Panetta: Admin deciding on post-2014 troop levels

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT OVER THE PACIFIC (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday the Obama administration is nearing a decision in the next few weeks on how many U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan — and for what purposes — after the U.S.-led combat mission ends in 2014.

Panetta told reporters aboard his plane en route from Hawaii to Australia that Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has developed several options on a post-2014 presence.

Panetta also was asked about his future at the Pentagon. While he declined to reveal his plans, he suggested he still had work to do on the job he took in July 2011.

"It's no secret that at some point I'd like to get back to California," he said. Panetta is from Monterey, Calif.

He added that there are a number of important defense issues awaiting resolution, including a budget impasse and the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan — suggesting that he would not leave immediately.

"Right now, my goal is to basically meet my responsibilities with regard to dealing with those issues," Panetta said.

Pressed to say whether he would rule out staying for all four years of a second Obama term, he replied, "Who the hell knows?"

Panetta said the Pentagon is reviewing those options with the White House. He would not reveal what troop levels are being considered, but it is believed that at least several thousand could be needed for several years beyond 2014.

"My hope is that we'll be able to complete this process in the next few weeks," Panetta said.

The decision will depend in part of the Afghan government's willingness to permit a post-2014 U.S. military presence and to provide legal guarantees for those troops that are acceptable to Washington.

Once that decision is made, U.S. officials have said they will set a timetable for reducing troop levels between now and the end of 2014. There now are about 67,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and their mission is evolving from combat to advising, assisting and training Afghan forces.

A post-2014 U.S. military presence also would be expected to include hunting and killing extremists, including members of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Asked about David Petraeus's resignation as CIA director over revelations that he had an affair with his biographer, Panetta said he saw it as a "very sad situation to have him end his career like that." Panetta was CIA director before Petraeus.

"I think he took the right step" by resigning, Panetta added.

Panetta was beginning a weeklong trip to Asia to meet with his counterparts in Australia, Thailand and Cambodia. He said this was an important expression of the Obama administration's commitment to deepening ties in the region and developing more security partnerships.

For decades American administrations have fought the perception among Asians that Washington paid too little attention to their security interests. This view was reinforced during the years of U.S. focus on Iraq, and it persists even as the war in Afghanistan winds down.

The Obama administration has made much of its "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific, which has entailed more high-level diplomatic and security engagements and an attempt to expand cooperation with Australia and others in the region. But it is not fundamentally different from what the administration of President George W. Bush was pursuing even as it got mired in Iraq and saw stalemate in Afghanistan.

In June 2007, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued at a security conference in Singapore that the U.S. was increasingly focused on Asia.

"Far from neglecting Asia, the U.S. is more engaged than ever before," he said. "We have been extraordinarily busy in recent years as we reshape and strengthen our security ties based on shared interests. Some are bilateral relationships that have been formed, renewed, or modernized - each with varying types and degrees of cooperation."

Among the issues dogging Panetta and the Pentagon is the controversy over the U.S. response to an attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, two months ago.

Panetta said the Pentagon and the State Department are assessing what additional or improved arrangements might be necessary to secure U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East. He was not specific.

As for the Benghazi attack, Panetta said it was "largely over" by the time the Pentagon was able to move forces close enough to Libya to respond.

Asked about the prospect of Congress and the administration settling for a short-term fix to the budget deficit crisis, rather than agreeing on measures to end the threat of further large defense spending cuts, Panetta said, "That's the worst thing that could happen."

He added: "That's the last damn thing I need right now," because it would perpetuate uncertainty about future defense spending and defense priorities.

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'Skyfall' brings record Bond debut of $88.4M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Bond is cashing in at the box office.

"Skyfall," the 23rd film featuring the British super-spy, pulled in a franchise-record $88.4 million in its U.S. debut, bringing its worldwide total to more than $500 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $88,364,714, 3,505 locations, $25,211 average, $90,564,714, one week.

2. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $33,012,796, 3,752 locations, $8,799 average, $93,647,405, two weeks.

3. "Flight," Paramount, $14,785,097, 2,047 locations, $7,223 average, $47,455,396, two weeks.

4. "Argo," Warner Bros., $6,617,229, 2,763 locations, $2,395 average, $85,583,187, five weeks.

5. "Taken 2," Fox, $4,012,829, 2,487 locations, $1,614 average, $131,300,000, six weeks.

6. "Cloud Atlas," Warner Bros., $2,658,250, 2,023 locations, $1,314 average, $22,844,956, three weeks.

