iPad mini supply finally catching up with demand







Like other new mobile products Apple (AAPL) has launched in recent years, the company’s iPad mini has been in short supply ever since it was released this past November. The sleek device added a new, lower price point to Apple’s tablet portfolio and some analysts believe it will soon be more popular than Apple’s full-size iPad. While demand remained strong through the holidays, Apple managed to improve iPad mini supply and get shipping times for new orders placed in Apple’s online store ahead of the holidays down to 1 week. Now, shipping quotes are down to 1-3 business days, marking the best turnaround time Apple has seen since launching the new device. BGR reviewed the iPad mini last November and called it Apple’s best tablet yet.


[More from BGR: iOS 6.1 untethered jailbreak now available for download, compatible with iPhone 5 and iPad mini]






This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: iPad mini supply finally catching up with demand
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/ipad-mini-supply-finally-catching-up-with-demand/
Link To Post : iPad mini supply finally catching up with demand
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Little House on the Prairie's Mary Ingalls Did Not Have Scarlet Fever, Researchers Say















02/05/2013 at 09:45 AM EST







Little House on the Prairie



Think you know everything about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series?

Think again.

Readers of the beloved series will remember how Wilder's older sister Mary went blind as a result of scarlet fever. But a new study published in Pediatrics, the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has revealed the cause of Mary's blindness was actually meningoencephalitis – a disease similar to meningitis.

Over the course of 10 years, Dr. Beth Tarini and a team of researchers studied papers and letters written by Wilder, newspaper articles about Mary's illness and data on blindness and infectious disease in the late 19th century, CNN reports.

Tarini discovered that in Pioneer Girl, Wilder's unpublished memoir, there is no reference to Mary contracting scarlet fever before going blind. "She never says scarlet fever. She never says rash," Tarini told CNN.

Then Tarini unveiled what would lead her to discover a different diagnosis. In a letter Wilder wrote to her daughter, Rose, she referenced Mary suffering from "some sort of spinal sickness." The letter goes on to mention that Mary was told by specialist in Chicago that the "nerves of her eyes were paralyzed and there was no hope."

But why would Wilder write that her sister suffered from scarlet fever? Researchers think perhaps Wilder and her editors felt the illness would be more relatable to her readers.

Read More..

Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


Read More..

Wall Street opens lower after recent gains


NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday, dipping after a recent rally that took the S&P 500 to a five-year high and the Dow to 14,000 for the first time since October 2007.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 58.67 points, or 0.42 percent, at 13,951.12. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 6.84 points, or 0.45 percent, at 1,506.33. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 18.33 points, or 0.58 percent, at 3,160.77.


(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



Read More..

Mali Tuaregs seize two Islamist leaders fleeing French strikes


KIDAL, Mali (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said on Monday they had captured two senior Islamist insurgents fleeing French air strikes toward the Algerian border, and France pressed ahead with its bombing campaign against al Qaeda's Saharan desert camps.


Pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels said they had seized Mohamed Moussa Ag Mohamed, an Islamist leader who imposed harsh sharia law in the desert town of Timbuktu, and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed, believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of a French hostage by the al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA.


"We chased an Islamist convoy close to the frontier and arrested the two men the day before yesterday," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, spokesman for the MNLA, told Reuters from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. "They have been questioned and sent to Kidal."


France has deployed 3,500 ground troops, and warplanes and armored vehicles in its three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) in Mali which has broken the Islamists' 10-month grip on northern towns, where they imposed sharia law.


Paris and its international partners want to prevent the Islamists from using Mali's vast desert north as a base to launch attacks on neighboring African countries and the West.


The MNLA, which seized control of northern Mali last year only to be pushed aside by better-armed Islamist groups, regained control of its northern stronghold of Kidal last week when Islamist fighters fled French airstrikes into the nearby desert and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.


The Tuareg group says it is willing to help the French-led mission by hunting down Islamists. It has offered to hold peace talks with the government in a bid to heal wounds between Mali's restive Saharan north and the black African-dominated south.


"Until there is a peace deal, we cannot hold national elections," Ag Assaleh said, referring to interim Malian President Dioncounda Traore's plan to hold polls on July 31.


