the hardware business, it would have to deal with things like a retail channel, distribution, and relationships with the carriers. The carriers are highly protective of the quality of the service, and often make the handset vendors jump through extensive hoops to get approval for sale.

Facebook's experience lies with software and the user experience -- the company isn't used to dealing with a physical product. Why start now?

The OS market is already saturated


A Facebook OS would be a profound waste of R&D dollars because mobile users don't need another smartphone OS.

In 2013, we'll see smartphones running two dominant mobile operating systems: Android and iOS, and two secondary OSes: BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8. In addition, Ubuntu, Firefox, and Tizen have all promised handsets running their own niche operating systems.

After The Great Smartphone OS Consolidation of 2010, a Facebook foray into the OS world would be imprudent, with success against rival Google a long shot at best, even on a few one-off phones.

Besides, building an operating system takes years of hard work involving every software facet. It's hard to do right and many fail. If Facebook were to wade into deeper software territory, it'd be better off working with a partner, like HTC for instance, to contribute a deeper social experience as part of the manufacturer's custom OS layer that usually runs on top of Android.

Facebook needs to concentrate on apps


Facebook needs to get its act together when it comes to the apps found on other platforms. The company doesn't yet have a clear strategy on mobile and is still trying to figure out a smart way to make money in that area. So far, it's drawn a blank.

Facebook's been down this road...and it wasn't pretty
Earlier rumors that saw Facebook buddy up with HTC were plausible because such a partnership has actually happened before. At Mobile World Congress in 2011, the social network paired with the handset-maker on the HTC Status (known globally as the ChaCha) and the HTC Salsa, both smartphones with a dedicated Facebook button that fast-tracked users to a status update.

Let's just say that despite Facebook's raging popularity, the phones -- riddled with usability "quirks" -- never quite caught on.

Is a Facebook-branded phone out of the question in the future?
No. Facebook could eventually get its mobile act together and introduce a Facebook-inspired smartphone or even its own mobile operating system. The company, like Google, wants to "own" the full user experience, and there's no better way of doing that than with a personal item like a mobile device.

Still, Facebook faces the same kinds of challenges as any other smartphone player does, so don't expect the company to go wading into the mobile waters anytime soon.

Read More..

AP: Armstrong gives tearful apology to Livestrong

AUSTIN, Texas Lance Armstrong apologized to the staff at his Livestrong cancer foundation before heading to an interview with Oprah Winfrey, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.

Play Video

Anti-doping chief: Armstrong bullied witnesses

38 Photos

Lance Armstrong

Stripped last year of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping charges, Armstrong addressed the staff Monday and said, "I'm sorry." The person said the disgraced cyclist choked up and several employees cried during the session.

The person also said Armstrong apologized for letting the staff down and putting Livestrong at risk but he did not make a direct confession to the group about using banned drugs. He said he would try to restore the foundation's reputation, and urged the group to continue fighting for the charity's mission of helping cancer patients and their families.

After the meeting, Armstrong, his legal team and close advisers gathered at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview.

The cyclist will make a limited confession to Winfrey about his role as the head of a long-running scheme to dominate the Tour with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, a person with knowledge of the situation has told the AP.

Winfrey and her crew had earlier said they would film the interview, to be broadcast Thursday, at his home but the location apparently changed to a hotel. Local and international news crews staked out positions in front of the cyclist's Spanish-style villa before dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of Winfrey or Armstrong.

Armstrong still managed to slip away for a run Monday morning despite the crowds gathering outside his house. He returned home by cutting through a neighbor's yard and hopping a fence.

During a jog on Sunday, Armstrong talked to the AP for a few minutes saying, "I'm calm, I'm at ease and ready to speak candidly." He declined to go into specifics.

Armstrong lost all seven Tour titles following a voluminous U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruthless competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

In a recent "60 Minutes Sports" interview, Tygart described Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a "Mafia" that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.

