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..

British music retailer HMV enters administration

LONDON: Iconic British music retailer HMV announced on Monday that it will appoint an administrator, raising fears of more than 4,000 job losses.

Audit and consulting firm Deloitte will manage the struggling chain, the last major music retailer on the British high-street, as it seeks to attract possible buyers.

"The board regrets to announce that it has been unable to reach a position where it feels able to continue to trade outside of insolvency protection," said a statement issued Monday.

Administration is the process whereby a troubled company calls upon independent expert financial help in an attempt to remain operational.

HMV added that the board "understand that it is the intention of the administrators, once appointed, to continue to trade whilst they seek a purchaser for the business".

The 92-year-old institution employs around 4,350 staff, but has struggled to meet the challenge of online retailing and digital downloading and has been teetering on the brink for many months.

"The problem they have is their core product categories are disappearing, and that's a very hard thing to fight," said analyst Kate Calvert of Seymour Pierce brokers.

The company, which also operates in Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore, announced in December that it was in danger of breaching bank loan arrangements, and its shares on the London Stock Exchange were suspended on Monday.

It has huge debts and last month reported sales were down 13.5 per cent, leading to a crash in the share price that left the company valued at just over £5 million.

It launched a huge, month-long sale on Saturday offering 25 per cent off a huge range of products to boost sales, but even that was not enough to keep the administrators from the door.

The first HMV store opened on London's Oxford Street in 1921 under the ownership of the Gramophone Company, which endowed it with its legendary trademark, the image of a dog listening to a gramophone -- His Master's Voice.

It became part of music history in 1962 when Brian Epstein cut a demo for The Beatles in the shop studio, which led to the Fab Four signing with EMI, the record label that owned HMV until 1996.

It is the latest British retailer to fall into administration.

Photography chain Jessops announced last week it had called in outside help, while retail chain Comet collapsed into administration late last year and shut its doors for the last time in December.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz remembered

Monday's CNET Update:

Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz remembered

Stories from today's tech news roundup:

- Internet activist Aaron Swartz, 26, committed suicide. He faced $4 million in fines and 50 years in prison for chargest hat he stole millions of academic papers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from JSTOR. In the wake of his death, MIT is conducting an investigation of the school's role in the events before he took his life. Researchers have paid tribute to Swartz by posting links to copyright-protected papers on Twitter, to honor his campaign for open access to documents on the Internet.

- Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones have crossed the 100 million sales mark. The first model launched in May 2010.

- Apple is cutting back on screen orders for the iPhone 5, possibly due to weak demand, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

- Marketing agencies are seeing the iPhone slipping in popularity with teenager opinion surveys, according to Forbes.

- Audiobooks.com is ending its unlimited subscription plan of $25 a month. Instead, it's moving to a plan similar to Audible, where $15 a month gets you one audio book, and $23 offers two books for the month.

Watch CNET Update in the video above, or subscribe to the podcast via the links below.

Subscribe:

iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)

RSS (HD) | RSS (SD) | RSS (HQ)

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

Lance Armstrong to "speak candidly" to Oprah Winfrey

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."

Play Video

Anti-doping chief: Armstrong bullied witnesses

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..

Syria war envelops region in "staggering" crisis: aid agency

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's civil war is unleashing a "staggering humanitarian crisis" on the Middle East as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee violence including gang rape, an international aid agency said on Monday.

Opposition activists said an air strike on rebel-held territory southwest of Damascus killed 20 people, including women and children, adding to the more than 60,000 people estimated to have been killed in the 21-month-old conflict.

Over 600,000 Syrians have fled abroad - many to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan - as violence has spread and international efforts to find a political solution have sagged.

Refugees interviewed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) cited sexual violence as a major reason they fled the country, the New York-based organization said in a 23-page report on the crisis published on Monday.

Gang rapes often happened in front of family members and women had been kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed, it said.

"After decades of working in war and disaster zones, the IRC knows that women and girls suffer physical and sexual violence in every conflict. Syria is no exception," the group added.

Rebels and government forces have both been accused of human rights abuses during the conflict, which began with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.

The unrest turned violent after government forces fired on demonstrators and has since become a full-scale civil war.

Fierce winter weather has worsened the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The IRC urged donors to step up planning and funding in the expectation that more Syrians will flee.

"Nearly two years into Syria's civil war, the region faces a staggering humanitarian disaster," the IRC report said.

AIR POWER

Despite advancing in Syria's north and east and winning support from regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Syrian rebels have been unable to break a military stalemate with government forces elsewhere.

