Steven Tyler Auditions in Drag for American Idol

TV Watch

American Idol

By Steve Helling

01/31/2013 at 10:35 PM EST

Steven Tyler sings before the AFC Championship NFL football game, Jan, 22, 2012

Elise Amendola/AP

Former judge Steven Tyler made a surprise cameo on American Idol Thursday night – dressed as a woman. Calling himself Pepper LaBeija after the famous drag queen featured in the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, Tyler wore a blonde wig, snakeskin miniskirt and fake breasts that honked when squeezed. (There will be no "Dude Looks Like a Lady" jokes because, frankly, he didn't.) Looking eerily like Joan Rivers, Tyler blew kisses at the camera and reduced judge Keith Urban to hysterical laughter.

But Tyler's appearance was actually not the most over-the-top performance on Thursday's show. That distinction belonged to Zoanette Johnson, a 19-year-old Tulsa resident who performed an overblown version of "The Star Spangled Banner." It was unclear whether her audition, which featured exaggerated gestures throughout, was elaborate performance art or an authentic effort at singing. The judges looked ambivalent, too, but then unanimously (though reluctantly?) voted for her to advance to the Hollywood round.

Other odd auditions included Halie Hillburn a 26-year-old singing ventriloquist with a puppet named Oscar. He was either a bear or a dog. Whatever he was, the judges told her to lose Oscar and showcase her strong voice instead. Karl Skinner from Joplin, Mo., performed a fitful version of James Brown's "I Feel Good." His voice was pleasant, but he may be a contestant better in small doses.

There was none of the earlier drama between the judges during the show. Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj no longer interact, not even to roll their eyes when the other one speaks. It doesn't feel like polite indifference – it feels like a calculated decision to ignore each other. Either way, their lack of drama has allowed for sweeter moments to shine through.

For example: Sign language teacher Nate Tao, who was raised by deaf parents, performed a version of Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" that impressed he judges. "You're unassuming," said Randy Jackson before the panel unanimously put him through. "You looked like you were going to do my taxes."

The last contestant of the night was Kayden Stephenson, a 16-year-old battling cystic fibrosis. Looking years younger than his age – with looks reminiscent of a young Aaron Carter – he performed a nice version of Stevie Wonder's "I Wish." Minaj compared him to a "baby Michael [Jackson]," which may have been an overstatement.

In total, 45 singers from the Oklahoma auditions advanced to the next round. We only got to see five of them – which means there are surely some surprises in store when the show heads to Hollywood next week.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Asian shares retreat after China PMI, U.S. payrolls eyed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares wiped earlier gains on Friday as a tepid Chinese manufacturing report dented sentiment, leaving investors on tenterhooks ahead of U.S. nonfarm payroll data due at 1330 GMT.

China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) eased to 50.4 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday, missing market expectations for a rise and underscoring the fragility of the recovery from the economy's weakest year since 1999.

But a separate private survey showed that growth in China's giant manufacturing sector hit a two-year high in January as domestic demand strengthened, underlining hopes the nation's economic recovery is slowly gaining momentum.

"It seems new orders for exports have declined even when new orders overall rose, suggesting that infrastructure spending and other investment to spur domestic demand is needed to keep (China's) economy growing," said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.

"But it's not going to change the view about the Chinese economy recovering. The official data was just neither good nor bad."

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> slipped 0.2 percent from the morning's 0.2 percent gain.

Australian shares <.axjo> were up 0.6 percent, little changed from before the data came out, drawing support from major mining stocks which gained on a jump in iron ore prices.

But the resources-linked Australian dollar fell 0.2 percent to session lows around $1.040.

With Chinese data news done for the day, investors turned to the U.S. nonfarm payrolls report, which is forecast to show a rise of 160,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to remain steady at 7.8 percent.

