Iranian Captives Freed in Major Prisoner Exchange in Syria





ISTANBUL — More than 2,000 prisoners incarcerated by the Syrian authorities were being released on Wednesday in return for 48 Iranians freed by rebels after five months in captivity in what appeared to be the biggest prisoner swap since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began almost two years ago.




The exchange, brokered by Turkey and Qatar, came days after Mr. Assad warned on Sunday that he would not abandon the fight against armed adversaries pressing on the approaches to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and brushed aside calls for him to quit.


Word of the exchange dominated news in Iran, the Syrian government’s only Middle East ally, leading the Web site of the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran state television showed a brief clip of the released hostages at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus, grinning, flashing victory signs and holding flowers. In an interview on Iran state TV, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, thanked those involved in the swap for the hostages and expressed happiness that “we managed to get them released.”


Precise details of the exchange, including when the 48 Iranians would be repatriated, remained unclear. Mr. Mehmanparast also said two Iranian engineers who had been abducted earlier in Syria remained captive. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a regional power broker allied to the Western and Arab nations seeking Mr. Assad’s departure, said he hoped the exchange on Wednesday would lead to freedom for more prisoners in Syria.


“We wish many other innocent people, and people in need, to be released from Syrian jails without delay,” Mr. Erdogan said in a televised news conference in Niamey, Nigeria, where he arrived on an official visit.


“This process needs to be appreciated. We are not in a position to say anything more than, ‘May this produce some good.’ ”


The exchange emerged from months of behind-the-scenes negotiations involving a Turkish charitable foundation, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an Islamist-leaning aid organization based in Istanbul and widely known as I.H.H.


The aid group had set up an operation center in Damascus to unite 2,130 prisoners, including 73 women, at one base while another aid team remained in Douma, near the Syrian capital, to oversee the return of the 48 Iranians.


“Captivity is a hard thing,” said Bulent Yildirim, the foundation’s director, who coordinated the exchange in Damascus.


“I saw young women crying, many people lost a lot of weight, and there were also many sick people.”


The Syrian opposition has claimed that the Iranians are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, but Tehran has denied the assertion, saying the captives are Shiite civilian pilgrims. The Iranians were seized in August while traveling on a bus from Damascus International Airport to a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of the capital, Iran’s Press TV said.


Opposition fighters had threatened to kill the Iranians unless Mr. Assad’s forces halted military operations. But since then the fighting around Damascus has intensified.


Iran is Mr. Assad’s main ally in a region where most Arab states and neighboring Turkey have turned against him. The Iranian captives offered the rebels holding them a source of powerful pressure on the Syrian leader to release opposition prisoners in return.


“We expect the swap to be completed in the next hour,” Huseyin Oruc, a member of the aid group’s executive board said in a telephone interview around midday. He said the captives released by the Syrian authorities included four Turks and a Palestinian.


By midafternoon it was not clear whether the 2,130 prisoners had been freed.


“It is the first time that the ‘humanitarian diplomacy’ we initiated succeeded in releasing such a large group of people at once,” Mr. Oruc said. “There are many more held captive and our efforts to free them will continue without delay.”


The Turkish aid group gained international attention in 2010 for organizing a flotilla of boats heading to Gaza, ostensibly with relief supplies, that prompted a deadly Israeli commando raid in which eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent died. At the time of the raid, the group was reported to have extensive connections with Turkey’s political elite. The episode began an unraveling of Turkey’s once close ties with Israel.


In recent months, the organization has also been part of negotiations to free smaller numbers of prisoners, including two Turkish journalists held in Syria, Reuters reported. It has been active since the early 1990s in charitable works in the Middle East and Africa, focusing most recently on Gaza.


Since the start of the uprising against Mr. Assad, the organization has also cast itself as a leading private charitable organization in Syria, delivering food and other basic supplies and pursuing what it calls “humanitarian diplomacy” to help free captive civilians.


While the numbers involved in Wednesday’s exchange seemed dramatic, some rebel commanders said more modest prisoner exchanges had become a feature of the conflict.