They have struggled to counter government air power in particular, making it hard for them to take and hold territory crucial to Assad's grip on power, including major cities.

An activist in Moadamiyeh, a rebel-held town southwest of Damascus, said an air strike there killed 20 people on Monday.

Activist video footage showed images of the limp body of a boy being pulled out from broken concrete, his back covered in dust and his front in blood.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said at least 13 people had died in the air raid but the toll was likely to rise.

Syrian state television said "terrorists" - its word for rebels - had fired a mortar from the Damascus suburb of Daraya on a civilian building in Moadamiyeh, killing women and children.

The reports could not be independently verified because of government restrictions on independent media in Syria.

Syrian warplanes also bombarded the strategic Taftanaz air base that rebels seized last week, the Observatory said.

In another sign of escalating bloodshed, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence that government forces had used multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver Egyptian-made cluster munitions in recent attacks.

"Syria is escalating and expanding its use of cluster munitions, despite international condemnation of its embrace of this banned weapon," it said.

DEADLOCK

Syria's rising death toll has brought international intervention no closer. The United States and Russia have been deadlocked over how to resolve the crisis.

Moscow - which has continued to back its long-standing ally and arms client Assad - urged the opposition on Sunday to make its own proposals in response to a speech by Assad a week ago.

The speech, which offered no concessions, was criticized by the United Nations and United States. Syrian rebels described it as a renewed declaration of war.

Talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva on Friday failed to produce a breakthrough.

As diplomatic efforts have stalled, the conflict has continued to draw in Syria's neighbors.

A mortar round apparently fired from Syria crashed in a field in Turkey overnight close to a refugee camp housing thousands of Syrians along the border, Turkish state media said.

NATO troops have begun deploying Patriot defense missiles in Turkey against a potential attack from its southern neighbor. The missiles are expected to be operational by the end of the month. Turkey is a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels.

NATO said Syrian government forces had launched a short-range, Scud-style ballistic missile on Sunday, bringing to more than 20 the number launched in the past month.

The missiles, apparently fired against opposition targets, landed in Syrian territory, mostly in northern Syria, a NATO spokeswoman said in Brussels, but some of the missiles landed "quite close" to the Turkish frontier.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Read More..

Pilgrims flock to the Ganges for world's biggest festival

ALLAHABAD: Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims led by naked ash-covered holy men begin entering the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world's biggest religious festival.

The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million Hindus gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy waters, believed to cleanse sins and bestow blessings.

At dawn on Monday at a time chosen by astrologers as auspicious, hundreds of gurus, some brandishing swords and tridents, will run into the swirling and freezing waters for the first bath, signalling the start of events.

Assorted holymen, seers and self-proclaimed saints from all over the country have assembled for a colourful spectacle that offers a rare glimpse of the dizzying variety of Indian spiritualism.

"Our biggest wish is that there is peace and that people should look after each other," one Naga Sadhu, a devout, fierce and famously nude sect of followers of the Hindu god Shiva, told AFP.

For most, however, attending the Kumbh Mela is a religious holiday enjoyed in an almost carnival atmosphere, where prayers and blessings are offered and sought alongside family or friends camping together at the vast festival site.

"You feel somewhat connected to somebody who is there above, and that's what it's all about," Mayank Pandey, a 35-year-old computer science professor, explained to AFP.

The Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years in Allahabad in northern Uttar Pradesh state, with smaller but similar events every three years in other locations around India.

It has its origins in Hindu mythology, which tells how a few drops of the nectar of immortality fell on the four places that host the festival -- Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.

For men like Ram Krishna Verma, a 42-year-old farmer from the state of Chattisgarh who has travelled 700 kilometres, it is a time of religious duty as he has come to scatter the ashes of his late mother.

"She died two months ago," he told AFP. "This is the final resting place."

The "Mother Ganges" is worshipped as a god and is seen as both the giver and taker of life. Most devotees dunk their heads under the water, some drink it and others bottle it and take it home as a gift.

"Those who are poor will become rich and those who don't have children will get children," explained Bhim Sen, a 61-year-old farmer from southern India. "I pray to the Ganges that my wishes will become fulfilled."

Police expect 250,000 people on Monday with 20 million anticipated on February 15, the most auspicious day. Overall, organisers are counting on about 100 million coming, the same number as in 2001.

The management of the festival requires a monumental effort -- and a budget of 16 trillion rupees (US$290 million) -- but officials say everything is in place for a safe and successful event.

Top state police officer Arun Kumar said the biggest concern was crowd control and the 12,000 officers on duty would be monitoring to guard against stampedes -- a frequent and deadly occurrence at Indian religious festivals.

