Fuel tanker reportedly hijacked off Nigeria coast

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? Pirates hijacked a fuel tanker off the coast of Nigeria's oil-rich delta, taking Pakistani and Nigerian sailors hostage in the latest attack targeting the region, private security officials said Tuesday.

The gunmen boarded the MT Matrix I some 40 nautical miles off the coast of Nigeria's Bayelsa state early Saturday morning, the officials said, taking a number of the crew hostage. It wasn't immediately known what happened to the rest of the crew. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as the Nigerian government was not speaking publicly about the hijacking.

A military spokesman in the delta referred calls for comment Tuesday to Nigeria's navy. Commodore Kabir Aliyu, a navy spokesman, said there had been no report of a hijacking made to officials.

Some shippers in the region don't report hijackings publicly, out of fears of having their insurance premiums rise.

Telephone numbers for Pakistan's High Commission in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, could not be immediately connected Tuesday.

Nigerian naval authorities listed the ship as one of several allowed to bring subsidized gasoline into the country in May as part of a program costing the nation billions of dollars a year.

Naval officials listed the ship as being operated by a company called Integrated Shipping Services Nigeria Ltd. A telephone number for the company could not be immediately found. Other registries listed the ship as being operated by Val Oil Trading SA of Athens, Greece. A number for that company could not be immediately found. Officials at Matrix Energy Ltd., a Nigerian company listed as doing business with Val Oil Trading, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The Gulf of Guinea, which follows the continent's southward curve from Liberia past Nigeria to Gabon, has seen an escalation in violent pirate attacks from low-level armed robberies to hijackings and cargo thefts. London-based Lloyd's Market Association ? an umbrella group of insurers ? has listed Nigeria, neighboring Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy have allowed piracy to flourish.

Oil tanker hijackings have happened more and more in recent months, with pirates stealing the fuel onboard, as opposed to kidnapping sailors for ransom. Estimates suggest pirates likely are able to make as much as a $2 million profit for offloading 3,000 tons of fuel. Foreign hostages still draw tens of thousands of dollars in ransoms, with nearly all released unharmed after their companies pay for their freedom.

The piracy and kidnappings have grown around Nigeria's oil delta, despite a 2009 government amnesty program for militants there.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fuel-tanker-reportedly-hijacked-off-nigeria-coast-121845103.html

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Smartphones to outsell feature phones in 2013

Smartphone Market Share 2013

Growth at the high end of the smartphone market might be slowing, but it seems like nothing can stop the low-end smartphone market. Smartphones out-shipped feature phones for the first time in Q1 this year and according to market research firm DisplaySearch, smartphones will continue to dominate basic cell phones for the rest of 2013. The firm sees smartphone shipments hitting 937 million units this year, handily topping the 889 million feature phones expected to ship. By 2016, smartphones shipments will hit 1.45 billion units thanks to growth in emerging markets, and smart handsets will make up an estimated two-thirds of the global cell phone market at that time.

[More from BGR: Schmidt: If governments want Google to pay more taxes, they should change tax laws]

[More from BGR: Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4: PS4 wins on specs]

?The global smartphone market is expected to continue growing rapidly over the next two years,? said Shawn Lee, research director at DisplaySearch. ?With larger, higher-resolution displays, faster processors, and higher-capacity cellular systems being built, the smartphone is not only becoming a must-have device, but is satisfying many needs that formerly required other computing and consumer electronics devices.?

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/smartphones-outsell-feature-phones-2013-214518993.html

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96% Blancanieves

All Critics (50) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (2)

Most films are experiences to be ignored or at best forgotten. "Blancanieves" is a little classic to be treasured.

It is a full-bodied silent film of the sort that might have been made by the greatest directors of the 1920s, if such details as the kinky sadomasochism of this film's evil stepmother could have been slipped past the censors.

Blancanieves, which won 10 Goyas (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars) and was a smash hit in its native Spain, has traces of a kinky undertone and an uncommon willingness to embrace the darkness inherent in this fairy tale.

As if bewitched, the legend of Snow White is transferred to Seville in the early twentieth century and transformed into high melodrama.

Sensuous, mischievous, hotblooded retelling of the old Teutonic fairy tale.

This gorgeous silent film is an unexpected gift from the gods of pure cinema.

