Syria, Snowden top topics for Kerry-Lavrov meeting

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) ? The Syrian crisis and National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden were hot-button topics Tuesday at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of an Asian summit in Brunei.

Lavrov declined to sum up his more-than-90-minute meeting with Kerry, telling reporters only that their discussion was "excellent." After saying goodbye to Lavrov, Kerry ducked back into the room where he had meetings scheduled with Asian leaders.

Kerry wanted to talk to Lavrov about Russia's support of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, which is fighting against opposition forces armed by Western and Arab nations, and the case involving Snowden, which has strained U.S.-Russia relations.

Snowden, who is wanted in the U.S. on three charges of espionage, has been on the run since releasing sensitive NSA documents. He is believed to have been in the Moscow airport's transit zone since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23. The U.S. has annulled his passport, and Ecuador, where he had hoped to get asylum, has been giving mixed signals about offering him shelter.

Snowden has expanded his requests for asylum to more than 20 countries, including China, according to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy group that has adopted Snowden and his cause.

After Snowden applied for political asylum to remain in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in Moscow that Snowden would have to stop leaking U.S. secrets if he wanted asylum there ? and he added that Snowden seemed unwilling to stop publishing leaks of classified material.

Before the meeting, when a reporter asked whether he and Kerry would talk about asylum for Snowden, Lavrov scolded the reporter, saying, "Don't shout at me, please."

Three U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the Snowden case, have said Washington is trying to persuade Russia to deport Snowden either directly to the United States or to a third country, possibly in eastern Europe, that would then hand him over to U.S. authorities.

Neither the U.S. State Department nor the Russian foreign ministry issued statements detailing the meeting between Kerry and Lavrov.

Irritated by reporters who chased him down the hall after the meeting, Lavrov said, "I am on my way because I missed my lunch" and "You are absolutely crazy. I don't know how you can work like this."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-snowden-top-topics-kerry-lavrov-meeting-051938796.html

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Firefox OS hands-on: Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open (video)

We've crossed paths with Firefox OS before, but today marks the first time we've played with handsets running the final build of Mozilla's mobile software. The Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open you see above are the same hardware we saw at MWC earlier this year -- in fact, the latter just launched in Spain on Telefónica for €69 ($90) contract-free including €30 ($39) of airtime for prepaid customers. We took both phones for a brief spin and immediately noticed a slight improvement in performance. Unfortunately, there's still a significant amount of lag in the UI, especially when scrolling through web pages and navigating the app tray. Website also take a while to load, even when connecting over Wi-Fi. Then again, what do you expect for €69? Check out the gallery below and hit the break to watch our hands-on video.

Note: While the ZTE Open we handled was Movistar branded (a Telefónica brand) and is launching today for €69 (not €63 as mentioned in our video).

Gallery: Firefox OS hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Marshall Fine: Live from the Karlovy Vary Film Festival: Monday, July 1

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I feel like a bit of a slacker, having only seen four films Monday at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. But summer - kept at bay since Friday by cool and cloudy weather - seems to have arrived in this little valley in the mountains and I can't quite bring myself to go back inside. Plus I messed up by sitting through the entirety of a press screening that I'd planned to leave early for a public screening it overlapped with. Oops.

The film I stayed with was XL from Icelandic director Marteinn Thorsson. It's a wild jigsaw puzzle of self-destructive behavior, centering on a member of Parliament whose life hasn't just gone off the rails but demolished them in the process. Leifur (Olafur Darri Olafson) is confronted by his boss, the prime minister, who tells him that he's made arrangements for Leifur to enter rehab - the next day.

Why is obvious from the first minutes. Leifur is a blackout drunk who has demolished his family with his womanizing, including having an affair with his lawyer and his daughter's best friend. He's the subject of several YouTube videos that captured his public drunken rowdiness, including breaking up a performance-art piece his daughter was involved in by punching the lead performer in the nose.

Leifur, however, won't go quietly. He plans a major blowout party for that night, even as he plots a surprise for the prime minister himself.

Thorsson's filmmaking is sometimes jittery, sometimes raucous, inevitably drawn again and again to the bloated face of the alternately conniving, convivial and condemned Leifur. Olafson, who will be seen in Baltasar Kormakur's harrowing The Deep later this year, is a force of nature, exploding across the screen and into the lives of everyone around him. Thorsson regularly uses the camera to evoke Leifur's point of view, in all its hazy, unfocused and off-kilter dimensions. It's like a nightmare that's alternately funny and horrifying, building to the perfect climax.