7. "The Man With the Iron Fists," Universal, $2,592,705, 1,872 locations, $1,385 average, $12,821,030, two weeks.

8. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $2,573,350, 1,391 locations, $1,850 average, $59,099,993, seven weeks.

9. "Here Comes the Boom," Sony, $2,522,790, 2,044 locations, $1,234 average, $39,033,885, five weeks.

10. "Hotel Transylvania," Sony, $2,400,226, 2,566 locations, $935 average, $140,954,208, seven weeks.

11. "Paranormal Activity 4," Paramount, $1,980,033, 2,348 locations, $843 average, $52,600,612, four weeks.

12. "Sinister," Summit, $1,524,448, 1,554 locations, $981 average, $46,578,686, five weeks.

13. "Silent Hill: Revelation," Open Road Films, $1,300,137, 1,902 locations, $684 average, $16,383,406, three weeks.

14. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," Summit, $1,132,924, 607 locations, $1,866 average, $14,614,770, eight weeks.

15. "Lincoln," Disney, $944,308, 11 locations, $85,846 average, $944,308, one week.

16. "Alex Cross," Summit, $911,973, 1,090 locations, $837 average, $24,603,042, four weeks.

17. "Fun Size," Paramount, $757,223, 1,301 locations, $582 average, $8,800,336, three weeks.

18. "Looper," Sony, $582,150, 491 locations, $1,186 average, $64,669,383, seven weeks.

19. "The Sessions," Fox, $545,550, 128 locations, $4,262 average, $1,655,222, four weeks.

20. "Seven Psychopaths," CBS Films, $404,812, 356 locations, $1,137 average, $14,098,469, five weeks.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Probe shows federal power to access email

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your emails are not nearly as private as you think.

The downfall of CIA Director David Petraeus demonstrates how easy it is for federal law enforcement agents to examine emails and computer records if they believe a crime was committed. With subpoenas and warrants, the FBI and other investigating agencies routinely gain access to electronic inboxes and information about email accounts offered by Google, Yahoo and other Internet providers.

"The government can't just wander through your emails just because they'd like to know what you're thinking or doing," said Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and now in private law practice. "But if the government is investigating a crime, it has a lot of authority to review people's emails."

Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. To get more recent communications, a warrant from a judge is required. This is a higher standard that requires proof of probable cause that a crime is being committed.

Public interest groups are pressing Congress for the law to be updated because it was written a quarter-century ago when most emails were deleted after a few months because the cost of storing them indefinitely was prohibitive. Now, "cloud computing" services provide huge amounts of inexpensive storage capacity. Other technological advances, such as mobile phones, have dramatically increased the amount of communications that are kept in electronic warehouses and can be reviewed by law enforcement authorities carrying a subpoena.

"Technology has evolved in a way that makes the content of more communications available to law enforcement without judicial authorization, and at a very low level of suspicion," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, has proposed changing the law to require a warrant for all Internet communications regardless of their age. But law enforcement officials have resisted because they said it would undercut their ability to catch criminals.

A subpoena is usually sufficient to require Internet companies to reveal names and any other information that they have that would identify the owner of a particular email account. Google, which operates the widely used Gmail service, complied with more than 90 percent of the nearly 12,300 requests it received in 2011 from the U.S. government for data about its users, according to figures from the company.

Even if a Gmail account is created with a fictitious name, there are other ways to track down the user. Logs of when messages are sent reveal the Internet address the user used to log onto the account. Matching times and dates with locations allow investigators to piece together the chain.

A Gmail account figured prominently in the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus' stunning resignation last week as the nation's spy chief. Petraeus, a retired Army general, stepped down after he confessed to an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer and his biographer.

The inquiry began earlier this year after Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who was friends with Petraeus and his wife, Holly, began receiving harassing emails. Kelley is a Tampa socialite. That is where the military's Central Command and Special Operations Command are located.

Petraeus served as commander at Central Command from 2008 to 2010.

FBI agents eventually determined that the email trail led to Broadwell, according to two federal law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sources were not authorized to speak about the matter on the record. As they looked further, the FBI agents came across a private Gmail account that used an alias name. On further investigation, the account turned out to be Petraeus's.

The contents of several of the exchanges between Petraeus and Broadwell suggested they were having an affair, according to the officials. Investigators determined that no security breach had occurred, but continued their investigation into whether Petraeus had any role in the harassing emails that Broadwell had sent to Kelley, which was a criminal investigation.

Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teen-agers alike, to conceal their email traffic.