Yet Armstrong looked like just another runner getting in his roadwork when he talked to the AP, wearing a red jersey and black shorts, sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. Leaning into a reporter's car on the shoulder of a busy Austin road, he seemed unfazed by the attention and the news crews that made stops at his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the reporters vying for his attention, then added, "but now I want to finish my run," and took off down the road.

The interview with Winfrey will be Armstrong's first public response to the USADA report. Armstrong is not expected to provide a detailed account about his involvement, nor address in depth many of the specific allegations in the more than 1,000-page USADA report.

In a text to the AP on Saturday, Armstrong said: "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say."

After a federal investigation of the cyclist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own. The agency deposed 11 former teammates and accused Armstrong of masterminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other performance-enhancers.

Play Video

Lance Armstrong offered donation to USADA during investigation

Once all the information was out and his reputation shattered, Armstrong defiantly tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader's jerseys on display in frames behind him. But the preponderance of evidence in the USADA report and pending legal challenges on several fronts apparently forced him to change tactics after more a decade of denials.

He still faces legal problems.

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will join the suit as a plaintiff.

The London-based Sunday Times also is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit. On Sunday, the newspaper took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune, offering Winfrey suggestions for what questions to ask Armstrong. Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded the cyclist in that dispute.

The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Many of his sponsors dropped Armstrong after the damning USADA report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong, which he founded in 1997. Armstrong is still said to be worth about $100 million.

Livestrong might be one reason Armstrong has decided to come forward with an apology and limited confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with Armstrong. He also may be hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career.

World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.

Read More..

Lance Armstrong Apologizes to Livestrong Staff

Lance Armstrong apologized today to the Livestrong staff ahead of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, a foundation official said.

The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin, Texas, headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.

Armstrong's "sincere and heartfelt apology" generated lots of tears, spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, adding that he "took responsibility" for the trouble he has caused the foundation.

McLane declined to say whether Armstrong's comments included an admission of doping, just that the cyclist wanted the staff to hear from him in person rather than rely on second-hand accounts.

Armstrong then took questions from the staff.

Armstrong's story has never changed. In front of cameras, microphones, fans, sponsors, cancer survivors -- even under oath -- Lance Armstrong hasn't just denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, he has done so in an indignant, even threatening way.

Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images|Ray Tamarra/Getty Images

Lance Armstrong Doping Charges: Secret Tapes Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Winfrey Interview: Expected to Admit to Doping Watch Video

Today, sources tell ABC News, will be different. Today Armstrong is expected to rewrite his own, now infamous story, to Winfrey. So what should she ask? There are enough questions to fill a book, but here's our shot at five, for starters, all based on the belief that his first words will be an admission. Feel free to comment and add your own.

1) Witnesses have told the U.S. Anti Doping Agency that after recovering from cancer, you increased your use of performance enhancing drugs, but swore off one of them—Human Growth Hormone—specifically noting your cancer as a reason to avoid it. Do you believe your cancer may have been caused by performance enhancing drug use?

2) Some people seem able to forgive or rationalize the use of performance enhancing drugs, but what troubles them is the vicious cover-up. Why did you feel it necessary to go beyond denials, to attack and even threaten and file legal claims against those who accused you of drug use, even to the point of causing serious harm to people's lives and reputations?

3) In 1996, while recovering from cancer, your former close friend Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy say they were in the hospital room when you told doctors you'd used several different performance enhancing drugs during your career. They testified under oath about this, but you always denied it and vilified them. This caused the Andreus great harm. Did it happen?

4) What do you tell your kids?

5) Up until today, everything you've said and done—even that picture on twitter of you and your yellow jerseys—has said to the world that you're not sorry, and that you're the real winner of seven Tours. Aren't you just coming forward now to help yourself, rather than to come clean or set the record straight?

Whatever the answers, a small army of lawyers and even criminal investigators will be listening closely. Will Armstrong's interview be the start of his redemption or the beginning of even bigger problems?

Read More..

Mali Islamists counter attack, promise France long war

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war.

