US court says 'pocket-dialed' calls are not private

A federal appeals court in Ohio has ruled that a person who accidentally "pocket dials" someone shouldn't expect any overheard conversation to be considered private.

The case involves the chairman of the Airport Board in Kenton, Kentucky, which oversees the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The chairman, James Huff, was on a business trip in Italy with his wife and a colleague when he accidentally pocket-dialed the secretary of the airport's CEO back in the U.S.

The secretary, Carol Spaw, said "hello" a few times and soon figured out the call wasn't meant for her. But she overheard Huff and his colleague talking about personnel matters, including the possibility that the airport's CEO -- Spaw's boss -- might be replaced. The inadvertent call continued after Huff got back to his hotel room with his wife.

The call lasted 91 minutes and Spaw stayed on the line the entire time, court records show. Spaw claims that she thought Huff was discussing a plan to illegally discriminate against the CEO, a woman. She says she felt obliged to record the call and report it.

Spaw took handwritten notes for most of the call, but managed to record the last four minutes after a colleague brought her an iPhone. By that time, Huff was back in his hotel room, where he discussed personal matters with his wife Bertha but also shared some details of the personnel discussion from earlier.

Huff and his wife sued Spaw, alleging she had breached their privacy by violating a law often called the Wiretap Act, which prohibits interception of "wire, oral or electronic communications."

However, the catch is that the law applies only where people can show they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. And that's not case with pocket-dialed calls, the appeals court ruled, upholding in part a lower court's decision.

Citing case law, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said people must "exhibit" that they have an expectation of privacy, by taking reasonable steps to ensure their conversation won't be overheard.

Huff admitted in his deposition that he was aware of the risk of making pocket-dialed calls, and that he'd made them himself in the past. The appeals court noted that methods exist to prevent such calls, including locking a phone or using an app designed for that purpose, but Huff didn't use any of them. So while he may have intended his call to be private, he didn't do enough to show that he had that expectation.

The appeals court drew a parallel with a person not drawing the curtains in their home.

"Under the plain-view doctrine, if a homeowner neglects to cover a window with drapes, he would lose his reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to a viewer looking into the window from outside of his property," the court said.

The same applies to pocket-dialed calls, according to the court. If a person doesn't take reasonable steps to keep their call private, their communications are not protected by the Wiretap Act.

The court also cited a case in which police discovered a defendant's child pornography using Limewire, the peer-to-peer file sharing service. The defendant there claimed the evidence had been gathered in a warrantless search, but a different appeals court said the defendant had failed to demonstrate an expectation of privacy, because he "opened up his download folder to the world."

"The principle that a person does not exhibit a reasonable expectation of privacy when he knew or should have known that the operation of a device might grant others access to his statements or activities" is applicable to the Wiretap Act as well, the appeals court said.

However, it noted, the same may not apply to Huff's wife, Bertha, who couldn't be expected to know that a person she was talking to had a smartphone in their pocket and hadn't taken steps to secure it.

"If Bertha waived her reasonable expectation of privacy from pocket-dials by speaking to a person who she knew to carry a pocket-dial-capable device, she would also waive her reasonable expectation of privacy from recordings and transmissions by speaking with anyone carrying a recording-capable or transmission-capable device, i.e., any modern cellphone," the court said.

"The district court's holding would logically result in the loss of a reasonable expectation of privacy in face-to-face conversations where one party is aware that a participant in the conversation may have a modern cellphone."

That doesn't necessarily mean Spaw is liable, however, because liability applies under the Wiretap Law only when a person "intentionally" uses a "device" to intercept oral communications.

The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court to decide if Spaw's actions -- including transcribing notes from the call and recording part of it -- constituted an "intentional use of a device" to intercept Bertha Huff's communications.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

‘Eaten Alive?’ Discovery Channel to premiere ‘Eaten Alive?’ on 31 December

FIRST TIME EVER ON TELEVISION  ‘Eaten Alive?’ Discovery Channel to premiere ‘Eaten Alive?’ on 31 December


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On 31 December, Discovery Channel will present a never-seen-before deadly encounter - ‘Eaten Alive?’. The programme features snake researcher and conservationist Paul Rosolie, attempting to get eaten by the giant snake - alive. Paul has dedicated his career to study the Giant Green Anaconda, the largest and most powerful snake in the world and the top predator in the Amazon.  This challenge was created to get maximum attention for one of the most beautiful and threatened parts of the world, the Amazon Rainforest and its wildlife.
 