The fragmentary nature of the storytelling in XL seemed like a model of clarity, compared to Ari Folman's The Congress, loosely based on a book by Stanislaw Lem. The film starts with the interesting notion that actress Robin Wright - playing herself - has reached a point of no return in her career: She's made so many bad choices and been so difficult that no one wants to hire her.

Her only option, according to a studio head (Danny Huston), is to let herself be digitally scanned. She'll be set for life and will never act again; instead, computers will construct performances from her information and put them in whatever film the studio wants.

This commentary continues on my website.

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Follow Marshall Fine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Marshall Fine

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marshall-fine/live-from-the-karlovy-var_b_3531733.html

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The Cabin In The Woods Cabin Is Gonna Exist And It Sounds Terrifying

If you didn't see Cabin In The Woods that was stupid of you. It's really great. Scary, meta and pretty gutsy. And like all good things, well okay like all things, its brilliance is being exploited for a theme park attraction. But it sounds awesome. Some sort-of-not-really spoilers ahead.

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Top Vatican bank managers resign amid cash-smuggling scandal

Domenico Stinellis, AP

A view of the building at left which hosts the Vatican bank, formerly known as the Institute for Religious Works, IOR, inside the Vatican.

By Philip Pullella, Reuters

ROME ? The director and deputy director of the Vatican bank resigned on Monday, following the arrest of a senior cleric with close connections to the bank who is accused of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland.

A statement from the Vatican said Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli had handed in their resignations, three days after the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, an accountant in a Vatican department who is the subject of two separate investigations by Italian magistrates.

Ernst von Freyberg, the bank's president will take over as interim director general and a new position of chief risk officer will also be created to improve compliance with financial regulations.

In the latest of a series of blows to the Vatican's scandal-plagued bank, Scarano, 61, was arrested on Friday along with Giovanni Zito, a secret services agent, and financial broker Giovanni Carenzio.

The three are accused of plotting to bring 20 million euros in cash to Italy from Switzerland for Scarano's rich shipping industry friends in the southern city of Salerno, where Scarano is under a separate investigation on suspicion of money laundering.

News of the resignation of two of the top managers at the Vatican bank, known formally as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), comes only days after Pope Francis set up a special commission of inquiry to get to grips with the bank's longstanding problems.

As part of the management changes announced on Monday, Rolando Marranci was named as acting deputy director general and Antonio Montaresi was named as acting chief risk officer. A selection process has begun to make permanent appointments.

The future of the IOR has been clouded by uncertainty since the arrival of Pope Francis, who has laid great emphasis on cleaning up the financial scandals which have tainted the bank for decades.

The IOR gained notoriety in 1982 when Roberto Calvi, an Italian banker with close connections to the Vatican bank, was found hanging from Blackfriar's Bridge, near the financial district in London. A court ruled he had been murdered but the crime has never been solved.?

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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Cirque du Soleil artist dies after fall in Vegas

In this Nov. 28, 2008, photo, Sarah Guyard-Guillot, left, and Sami Tiaumassi perform as "Forest People" during Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" at MGM Grand Resort in Las Vegas. Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two young children, was pronounced dead at a hospital late Saturday night, June 29, 2013, after falling about 50 feet from the show's stage during a performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Ka." (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Leila Navidi)

In this Nov. 28, 2008, photo, Sarah Guyard-Guillot, left, and Sami Tiaumassi perform as "Forest People" during Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" at MGM Grand Resort in Las Vegas. Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two young children, was pronounced dead at a hospital late Saturday night, June 29, 2013, after falling about 50 feet from the show's stage during a performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Ka." (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Leila Navidi)

In this Nov. 28, 2008, photo, the final fight scene is performed on a vertical stage during Cirque du Soleil?s ?Ka? at MGM Grand Resort in Las Vegas. Ka performer Sarah Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two young children, was pronounced dead at a hospital late Saturday night, June 29, 2013, after falling about 50 feet from the show's stage during a performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Ka." (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Leila Navidi)

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? A Paris-born performer in Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" died after a fall during a show in Las Vegas.

Sarah Guyard-Guillot was pronounced dead late Saturday night at a hospital after falling about 50 feet from the show's stage.

Witnesses told the Las Vegas Sun (http://bit.ly/14H3Te0 ) that the accident occurred near the end of the production Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

Visitor Dan Mosqueda of Colorado Springs, Colo., said the 31-year-old acrobatic performer was being hoisted up the side of the stage when it appeared that she slipped free of her safety wire and plummeted to an open pit below the stage.

"Initially, a lot of people in the audience thought it was part of the (show)," he told the Sun. "But you could hear screaming, then groaning, and we could hear a female artist crying from the stage."