Many in the southern capital Bamako - including army leaders who blame the MNLA for executing some of their troops at the Saharan town of Aguelhoc last year - strongly reject any talks.


French special forces took the airport in Kidal on Tuesday, reaching the most northern city previously held by the Islamist alliance. Though the MNLA says it controls Kidal, a Reuters reporter in the town saw a contingent of Chadian troops - part of a U.N.-backed African mission being deployed to help retake northern Mali - backing up French special forces there.


TARGETING REBEL BASES, DEPOTS


French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said warplanes were continuing bombing raids on Islamists in Mali's far north to destroy their supply lines and flush them out of remote areas.


"The objective is to destroy their support bases, their depots because they have taken refuge in the north and north-east of the country and can only stay there in the long-term if they have the means to sustain themselves," Fabius said.


"The army is working to stop that," he told French radio.


Jets attacked rebel camps on Sunday targeting logistics bases and training camps used by the al Qaeda-linked rebels near Tessalit, close to the Algerian border.


French President Francois Hollande made a one-day trip to Mali on Saturday, promising to keep troops in the country until the job of restoring government control in the Sahel state was finished. He was welcomed as a savior by cheering Malians.


The rebels' retreat to hideouts in the remote Adrar des Ifoghas mountains - where Paris believes they are holding seven French hostages - heralds a potentially more complicated new phase of France's intervention in its former colony.


"We are still in the same war, but we're entering a new battle," said Vincent Desportes, a French former general and now associate professor at Science-Po university in Paris.


"We will look to gradually wear out and destroy the terrorists that are sheltering in the Ifoghas. It's now a war of intelligence (services), strikes and probably action by special forces in the background."


Hollande said on Saturday that Paris would withdraw its troops from Mali once the landlocked West African nation had restored sovereignty over its territory and a U.N.-backed African military force could take over from the French soldiers.


Drawn mostly from Mali's West African neighbours, this force is expected to number more than 8,000. But its deployment has been badly hampered by shortages of kit and airlift capacity and questions about who will fund the estimated $1 billion cost.


Fabius said French soldiers may soon pull back from Timbuktu. Its residents had celebrated their liberation from the Islamists, who had handed down punishments including whipping and amputation for breaking sharia law.


The rebels also smashed sacred Sufi mausoleums and destroyed or stole some 2,000 ancient manuscripts at the South African-sponsored Baba Ahmed Institute, causing international outcry.


"A withdrawal could happen very quickly," Fabius said. "We're working towards it because we have no desire to stay there for the long-term.


(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar and David Lewis in Timbuktu; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Boyle)



Read More..

Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam






NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Estonian man pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. federal court for his role in a massive Internet scam that targeted well-known websites such as iTunes, Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.


The scheme infected at least four million computers in more than 100 countries, including 500,000 in the United States, with malicious software, or malware, according to the indictment. It included a large number of computers at data centers located in New York, federal prosecutors said.






Valeri Aleksejev, 32, was the first of six Estonians and one Russian indicted in 2011 to enter a plea. They were indicted on five charges each of wire and computer intrusion. One of the defendants, Vladimir Tsastsin, was also charged with 22 counts of money laundering.


In U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday, Aleksejev pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 25 years in prison, deportation and the forfeiture of $ 7 million.


The scam had several components, including a “click-hijacking fraud” in which the malware re-routed searches by users on infected computers to sites designated by the defendants, prosecutors said in the indictment. Users of infected computers trying to access Apple Inc’s iTunes website or Netflix Inc‘s movie website, for example, instead ended up at websites of unaffiliated businesses, according to the indictment.


Another component of the scam replaced legitimate advertisements on websites operated by News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com Inc and others with advertisements that triggered payments for the defendants, prosecutors said.


The defendants reaped at least $ 14 million from the fraud, prosecutors said. However, Aleksejev’s lawyer, William Stampur, said in court on Friday that Aleksejev has no assets.


Estonian police arrested Aleksejev and the other Estonians in November 2011. One other Estonian, Anton Ivanov, has been extradited, and the extradition of the other four is pending, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. The Russian, Andrey Taame, remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.


