Microsoft leads Wall Street lower, but retailers gain

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Syria's new opposition coalition seeks recognition

DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's new opposition leadership, painfully forged under Arab and Western pressure, set out on Monday to gather recognition and wider backing for the struggle to take over the country from President Bashar al-Assad.


Violence flared again on the Turkish border and the line separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, underscoring how the conflict is spilling into the region.


Reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz Alkhatib flew to Cairo to seek the Arab League's blessing for the new assembly that unanimously elected him as its leader the day before.


Alkhatib, 50, jailed several times for criticizing Assad, fled into exile this year. He has long promoted a liberal Islam tolerant of Syria's Christian, Alawite and other minorities.


"The first step towards recognition will take place at the Arab League," he told a news conference in Doha. The body would then seek endorsement from Assad's Arab and Western foes in the "Friends of Syria" group and from the U.N. General Assembly.


Russia, which with China has foiled U.N. action on Syria and views Assad's opponents as pawns of the West, urged the new body to negotiate and to reject outside meddling.


Asked if China recognized the new coalition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called on all parties to initiate "a political transition process guided by the Syrian people".


Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most Arab League members want Assad removed, although some, such as Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria, take a more neutral stance on Syria, where violence raged on.


BORDER BOMBING


Israeli tanks fired shells into Syria and scored "direct hits" in response to a Syrian mortar round that struck the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said.


It was the second time in two days that Israel has responded to what it said was errant Syrian fire. On Sunday the military said it had a fired a "warning shot" across the disengagement line, while on Monday it said it had fired back at "the source".


Syria and Israel have not fought over the Golan since the 1973 Middle East conflict, but are still formally at war.


At the northern end of the country, Syrian jets and helicopters attacked the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain, with some bombs landing just meters (yards) from the Turkish border, sending scores of civilians fleeing into Turkey.


A Reuters reporter on the border said one warplane flew right along the border and appeared to stray across it at one point, as bombs sent up plumes of black smoke.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 people, including seven Islamist militants, had been killed in the air strikes on Ras al-Ain, which fell to rebels on Thursday during an advance into Syria's mixed Arab and Kurdish northeast.


Another opposition group put the Ras al-Ain death toll at 16. The pro-opposition Observatory, which tracks the violence from Britain, said 140 people were killed in Syria on Sunday. More than 38,000 people have been killed since March last year.


Turkey, whose border security worries were heightened by a sudden influx of 9,000 refugees within 24 hours last week, has consulted its NATO allies about possibly deploying Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deter Syria's air force.


Such a move could be a prelude to enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria, although Western powers have fought shy of this.


Riad Seif, a respected Syrian dissident who proposed the new opposition body, said no such military intervention was needed.


"We will protect ourselves by owning developed weapons and networks of defence missiles," he said, citing what he said was a promise by the Friends of Syria to provide "methods" to counter shelling and air strikes by Assad's forces.


NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Prague that the alliance would "do what it takes to defend Turkey", without referring specifically to Patriot missiles.


After days of wrangling in Qatar, Syrian politicians, rebels and representatives of ethnic and religious minorities finally laid aside their disputes and, under U.S. and Qatari pressure, agreed to form the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, as a prelude to a government-in-exile.


INCLUSIVE APPROACH


Alkhatib, the former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, called on Syrian soldiers to desert and all sects to unite.


"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili, Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people," the soft-spoken preacher said.


It is unclear whether the Coalition can succeed where the exile Syrian National Council (SNC) failed in overcoming the mutual suspicions and in-fighting that have weakened the nearly 20-month-old drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.


"This is a significant step forward, because they finally seem to be forging a more broadly-based platform that includes the SNC but without the SNC taking the lion's share," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Doha Brookings Center.


He said military councils fighting inside Syria should be plugged into the new political structure as a way of encouraging coordinated international support for the uprising.


"We need a unified channel of support," he said. "The United States still seems hesitant about training and arming the opposition, and I believe this is a mistake, because the U.S. has the capacity to do it more so than anyone else."


Qatar said recognition for a temporary Syrian government would allow it to seek weapons from abroad.


Washington, which promoted the Doha unity talks, hailed the outcome, promising to support the Syrian National Coalition "as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future...".