The two-hour special, ‘Eaten Alive?’ will premiere on Wednesday, 31 December at 8 pm on Discovery Channel.
 
Rosolie has specialised in the western Amazon for more than a decade and his efforts have helped bring awareness to the Peruvian Rainforest, the natural habitat of the Giant Green Anaconda.  This year, over a 60-day period, crews chronicled Rosolie's expedition to the hidden realm deep within the Amazonian jungle. It is in this floating forest that Rosolie believes the largest anacondas in the world live and breed and one of the only locations to truly study these elusive and majestic snakes in the wild.  On his previous expedition to this secluded part of the Amazonian jungle, Rosolie was very close to capturing what he believed was the world's largest anaconda, a 25 to 27-foot behemoth that slipped through his hands and nearly dragged him to the bottom of the floating forest.
 
"I've seen first-hand how the Amazon Rainforest is being destroyed.  It is so rampant that we may be the last generation with the opportunity to save it.  People need to wake up to what is going on," said Paul Rosolie. "What better way is there to shock people than to put my life on the line with the largest snake on the planet, the Green Anaconda?"
 
Since Rosolie's goal was to persevere through the constriction and potential ingestion deep into the belly of the beast, he relied on a custom-built suit he designed for his protection.  Constructed by Rosolie and his team of engineers working alongside herpetologists, the suit was built to ensure the snake's safety just as much as it was to protect Rosolie's life.  The highest measured force of an anaconda constriction has been documented at 90psi, which would be the equivalent of having a large school bus on one's chest.  Since anacondas rely on their massive size and power to subdue their prey,  Rosolie risked life and limb in the hopes of measuring the constriction force of a massive anaconda, to gain more insight on its hunting and feeding behaviors, and ultimately, to gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of these majestic creatures. 
 
Both Paul Rosolie and the Giant Green Anaconda are healthy and alive.
Tune in to watch Paul's daring attempt to enter the belly of the beast, and his terrifying encounter with the massive snake.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 victim with life jacket raises new questions about plane’s last moments

A body recovered on Wednesday from the crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 was wearing a life jacket, an Indonesian search and rescue official said, raising new questions about how the disaster unfolded.

Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters near where debris and bodies were found on the surface.

Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

AIrAsia QZ8501: In this image taken from video released by TV One, a rescuer is lowered on rope from a hovering helicopter near a body in Java Sea waters, Indonesia Tuesday. (AP)

Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall. The fact that one person put on a life jacket suggests those on board had time before the aircraft hit the water, or before it sank.

Relatives of passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 pray at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia. Wind, strong currents and high surf hampered recovery efforts as distraught family members anxiously waited to identify their loved ones. (AP)

And yet the pilots did not issue a distress signal. The plane disappeared after it asked for permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather.

“This morning, we recovered a total of four bodies and one of them was wearing a life jacket,” Tatang Zaenudin, an official with the search and rescue agency, said.

Relatives of passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 pray at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia. Wind, strong currents and high surf hampered recovery efforts as distraught family members anxiously waited to identify their loved ones. (AP)

Another AirAsia jet in emergency: Check out tweet

BREAKING NEWS: Another #AirAsia plane overshoots in Kalibo runway, #Philippinespic.twitter.com/SR3ZeXEH2M — Breaking News (@NewsOnTheMin) December 30, 2014

Read story: Another AirAsia jet in emergency, escapes tragedy He declined to speculate on what the find might mean. A pilot who works for a Gulf carrier said the life jacket indicated the cause of the crash was not “catastrophic failure”. Instead, the plane could have stalled and then come down, possibly because its instruments iced up and gave the pilots inaccurate readings. “There was time. It means the thing didn’t just fall out of the sky,” said the pilot, who declined to be identified.