The show momentarily continued, then stopped. Minutes after the accident, a recorded announcement informed audience members that refunds or vouchers to future shows would be offered, and the crowd was dismissed.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte issued a statement Sunday praising Guyard-Guillot and saying performances of "Ka" have been canceled until further notice.

Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two children, had been with the original cast of "Ka" since 2006, and had been an acrobatic performer for over 20 years.

"I am heartbroken. I wish to extend my sincerest sympathies to the family. We are all completely devastated," Laliberte said. "We are reminded with great humility and respect how extraordinary our artists are each and every night. Our focus now is to support each other as a family."

Cirque officials are working with authorities investigating the accident and have offered their full cooperation, he added.

The Clark County Coroner's Office will rule on the cause of death.

The MGM Grand also issued a statement concerning the accident.

"Our company is deeply saddened by the loss of one of the talented KA artists Saturday night," it reads. "The thoughts and prayers of our employees are with the performer's family, the cast of KA, and the entire Cirque family during this difficult time."

The accident occurred while Cirque's top executives, including president Daniel Lamarre, were in Las Vegas to celebrate the premiere of "Michael Jackson One" at Mandalay Bay.

On Wednesday night, a performer in a preview performance of that show suffered a mild concussion after missing the protective pad below an act and landing on the stage. That artist is expected to return to the show.

___

Information from: Las Vegas Sun, http://www.lasvegassun.com

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Obama to unveil broad African electrical power initiative

By Mark Felsenthal

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Pointing to Africa's crippling lack of electrical power, President Barack Obama is due to announce on Sunday a $7 billion initiative over five years to double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa.

"We see this as the next phase in our development strategy and a real focal point in the president's agenda going forward," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with the president.

Obama is midway through a three-country tour of Africa and is due to give what aides bill as his fullest description of his vision for the U.S. relationship with the continent on Sunday.

The president has chosen historically resonant locations for the address, and is due to speak at the University of Cape Town after touring the prison on Robben Island. Robert F. Kennedy's 1966 speech at the university linked the struggles against apartheid and the U.S. civil rights movement and was seen as giving encouragement to the movement, while Robben Island is where anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years in jail.

The president will cite South Africa's long struggle to defeat apartheid and the U.S. civil rights movement's success in overcoming racial inequality as models of movements that brought about change in the face of daunting obstacles, aides said. He will call on young Africans to summon similar energy to complete the work of those movements and to firmly establish economic growth, democratic government, and stable societies across the continent.

SIGNATURE PROGRAM

Obama has been faulted for lacking a grand program to benefit Africa like the HIV/AIDS initiative launched by President George W. Bush or the broad reductions of trade barriers achieved by President Bill Clinton.

Many Africans have been disappointed at what they see as Obama's hands-off approach to the continent, noting that his first extended trip the continent has not come until his second term in office despite his African ancestry. Obama's father was a native of Kenya.

The president's aides say he has been held back by the need to wind down two wars and to right the U.S. economy after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Despite severe U.S. budget constraints, the power initiative could provide Obama with just such a signature program.

DARKNESS BY NIGHT

Experts agree that the lack of electricity is a tremendous hindrance to Africa's advancement.

"Africa is largely a continent of darkness by night," said an official at a multilateral agency who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Every which way you look at this, Africa is behind the curve and pays more."

Roughly two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa lacks power, a level that rises as high as 85 percent in rural areas, White House aide Gayle Smith said.

Lack of power inhibits business investment, prevents children from studying after dark, and makes it harder to keep vaccines from spoiling in rural areas, she said.

The United States will initially work with Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania to develop electric power generation, officials said. It will also cooperate with Uganda and Mozambique on oil and gas management.

The program will draw on a range of U.S. government agencies to achieve its goals. For example, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp will commit as much as $1.5 billion in finance and insurance to help U.S. companies manage the risks associated with the projects.

Similarly, the U.S. Export-Import Bank will make up to $5 billion available to support U.S. exports to develop power projects, the officials said.

The private sector will also be involved. Officials said General Electric Co has committed to power generation projects in Tanzania and Ghana, officials added.

The president's trip has taken him to Senegal and South Africa and will wind up in Tanzania on Monday and Tuesday. Although concerns over the ailing health of anti-apartheid hero Mandela have overshadowed much of the trip, the president has sounded the theme of Africa's economic potential at every stop.

In keeping with that emphasis, Obama will also announce that he plans to hold a summit of sub-Saharan African leaders in Washington next year.

"It's something other countries have done," Rhodes said. "What we want to do is continue the kind of high-level engagement we've had on this trip."

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-unveil-broad-african-electrical-power-initiative-043127436.html

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