One of the law enforcement officials said they did not transmit all of their communications as emails from one's inbox to the other's inbox. Rather, they composed some emails in a Gmail account and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox." Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail which is easier to trace. It's a technique that al-Qaida terrorists began using several years ago and teen-agers in many countries have since adopted.

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Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

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Strong quake strikes Myanmar, 12 feared dead

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A strong earthquake collapsed a bridge and damaged ancient Buddhist pagodas in northern Myanmar, and piecemeal reports from the underdeveloped mining region said mines collapsed and as many as 12 people were feared dead.

Myanmar's Vice President Sai Mauk Hkam visited the damaged sites Monday, while authorities resumed their search for four missing workers near the collapsed bridge over the Irrawaddy River in Kyaukmyaung.

A slow release of official information left the actual extent of the damage unclear after Sunday morning's magnitude-6.8 quake. Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system and lost upward of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.

"We have been told by the director of Relief and Resettlement Department that there were seven dead and 45 injured as of late Sunday evening. The figure could fluctuate," said Ashok Nigam, the U.N. development program's resident representative. He told The Associated Press that U.N. agencies had offered aid but "no formal request has been made yet."

Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay is the nearest population center to the main quake but reported no casualties or major damage. Mandalay lies about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the epicenter near the town of Shwebo, and the smaller towns in the area that is a center for mining of minerals and gemstones were worse hit.

State media's Sunday evening news said damage included 102 homes, 21 religious buildings, 48 government offices and four schools in the town of Thabeikyin. The gold-mining town is near the epicenter and had three dead and 35 injured.

The official tally overall is six killed and 64 injured, while independently compiled tallies say about a dozen people died.

An official from Myanmar's Meteorological Department said the magnitude-6.8 quake struck at 7:42 a.m. local time.

The U.S. Geological Society reported a 5.8-magnitude aftershock later Sunday, but no further damage or casualties were reported.

State television warned residents that aftershocks usually follow a major earthquake and told people to stay away from high walls, old buildings and structures with cracks in them.

The biggest single death toll was reported by a local administrative officer in Sintku township — on the Irrawaddy River near the quake's epicenter — who told The Associated Press that six people had died there and another 11 were injured.

He said some of the dead were miners who were killed when a gold mine collapsed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because local officials are normally not allowed to release information to the media.

Rumors circulated in Yangon of other mine collapses trapping workers, but none of the reports could be confirmed.

According to news reports, several people died when a bridge under construction across the Irrawaddy River collapsed east of Shwebo. The bridge linked the town of Sintku, 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Mandalay on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, with Kyaukmyaung on the west bank.

The website of Weekly Eleven magazine said four people were killed and 25 injured when the bridge, which was 80 percent finished, fell. The local government announced a toll of two dead and 16 injured. All of the victims appeared to be workers.

However, a Shwebo police officer, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said just one person was confirmed dead from the bridge's collapse, while five were still unaccounted for.

Weekly Eleven also said two monasteries in Kyaukmyaung collapsed, killing two people.

"This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life," Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident, told The Associated Press by phone.

She said that the huge concrete gate of a local monastery collapsed and that several sculptures from another pagoda in the town were damaged.

Other damage was reported in Mogok, a major gem-mining area just east of the quake's epicenter. Temples were damaged there, as were some abandoned mines.

"Landslides occurred at some old ruby mines, but there were no casualties because these are old mines," Sein Win, a Mogok resident, said by phone.

State television reported that more than a dozen pagodas and stupas in five townships were damaged, and many of them had their so-called "umbrellas" atop the dome-shaped structures crash down.

The uppermost parts of the domes usually contain encased relics of the Buddha and small Buddha images, and sometimes jewels. Damage to them is taken as an especially bad omen.

Sein Win said police were guarding a damaged stupa in Mogok and its exposed relics.

Many people in Myanmar are superstitious, and it is likely that soothsayers will point out that the quake occurred on the 11th day of the 11th month.

State television also reported that the tremors shifted the Mingun Bell, which people in Myanmar claim is the world's largest functioning bell, off its base. The nearly 4-meter-high (12-foot-high) bell, which weighs in at 90 metric tons (200,000 pounds), was installed in 1810 and is a popular tourist attraction at a pagoda outside Mandalay.

A resident of Naypyitaw, which is 365 kilometers (225 miles) south of the quake's epicenter, said several windowpanes of the parliament building had broken.