Also read: Post-AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crash, airline’s India arm under govt scanner

Air force officers show airplane parts and a suitcase found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared, during a press conference at the airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia. (AP)

He said it could take a minute for a plane to come down from 30,000 feet and the pilots could have experienced “tunnel vision … too overloaded” to send a distress call. “The first train of thought when you get into a situation like that is to fly the aircraft.” Most of those on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found. In the wake of AirAsia FlightQZ8501 crash and tragedies of Malaysian Airlines jets (MH17 and MH370) tell us how safe is aviation:

Hernanto, head of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya, said rescuers believed they had found the plane on the sea bed with a sonar scan in water 30-50 metres (100-165 feet) deep. The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder has yet to be found. Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives. “We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly,” Hernanto said.

Commander of Indonesian Air Force 1st Operational Command Rear Marshall Dwi Putranto, center, shows the airplane parts and a suitcase found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared, during a press conference at the airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia. (AP)

Strong wind and waves hampered the search and with visibility at less than a kilometre (half a mile), the air operation was called off in the afternoon. “We are all standing by,” Dwi Putranto, heading the air force search effort in Pangalan Bun on Borneo, told Reuters. “If we want to evacuate bodies from the water, it’s too difficult. The waves are huge and it’s raining.” Check out the conversation on Airasia flight QZ8501 on Twitter timeline: #QZ8501 Tweets Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies. Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis centre at Surabaya airport.  AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes has described the crash as his “worst nightmare”. EXPERIENCED PILOT The plane was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes, center, talks to media during a press conference at the crisis center at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. (AP)

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled. Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the inquiry, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

Relatives of passengers of the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 wait distressed at the crisis center at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia

The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia . Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country’s aviation industry and spooked travellers. Check out the Airasia flight QZ8501 announcements on Twitter timeline: #AirAsia Tweets

Family members of passengers onboard missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 react after being being told that the disappeared jet had crashed and that dead bodies are being recovered from sea. (Reuters)

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

Family members of passengers onboard missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 react after being being told that the disappeared jet had crashed and that dead bodies are being recovered from sea. (Reuters)

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002. AirAsia crash probe focuses on timing of request to climb, weather Investigators into the AirAsia flight which crashed into the sea off Indonesia are focusing on the timing of the crew’s request to climb to a higher altitude to avoid bad weather as a possible factor behind the tragedy, a source close to the probe said. As Indonesian ships and aircraft recovered debris and bodies from AirAsia Flight QZ8501, the investigation into what happened on Sunday, when the aircraft carrying 162 people disappeared from radars, has only just begun. Among the early lines of inquiry is whether the crew could have asked to ascend, or climbed on their own initiative in case of emergency, at an earlier stage, and what role storms in the area might have played.

Indonesian Air Force personnel carry airplane parts recovered from the water near the site where AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared. Bodies and debris seen floating in Indonesian waters Tuesday, painfully ended the mystery of AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed into the Java Sea and was lost to searchers for more than two days. (AP)

“We know that the weather was very bad in this area, there was a storm,” said the official, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the press. “Why did he (the pilot) request to climb at that stage? Should he have climbed earlier? Other aircraft were flying at a higher altitude in that area. How did the two pilots react to the weather? We are asking those questions.” Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) will lead the investigation into the crash of the Airbus A320, together with representatives from the United States, France and Britain, according to the source. He said evidence such as radar data, weather reports, and the communication between the pilots and air traffic control has been gathered and is being studied. The “black box” flight recorders have yet to be located, however, and the source cautioned that it was too early to draw firm conclusions as to what went wrong. “EXTREMELY EXPERIENCED” It was not immediately clear whether Indonesia’s only pilots’ union represented the captain, Iriyanto, although it works mainly with employees of national carrier Garuda Indonesia. Calls to the union late on Tuesday went unanswered. Iriyanto, 53, spent more than 10 years as a pilot trainer before flying with airlines including Merpati Airlines, Adam Air and, for the last three years, AirAsia.