U.S. stocks edged lower on Thursday on caution ahead of the jobs report, but the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> posted its best monthly gain since October 2011 with a 5.1 percent rise and the best January showing since 1997.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> outperformed its Asian peers with a 0.2 percent rise, supported by the yen's decline earlier to fresh lows against major currencies.<.t/>

The dollar steadied around 91.75 yen, having earlier risen as high as 91.87, a level not seen since June 2010. The euro touched 125.05, its highest since May 2010. In January alone, the common currency surged nearly 9 percent on the yen, while the dollar was up more than 5 percent.

Oil and copper prices were higher and the euro remained bid against the dollar, reflecting that jitters was not spreading beyond Asian equities as sentiment has recently been underpinned by falling stress in the euro zone and generally improved data globally.

The euro added 0.3 percent to $1.3613 to the dollar, after earlier reaching a fresh 14-month high of $1.3624. The common currency's strength has pushed the dollar index to a one-month low of 79.107 <.dxy> on Friday.

"The euro revival looks set to continue for some time, as investors return to euro zone bond markets, content with the combination of the European Central Bank backstop for sovereign risk and low inflation danger due to lack of economic growth. The dollar bloc looks to be a key loser in the portfolio reallocation back into EUR," Westpac bank said in a note.

U.S. crude futures inched up 0.1 percent to $97.56 a barrel while Brent rose 0.3 percent to $115.90.

London copper added 0.5 percent to $8,203 a tonne.

Earlier, a private survey showed South Korea's manufacturing sector activity marginally shrank in January after a small rise in December but new export orders grew for the first time in eight months.

Manufacturing purchasing managers' indexes from the United States and the euro zone, as well as the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index, are also due later in the session.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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India Ink: At Jaipur Lit Fest, Delhi Gang Rape Dominated Conversations

The recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival was the scene of some dissent during free-wheeling debates, but one thing virtually everyone agreed on was the need to pay more attention to women’s rights.

The national outrage over the gang rape of a young woman in Delhi reverberated through many of the events during the five-day festival, which ended Monday, as participants discussed gender issues through the lens of theology, philosophy, cinema and, of course, literature. Disagreements on the definition of rape and the punishment for rape mirrored conversations happening around the country.

The tone was set by the rousing opening speech by Mahasweta Devi, the octogenarian Bengali writer and social activist, in which she reflected upon her life and her struggle to create an identity in a patriarchal society.

During a question-and-answer session, an audience member asked Ms. Devi if the rape of a tribal or a low-caste woman would have garnered the same degree of national attention. She dismissed the question, saying, “I don’t know why have you asked this question at all” because the issue surpassed the issue of caste or religion.

“We should protest against all inhuman action,” she said.

Michael Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard University, led an interactive audience session about philosophical questions raised by sexual violence. He posed a range of questions, exploring the moral status of rape as opposed to other forms of violent physical assault, and asking whether couples should have the right to prenatal sex selection and whether that led to violence against women.

During this session, one male audience member said that he puts the women in his life on pedestals. A young woman responded, “I’m not a child; I don’t need to be taken care of. The protection is demeaning to me.”

The Delhi rape case featured repeatedly in discussions even in sessions that weren’t specifically addressing the subject of sexual violence.

For instance, at a session titled “’The Vanishing Present: Post Colonial Critiques,” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a postmodern and postcolonial theorist from Columbia University, spoke about how class-based education had caused people to internalize the culture of rape and corruption. When asked how one can imagine a victim or perpetrator of a crime in human terms, she stressed the importance of reading and learning new languages in order to create understanding.

“Reading – that is hanging out in someone else’s space – makes you move out of yourself, and that is practice for the ethical,” Ms. Spivak said.

In an interview with India Ink, she also said that along the Indian frontiers in the states of Kashmir or Assam, rape was not unusual. “It comes to the metropolis, and we started jumping — that is also a question.”

Pointing to the youth protests that were held across India in the wake of the gang rape, she said that those demonstrations were an urban phenomenon and that “urban radicals are not the only young” in the country.

There was “no outrage, but panic,” among people, she said, noting how women were being asked not to stay out late. “What is that — blaming the victim?” she exclaimed.