A boldly conceived fairy tale from Spain

Succeeds in all its cinematic experiments

The story might be familiar, but Berger's film is so beautifully shot and so wonderfully scored - and so distinctively Spanish - that it stands as its own film.

Blancanieves holds to the structure, but not strictures, of the source fairy tale.

A new, purely silent movie from Spain that never once speaks and doesn't need to speak. What's more, it seems to get the infinite possibilities of silence, and how much passion can come from it.

Berger's film doesn't show loyalty to any traditional version of Snow White. Berger's Blancanieves takes a darker approach, which seems appropriate.

A completely enchanting fairy tale about the vicissitudes of fate, in live action and glorious black and white.

The fun in the Spanish "Blancanieves" is the way it plays with our expectations.

May not have much depth to its characters or particular surprise, but its lovely depiction of family's ability to harm and mend has the flair of flamenco and the sorrow of opera.

No, "Blancanieves" isn't subtle, but it's an unforgettable time at the movies.

Inspired filmmaking steeped in the imagery of silent film history, a dark Iberian strain of Roman Catholicism and the magic of fairy tales.

... lusty and heartfelt, fiery flamenco and spirited country jig. Don't go expecting a Disney-fied fable. Berger seasons with S&M and the kind of macabre touches you'd expect in vintage Browning or Bunuel.

If not for some faintly disturbing imagery and a pleasingly feminist heroine, you could mistake this for a movie actually made in the 1920s (and even those two factors weren't utterly unknown then).

A loving tribute to European silent films of the 1920s; a reminder that cinema need not be constrained by words.

By the time the film arrives at its grand theatrical finale, you're almost prepared for Berger's last great twist. Almost.

this beautifully shot and imaginatively told fairy tale should be seen my many, but only a few will likely get to enjoy it. This is a shame for the audience it is intended for.

This film is simply gorgeous, pure beauty on film, a vision that leaves you breathless and reeling.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blancanieves/

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UN rights body agrees to urgent debate on Syria

GENEVA (AP) ? The U.N.'s top human rights body agreed Monday to hold another urgent session on the civil war in Syria, hoping to prod accountability for the killing of thousands of civilians.

The U.S., Turkey and Qatar persuaded the 47-member Human Rights Council to hold a debate Wednesday looking into the violence in the Syrian town of Qusair, near Lebanon.

The move came as the U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, warned that the international community was failing Syria's victims.

The council has passed nine previous resolutions on Syria seeking to end the violence and impose accountability for the killings, rapes, torture, shelling of civilians and other horrific abuses.

Diplomats exchanged sharp words Monday over the more than 70,000 people killed in Syria and the millions displaced since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.

Ambassador Oguz Demiralp of Turkey said Assad's regime is "attacking its own citizens with heavy weapons" in Qusair, which has been under siege by government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group since last week.

"This time the Syrian regime is blatantly hand-in-hand with foreign culprits," he said. "Those who cling to power in Syria seem to have lost sense of reality and humanity."

Syrian Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui accused the council of catering to nations that support the rebels and claimed that Pillay's rights office has taken an "irresponsible and biased attitude" toward his government.

But British Ambassador Karen Pierce and other diplomats praised Pillay's "vital words" on Syria.

Pillay told the council that civilians unfairly bear the brunt of a crisis that is threatening the region's stability and in which "human rights violations have reached horrific dimensions."

She said she was extremely concerned about the possibility that hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded and thousands trapped by indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks by Syrian government forces in Qusair.

Pillay warned that the Syria government is shelling residential areas and directly targeting schools and hospitals. She also said "wanton human rights violations" were being committed by the rebels.

She repeated her call for the U.N. to refer Syria for war crimes prosecution with the International Criminal Court.

Down the hallway, diplomats at the World Health Assembly shared their concerns about Syria's growing cases of mental illness and diseases such as typhoid, hepatitis A and measles, and its severely disrupted health care system.

Next week a U.N. panel investigating war crimes in Syria is to deliver an update on their work that is expected to deal with the suspected use of chemical weapons in the war.

That could add to pressure on Syria from the U.N. General Assembly, which two weeks ago approved an Arab-backed resolution demanding a political transition in Syria.