Republic of Singapore Air Force personnel survey the waters during a search and locate operation for the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 plane at an undisclosed search area December 30, 2014. (Reuters)

The former fighter pilot also flew with the Indonesian Air Force, according to friends and family. AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes said it was “too early to speculate” about the cause of the crash. “I have full confidence in my … crew,” he told reporters in Surabaya. “Our pilot was extremely experienced, (with) 20,000 hours (of flying time). “He came from the air force, one of their best graduates. He came from Surabaya, so he knows the area very well.” Iriyanto’s co-pilot on the crashed jet was Remi Plesel of France.

Map comparing the AirAsia Flight Qz8501 search area to recent search and rescue efforts for aircraft that disappeared over sea.

AIR FRANCE CLUES? According to Indonesian authorities, at 6.12 a.m. on Sunday, 36 minutes after taking off from Surabaya’s Juanda Airport on a flight to Singapore, the pilot of the doomed aircraft asked for permission from Jakarta air traffic control to climb 6,000 feet to 38,000ft and deviate to the left to avoid bad weather. Two minutes later, Jakarta responded by asking QZ8501 to go left seven miles and climb to 34,000ft. There was no response from the cockpit. The aircraft was still detected by the ATC’s radar for another three minutes before disappearing at 6.18 a.m. According to flightradar24.com, a website that uses radar data to track aircraft live, other aircraft in the area were flying between 34,000 and 39,000 feet when QZ8501 disappeared. Investigators are looking at the crash of Air France flight AF447 in 2009 for possible clues to what happened on Sunday.

Members of the Search and Rescue Agency SARS carry debris recovered from the sea presumed from missing Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ 8501 at Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, December 30, 2014. (Reuters)

The investigation into that Airbus A330 showed the co-pilot lost speed readings due to icing, and his panic reaction put the plane into a stall which the rest of the crew failed to recognise, sending the aircraft plunging into Atlantic. “No two accidents are the same. But there are similar conditions like the weather, and we must look into it very closely,” said a second source, a former air crash investigator in Indonesia. A Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years’ experience of flying in the region said pilots regularly climb to push above the cloud layer.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Search and rescue workers prepare to load body bags onto a flight to Kalimantan in Pangkal Pinang, Bangka December 30, 2014. (Reuters)

Backlinks: What they are and how to get them

Sometimes called inbound links, backlinks are the lifeblood of Search Engine Positioning. In order for a website to be on the top of search engines like Google without the webmaster having to pay big money for advertising, the website has to have a large number of backlinks. Backlinks are links on one website that lead back to another website. The more established, high quality, and high Page Rank the website that contains the link has, the more power it has to help the linked website with its search engine position. If the website that is getting backlinks gets many High Quality and High Page Rank backlinks, the better the chance it has of being in a high position on the Search Engines.

How does a webmaster go about getting high quality backlinks to his or her website? There are many ways this can be done. Some people advocate writing and submitting articles, posting on forums, making comments on blogs. Others talk about submitting their website to various Internet directories. One directory that has an excellent reputation is called DMOZ, or the "Open Directory". This directory is probably the most respected directory online today. The websites it contains have all been placed there by human editors; there is no "automation" to this directory. The only drawback that's been discussed about this directory is that it takes so long to have a website included.

Another way that many people build backlinks for their website is to use Social Bookmarking websites. A "Social Bookmark" is a website that usually has a very popular 'community' aspect to it. Users sign up and create profiles on the sites that contain photos and information about themselves. They then can save "bookmarks" of favorite websites which can be itemized by 'tags', which are one or two word descriptions of what the sites contain, and these bookmarks can be saved to a list that's private or can be listed publicly, so that everybody can see it.

With the advent of what is known as Web 2.0, gaining backlinks is easier now than in any time in the history of the internet. Most sites now have an "interactive" quality to them nowadays. Readers can often sign in and create profiles. They then are often allowed to post comments on the stories or articles on the website or blog. In many cases, the website or blog owner responds to these comments; thus making this section of the website or blog a conversation.