France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air strikes on Monday in the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance grouping al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM alongside Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine militant groups.

"France has opened the gates of hell for all the French," said Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for MUJWA, which has imposed strict sharia, Islamic law, in its northern fiefdom of Gao. "She has fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia," he told Europe 1 radio.

Paris is determined to shatter Islamist domination of the north of its former colony, an area many fear could become a launchpad for terrorism attacks on the West and a base for coordination with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

The French defense ministry said it aimed to deploy 2,500 soldiers in the West African state to bolster the Malian army and work with a force of 3,300 West African troops from the immediate region foreseen in a U.N.-backed intervention plan.

The United States, which has operated a counter-terrorism training program in the region, said it was sharing information with French forces and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have a responsibility to go after al Qaeda wherever they are," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters heading with him on a week-long tour of European capitals.

As French aircraft bombarded mobile columns of Islamist fighters, other fighters launched a counter-attack to the southwest of recent clashes, dislodging government forces from the town of Diabaly, just 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako. French and Malian troops attempting to retake the town were battling Islamists shouting 'Allahu akbar', residents said.

The rebels infiltrated the town overnight from the porous border region with Mauritania, home to AQIM camps housing well-equipped and trained foreign fighters. A spokesman for Ansar Dine said its fighters took Diabaly, working with AQIM members.

Dozens of Islamist fighters died on Sunday when French rockets hit a fuel depot and a customs house being used as a headquarters. The U.N. said an estimated 30,000 people had fled the fighting, joining more than 200,000 already displaced.

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss the Mali crisis.

The European Union announced it would hold an extraordinary meeting of its foreign ministers in Brussels this week to discuss speeding up a EU training mission to help the Malian army and other direct support for the Bamako government.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France would do everything to ensure that regional African troops were deployed quickly to follow up on the French military action, which was launched to block a push southwards by the Islamist rebels.

"ORGANISED AND FANATICAL"

"We knew that there would be a counter-attack in the west because that is where the most determined, the most organized and fanatical elements are," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France's BFM TV.

France has said its sudden intervention on Friday, responding to an urgent appeal from Mali's president, stopped the Islamists from seizing the dusty capital of Bamako.

President Francois Hollande says Operation Serval - named after an African wildcat - is solely aimed at supporting the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS which received U.N. backing in December for a military intervention to dislodge the rebels.

Hollande's robust intervention has won plaudits from Western leaders and has also shot down domestic criticism which portrayed him as spineless and indecisive.

Under pressure from Paris, regional states have said they hope to send in their forces this week. Military chiefs from ECOWAS nations will meet in Bamako on Tuesday but regional powerhouse Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has cautioned that training and deploying troops will take time.

Two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bastion of democracy in turbulent West Africa but that image unraveled after a military coup in March left a power vacuum for MNLA Tuareg rebels to seize the desert north.

MUJWA, an AQIM splinter group drawing support from Arabs and other ethnic groups, took control of Gao, the main city of the north, from the Tuaregs in June, shocking Mali's liberal Muslim majority with amputation of hands for theft under sharia.

Malian Foreign Minister Tyeman Coulibaly said the situation had become "untenable" in the north. "Every day, we were hearing about feet and hands being cut off, girls being raped, cultural patrimony being looted," he told the French weekly Paris Match.

ISLAMISTS DESTROY TIMBUKTU SHRINES

Last week's drive toward Bamako appeared to have been led by Ansar Dine, founded by renegade Tuareg separatist commander Iyad ag Ghali in his northern fiefdom of Kidal.

The group has said that the famed shrines of ancient desert trading town Timbuktu - a UNESCO world heritage site - were un-Islamic and idolatrous. Much of the area's religious heritage has now been destroyed, sparking international outrage.

France's intervention raises the threat for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.

Concerned about reprisals at home, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport.

However, top anti-terrorist judge, Marc Trevidic, played down the imminence of the risk, telling French media: "They're not very organized right now ... It could be a counter attack later on after the defeat on the ground. It's often like that."