In a session that discussed the role of women in cinema, Shabana Azmi, a veteran Bollywood actress, urged the film fraternity to practice some introspection. Lewd language and voyeuristic scenes in contemporary movies had reduced a woman’s body to an object of a man’s gaze, she said.

She advised young actresses to make informed choices about the roles they selected and to take small steps like asking movie directors to depict them as working women.

There was a resounding consensus among the festival’s participants that women themselves had to be the agents of the change they wanted in society.

During the session “Women on the Path,” which explored the role of women in Buddhism, panelists said that even Buddha was hesitant to ordain women at first. It is said that he lamented the presence of women, saying that without women, his dharma would have lasted a 1,000 years.

Citing her own experiences, Ani Choying, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who is also a singer and writer, said that women were treated as subordinate and were not allowed to lead religious ceremonies. And it was only after she voiced dissent against the practice was she allowed to lead. Her message to the audience was: “Ask for your rights.”

A more vociferous iteration of that advice came during a panel discussion in Hindi that challenged the notion of suppressing a woman’s right to raise questions in the Indian society. Moderated by a man, the session was led by female writers and poets, including Preeta Bhargava, who earned the distinction of being the first female jail officer of Rajasthan state.

“Women need to aggressively demand their rights if they are not given to them,” said Lata Sharma, a lecturer who has published extensively in Hindi.

The feminist debate at the literary festival culminated in the session titled “Imagine: Resistance, Protest, Assertion.” Female authors read aloud selected portions of published works, in some cases their own and in others that of other writers, with each narrative highlighting the struggle of women in society.

Aminatta Forna, a Commonwealth prize winner from Sierra Leone, quoted from the Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which explores the theme of women’s subjugation. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the Pakistani documentary filmmaker who won an Oscar for “Saving Face,” read poetry written by an Afghan woman who was beaten to death by her husband. Nirupama Dutt, who writes in Punjabi and English, recited her own poem, written during the days of militancy in Punjab, about a group of women enjoying an evening drink.

Urvashi Butalia, a writer and co-publisher of India’s first feminist publishing house, read a poignant first-person account by Sohaila Abdulali, a gang rape survivor. Ambai, a Tamil feminist writer also on the panel, read an excerpt from her novel that described protests in Mumbai after the rape of a woman.

A concluding performance by the artist Maya Krishna Rao numbed the audience. Through a powerful monologue, she urged that women be given their basic rights: freedom to walk the streets without being harassed and access to police officers who will listen and politicians who will act.

“I want to walk the streets, sit on a bus, lie in a park,” she chanted. “I try not to be afraid of the dark.”

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Sony ignites talk of PS4 unveil with Playstation meeting

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp will this month host its first major Playstation meeting in two years, sparking a flare-up in online speculation the Japanese consumer electronics giant is preparing to unveil the successor to its 70 million-selling PS3 games console.

Sony declined to say whether it would release a new product at the meeting in New York on February 20. “We will be talking about the Playstation business,” spokesman Masaki Tsukakoshi said on Friday. A Google search for “Sony Feb 20 Playstation” returned more than 7 million hits.

The last time Sony held a Playstation event, in January 2011, it presented a protoype of its handheld Vita console. Before that, it convened a gathering in 2005 two months after it first demonstrated the PS3 concept. A meeting in 1999 revealed designs for the PS2.

It has been more than six years since Sony launched the PS3 home console, a longer gap than between it and its PS2 predecessor, adding to the anticipation that it will soon disclose its next gaming concept.

Since Sony’s last home console launch, the games market has been transformed by the boom in smartphones and tablet computers that have wooed players with free or cheap games.

Sony and other console makers Nintendo Co Ltd and Microsoft Corp now have to contend with competition from hand-held devices made by Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics and others.

Analysts expect that tablets and other mobile devices will match the power and graphics of today’s games consoles within a few years.

Struggling under competitive pressure, Nintendo on Wednesday cut its sales target for the Wii U, successor to its 100 million-selling Wii, to 4 million machines by the end of March from its launch in November, compared with an earlier forecast for 5.5 million.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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American Idol Discovers Big Talent in Texas and California

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

01/30/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

It's the final week of American Idol's cross-country talent search. And as the judges head to San Antonio, Texas, a surprising lack of diva-on-diva trash-talking allowed the focus to fall squarely on the contestants who seemed like they could be serious contenders this season (or at least keep things interesting).