Backlinking strategies can be easy and fun and the website owner who is working on getting more backlinks for his website can learn new things, meet new people, and have a tremendous amount of fun doing something that was once a chore: building backlinks.

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Glee’ loses UK court battle, may have to change name

LONDON: Fox's musical comedy 'Glee' may have to be renamed for UK broadcast after losing a high court battle with a Midlands comedy club.

Earlier this year, the US network lost a legal battle against UK comedy chain Glee Club, with the court ruling that the series breached a trademark held by the chain.

The high court has now ordered 21st Century Fox to 'cease naming' the series 'Glee' in the UK, and awarded 100,000 in damages to Glee Club owner Comic Enterprises Ltd, reported Daily Mirror.

"I find it hard to believe that the cost of the re-titling and publicizing of the new name would be so prohibitive compared to the value of the series," Judge Roger Wyand said in a written ruling.

However, the judge went on to order that the name-change injunction cannot be enforced until the case has been considered by the Court of Appeal. Mark Tughan registered the name 'The Glee Club' as a British trademark in 1999, ten years prior to the TV show's first season.

He now runs four venues under the brand in Birmingham, Cardiff, Nottingham and Oxford.

"It's a relief because you can't get any more David and Goliath than this," said Tughan following the victory back in February.

Gunmen kill 21 Egyptian military border guards near Libya

CAIRO: Gunmen killed 21 Egyptian military border guards near the frontier with Libya on Saturday, highlighting a growing threat from an area that security officials say has become a haven for militants seeking to topple the Cairo government.

Security officials said the assailants were smugglers. But an army spokesman said on his Facebook page that "terrorists" — the term authorities use to describe Islamist militants — were behind the attack.

He said a weapons storage facility was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade in an exchange of fire, killing the soldiers and wounding four others.

The attack took place in Wadi al-Gadid governorate, which borders both Sudan and Libya. Two smugglers were killed in clashes with the guards, security officials said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly expressed concerns about militants who have capitalised on the chaos in Libya and set up operations along the border.

Sisi met with top Egyptian security officials after the attack, state news agency MENA reported.

Security officials say militants pay smugglers to transport weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to comrades in Egypt, which is already facing an Islamist insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula near Israel.

Sinai militants have stepped up attacks against policemen and soldiers since then-army chief Sisi toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last summer and launched fierce attacks on Islamists.

Hundreds have been killed in shootings and bombings.

Security officials say militants operating from Libya are trying to forge ties

with Islamists in the Sinai, an alliance that could prolong Egypt's instability and scare away investors that are badly needed to help fix the battered economy.

Tribal smugglers told Reuters they charge up to one million Egyptian pounds ($140,000) to move weapons in four-by-four vehicles along desert routes.

Five border guards were killed in a similar attack in the same area a few months ago.

Security officials say militants along the Libyan border harbour ambitions similar to the al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized large swathes of Iraq — they want to topple Sisi and create a caliphate in Egypt.

Sisi, who has warned that Islamist militants ravaging the Middle East pose a threat to everyone, has said Egypt will not allow Libya's turmoil to threaten Egypt's national security.

Egypt considered launching a crossborder offensive several months ago in a bid to crush the militants, according to two Egyptian national security officials.

Italy says 19 boat migrants die, thousands rescued this week

ROME: Nineteen people died trying to reach Italy on a boat packed with hundreds of migrants, probably poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes from its engines, said the Italian navy on Saturday, which has rescued more than 4,000 migrants in the last three days.

Eighteen bodies were found in the hold of the boat, said a navy spokesman, along with three very ill men who were rushed to the Italian island of Lampedusa but one died en route.

The two surviving men were taken by helicopter to a hospital in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, the spokesman said.

He said carbon monoxide fumes produced by the boat's engine likely caused the deaths. A similar incident last month killed 30.