The leader of a rebel fighting group in the central city of Hama, reached via Skype, said pro-government militia members had captured his uncle and two other relatives in a village in the northern Idlib province more than a month ago.


 “The  only  way to release them is capturing  hostages,” the commander said, adding that negotiations were under way to win the release of his relatives in return for 12 captives held by the rebels. Two months ago, the commander said, nine members of the pro-government militia, known as shabiha, were  exchanged for five captured rebels. Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 with peaceful demonstrations, but a harsh suppression broadened into civil war with an estimated 60,000 people killed, according to United Nations estimates.


Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul and Alan Cowell from London. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Thomas Erdbrink from Tehran.



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Nintendo president describes Wii U sales as ‘not bad’






Nintendo’s (NTDOY) new Wii U gaming console came out of the gate strong and saw first-week sales reach 400,000 units in the U.S., however sales have since stalled and the system has been labeled a flop by some. While consumer interest in the company’s new console has slowed right out of the gate, Nintendo’s president recently said that he isn’t worried even though sales aren’t where he hoped they would be.


[More from BGR: Smooth sailing is over for Apple]






“At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn’t as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in an interview with Reuters. “But sales are not bad, and I feel it’s selling steadily.”


[More from BGR: New ‘higher-end’ iPhone reportedly launching by June, low-end model could be coming as well]


The executive declined to give specific details on sales or forecasts, although he did say that Nintendo plans to focus on developing attractive software for its 3DS handheld to appeal to new users, and will seek new ways to increase Wii U sales in a changing market.


Nintendo previously announced that it hopes to sell 5.5 million Wii U devices by the end of March and more than 24 million Wii U games in the same timeframe.


This article was originally published by BGR


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Mark Wahlberg Does Weather and Traffic Reports in Philadelphia















01/09/2013 at 02:30 PM EST



The weather is nice and mild in Philadelphia but things got pretty rowdy inside the weather room at local news station Fox 29's Good Day Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Mark Wahlberg and his Broken City director, Allen Hughes, took over the forecasting duties for weather anchor Sue Serio. (Watch his full report below.)

"This is perfect golf weather ... by the way," Wahlberg noted of a high of 54 degrees in the City of Brotherly Love.

Once the seven-day forecast was done, Wahlberg and Hughes lightened traffic reporter Kacie McDonnell's load and let Philadelphians know where they would find trouble on their morning commute.

"Look at this congestion here," Wahlberg said. "We're expecting 40- to 45-minute delays if you're coming east bound on the 676 here. You're going to have some serious problems. Why don't you stop and get yourself a hoagie?"

Broken City, which also stars Russell Crowe, opens Jan. 18.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down


WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.


Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.


"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.


But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.


Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.


The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.


Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.


Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.


But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.


Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.


Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.


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Bank of America, other banks move closer to ending mortgage mess


By Rick Rothacker and Aruna Viswanatha


CHARLOTTE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp announced more than $14 billion of legal settlements over bad mortgages it sold to investors and flaws in its foreclosure process, taking the bank a step closer to ending the home loan problems that have dogged it for years.


About $3 billion of Bank of America's Monday's settlements were part of a larger $8.5 billion deal between 10 big mortgage lenders and regulators to end a loan-by-loan review of foreclosures mandated by the government.


Bank of America shares touched their highest level in nearly two years as investors called it a good step toward ending the company's multiple legal woes. The shares later retreated to close down 0.2 percent at $12.09.


Analysts have estimated that Bank of America has paid out some $40 billion for mortgage settlements since the crisis began. Most of those losses stem from its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial, once the largest subprime lender in the United States.


But the bank is moving closer to the day when it can stop worrying about mortgages and start focusing on growth, analysts and investors said.


"It's a step in the right direction in terms of trying to put these issues behind the company," said Jonathan Finger of Finger Interests Ltd, a Houston, Texas-based investment firm that owns 1.1 million of the bank's shares.