Assad, whose Alawite minority is rooted in Shi'ite Islam, has support from Shi'ite Iran and its Lebanese Shi'ite allies, but has few friends among the region's Sunni-led nations.


With Syria enduring a bloody military stalemate almost 20 months after peaceful protests first erupted, Assad's opponents hope a more cohesive opposition can turn the tide, winning more military and diplomatic support from allies wary of the growing role of Islamist militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda.


"For the first time, there are credible multinational pledges to support the Syrian revolution, politically and logistically," said London-based Syria analyst Rima Allaf.


"With the promise of real weapons, the different groups of the Free Syrian Army are more likely to regroup under a unified opposition and command, as it is to their benefit."


She said success for the new opposition body could make the position of Russia and China irrelevant. "Their direct support of Assad may continue, perhaps until the stakes change and they see no more benefit to holding on to a losing side."


(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Doha, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Jonathon Burch in Ceylanpinar, Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)


Read More..

Windows Server Developers Can Now Use HP Cloud to Build, Deploy and Scale Their Applications
















I am happy to share that HP Cloud Compute now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008 instances in addition to the variety of Linux distributions that are already available. Windows Server instances can now be launched in our US-West region. Since HP Cloud Compute is in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount (see pricing below).



It is a priority for us to provide the tools that enable developers to quickly build, test, deploy and scale their applications in the cloud. That is why we created our CLI for Windows so that developers working in a Windows Server environment can quickly launch and manage their instances using the command line.













The three Windows Server images available are the Enterprise Editions of Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32 bit), Windows Server 2008 SP2 (64 bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit).  All Windows Server instances are created with a randomly generated password, which is then encrypted.  You can create and manage your Windows Server instances from our console, UNIX CLI and Windows CLI. For information about how to access your Windows Server instances using Remote Desktop (RDP), please review our documentation here.


The licenses for a Windows Server instance are included in the hourly rate for your instance, so you can spin up a server and get started without needing to worry about any additional licensing concerns.  Please see the table below for details about the hourly fees for both standard HP Cloud Compute Linux Instances and HP Cloud Compute Windows Server Instances.  While HP Cloud Compute continues in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount off the prices listed below.























HP Cloud Compute Instance Types

Linux


(per hour)


Windows


(per hour)

Extra Small (1GB RAM, 1 core, 30GB disk)
$ 0.04
$ 0.06
Small (2GB RAM, 2 cores, 60GB disk)
$ 0.08 
$ 0.12
Medium (4GB RAM, 2 cores, 120GB disk)
$ 0.16
$ 0.24
Large (8GB RAM, 4 cores, 240GB disk)
$ 0.32
$ 0.48
Extra Large (16GB RAM, 4 cores, 480GB disk)
$ 0.64
$ 0.96
Double Extra Large (32GB RAM, 8 cores, 960GB disk)
$ 1.28
$ 1.92

Our team has been working hard to ensure that we are able to support all of your public cloud needs and appreciate all those that participated in our private and public betas.  We are very excited about the launch of Windows Server instances.  Stay tuned as we plan to launch support for additional versions of Windows Server including Windows Server 2012 in the coming months.  As always, feel free to leave a comment, connect with us on chat or email or find us on twitter (@hpcloud) if you have any questions.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News



Read More..

Baby on the Way for Nick and JoAnna Garcia Swisher




Celebrity Baby Blog





11/12/2012 at 05:15 PM ET



Nick and JoAnna Garcia Swisher Expecting First Child
MediaPunch


There’s a baby on the way for Nick and JoAnna Garcia Swisher!


The Animal Practice star, 33, and her husband, a baseball free agent who most recently played for the New York Yankees, announced their news on Swisher’s Facebook page Monday.


“We are so excited to finally be able to share our exciting news with you! We are expecting a little Swisher in the spring of 2013,” the couple wrote.


“Words can’t describe how blessed we feel to be expanding our family and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new addition. Your support and kindness has meant so much to us throughout the years and we wanted to personally share the news with you all.”

Following their engagement in 2009, Swisher, 31, told PEOPLE, “I think for the first time in my life, I have a woman who I could not be more proud of. We do such a great job really pushing the other one to do better and I think that’s what you have to have.”


– Maggie Coughlan


Read More..

British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

____

Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

Read More..

S&P 500 and Nasdaq inch higher, fiscal cliff a concern

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