Italy is struggling to keep up with the number of migrant boats this year, which mostly depart from the coast of increasingly unstable Libya, and is seeking more help from the EU in both the rescue mission and in hosting new arrivals.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that more than 500 migrants have died in the Mediterranean so far this year, compared to 700 during the whole of last year.

AGI news agency reported on Saturday that as many as 40 people could be missing after an incident on Friday when a migrant boat capsized near the Libyan coast. The Italian navy could not immediately confirm the report.

More than 70,000 migrants have been rescued by Italy's "Mare Nostrum" or "Our Sea" mission in 2014, the spokesman said, surpassing the previous record of just over 60,000 for the whole of 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings fuelled arrivals.

Calmer summer seas have prompted a recent upsurge in boats trying to reach Italy, where immigration centres are overloaded. Interior minister Angelino Alfano on Saturday said military bases might be temporarily used to house new arrivals.

Italy's navy has been patrolling the waters between Africa and Sicily since October, when 366 people drowned after their boat capsized just a mile from the Italian coast.

That tragedy focused international attention on the desperate risks taken by many migrants, whose plight has been highlighted by human rights groups and Pope Francis.

SHARING THE BURDEN

Italy has long attracted sea-borne migrants from Africa, and most move on almost immediately to other EU countries.

Over the past year, most of the migrants have been refugees fleeing Syria's civil war and Eritrea's harsh military service, according to the UNHCR.

Italy - along with Spain, Greece and Malta - have been left mostly on their own to manage the growing number of migrants, partly because increasing anti-immigrant sentiment in countries like Britain and France makes it unpopular to help out.

Alfano has begun talks with EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom about sharing the burden of rescuing migrants in what she described as a "scaled-down" version of Mare Nostrum earlier this month.

"We are taking important steps to make sure that all of Europe is present in the Mediterranean, and not just Italy," Alfano said on Saturday.

Prince William voices 'sadness' over Malaysian jet tragedy

LONDON: Britain's Prince William spoke of his "deep sadness" on Friday after a Malaysia Airlines plane was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

William offered the "thoughts and prayers" of Britain's royal family to the relatives of those who died in the disaster during an event at Australia's diplomatic mission in London.

Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed on Thursday. Ukraine's government accuses pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukrainian forces in the area of shooting it down in a "terrorist act".

"I know that I speak for all of us here when I acknowledge our deep sadness following yesterday's disaster in the Ukraine," William said.

"For all of us who have lost fellow countrymen and women in the tragedy, words cannot do justice to our sense of loss."

The flight was carrying 173 Dutch citizens as well as 43 Malaysian nationals, 28 Australians and nine Britons.

"For Australians, and for our Malaysian brothers and sisters in the Commonwealth, the crash is a particularly cruel tragedy coming so soon after the loss of MH370," the prince added.

"Please be assured of my family's thoughts and prayers at this time." The disaster happened four months after the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. No trace of that airliner has yet been found despite extensive search efforts.

Analysts say the latest tragedy could intensify what is already seen as the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War over the conflict in Ukraine.

Obama to sign orders protecting gay employees in govt

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama plans to sign executive orders on Monday prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers in the US government and its contracting agencies, without a new exemption that was requested by some religious organizations.

Obama's action comes on the heels of the US supreme court's recent ruling in the Hobby Lobby case that allowed some religiously oriented businesses to opt out of the federal healthcare law's requirement that contraception coverage be provided to workers at no extra charge. Senior administration officials said Friday that ruling has no impact on non-discrimination policies in federal hiring and contracting.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.

Since Obama announced last month that he would sign the orders, he's faced pressure from opposing flanks over the religious exemption and given no indication of where he would come down. Many religious leaders and conservative groups wanted him to exempt religious organizations from the order, while liberal clergy and gay advocacy groups adamantly opposed such an exemption.