Besides the multibank foreclosure settlement, the second largest U.S. bank also announced about $11.6 billion of settlements with government mortgage finance company Fannie Mae to end allegations the bank improperly sold mortgages that later soured, and to resolve questions about foreclosure delays.


Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of those settlements. The deal with Fannie wipes out 44 percent of the buy-back requests the bank faced as of the end of the third quarter. It also eliminates possible future repurchase requests on about $300 billion in loans.


Bank of America's home loan problems are far from over, though. It still needs court approval for an $8.5 billion settlement with private investors and it is locked in litigation with insurer MBIA Inc over mortgage-related claims.


The agreement also does not end a lawsuit the U.S. Justice Department brought against the bank last year over Countrywide and Bank of America loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agency said. The suit accuses Countrywide and Bank of America of causing losses to taxpayers of more than $1 billion.


"I think there is still quite a lot of litigation to go, and I don't think we'll see the end of this for some time," said Thomas Perrelli, a former top Justice Department official, speaking of industry wide legal issues stemming from the financial crisis.


BANKS SETTLE


The settlement Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and five other banks entered with regulators pays out up to $125,000 in cash to homeowners whose homes were being foreclosed when the paperwork problems emerged.


About $3.3 billion of the $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will be in cash, with the rest in changes to the terms of loans or mortgage forgiveness.


In April 2011, the government required banks that collect payments on mortgages, known as servicers, to review whether errors in the foreclosure process had harmed borrowers.


The review focused on foreclosures from 2009 and 2010 and looked at processes, including "robo-signing," where servicer employees or contractors signed documents without first reviewing them.


That loan-by-loan review proved slow and expensive, the OCC said.


The reviews had already cost more than $1.5 billion. They turned up evidence that around 6.5 percent of the loan files contained some error requiring compensation, but most of those errors involved potential payouts much less than $125,000, OCC officials said.


Other banks involved in the settlement include MetLife Bank, Aurora Bank FSB, PNC Financial Services Group Inc, Sovereign Bank NA, SunTrust Banks Inc and U.S. Bancorp.


Wells Fargo said its portion of the cash settlement will be $766 million, which will result in a $644 million charge when it reports fourth-quarter earnings on Friday. The bank said it will spend another $1.2 billion on foreclosure prevention actions, which will not result in additional charges.


Citigroup, which reports earnings next week, said it will take a $305 million charge for its cash payment portion of the settlement, while existing reserves would cover $500 million in loan forgiveness and other actions.


Housing advocates said they viewed the settlement as a positive move as it ends a flawed review process and provides some money, if limited, to consumers. But some advocates and lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the pact and suggested hearings could follow.


"I remain concerned that banks continue to avoid full accountability, and I believe that borrowers deserve more answers and transparency than the Federal Reserve and the OCC are currently willing to provide," said Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee.


BOFA SELLS SERVICING RIGHTS


For Bank of America, the Fannie Mae deal was the much larger of Monday's agreements.


Fannie Mae and sibling Freddie Mac essentially buy mortgages from banks and package them into bonds for investors. But during the mortgage boom, banks sold loans to the two companies that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say should never have been sold because, for example, borrowers had misstated their income. The two mortgage finance companies are pushing banks to buy back the loans.


On Monday, Bank of America also said it was selling the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management Corp. Reuters first reported on Friday that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment.


Investors appear to have decided the bank is on the right track as its shares hit their highest level since May 2011 on Monday. When Warren Buffett came to the bank's rescue in August 2011 with a $5 billion investment, he received warrants for 700 million shares of stock at $7.14 per share.


(Reporting By Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, Aruna Viswanatha in Washington and Jessica Toonkel and David Henry in New York; Writing by Dan Wilchins and Ben Berkowitz; editing by Jim Marshall)



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Face-off in Chinese City Over Censorship of Newspaper


Jonah M. Kessel for The New York Times


A free speech advocate outside of Southern Weekend newspaper in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday.







GUANGZHOU, China — Protests over censorship at one of China’s most liberal newspapers descended into ideological confrontation on Tuesday, pitting advocates of free speech against supporters of Communist Party control who wielded red flags and portraits of Mao Zedong.




