New Syrian opposition chief seeks recognition, arms

CAIRO (Reuters) - The leader of Syria's new opposition coalition called on European states to recognize it as the legitimate government and provide it with funds to buy the weapons it needs to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.


But Britain and France appeared to set further conditions, notably for rallying support inside the country, before they grant full recognition to the Syrian National Coalition. And, like the United States, Europeans are still reluctant to arm rebel forces which include anti-Western Islamist militants.


Speaking to Reuters by telephone as Arab and European officials met to discuss Syria at the Arab League in Cairo, Mouaz AlKhatib, the Damascus preacher elected unopposed on Sunday to lead the new group, said he wanted diplomatic backing.


"I request European states to grant political recognition to the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and to give it financial support," he said in an interview.


"When we get political recognition, this will allow the coalition to act as a government and hence acquire weapons and this will solve our problems," AlKhatib added.


France's defense minister and Britain's foreign minister both said on Tuesday that forming the new group under AlKhatib, a moderate noted for his embrace of Syria's religious and ethnic minorities, was an important step but not sufficient for full recognition as a government entitled to take over in Damascus.


Assad, whose family have ruled Syria for 42 years, has vowed to fight to the death in a conflict that has already killed an estimated 38,000 people and risks sucking in other countries.


His warplanes again struck homes in rebel-held Ras al-Ain. Civilians fled over the border dividing it from the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar and thick plumes of smoke billowed upwards.


Syrian jets and artillery hit the town of Albu Kamal on the frontier with Iraq, where rebels have seized some areas, according to the mayor of the Iraqi border town of Qaim.


Tension also remained high on the Golan Heights, where Israeli gunners have retaliated against stray Syrian mortar fire landing on the occupied plateau in the previous two days.


Twenty months of conflict have created a vast humanitarian crisis, with more than 408,000 Syrians fleeing to neighboring countries and up to four million expected to need aid by early next year, according to the United Nations.


Fighting has also displaced 2.5 million civilians inside Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent estimates.


"If anything, they believe it could be more; this is a very conservative estimate," Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva.


"So people are moving, really on the run, hiding," she told a news briefing. "They are difficult to count and access."


FRAGMENTED RESPONSE


Until now, concerted action on Syria has been thwarted by divisions within the opposition, as well as by big power rivalries and a regional divide between Sunni Muslim foes of Assad and his Shi'ite allies in Iran and Lebanon.


Cajoled by Qatar and the United States, the ineffectual Syrian National Council, previously the main opposition body based abroad, agreed to join a wider coalition on Sunday.


But France's defense minister said it was premature to give the new body full recognition, saying it needed to unite armed rebel factions within Syria under its umbrella.


"What happened in Doha is a step forward," Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Paris. "It is still not sufficient to constitute a provisional government that can be recognised internationally. But it's on the right track."


Britain's foreign minister, William Hague, also said more needed to be done to rally support inside the country before London would recognize the coalition led by AlKhatib as the rightful government of Syria.


"It is a very important milestone," Hague told reporters at the meeting of Arab and European ministers at the Arab League.


"We want to see the Syrian opposition be inclusive ... and have support inside Syria and if they have this, yes, we will then recognize them as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people."


The opposition had hoped its new-found unity would clear the way for outside powers to arm the rebels, but Western nations fear such weapons could reach the hands of Islamist militants.


Western concern has also been heightened by documented reports of atrocities by ill-disciplined insurgents.


"Syria's newly created opposition front should send a clear message to opposition fighters that they must adhere to the laws of war and human rights law, and that violators will be held accountable," New York-based Human Rights Watch said.


The French defense minister called for "a unification of military action to avoid haphazard military operations" and also urged rebels to rein in radical Islamist "Salafist elements".


TOUGH QUEST


European caution, and an Arab League endorsement that stops well short of full recognition, indicate that the coalition forged with such difficulty in Qatar two days ago may find it hard to win wholehearted backing, even from its allies.


Russia and China, which have lent Assad diplomatic support since the uprising erupted in March last year, have shown no sign of warming towards his Western- and Arab-backed opponents.


Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby threw his weight behind the new body at the Arab-European meeting in Cairo.


"We hope that the remaining opposition factions join the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces and we urge the countries of the world to recognize it and give it all the support," he said.