Next month, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ? the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France ? hope get Assad's regime and its opponents to the negotiating table in Geneva.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-rights-body-agrees-urgent-debate-syria-200711797.html

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Bulgaria's PM-designate pledges help for poor

By Tsvetelia Tsolova

SOFIA (Reuters) - The man most likely to form Bulgaria's next government pledged on Sunday to spend more to help society's most deprived, but said he would keep public debt low enough to maintain a currency peg to the euro.

Plamen Oresharski, 53, offers the best chance for ending a political stalemate that has dragged on since the government quit in February in the face of protests against austerity measures in the European Union's poorest country.

Bulgaria needs a working government to hammer out a 2014 budget and lobby for EU funds required to end an economic crisis and raise living standards.

The center-right party that led the former government won most seats in a May 12 election but could not command a majority, so it passed the baton to Oresharski, a former finance minister, to build a cabinet of technocrats supported by the Socialists and the ethnic Turkish MRF.

The country's president has mandated him to form a government. He must still win a vote on confidence in parliament, a prospect seen as likely given that all he needs is one abstention among MPs from the center-right GERB or the nationalist Attack party.

"I have not been involved in political talks, but from some signs it is obvious that Attack will either abstain or not vote. That gives us certain reasons to be confident," the softly-spoken Oresharski told Reuters.

With the average salary at just 400 euros ($520) per month, pensions half that and every fifth Bulgarian living below the poverty line, the new government needs to show it can work to improve incomes or risk fresh demonstrations.

Although he is not a member of the political parties that have long dominated Bulgarian politics, Oresharski hardly symbolizes a fresh start.

He oversaw a period of dizzying economic boom and dramatic bust as finance minister in a Socialist-led administration that lasted from 2005 to 2009.

Given the May vote's inconclusive result and continued public frustration with the political class, Oresharski is treading carefully, promising policies with broad support across the parties.

He said the new government would look to find up to 200 million levs ($132 million) from the budget to help poorer people pay electricity and heating bills, create temporary jobs and boost support for mothers.

"I believe there is a way to restructure spending and keep the deficit at the planned level of 1.3 percent of gross domestic product this year," Oresharski said in an interview.

The new cabinet would keep flat income and corporate tax rates unchanged at 10 percent - some of the lowest in the EU - to attract foreign investors and help propel growth beyond an expected 1 percent this year, he said. Before the May vote, the Socialists had pledged to cut tax for lower earners.

Oresharski said he would discuss raising the minimum wage from 310 levs per month and increasing pensions, which have been frozen since 2009, in line with inflation, by boosting tax collection rather than raising additional loans.

The government would stick with a Socialist promise to create 250,000 more jobs in the country of 7.3 million and try to keep electricity prices unchanged. It promises to restructure an opaque and inefficient energy sector in an attempt to avoid more of the protests, which started when bills rose in cold weather.

It will also consider restarting a nuclear power plant project at Belene, canceled by the previous government, if a new review showed the 2,000 megawatt plant made economic sense, Oresharski said. ($1 = 1.5126 Bulgarian levs) ($1 = 0.7734 euros)

(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bulgarias-pm-designate-pledges-help-poor-114226886.html

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US, Russia discuss peace plan as Syria worsens

PARIS (AP) ? The top U.S. and Russian diplomats met Monday to try to accelerate frustratingly slow peace efforts in Syria, where the signs point only to a worsening conflict.

Capping off an eight-day trip to the Middle East and Africa, Secretary of State John Kerry flew into the French capital to see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and exchange updates on their respective diplomatic efforts.

The United States and its Arab allies are attempting to secure the participation of Syria's fractured opposition at an international peace conference in Geneva, planned for next month. Russia is pledging to deliver Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime to the talks.

But despite claims of progress by both powers, there is little evidence to suggest either side in Syria is ready to halt more than two years of violence that has killed more than 70,000 people. President Barack Obama has demanded that Assad leave power; Russia has stood by its closest ally in the Arab world.

Kerry said the U.S. and Russia each are committed to starting a political transition that "would allow the people of Syria to decide the future of Syria."

"We are committed to this," Kerry told reporters upon conclusion of the meeting. "We both want to make this conference happen, if possible, together with many other countries that will join up."

"It is our hope that we will come out of here with greater clarity about some of the issues that need to be worked on in the days ahead," he added.