Case in point: 19-year-old Mississippi native Papa Peachez who described himself as "a cute little white boy and ... so much more than that. I'm really just a big black woman trapped in a trapped in a little boy's body."

After Peachez belted out an original song, Nicki Minaj immediately showed him some love. "I think that you are a superstar," she said. The other judges weren't as convinced, but Minaj managed to twist enough arms (not literally) to get the boy through to Hollywood.

Peachez is going to have some steep competition from another 19-year-old – San Antonio's Adam Sanders, who blew away the judges with his rendition of the Etta James classic "At Last."

"You shocked us all, Dawg," Randy Jackson told the singer before giving him a standing ovation along with Mariah Carey and Keith Urban.

Other notables from the Lone Star State included an Arkansas beauty queen, a vibrant mariachi singer and 16-year-old Senni M'mairura, whose rendition of the Jackson 5's "Who's Lovin You" drew raves and left Minaj sputtering about other things that apparently make her feel good: "Candy canes, strawberries, whip cream, rainbows and sunny skies," she said.

Next the judges hopped aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif., to see what the West Coast had to offer. That's where Jesaiah Baer, 16, had to contend with an impromptu fire drill but still managed to blaze her way to Hollywood.

Then, after an emotional number from Iraq war veteran Matt Farmer, the episode ended with two powerful stories from young, would-be Idols who've overcome bullying.

Briana Oakley, 16, had to change schools after her classmates turned on her when she found success on a televised talent show. But she won the judges over with her performance Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain."

And 21-year-old Matheus Fernandes, who was quite a bit shorter than everyone else in the room, broke down in tears after getting praise from the judges for his version of "A Change Is Gonna Come."

"To me," Randy told him, "You're 10 feet tall."

Thursday American Idol heads to Oklahoma – and next week to Hollywood.

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.

All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.

Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.

"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.

"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.

"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.

But some are pretty interesting.

Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.

That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.

Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:

—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.

—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.

—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.

—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.

—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.

Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.

"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.

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Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Asian shares off highs, Fed's stance underpins markets

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares took a breather from recent rallies on Thursday though sentiment was underpinned by the U.S. Federal Reserve's pledge to retain its stimulus policy and on signs of stabilization in the euro zone.

Positive economic reports from Asia failed to lift markets as investors continued to assess regional earnings results and ahead of key data such as China's official manufacturing PMI and U.S. monthly nonfarm payrolls on Friday.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.4 percent after rising 1.3 percent over the past two sessions to nearly an 18-month high. The index was set for a monthly gain of about 2.4 percent.

Australian shares <.axjo> eased 0.4 percent, taking a breather from their 10-day winning streak, the longest in more than nine years, which hoisted local shares to 21-month highs.

"Certainly 2013 has started with an air of optimism. U.S. politicians show some willingness to deal with problems, no fresh issues have emerged in Europe and the Chinese economy is exhibiting firmer growth. Volatility has receded with investors keen to put cash to work in other asset classes," said Craig James, a strategist at CommSec in Sydney.

Southeast Asian stock markets were generally softer but remained near their highs. The Philippines <.psi> hit a record high for the third day running on Wednesday and Thailand's <.seti> market surged to a more than 18-year high on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept in place its monthly $85 billion bond-buying stimulus plan, arguing the support was needed to lower unemployment.

Underscoring the Fed's cautious view, data on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter. Still, a lot of that weakness came from a plunge in defense spending, suggesting the underlying fundamentals were not as bad as the headline figures indicated.

In Asia, the data on Thursday provided cause for optimism. Taiwan raised its economic growth forecast for 2013, after the fourth quarter expanded faster than expected and posted its best growth in five quarters on improved demand for the island's electronics exports and stronger consumption.

