Amazon launches Kindle content for kids

AMAZON is launching a subscription service for children's games, videos and books aimed at getting more kids to use its Kindle Fire tablet devices.

Amazon.com Inc plans to announce on Wednesday that the Kindle FreeTime Unlimited service will be available in the next few weeks as part of an automatic software update.

Amazon said subscribers will have access to "thousands" of pieces of content, though the company did not give a specific number. Kids will be able to watch, play and read any of the content available to them as many times as they want. Parents can set time limits, however.

The service, aimed at kids aged 3 to 8, will cost $4.99 per month for one child. It'll cost $US2.99 per child for members of Amazon Prime, the company's premium shipping service. Amazon Prime costs $US79 per year for free shipping of merchandise purchased in the company's online store.

Family plans for up to six kids will cost $9.99 per month and $6.99 for Prime members.

The Kindle already allows for parental controls through its FreeTime service. Parents can set up profiles for up to six children and add time limits to control how long kids can spend reading, watching videos or using the Kindle altogether. With the content subscription service, kids can browse age-appropriate videos, games and books and pick what they want to see. They won't be shown ads and will be prevented from accessing the web or social media. Kids also won't be able to make payments within applications.

Amazon is launching the service as competition heats up in the tablet market among Apple, Barnes & Noble, Microsoft and Samsung. Amazon's strategy is to offer the Kindle at a relatively low price and make money selling the content.

Offering a subscription service aimed at kids helps set the Kindle apart from its many competitors.

"We hope that our devices are really, really attractive for families," said Peter Larsen, vice president of Amazon's Kindle business.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

7 killed in Syria-linked violence: Lebanon

SNIPER fire has killed seven civilians in Syria-linked violence in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Sectarian tensions in Tripoli, the country's second city, have soared since the outbreak of Syria's revolt nearly 21 months ago.

Intermittent clashes have pitted Sunni Muslim districts against areas housing Alawites, from the same religious community as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The latest clashes that erupted on Tuesday began four days after 22 Sunni men from Tripoli who had joined rebels battling Assad's forces were killed by soldiers in the central Syrian province of Homs.

The violence has left seven dead in just two days, the security official said. Four were killed on Wednesday, while three others died the day before.

"Khodr Hanoub, a man in his 40s, was killed at dawn Wednesday in the (Sunni) district of Bab al-Tebbaneh," the official said, adding that Ali Habbabeh was killed in the Alawite district of Jabal Mohsen.

The official also reported the killing in Bab al-Tebbaneh of Zakaria Othman and Mehdi al-Beik on Wednesday, while Khaled Salem, 27, was killed overnight.

They died a day after kiosk owner Mohammed Ibrahim, 65, was killed in Jabal Mohsen by a sniper operating from across the street-turned-front line separating the two impoverished neighbourhoods.

Also on Tuesday, Bab al-Tebbaneh resident Abdel Rahman Nasouh was shot dead.

While there was a lull in fighting on Wednesday, snipers held their positions and continued to shoot, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The official reported 57 people wounded altogether, including two soldiers.

Lebanon's population is deeply divided over Syria, with the Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, its allies and supporters bitterly opposed to the revolt, and the Sunni-led March 14 movement backing it.

Lebanon was dominated politically and militarily by Damascus for nearly 30 years, until the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri prompted international outrage and forced a Syrian pullout.

Near-daily clashes in border areas pit Hezbollah supporters against anti-Assad rebels, residents and activists say.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain faces more austerity pain

FINANCE minister George Osborne has warned Britons that they faced an extra year of austerity measures and insisted that reversing his belt-tightening measures now would be a "disaster".

Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne said Britain would face spending cuts and tax hikes until 2018 - after the coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron had already previously extended the program by two years to 2017.

The bleak announcement in a budget update, coming alongside news that the government is slashing its outlook for economic growth, is likely to heap further pressure on the administration mid-way through a five-year term in power.

Addressing parliament on Wednesday, Osborne also admitted that the government would fail to meet its official target for reducing public debt as a proportion of British economic output by 2015-16.

"It is taking time but the British economy is healing after the biggest financial crash in our lifetime," Osborne insisted in his autumn statement.

Confirming that he was prolonging the government's austerity program to 2017-18 - beyond Britain's next general election due in 2015 - Osborne said: "We are making progress. It's a hard road, but we are getting there. Britain is on the right track and turning back now would be a disaster."

Explaining why he was extending cuts in public spending and hiking taxes again, Osborne said the British economy faced "deep-seated problems at home and abroad."

Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, which came to power in 2010, has imposed a series of painful austerity measures to slash a record deficit that was inherited from the previous Labour administration.

Cameron and Osborne have overseen the loss of tens of thousands of public-sector jobs, slashing workforces in the military, health service and various state departments.

The government has also faced huge demonstrations from disgruntled workers and students in response to the cuts.

The main opposition Labour party said Osborne's economic plans were "in tatters".

The party's finance spokesman Ed Balls said: "Today, after two and a half years, we can see, people can feel in the country, the true scale of this government's economic failure.

"Our economy this year is contracting, (and) the chancellor has confirmed government borrowing is revised up this year, next year and every year."

Britain meanwhile slashed its economic outlook, forecasting the economy would shrink by 0.1 per cent this year and then return to growth in 2013, according to figures published alongside the budget update.

The new forecast, issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog, showed a sharp drop on the previous 2012 growth estimate of 0.8 per cent that was given in Osborne's annual budget in March.

The OBR added that British gross domestic product was forecast to grow by 1.2 per cent in 2013. That compared with previous guidance for greater expansion of 2.0 per cent.

Osborne also revealed that debt as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) was now expected to fall in 2016-17 - a year later than the government's previous forecast.

Recent official data showed that Britain had escaped from recession in the third quarter of this year, with its economy growing by a robust 1.0 per cent.

However the return to growth was owing to one-off factors such as the London Olympics and rebounding activity after public holidays in the second quarter.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Citigroup to axe more than 11,000 jobs

CITIGROUP says it will eliminate more than 11,000 jobs.

The bank says it's looking to cut expenses and improve efficiency.

The company said on Wednesday that the cuts will result in about $US1 billion ($A958.91 million) in charges in the fourth quarter and about $100 million in charges during the first half of next year.

It expects about $900 million in expense savings in 2013 and annual expense savings of more than $1.1 billion starting in 2014.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cannibal mystery as Russians found in wild

RUSSIAN investigators have opened a murder case after two fishermen were rescued following three months lost in a remote far east forest amid fears the pair could have eaten a companion to stay alive, officials say.

Four men disappeared in August on a river-fishing expedition to the vast Yakutia region in the Russian Far East, one of the most remote and inhospitable places in the world.

Rescuers finally found two of the men this month by the Sutam River some 250 kilometres from the nearest town of Neryungri in the south of Yakutia, but without two companions.

The men claimed their group had split up and said the others were likely still alive, as they were used to living in the open.

But a murder probe was opened after a team of top investigators from the regional capital Yakutsk found fragments of a human corpse close to the place where the pair was found.

"Investigators carried out an examination of two areas. Fragments of a human corpse with signs of a violent death were discovered and removed," the Yakutia branch of Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.

"A criminal case into suspected murder has been opened."

According to a report on the lifenews.ru website, the men have fled the hospital where they were being treated for severe frostbite and were now on the run.

Russia has no article in the criminal code for cannibalism but the state RIA Novosti news agency said that the initial theory was that the two men had eaten one companion. It was not clear what happened to the fourth man.

"What we found were chopped human bones, fragments of a skull and a bloodstained chunk of ice," an investigator, who was not named, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid daily.

"It's clear that this person did not die of his own accord," said the investigator.

Meanwhile local news site Sakhapress.ru said that their expedition had been aimed at gold prospecting and not fishing as claimed.

Two of the four are local inhabitants of the Russian Far East and the others are from the region of Saratov in central Russia who were visiting the area.

The human remains have yet to be identified.

The wife of one of the men who remains missing, named as Andrei Kurochkin from Saratov, said she had not yet given up hope for her husband.

"The police said that they had found human remains. But I believe that Andrei is alive. I am hoping other hunters have found him and he is not alone," Olga Kurochkina told the newspaper.

The rescued pair, reportedly aged 37 and 35, have denied any wrongdoing and said they had managed to survive as the winter set in a wooden hut by foraging for wild foods.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

US stocks mixed in opening trade

US stocks have opened mixed after a weak November private-sector jobs report reflected the impact of the devastating superstorm Sandy.

After five minutes of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41.62 points (0.32 per cent) at 12,993.40.

The S&P 500-stock index edged up 1.52 points (0.11 per cent) to 1408.57 while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite fell 5.74 (0.19 per cent) to 2990.95.

Before the opening bell, payrolls firm ADP reported businesses added just 118,000 jobs in November to the economy, down from 157,000 in October.

Moody's Analytics estimated that Sandy, which battered the Northeast in late October, had sliced 86,000 jobs from the total.