Until last month, Obama long-resisted pressure to pursue an executive order for federal contractors in hopes that Congress would take more sweeping action banning anti-gay workplace discrimination nationwide. A bill to accomplish that goal — the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — passed the Senate last year with some Republican support, but has not been taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

The senior officials said Obama's action planned for Monday at the White House would amend two executive orders. The first, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, prohibits federal contractors from discriminating based on race, religion, gender or nationality in hiring. Obama plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protections, and order the labour department to carry out the order. The officials said that means the change will probably take effect by early next year.

President George W Bush had amended Johnson's order in 2002 to allow religious groups to hire and fire based upon religious identity. Churches also are able to hire ministers as they see fit. The senior administration officials said Obama will not change those exemptions.

The second order Obama will amend was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 to prevent discrimination against federal workers based on race, religion, gender, nationality, age or disability. President Bill Clinton added sexual orientation, and Obama will include gender identity in a change to immediately take effect.

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin said: "With two strokes of a pen, the President will have a very real and immediate impact on the lives of millions of LGBT people across the country."

The administration officials said the change for federal contracting will impact some 24,000 companies with 28 million workers, or one-fifth of the US workforce. Many large federal contractors already have employment policies barring anti-gay workplace discrimination, as do 21 states. However, the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School estimates that the executive order would extend protections to about 14 million workers whose employers or states currently do not have such non-discrimination policies.

While few religious organizations are among the biggest federal contractors, they do provide some valued services, including overseas relief and development programs and re-entry programs for inmates leaving federal prisons.

MH17 crash clouds over G20 trade summit

SYDNEY: Trade ministers from the world's leading economies met in Sydney on Saturday for the latest round of G20 talks, with the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 threatening to overshadow the summit.

G20 chair Australia has sought to keep the meeting focused on economic growth, but Thursday's disaster in rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine put the spotlight on Russia and its possible links to the separatists.

Australia's trade minister Andrew Robb said he met his Russian counterpart Denis Manturov late Friday to press him on whether his country "would or could stop the separatists with their current activities".

"Australia is looking for an unequivocal Russian assurance that they will fully cooperate with an independent and thorough UN investigation and urgently," Robb told broadcaster Sky News Saturday.

"The Russian trade minister did convey their deep condolences and indicate the government would cooperate with ... (a) UN investigation.

"They did not give me an assurance that Russia would or could stop the separatists with their current activities."

Robb said Canberra may consider trade sanctions against Russia as a result of the crash, which killed 298 people, including 28 Australians, subject to how it "responds, cooperates and is proactive in seeking answers".

Australia, along with several other countries, already has imposed sanctions and travel bans on some Russians and Ukrainians.

Senior ministers have refused on comment on whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin would be invited to the G20 leaders' summit in Brisbane, Queensland's capital, in November.

But Queensland premier Campbell Newman said Putin might not be welcomed in his state if the Russian government did not cooperate with an independent investigation into the plane crash.

"If we start seeing them failing to cooperate—we've heard that they're not providing access at this time—if that continues, I think I can speak for all Queenslanders and say at that point he's probably not welcome," Newman said.

The talk of trade sanctions came as Australian treasurer Joe Hockey said his nation would continue to keep growth as the main focus of the G20 agenda.

"I think there's a steely determination right across the board to find out who is responsible for what's happened, but also not to allow it to distract everyone from all the tasks at hand of building a stronger global economy—and importantly—creating jobs for people," he told Sky News.

He added to delegates at an investment forum early Saturday that the G20 meetings "are helping to shape the destiny of the world's economies—there's no doubt about that".

"We have shifted from a regulatory framework focusing on trying to fix the problems of the past, getting bogged down in more financial services regulation, getting bogged down in procedure ... to focus on growth and jobs."

G20 finance ministers agreed to a 2.0 percent additional growth target over five years at their February meeting in Sydney.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said at a B20 business leaders' summit this week that he was asking G20 nations to push harder on their growth plans so they could meet the February pledge.

Business leaders at the meeting made a series of recommendations on structural reforms and free trade that could boost global growth by US$3.4 trillion and create millions of jobs.

They included a call for the free flow of goods, services, labour and capital, an effective and transparent regulatory framework, as well as structural reforms that would boost trade and lift infrastructure investment.