"Taiwan's economic growth will be better this year as Europe's outlook is becoming positive, it will have a bigger rebound as an export-oriented economy," said Scott Chen, economist at Sinopac Commercial Bank in Taipei.

The Philippines said on Thursday its economy grew 1.5 percent in the December quarter from the previous three months, better than market forecasts.

YEN OFF LOWS

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> shed 0.6 percent after soaring 2.3 percent to a 33-month high the day before, taking its cue from the yen firming from fresh lows hit on Wednesday. <.t/>

"It's too early to take profit," a trader at a foreign bank said. "People should look for names which are still undervalued, still haven't moved (in line with the rally in the Nikkei) and could outperform."

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's approach of revitalizing Japan's economy through an aggressive mix of fiscal steps and monetary easing is expected to keep the yen on a weakening path.

The dollar eased 0.3 percent to 90.81 yen after reaching 91.41 yen on Wednesday, its highest since June 2010. The euro also fell 0.3 percent to 123.24 yen, after hitting 123.87 on Wednesday, its peak since May 2010.

Japan's December factory output rose at the fastest pace in a year and a half and firms expect further gains, raising hopes that stabilizing global demand and exports will help pull the economy from its slump.

EUROPE IMPROVING

The euro held near a 14-month high of $1.3588 scaled on Wednesday.

Reports from the euro zone on Wednesday underscored views that the debt crisis-hit region may be overcoming the worst, with economic sentiment improving more than expected across all sectors in January and a gauge for the phase of the business cycle also rising this month.

"The rise in the EUR is a sign of the success of the European Central Bank on the credit front, which matters far more than a short term rise in EUR/USD. Money is flowing into Europe and from North back to the South or from ECB funding to money market funding," Sebastien Galy, strategist at Societe Generale, said in a note to clients.

Spot gold hovered near its one-week high of $1,683.39 an ounce reached on Wednesday.

U.S. crude futures steadied around $97.93 a barrel and Brent crude was up 0.2 percent to $115.09.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau in Tokyo and Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Shri Navaratnam)

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Israeli Airstrike in Syria Targets Arms Convoy, U.S. Says

Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

In East Jerusalem, Israelis distributed gas masks on Wednesday as worries about security spread. More Photos »

JERUSALEM — Israeli warplanes carried out a strike deep inside Syrian territory on Wednesday, American officials reported, saying they believed the target was a convoy carrying sophisticated antiaircraft weaponry on the outskirts of Damascus that was intended for the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon.

The American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel had notified the United States about the attack, which the Syrian government condemned as an act of “arrogance and aggression.” Israel’s move demonstrated its determination to ensure that Hezbollah — its arch foe in the north — is unable to take advantage of the chaos in Syria to bolster its arsenal significantly.

The predawn strike was the first time in more than five years that Israel’s air force had attacked a target in Syria. While there was no expectation that the beleaguered Assad government had an interest in retaliating, the strike raised concerns that the Syrian civil war had continued to spread beyond its border.

In a statement, the Syrian military denied that a convoy had been struck. It said the attack had hit a scientific research facility in the Damascus suburbs that was used to improve Syria’s defenses, and called the attack “a flagrant breach of Syrian sovereignty and airspace.”

Israeli officials would not confirm the airstrike, a common tactic here. But it came after days of intense security consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the possible movement of chemical and other weapons around Syria, and warnings that Jerusalem would take action to thwart any possible transfers to Hezbollah.

Thousands of Israelis have crowded gas-mask distribution centers over the last two days. On Sunday, Israel deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system in the north, near Haifa, which was heavily bombed during the 2006 war with Lebanon.

Syria and Israel are technically in a state of war but have long maintained an uneasy peace along their decades-old armistice line. Israel has mostly watched warily and tried to stay out of Syria’s raging civil war, fearful of provoking a wider confrontation with Iran and Hezbollah. In November, however, after several mortars fell on Israel’s side of the border, its tanks struck a Syrian artillery unit.

Several analysts said that despite the increased tensions, they thought the likelihood of retaliation for the airstrike was relatively low.