Aleksejev told Magistrate Judge James Francis he assisted in blocking anti-virus software updates on infected computers. Francis asked Aleksejev if he knew what he was doing was illegal.


“I thought it was wrong,” Aleksejev said in broken English after a long pause. “But of course I didn’t know all the laws in the U.S.”


Francis set a tentative sentencing date of May 31 for Aleksejev.


The case is USA v. Tsastsin et al, U.S. District Court in Manhattan, No. 11-00878.


(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Dan Grebler)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/estonian-pleads-guilty-in-u-s-court-to-internet-advertising-scam/
Link To Post : Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Jenny McCarthy Gets a New Tattoo During Super Bowl Blackout















02/04/2013 at 09:50 AM EST







Jenny McCarthy (inset) and new new tattoo


Courtesy Jenny McCarthy


At least someone was productive while the Super Bowl experienced a power outage Sunday night.

Jenny McCarthy Tweeted an early Monday morning photo of a fresh tattoo that now covers the top of her left foot.

"Got a new tattoo during half time black out. So excited 2 b wearing heels on The Today Show this morning. Ouch," McCarthy, 40, posted with a photo, noting it was still painful. The tattoo features a rose with leaves and intricate vines.

McCarthy, a veteran Playboy centerfold and comedian, hosted a Super Bowl kickoff party, Leather & Laces, on Friday in New Orleans. But it was back to business this week as she continues to make press rounds, promoting her return to TV on the new The Jenny McCarthy Show, which premieres Friday on VH1.

Apparently her foot wasn't the only thing hurting as McCarthy headed over for an appearance with Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb Monday morning. She Tweeted: "Cramps on press tour. Doing Kathy lee and Hoda next. Hoping they have a heating pad and Whisky. Wait... Of course they will have Whisky."

Read More..

Somali PM says government working hard to improve after rape criticism


MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's prime minister on Sunday said the authorities will do more to protect rape victims after foreign donors and human rights groups criticised the arrests of a woman allegedly gang-raped by soldiers and a journalist who interviewed her.


The trial of an unidentified 27-year-old woman, her husband, and the freelance journalist has sparked international concerns over sexual violence and press freedom in the country.


The trio face prison terms of several years on charges including insulting a government body, making false accusations, and seeking to profit from the allegations.


Human rights groups say the trial is politically motivated, designed to cover up rampant sexual abuse of women by Somali security forces, while the U.N. and the United States have voiced concerns about the treatment of rape victims.


Recently-appointed Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid promised to reform Somali armed forces and the judiciary once the trial has concluded, acknowledging "deep-seated problems" with both institutions.


"We recognize the concerns of our international partners and we are only too aware of the enormous challenges our nation faces," Saaid said in a statement.


For two decades the Horn of Africa state has been plagued by civil war, anarchy and Islamist insurgencies. However, September's peaceful elections, the first since military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown by warlords in 1991, have been heralded as the dawn of a new era for Somalia.


The U.N.'s Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, on Saturday called for the Somali government to deal with the country's rape problems, saying the U.N. had evidence around 1,700 women were raped between January and November last year in camps for internally displaced people around Mogadishu.


Saaid, a former businessman who is married to an influential Somali peace activist, said the government has launched public campaigns designed to bring down instances of rape. However, he concedes more can be done.


"I have since urged the government in the strongest terms to be much more responsive on this question, to take proactive measures, prosecute any such crimes and provide all appropriate care to the victims," he said.


Journalism organizations and human rights groups say arresting a journalist and putting him on trial for interviewing a rape victim is an attack on media freedoms and free speech.


Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, with killings of reporters reaching an all-time high in 2012 when 18 media workers were killed, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists.


But Saaid stressed the government's support for press freedom, saying "journalists perform a critical role and we want them to be able to work without fear or favor".


Saaid said the government will soon form a new and independent task force on human rights which will investigate attacks against women and violence against journalists.


(Reporting by Andi Sheikh and Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Jon Hemming)



Read More..

"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.


That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.


Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.


Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.


Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.


"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."


The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.


Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.


Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .


But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.


Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.


During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.


MOM AND POP STILL WARY


Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.


This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.


"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.


Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.


He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.


Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.


On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.


Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.


Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.


Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.


(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



Read More..