The face-off between liberals and leftists at the headquarters of a newspaper company in southern China came after disgruntled editors and reporters at Southern Weekend last week decried what they alleged was crude meddling by the head of party propaganda in Guangdong Province, which has long had a reputation as a bastion of a relatively free press.


The protesting journalists at Southern Weekend have called for the dismissal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong Province. They blame Mr. Tuo, a former journalist, for making a drastic change in a New Year’s editorial that had originally called for greater respect for constitutional rights. The revised editorial instead praised Communist Party policies.


A former editor with the Southern Daily group of newspapers, which includes Southern Weekend, said negotiations continued on Tuesday between representatives of the disgruntled journalists and newspaper managers and provincial propaganda officials.


The former editor, who asked that his name not be used for fear it could jeopardize his new job, said the talks focused on the protesting journalists’ demands that the paper’s managers rescind a statement that denied that Mr. Tuo was responsible for the New Year editorial and for an inquiry into the incident.


“They want that statement to be removed, and they also want assurances about relaxing controls on journalists — not removing party oversight, but making it more reasonable, allowing reporters to challenge officials,” he said. “The other main demand is for an impartial explanation of what happened, an accounting so it won’t happen again.”


The former editor said a continued standoff into Wednesday could jeopardize the newspaper’s usual publication on Thursday. “In effect, it’s a strike,” he said. “It looks unclear whether it can come out on Thursday.”


Senior Chinese officials have so far not commented publicly on the censorship dispute at the newspaper, which has tested how far the recently appointed Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, will extend his vows of economic reform into a degree of political relaxation. But self-proclaimed defenders of Communist orthodoxy who turned up at the newspaper headquarters said on Tuesday that they were there to make the party’s case.


“We support the Communist Party, shut down the traitor newspaper,” said one of the cardboard signs held up by one of 10 or so protesters who came to defend the government.


“Southern Weekend is having an American dream,” said another of the signs. “We don’t want the American dream, we want the Chinese dream.”


Some of the group held up portraits of Mao, the late revolutionary leader who remains a symbol of communist zeal, while others waved the red flags of China and of the Communist Party. Most of the party supporters refused to give their names. They said they came on their own initiative, and not at the behest of officials.


The dueling protests outside the newspaper’s headquarters in this provincial capital reflected the political passions and tensions churned up by the quarrel over censorship, which has erupted while Mr. Xi is trying to win public favor and consolidate his authority.


Hundreds of bystanders watched and took photos on mobile phones as the leftists shouted at the 20 or more protesters who had gathered to denounce censorship, and shoving matches broke out between the demonstrators.


At one point, leftists were showered with 50-cent renminbi currency notes. The “Fifty Cent Party” has become a popular term for disparaging pro-party leftists, who are alleged by critics to be willing to take 50 cents in payment for each pro-party message they send onto the Internet.


“It’s the only newspaper in China that’s willing to tell the truth,” said Liang Taiping, 28, a poet from the southern city of Changsha who said he took the train to Guangzhou to show his support for Southern Weekend, which is widely read nationwide.


“What’s the point of living while you can’t even speak freely?” he said.


About 70 police officers and security guards stood nearby. They did not try to break up the protests, but officers recorded them with video cameras and occasionally stepped in to stop shoving and fisticuffs. Later, the rival protesters broke into separate camps concentrated on different sides of the gate to the newspaper headquarters.


The protests at Southern Weekend broke out while Mr. Xi, the party’s general secretary appointed in November, has been sending mixed signals about his intentions. He has repeatedly said he supports faster and bolder reform, but on Saturday he gave a speech defending the party’s history and Mao’s standing in it.


The Central Propaganda Department, which administers the censorship apparatus, issued instructions telling news media that the dispute at Southern Weekend was “due to the meddling of hostile outside forces,” according to China Digital Times, a group based in Berkeley, Calif., that monitors media and censorship issues.