“It is necessary and correct to prepare for deterioration — that scenario exists,” Danny Yatom, a former chief of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told Ynet, a news Web site. “But in my assessment, there will not be a reaction, because neither Hezbollah nor the Syrians have an interest in retaliating.”

Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, “is deep in his own troubles,” Mr. Yatom said, “and Hezbollah is making a great effort to assist him, in parallel with its efforts to obtain weapons, so they won’t want to broaden the circle of fighting.”

In the United States, the State Department and Defense Department would not comment on reports of the strike.

Russia, which has carried out a vigorous diplomatic battle to deter foreign military intervention in the Syrian conflict for more than a year, issued a statement of concern early on Thursday, describing the strikes as “an attack by Israel’s air force on objects in Syria, near Damascus.”

“If this information is confirmed, this is an unprovoked attack on the territory of a sovereign nation, which blatantly violates the U.N. charter and is unacceptable and unjustified whatever its motives,” said a statement posted on the web site of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Moscow said it would take immediate steps to clarify what had happened, and reiterated its longstanding insistence on a political solution and “the unacceptability of any kind of external intervention.”

The episode illustrated how the escalating violence in Syria, which has already killed more than 60,000, is drawing in neighboring states and threatening to destabilize the region further.

Iran has firmly allied itself with Mr. Assad, sending personnel from its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force to Syria and ferrying military equipment to Syria through Iraqi airspace.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Ellen Barry from Moscow; Eric Schmitt from Washington; and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Timeline: From RIM to BlackBerry, a company in transition

(Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd has launched its new line of re-engineered BlackBerry smartphones, taking the wraps off the long-delayed devices at a series of events around the world on Wednesday.

The company used the occasion to announce that it was changing its name to BlackBerry, hoping a new brand identity will polish its tarnished image and help give it a fresh start.

The company, which has steadily lost ground in the hyper-competitive market to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc’s Android operating system, is gambling its future on the BlackBerry 10. It sees the new line as make-or-break – its best hope for a comeback in an industry it once dominated.

Here are important milestones in the company’s history:

February 1985 – Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin co-found Research In Motion as an electronics and computer science business based in Waterloo, Ontario, the Canadian university city where Lazaridis studied.

1989 – RIM develops a network gateway later introduced as RIMGate, a predecessor to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

1992 – Jim Balsillie joins RIM as co-CEO, mortgaging his house and investing $ 250,000.

1994 – RIM launches a handheld point-of-sale card reader, which verifies debit and credit transactions directly to a bank.

1995 – RIM builds its own radio modem for wireless email.

1997 – RIM lists on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising more than $ 115 million.

January 1999 – RIM launches rebranded BlackBerry email service across North America, offering the first wireless device to synch with corporate email systems. Sales jump 80 percent to $ 85 million. The next year revenue reaches $ 221 million.

Late 1999 – The company lists its shares on Nasdaq, raising another $ 250 million. RIM introduces BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld, combining email, wireless data networks and a traditional “Qwerty” keyboard. Demand explodes.

Sept 11, 2001 – People trapped in New York’s World Trade Center use their BlackBerrys to communicate after cellular networks collapse.

November 2001 – NTP sues RIM for patent infringement, the start of a five-year legal tussle. Late in the battle, the U.S. Justice Department says a threatened BlackBerry shutdown would damage the public interest due to the government’s reliance on the system.

2002 – RIM adds voice transmission to the BlackBerry.

2004 – RIM’s subscriber base surpasses 1 million BlackBerry users.

March 2006 – RIM pays $ 612 million to settle NTP dispute.

January 2007 – Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs unveils first iPhone, and the company launches the BlackBerry competitor in June. Time magazine honors the phone as Invention of the Year.

October 2007 – RIM passes 10 million subscribers. News of a China distribution deal boosts shares, making it for a time the most valuable company in Canada by market capitalization.

November 2007 – Google’s open source Android platform is unveiled. It launches in October 2008.

May 2008 – RIM introduces the Bold, a major redesign and still one of its top-tier products. The new model matches the resolution, but not size, of Apple’s iPhone screen.