Military analysts warn that if French action was not followed up by a robust deployment of ECOWAS forces, with logistical and financial support from NATO, then the whole U.N.-mandated Mali mission was unlikely to succeed.

"The French action was an ad-hoc measure. It's going to be a mess for a while, it depends on how quickly everyone can come on board," said Hussein Solomon, a professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa.

(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Brian Love and Catherine Bremer in Paris, Justyna Pawlak and Adrian Croft in Busssels and Louis Charbonneau in New York; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Pascal Fletcher)

Read More..

'Very happy' Bush the elder leaves hospital

WASHINGTON: Former US president George H.W. Bush was released from hospital on Monday following more than two months of treatment for bronchitis, a bacterial infection and a persistent cough.

"Mr Bush has improved to the point that he will not need any special medication when he goes home, but he will continue physical therapy," said physician Amy Mynderse.

Bush, at 88 the oldest surviving former president, was admitted to the Methodist Hospital in Houston on November 7 and released after 12 days only to be readmitted four days later when his cough flared up again.

"I am deeply grateful for the wonderful doctors and nurses at Methodist who took such good care of me," Bush said in a statement after being picked up by his wife Barbara.

"Let me add just how touched we were by the many get-well messages we received from our friends and fellow Americans. Your prayers and good wishes helped more than you know, and as I head home my only concern is that I will not be able to thank each of you for your kind words."

Bush's spokesman Jim McGrath told AFP that the former president and his wife had returned immediately to their home in west Houston where he would continue to receive "some strength training or conditioning."

Calling it a "wonderful day" for the ex-president, the spokesman said Bush had understood the need to be in hospital but was delighted to be out.

"He's not a man who is known to enjoy sitting still for too long, and as long as he didn't need to be in the hospital he wanted to get out. He's a very happy former president today," McGrath added.

No more tests were scheduled but the spokesman said they would "take these things one day at a time."

Doctors had hoped to have the elder statesman home for Christmas, but he was instead forced to spend the holiday season in the hospital, where he was joined by his wife Barbara, son Neil and grandson Pierce.

Bush, a Republican, served only one term in the White House, from 1989 to 1993, despite sending US troops to victory in the first Gulf War in which an American-led coalition expelled Saddam Hussein's invading forces from Kuwait.

Bush, a decorated World War II veteran, had earlier served in several top government posts, including as vice president to Ronald Reagan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and as US ambassador to the United Nations.

He was also chief of the US Liaison Office in China when Washington had official ties with Beijing's foe Taipei.

His son George W. Bush served two terms as president and also went to war with Iraq, this time sending US-led troops all the way to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam, whom he had wrongly accused of hoarding weapons of mass destruction.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Dell in talks with private-equity firms to go private, report says

The Dell XPS 13 ultrabook

Dell is in buyout talks with at least two private-equity firms, Bloomberg reported today.

The talks, which would take the computer hardware maker private, are still preliminary and could fall apart because the firms may not be able to line up financing or resolve how to exit the investment in the future, Bloomberg said, citing two people with knowledge of the matter. One of the people told the publication that several large banks have been contacted about financing a buyout.

A Dell spokesman told CNET that the company doesn't comment on rumor and speculation.

Dell, which has long been one of the world's largest PC makers, has been struggling of late. The company's stock has lost about a third of its value over the past year as it shifts focus away from its traditional computer market to providing business products like networking and storage. It has made many acquisitions over the past several years and has said it would continue to do so. However, there are worries about how fast those businesses are taking off.

At the same time, Dell has said it remains committed to the PC market. However, Dell and rival Hewlett-Packard have had trouble competing with upcoming Asian rivals like Lenovo and Asus. Lenovo in late 2011 surpassed Dell to become the world's second-largest provider of PCs.

The Bloomberg report today sent Dell shares soaring, recently up 13 percent to $12.30. The stock jumped so quickly after the report that it initially triggered a circuit breaker, which halted trading in the shares.

Read More..