Syrian opposition chief under fire for talks with Assad allies


MUNICH (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader flew back to his Cairo headquarters from Germany on Sunday to explain to skeptical allies his decision to talk with President Bashar al-Assad's main backers Russia and Iran, in hope of a breakthrough in the crisis.


The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib's new willingness to talk with the Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war.


"If we want to stop the bloodshed we cannot continue putting the blame on one side or the other," Iran's Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday, welcoming Alkhatib's overtures and adding that he was ready to keep talking to the opposition. Iran is Assad's main military backer together with Russia.


"This is a very important step. Especially because the coalition was created on the basis of categorical rejection of any talks with the regime," Lavrov was quoted as saying on Sunday by Russia's Itar Tass news agency.


Russia has blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at pushing Assad out or pressuring him to end a civil war in which more than 60,000 people have died. But Moscow has also tried to distance itself from Assad by saying it is not trying to prop him up and will not offer him asylum.


Syrian state media said Assad received a senior Iranian official and told him Syria could withstand "threats ... and aggression" like an air attack on a military base last week, which Damascus has blamed on Israel.


"USELESS" TALKING TO IRAN


Politicians from the United States, Europe and the Middle East at the Munich Security Conference praised Alkhatib's "courage". But the moderate Islamist preacher was likely to face sharp criticism from the exiled leadership back in Cairo.


Alkhatib has put his leadership on the line by saying he would be willing to talk to representatives of the Assad regime on condition they release 150,000 prisoners and issue passports to the tens of thousands of displaced people who have fled to neighboring countries but do not have documents.


"He has a created a political firestorm. Meeting the Iranian foreign minister was totally unnecessary because it is useless. Iran backs Assad to the hilt and he might as well have met with the Syrian foreign minister," said one of Alkhatib's colleagues on the 12-member politburo of the Syrian National Coalition.


Alkhatib, whose family are custodians of the Umayyad Mosque in the historic centre of Damascus, is seen as a bulwark against Salafist forces who are a main player in the armed opposition.


He was chosen as the head of the Coalition in Qatar last year, with crucial backing from the Muslim Brotherhood.


The Syrian opposition member, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed to comments by Salehi and Lavrov on Sunday, a day after their meetings with Alkhatib, as evidence that they had not changed their positions and still backed Assad.


Salehi told the Munich conference where the round of talks took place that the solution was to hold elections in Syria - making no mention of Assad having to leave the country.


FIZZLE OUT?


Firm opposition backers like Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani and U.S. Republican Senator John McCain voiced frustration in Munich at the international community's reluctance to intervene in the Syrian conflict.


"We consider the U.N. Security Council directly responsible for the continuing tragedy of the Syrian people, the thousands of lives that were lost, the blood that was spilled and is still flowing at the hands of the regime's forces," said al-Thani.


Moscow played down the significance of the discussions in Munich, with one diplomatic source calling the talks between Lavrov and Alkhatib "simply routine meetings".


"We have presented our views when Minister Lavrov meet Alkhatib, we have noted his comments that there is still a chance for dialogue with Syrian government. That is something we have called for," said the Russian source.


"To what extent is that realistic, that's a different matter and there are doubts about that," said the source.


One source in Khatib's delegation said the offer of dialogue would find an echo among Syrians opposed to Assad who have not taken up arms "and want to get rid of him with the minimum bloodshed".


Fawaz Tello, a veteran Syrian opposition campaigner based in Berlin, said Alkhatib had made "a calculated political manoeuvre to embarrass Assad".


"But it is an incomplete initiative and it will probably fizzle out," Tello told Reuters. "The Assad regime cannot implement any item in the series of initiatives we have seen lately because it would simply fall."


Russia and Iran were already beginning to use Alkhatib's initiative negatively, he said, while "the regime and its allies will only treat Alkhatib's meetings as an additional opportunity to smash the rebellion or weaken it".


Asked about the risk of his strategy being seen as a sign of weakness in the opposition or frustration at the Free Syrian Army's gains, Alkhatib told Reuters in Munich: "The fighters have high morale and they are making daily advances."


(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Munich and Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow; Writing by Stephen Brown; Editing by Andrew Roche)



Read More..