"We will be measuring the pressures in the crowd," Kumar, who is in charge of law and order, told AFP on Sunday. "We are totally prepared to handle this Mela."

Organisers have set up 35,000 toilets, 14 medical centres, 22,000 street lights, 150 kilometres of temporary roads, 18 bridges, and new sewage facilities.

Nearly 7,000 buses as well as hundreds of special trains are expected to ferry people to and from Allahabad where the heavily polluted Yamuna river flows into the equally dirty Ganges.

Despite its important role in Hinduism, the Ganges is tainted by industry and the settlements along its banks, which quickly turn the clear waters from the Himalayas into a murky, frothy brown downstream.

Local authorities have cracked down on untreated effluent from nearby factories and new drainage facilities in Allahabad have cut the immediate flow of raw sewage.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

MIT to conduct internal probe in wake of Aaron Swartz's suicide

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today it will conduct an internal investigation of the university's role in the circumstances that led to the suicide Friday of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Swartz, 26, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. Authorities claimed he broke into a restricted-access computer wiring closet at MIT and accessed that network without authorization.

Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who championed open access to documents on the Internet, faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted.

In a statement released today, MIT President L. Rafael Reif offered his condolences, saying that the school's community was "extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many."

"Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT," Reif said. "I have asked professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it."

Critics of the prosecutors in the case say the feds were unfairly trying to make an example out of Swartz.

"Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy," Swartz's family said in a statement released yesterday. "It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death."

CNET has contacted the U.S. Attorney's office for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif's letter:

To the members of the MIT community:

Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism.

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron's death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support.

With sorrow and deep sympathy,

L. Rafael Reif

Read More..

Mubarak retrial ordered by Egypt appeals court

CAIRO A Cairo appeals court on Sunday overturned Hosni Mubarak's life sentence and ordered a retrial of the former Egyptian president for failing to prevent the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled his regime.

The ruling put the spotlight back on the highly divisive issue of justice for the former leader - and his top security officers - in a country has been more focused on the political and economic turmoil that has engulfed the country for the past two years.

45 Photos

Hosni Mubarak

Mubarak, who is currently being held in a military hospital, will not walk free with Sunday's court decision -- he will remain in custody while under investigation in an unrelated case. The 84-year-old ex-president was reported last year to have been close to death, but his current state of health is unknown.

A small crowd of Mubarak loyalists in the courtroom erupted with applause and cheers after the ruling was read out. Holding portraits of the former president aloft, they broke into chants of "Long live justice." Another jubilant crowd later gathered outside the Nile-side hospital where Mubarak is being held in the Cairo district of Maadi, where they passed out candies to pedestrians and motorists.

The relatively small crowds paled in comparison to the immediate reaction to his conviction and sentencing in June, when thousands took to the streets, some in celebration and others in anger that he escaped the death penalty. Sunday's muted reaction could indicate that the fate of Egypt's ruler of nearly three decades may have in some ways been reduced to a political footnote in a country sagging under the weight of a crippling economic crisis and anxious over its future direction.

The court did not provide the reasoning for its ruling, but was expected to do so later. No date has been set for the retrial.

The ruling in favor of the appeal, however, had been widely expected. When Mubarak was convicted and handed a life sentence in June, that trial's presiding judge criticized the prosecution's case, saying it lacked concrete evidence and that nothing that it presented to the court proved that the protesters were killed by the police.

Mubarak's defense lawyers had argued that the former president did not know of the killings or realize the extent of the street protests. But an Egyptian fact-finding mission recently determined that he watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed at his palace.

The mission's report could hold both political opportunities and dangers for Mubarak's successor, President Mohammed Morsi of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. A new Mubarak trial would be popular, since many Egyptians were angered he was convicted for failing to stop the killings, rather than ordering the crackdown that killed nearly 900 people.

But the report also implicates the military and security officials in the protesters' deaths. Any move to prosecute them could spark a backlash from the powerful police and others who still hold positions under Morsi's Islamist government at a time when the nation's new leader is struggling to assert his authority over a nation reeling from political upheaval.

In a retrial, the prosecution has the right to present new evidence, such as that reportedly unearthed by the fact-finding mission, which could lead the court to convict Mubarak of ordering the crackdown.

If convicted, Mubarak could face a life sentence or have it reduced. Under Egyptian law, a defendant cannot face a harsher sentence in a retrial, meaning the former leader cannot face the death penalty.

A new trial for Mubarak could further unsettle the nation at a perilous time.

1/2

Read More..