"Abstracting from the storm, the job market turned in a good performance during the month," said Marc Zandi, Moody's chief economist.

US stocks closed slightly lower on Tuesday as Washington continued to wrangle over a budget plan that would avoid the year-end "fiscal cliff."

The Dow slipped 0.11 per cent, the S&P 500 dipped 0.17 per cent and the Nasdaq lost 0.18 per cent.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Somali Islamists attack Puntland troops

SOMALIA'S Islamist Shebab have killed at least ten soldiers from the northern Puntland region, an area where the al-Qaeda linked militants are feared to be carving out new bases, officials say.

Khalif Issa Mudan, defence minister of the semi-autonomous region, said that ten of his troops "were killed by Shebab after a roadside bomb exploded by their vehicle" on the road to the mountainous Galgala area late on Tuesday.

"We killed seven of the Shebab... and now our troops are now hunting down the others who carried out the attack," Mudan said.

The Shebab, who claimed to have also raided an army base, said they had killed 29 soldiers, with four of their own fighters killed.

"We attacked a military camp near Bossaso," Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab said, referring to the main port in the region.

Shebab fighters, long active mainly in southern and central Somalia, are on the back foot, reeling from a string of losses as they battle a 17,000-strong African Union force as well as Ethiopian troops and Somali forces.

But as the fighters flee a series of once powerful strongholds - including most recently the strategic and lucrative southern port of Kismayo - Galgala in the northern Golis mountains has provided refuge.

The Golis mountains, straddling the porous border between the autonomous state of Puntland and self-declared independent Somaliland, is honeycombed with caves and difficult to access.

The northern mountains have been under the longtime control of warlord, arms dealer and Shebab ally Mohamed Said Atom, on UN Security Council sanctions for "kidnapping, piracy and terrorism."

Puntland forces battled Atom's troops in 2010-2011, damaging his militia force but failing to crush the militants, and the Shebab have since bolstered the fighters in the region.

The Shebab, who abandoned fixed positions in the war-torn capital Mogadishu last year, have also carried out a series of guerrilla attacks there, including suicide bombings.

AFP a

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Israel advances settlement plan

AN Israeli plan to build new settler homes in a sensitive area near Jerusalem has passed a first hurdle, sparking fury from the Palestinians, who said building there would end all hopes of peace.

Israel's plan for construction in a strip of West Bank land outside Jerusalem called E1 has sparked a major diplomatic backlash, with experts warning it could wipe out hopes of establishing a viable Palestinian state.

"If Israel decides to start building in E1 and approves all the settlements in it, we consider it to be an Israeli decision to end the peace process and the two-state solution, which ends any chance of talking about peace in the future," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP on Wednesday.

He spoke shortly after Israeli radio stations said a defence ministry planning committee which met on Wednesday gave its green light for the plan to be deposited for public approval, pushing it one step ahead in the planning process.

The Civil Administration's planning committee "approved the program for new building in the E1 area between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim," public radio said.

Maaleh Adumim is a settlement some five kilometres from the eastern edge of Jerusalem.

Public radio said the committee had approved plans for 3200 homes in E1 and in annexed east Jerusalem, which would now be made available for public objections.

"For two months the public will be able to submit objections to the project and after that the debate on continuing it will continue," it said.

Army radio ran a similar report, saying the Civil Administration had "approved moving ahead with the project to build in E1 between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim."

Observers say Israeli plans to build in E1 and connect Maaleh Adumim with east Jerusalem would effectively prevent the future establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state, dooming the two-state solution.

Earlier, an Israeli official confirmed that the defence ministry committee had begun examining plans to build in E1 that have been on hold since 2005 following heavy US pressure.

"After that it will need to go through another few stages," he told AFP.

"Final approval for the plan will have to come from the political level. There won't be any bulldozers going in any time soon. It will take at least several months, if not years."

News of Israel's intention to push ahead with plans to build in E1 emerged on Friday, a day after the Palestinians won UN non-member state observer status, in what was a major diplomatic blow to the Jewish state as it tried to block the move.

It sparked an immediate outcry from top diplomats in Washington and Brussels, with at least six governments summoning the Israeli ambassador to protest at the move.

The UN warned the plan could deal an "almost fatal blow" to the two-state solution.

Earlier, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said that the committee was examining plans to build 1200 homes in the southern sector of E1 and another 2176 in the eastern part.

Construction there has been on Israel's radar since the early 1990s, but the plans were never implemented because of heavy pressure, largely from Washington.

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More