Lavrov suggested much work remains if any peace conference is going to make headway, calling it a "very tall order." He also signaled continued disagreement between Washington and Moscow on the participants at the conference, saying it should include more interested parties than previous diplomatic gatherings. It was an apparent reference to Iran, which the United States and the Syrian opposition don't want to see involved in any negotiation.

The one-on-one Paris meeting between Kerry and Lavrov, to be immediately followed by a dinner that includes French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, occurred as Sen. John McCain slipped into Syria Monday to meet with rebels, and at an increasingly dangerous time for the country.

For the past week, regime troops and allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah ? and even some Iranian fighters ? have waged an offensive in Qusair, gaining ground against the rebels behind intense bombardments of the strategic western Syria town.

Hezbollah's enhanced role poses an assortment of concerns for the Obama administration, with the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, vowing over the weekend that his militants would back Assad to victory.

Beyond providing powerful reinforcements to Assad's regime, Hezbollah's involvement increases the risk of spillover into Lebanon, a country as ethnically divided and fragile as Syria. Two rockets struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut on Sunday, raising fears that the country could be plunged back into civil war.

And any conflict with Hezbollah threatens to drag in Israel, which has proven with airstrikes it won't tolerate large-scale and advanced weapons transfers to its northern border. Lebanon's state-run news agency reported one missile fired from that area toward the Jewish state on Sunday night.

For Kerry and other would-be peacemakers, the confluence of developments only reaffirms the need for a serious peace process to begin.

The Americans have stressed that any talks be carried out in good faith and lead to the full transfer of power to an interim government. Logic, they say, compels that this government not include Assad or other members of his government culpable in widespread abuses.

Getting to the talks hasn't been easy. Kerry is waiting for Syria's Sunni-led opposition coalition to unearth itself from a mountain of internal divisions, from adding new representatives to determining how Islamist or how secular to define their movement.

Opposition leaders met among themselves Monday in Istanbul for the fifth straight day. And while they've grappled for unity, they haven't given a firm yes to the peace strategy outlined by Kerry and Lavrov earlier this month.

McCain spokeswoman Rachel Dean confirmed the Arizona Republican met with rebels in Syria. She declined further comment. McCain has been a leading proponent of arming the rebels and other aggressive military steps against the Assad regime.

Russia has achieved, rhetorically at least, greater success. The Syrian government said Sunday it agreed "in principle" to send delegates to Geneva, strengthening Moscow's hand ahead of any direct ? and potentially proxy ? U.S.-Russian diplomatic negotiations.

With Syria's opposition scrambling politically and militarily, the European Union apparently is moving to bolster the opposition effort.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday the EU has decided to lift the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition while maintaining all other sanctions against Bashar Assad's regime after June 1.

The Obama administration has been mulling a similar step for months. Despite Assad's military advances and evidence that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebels, the Obama administration remains wary about getting too involved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-russia-discuss-peace-plan-syria-worsens-201019271.html

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Angelina Jolie's aunt dies of breast cancer

(Reuters) - Angelina Jolie's aunt died of breast cancer on Sunday, a hospital spokesman in California said, nearly two weeks after the actress wrote about electing to have a double mastectomy after learning she had inherited a high risk of breast cancer.

Debbie Martin, the younger sister of Jolie's mother, died at age 61 at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, near San Diego.

Her husband, Ron Martin, told Britain's Sky News that his wife had the same defective BRCA1 gene as Jolie.

Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer in 2007 at age 56.

On May 14, Jolie, the Oscar-winning film star, revealed she had a double mastectomy in an article in the New York Times, saying she hoped her story would inspire other women fighting the life-threatening disease.

Jolie, 37, is raising a family with fellow actor and fiance Brad Pitt. She wrote that she went through with the operation in part to reassure her six children that she would not die young from cancer, as her own mother did.

"We often speak of 'Mommy's mommy,' and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me," wrote Jolie.

"I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a 'faulty' gene."

The actress, who won an Oscar as best supporting actress for her 1999 role in the film "Girl, Interrupted," said she opted for the surgery after her doctors had estimated she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, due to an inherited genetic mutation.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/angelina-jolies-aunt-dies-breast-cancer-041525062.html

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