US drone strike kills 8 in northwest Pakistan: Officials

 

 PESHAWAR: Pakistani intelligence officials say a US drone has fired two missiles at a compound in a northwestern tribal region, killing eight militants.

Two officials say the strike happened on Saturday in Datta Khel, a town in North Waziristan where the Pakistani military is carrying out a major offensive against militants since June 15.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to media.

It was the second strike this week on Wednesday, the US drone killed 15 militants there.

North Waziristan is home to local and foreign militants suspected of attacking American and Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.

US drone strikes are a serious source of tension between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan denounces the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty.

The Falcon is the new Captain America

He will be a character thats hard to root for, accorting to Axel Alonso, Marvel's editor-in-chief. 

Marvel is set to introduce a black Captain America by replacing Steve Rogers with Sam Wilson, better known as the Falcon. The special announcement, made on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report' on Wednesday, comes shortly after the US publisher's plans to make Thor a woman were revealed. 

Marvel is aiming for greater diversity in its big titles, hence these important changes to major characters. 

Comic book fans had long-rumoured the shift from Rogers to his old ally Wilson, with the latter set to take up the founding Avenger's patriotic shield this October. 

Wilson is set to star in Rick Remender's Captain America #25 with art by Carlos Pacheco. Concept art taken from the cover to All-New Captain American #1 tells fans that his costume will blend elements from his Falcon outfit with Captain America's classic style. His upgrading will follow Rogers' devastating fight against the Iron Nail, in which the villain drains him of the super serum keeping him physically perfect and depowers him into an old man. 

"While Sam shares many of Steve's beliefs in a general sense, he's also a very different person with a very different background," series editor Tom Brevoort told Marvel. 

"He didn't grow up in the 1930s, he's a modern day man in touch with the problems of the 21st century." 

Created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, Wilson first featured in 1969's Captain America #117 as the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics. 

In 1971, Wilson was promoted to join Captain America in the title, Captain America and the Falcon, but Steve Rogers went solo again from 1978. Before him came "The Black Panther", who was African and debuted in "Fantastic Four" years earlier. 

The first black "Captain America" was Isaiah Bradley who appeared in 2003's limited series "Truth: Red, White and Black." 

Marvel also has plans for other Avengers, with Tony Stark getting a new outfit and moving to San Francisco with the new name "Superior Iron Man.

Flight MH17: Ukraine rebels say they have plane's black boxes

The area has seen heavy fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists, and rebels had bragged about shooting down two Ukrainian military jets in the region just a day earlier.

Ukraine accused the rebels of shooting down the Malaysia Airways plane. The rebels denied it and accused government forces of the same; President Petro Poroshenko denied it as well.Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military. US intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.


For the first day in months, there was no sign of fighting in the area, though there was no official word of a cease-fire. But access to the area remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints running document checks.

The crash site was sprawling. Large chunks of the Boeing 777 that bore the airline's red, white and blue markings lay strewn over a field. The cockpit and one turbine lay a kilometer (a half-mile) apart, and residents said the tail landed another 10 kilometers (six miles) away, indicating the aircraft most likely broke up before hitting the ground.





Bodies and body parts were everywhere: in a sunflower field, even in the streets of the rebel-held village of Rozsypne, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border.






The area has seen heavy fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists, and rebels had bragged about shooting down two Ukrainian military jets in the region just a day earlier.

Ukraine accused the rebels of shooting down the Malaysia Airways plane. The rebels denied it and accused government forces of the same; President Petro Poroshenko denied it as well.






Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the downing, saying it was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions - but did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile. Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of supporting the rebels, a charge that Moscow denies.

Poroshenko called the attack an "act of terrorism" and demanded an international investigation.

An assistant to the insurgency's military commander, Igor Girkin, said Friday on condition of anonymity that eight out of the plane's 12 recording devices had been located at the crash site He did not elaborate.

He said Girkin, was still considering whether to give international crash investigators access to the sprawling crash site. Any investigators would need specific permission from the rebel leadership before they could safely film or take photos at the crash site.