July 2008 – Apple opens App Store in 22 countries and releases iPhone 3G, preloaded with App Store support.

November 2008 – RIM launches BlackBerry Storm, its first touchscreen and keyboard-less device. The screen uses a tactile feedback technology known as haptics, allowing a user to click down to select actions. The model bombs.

April 2009 – RIM’s App World goes live.

June 2009 – Apple announces and releases iPhone 3GS.

June 2010 – RIM pays C$ 200 million for QNX Software Systems, getting an industrial-strength operating system used in massive Internet routers, nuclear power plants and car infotainment systems. In same month Apple launches iPhone 4.

August 2010 – RIM launches BlackBerry Torch, a touchscreen phone with slide-out keyboard and improved web browser.

Sept 27, 2010 – RIM announces the PlayBook tablet, running on a version of the QNX system.

December 2010 – RIM acquires user interface company The Astonishing Tribe.

February 2011 – Nokia, the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume, abandons its Symbian operating system to form alliance with Microsoft Corp.

March 2, 2011 – Apple unveils iPad 2 and ships it later in the same month.

April 19, 2011 – RIM launches PlayBook in United States and Canada. Early reviews pan the tablet for lacking core BlackBerry functions such as email and organizer functions. The company says it plans to add them in February 2012.

April 28, 2011 – RIM slashes an already dismal financial forecast for current quarter but maintains a full-year earnings outlook of $ 7.50 a share.

June 16, 2011 – RIM misses its lowered quarterly revenue target, gives more limp forecasts and resets the full-year outlook to between $ 5.25 and $ 6 a share. It says it will slash more than 10 percent of its workforce and buy back stock.

July 12, 2011 – Executives deflect criticism at annual general meeting after an activist shareholder withdrew a motion to force co-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie to relinquish their other shared role as board chairmen.

Sept 6, 2011 – A second activist shareholder asks the board to wrest control from Lazaridis and Balsillie and consider RIM putting itself up for sale or spinning off units.

Sept 15, 2011 – RIM reports another poor quarter including a sharp drop in phone and tablet shipments. It points to the low end of latest full year earnings outlook.

Oct 10-13, 2011 – Millions of BlackBerry users on five continents are left without email, Internet and instant messaging service by a massive failure of RIM’s infrastructure.

Nov 29, 2011 – In an acknowledgement of its slipping grip on the corporate sector, RIM offers to manage rival devices including Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Dec 2, 2011 – The company books a huge writedown on PlayBook inventory, which it is discounting heavily to provoke sales.

Dec 15, 2011 – RIM delays its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012 and gives tepid short-term outlook. The co-CEOs agree to an immediate pay cut to $ 1 each.

Jan 22, 2012 – RIM says Lazaridis and Balsillie are stepping down from their shared roles as chief executives and chairmen roles they share. The company appoints Thorstein Heins as CEO and Barbara Stymiest as chair of the board.

March 29, 2012 – Heins promises a strategic overhaul as RIM reports a slump in BlackBerry shipments and says RIM will no longer issue financial forecasts.

May 29, 2012 – RIM says it has hired bankers to assist with a strategic review and warns that it will likely report a fiscal first-quarter operating loss.

June 28, 2012 – RIM delays BlackBerry 10 again, putting off the launch to early 2013.

Sept 24, 2012 – RIM’s Toronto-listed stock touches C$ 6.10, its lowest level in nearly a decade.

Sept 27, 2012 – RIM surprises investors with a narrower-than-expected loss and boosts its cash reserves, sparking a rally that will extend into late December.

Nov 12, 2012 – RIM says it will launch BlackBerry 10 on January 30.

Dec 21, 2012 – RIM shares plunge more than 20 percent on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on a business that has set the company apart from its competitors.

Jan 30, 2013 – Heins formally unveils the BlackBerry 10 at a glitzy launch event in New York, with simultaneous gatherings in other cities around the world.

In conjunction with the launch, Heins announces that the company is changing its name to BlackBerry.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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