But although six Gulf Arab nations recognised the coalition as Syria's only legitimate representative on Monday, Iraq, Algeria and Lebanon prevented the League from following suit. Iraq and Lebanon, with influential Shi'ite populations, have generally maintained better relations with Iran and with Assad.


In other scattered violence reported by opposition activists inside Syria, the governor Raqqa province in the northeast wounded in an attack on his convoy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. In the same province, a bomb near a church killed a woman, state news agency SANA said, blaming rebels.


Near Damascus, the rebel unit the Armored Ghouta Brigade said in an online video posting showing smoke and damage at a military installation that its fighters had stormed an air defense base and "killed many officers".


None of the reports of violence in Syria could be independently confirmed.


(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed in Cairo, Jonathon Burch in Ceylanpinar, Turkey, and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Giles Elgood)


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RIM to introduce new BlackBerry 10 devices on January 30
















(Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd plans to introduce its new line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones on January 30, the company said on Monday, giving investors a measure of confidence the long-awaited devices are approaching the finish line.


The Waterloo, Ontario-based company, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone industry, is betting its future on the new line of products, which will be powered by its new BlackBerry 10 operating system.













RIM has struggled over the last two years as its devices lost ground to snazzier and faster smartphones such as Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd‘s Galaxy line.


In a brief statement, RIM said the twice-delayed devices will be launched simultaneously in multiple countries. It will introduce two BlackBerry 10 smartphones, along with the platform that powers them at the event.


“While it is clearly an uphill battle for RIM given the recent launch of the iPhone 5 device and the aggressive marketing dollars being pushed toward Windows 8, we view it as a modest positive that a date is now officially set for the launch of the new BB10 devices,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in a note to clients.


RIM has said it plans initially to roll-out touchscreen devices. Phones with the mini QWERTY keyboards that many long-time BlackBerry users rave about will come a few weeks later, while lower-end versions of both devices will be launched later in the year.


The company did not say when the devices will be available in stores. That will be announced at the event.


Evercore Partners analyst Mark McKechnie believes the BB 10 devices will be available within two to four weeks of the launch event, but some such as Peter Misek of Jefferies expect the devices to go on sale only in March.


RIM’s Nasdaq-listed shares were up 3.2 percent at $ 8.82 in late afternoon trading on Monday. Its Toronto-listed shares rose nearly 3 percent to C$ 8.81.


ALL OR NOTHING


RIM says its new devices will be faster and smoother and have a large catalog of applications that are now crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.


Last week, the new platform and devices won U.S. government security clearance, potentially allowing both U.S. and Canadian government agencies to deploy the new smartphones as soon as they are available.


These were the first BlackBerry products to win Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 certifications ahead of their introduction, the company said.


RIM began carrier tests on the BB10 devices last month. The Canadian company hopes they will help it win back some of the market share it lost to the iPhone and devices that run on Google Inc’s Android operating system.


RIM’s stock has fallen more than 90 percent from a peak of over $ 148 in 2008. But at Friday’s close, the shares were up about 20 percent over the last two months on signs that the BlackBerry 10 devices are finally likely to make it to market.


(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Selena Gomez Is All Smiles at Glamour's Women of the Year Awards















11/13/2012 at 08:55 AM EST



Justin who?

Looking stylish and happy, Selena Gomez hardly seemed like someone who's just gone through a breakup as she lit up New York's Carnegie Hall on Monday night at Glamour's 2012 Women of the Year Awards.

Bieber, 18, was performing just across the East River in Brooklyn. But he seemed a world away, as a radiant Gomez, 20, gave a speech thanking Glamour for including her among its honorees, which also included Lena Dunham, Annie Leibovitz and the U.S. women's gymnastics team.

"I'm so honored to be in a room full of women I can only aspire to be as good as one day," Gomez said. "I feel so lucky that every day I get to work with interesting people that are way smarter than me and have taught me so much."

The actress-singer also thanked her mom, who was in the audience.

"I just want to share this with all the girls out there," she said. "You have a voice. You have a chance to just do what you love, whether that's acting or singing and just being true to who you are. And the person that's taught me that is my mom."

Bieber, meanwhile, blazed through a 20-song show at the Barclays Center. But unlike Saturday in Boston, he didn't sing Justin Timberlake's hit "Cry Me a River," which some thought may have been a dig at his ex.

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