Both supporters and critics of Southern Weekend journalists have claimed that Mr. Xi would back their cause.


“I don’t believe that Xi is totally hypocritical when he talks about reform,” said Chen Min, a prominent former opinion writer for Southern Weekend who was forced out of the newspaper in 2011.


“The Southern Weekend journalists have said that they accept party control, but the question is what kind of control and how far should it go unchallenged,” Mr. Chen added.


Jonah Kessel reported from Guangzhou, China, and Chris Buckley from Hong Kong. Mia Li contributed reporting from Guangzhou, and Patrick Zuo from Beijing.



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Sony unveils Xperia Z Android phone with full HD display









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Matthew McConaughey Getting Strength Back, But Not by Changing Diapers















01/08/2013 at 02:30 PM EST







Matthew McConaughey


George Pimentel/WireImage


Matthew McConaughey is slowly getting stronger after his incredible weight loss. But his workout regimen doesn't include much heavy lifting as a new father.

Asked at Monday night's New York Film Critics Circle Awards dinner if he's running home to change diapers, the actor, 43, told reporters: "I was there this morning, so I guess I am running home. But I'm not changing the diapers."

So, who is?

"Somebody," he said.

For now, the father of 11-day-old son Livingston – as well as older siblings Levi, 4, and Vida, 3 – is focused on getting his own body back to normal.

Asked if he misses his old hunky physique, he replied: "I have less [physical] leverage, but my mind is way sharper … You know, I love to wrestle. It's a good time to wrestle me now. I was 135 lbs., and now I'm up to 160 lbs, so I'm done with that and on my way back."

McConaughey says his target weight is 165 lbs., so he's only 5 lbs. shy of that.

The actor lost the weight for a role in Dallas Buyers Club through an intense diet. When that was over, he knew exactly what he wanted to eat first.

"A cheeseburger," he said. "That was it. I got the cheeseburger, and then I sat there for 25 minutes and doozied it up."

Reporting by MICHELLE WARD

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Organ donations fall in Germany after scandal


BERLIN (AP) — Organ donations have dropped sharply in Germany following a scandal over alleged corruption at several transplant clinics.


The German Foundation for Organ Transplantation says the number of organs donated fell almost 13 percent to 3,917 last year, the lowest figure in a decade.


Several German clinics are being investigated over allegations that doctors manipulated waiting lists to help some patients appear sicker than they were and so receive transplants sooner.


The foundation said Monday that the scandal had "massively shaken" the public's faith in the transplant system.


Some 12,000 people in Germany require organ transplants each year.


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Wall Street retreats from five-year high as focus shifts to earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as investors cashed in recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high and awaited the start of the fourth-quarter earnings season.


The day's decline was broad across all sectors, but energy and utilities were the top decliners. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 1 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.2 percent.


Another sector in focus was the financials. Financial stocks fell after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay billions in settlement with U.S. regulators.


The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.7 percent.


Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.


"There is little doubt that concerns about the fiscal cliff created spending hesitancy in both consumers and businesses in the fourth quarter, and it is likely that will adversely impact earnings season," margins are choppy and cost cuts have run their course, said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.


Aluminum company Alcoa Inc will unofficially launch the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares were down 1 percent at $9.17.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 76.03 points, or 0.57 percent, at 13,359.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 8.40 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,458.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 11.89 points, or 0.38 percent, at 3,089.77.


The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high and investors booked profits on stocks' best weekly gain in more than a year, boosted by a budget deal and economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week.


Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.


Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.


The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.


"The settlements may remove any overhang for the stock in the near term, but it only partially satisfies the issue," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management.


Bank of America shares were down 0.7 percent at $12.02 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 12.7 percent to $37.44.


Citigroup shares were down 0.5 percent to $42.20. Wells Fargo shares fell 1.1 percent to $34.55.


Walt Disney Co started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters. Disney shares fell 2.4 percent to $50.95.


Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 2.3 percent to $98.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.


Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 2.8 percent at $266.63.


Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.


(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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