The epicenter is in a region frequently hit by small temblors that usually cause little damage. Myanmar suffered a quake of similar size in March last year near the northeastern border town of Tachileik. Last year's 6.8 magnitude quake killed 74 people and injured 111.

Residents of Mandalay contacted by phone said they were fearful of more aftershocks because the city has modern high-rise buildings that could trap people, unlike the mostly small structures in the areas worst hit on Sunday.

"We are afraid that another earthquake might shake at night," said Thet Su, a journalist in Mandalay. "I told my parents to run out of the house if another earthquake shook."

The quake was felt in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand.

It comes just a week ahead of a scheduled visit to Myanmar by President Barack Obama. He will be the first U.S. president to visit the one-time pariah nation, which is emerging from decades of military rule.

The disaster is the second to strike Myanmar's north in three days. On Friday, a tanker train derailed about 128 kilometers (80 miles) north of Shwebo, and at least 25 people were killed when overturned carriages burst into flames as they were trying to skim fuel from them.

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HTC shares jump after settles patent issues with Apple

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Shares of HTC Corp jumped by their permitted daily limit on Monday after the Taiwanese smartphone maker announced a global patent settlement and 10-year licensing agreement with Apple Inc, allowing the struggling company to focus on product development.

The settlement would give HTC a short-term boost, analysts suggested, but long-term performance would still depend on the company’s ability to deliver competitive products to grab back some of the market share it has lost to Apple and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co.

HTC’s shares opened up by the maximum allowed 6.86 percent at T$ 241.50, and remained at that level in morning trade in a broader market that slipped 0.15 percent.

The shares have bounced 24.5 percent from a closing low of T$ 194 two weeks ago, which was the lowest since 2005 before the company transformed into a top brand from an obscure contract maker. But the shares remain some 80 percent below their record high last April.

HTC and Apple’s settlement and licensing agreement on Saturday ended one of the first major conflagrations of the smartphone patent wars. The California giant sued HTC in 2010, its first major legal salvo against a manufacturer that used Google’s Android operating system.

“The licensing agreement is beneficial to HTC’s future product development, especially in the U.S. market,” said Gartner analyst C.K. Lu.

“The settlement is positive to the consumer image of both camps (Apple and Google) as they are now unlocked from a constant patent war.”

The two companies did not disclose details of the settlement or the licensing agreement, but HTC said the agreement will not impact its financials and it will not change its fourth-quarter guidance.

HTC said last month it expected its fourth-quarter revenue to be about T$ 60 billion ($ 2.05 billion), down from T$ 70.2 billion in the third quarter and below expectations of T$ 74.0 billion in a poll of 23 analysts by Reuters.

It expected a gross margin and an operating margin of around 23 percent and 1 percent, respectively, falling from 25 percent and 7 percent in the previous quarter.

The company said the operating margin would be hit by higher spending on marketing.

Analysts’ forecasts on how much HTC needs to pay Apple range from “not a very high price” to as much as over $ 10 per phone, though they remain best guesses, based partly on the assumed $ 10 royalty that phone makers pay Microsoft per Windows 7 phone, and on the $ 5-6 dollar that Android phone makers are believed to pay Microsoft after a separate lawsuit last year.

However, some analysts warn that HTC’s other challenges outweigh the settlement.

Its phones have lost a lot of their appeal among consumers as Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy series dominate shopping lists, drawing parallels with the decline of Finland’s Nokia, once one of the dominant mobile phone players.

“Nokia settled with Apple in 2011 by winning royalties from Apple, but it did not change the landscape at all for smartphone competition. Samsung continued to win market share despite the losses to Apple,” wrote Barclays analyst Dale Gai in a research note.

“We believe the lawsuits remain non-events in terms of HTC’s fundamentals. HTC’s challenges remain and could get worse into 2013 from more competition.”

(Editing by Jonathan Standing)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Food labels multiply, some confuse consumers

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Want to avoid pesticides and antibiotics in your produce, meat, and dairy foods? Prefer to pay more to make sure farm animals were treated humanely, farmworkers got their lunch breaks, bees or birds were protected by the farmer and that ranchers didn't kill predators?

Food labels claim to certify a wide array of sustainable practices. Hundreds of so-called eco-labels have cropped up in recent years, with more introduced every month — and consumers are willing to pay extra for products that feature them.

While eco-labels can play a vital role, experts say their rapid proliferation and lack of oversight or clear standards have confused both consumers and producers.

"Hundreds of eco labels exist on all kinds of products, and there is the potential for companies and producers to make false claims," said Shana Starobin, a food label expert at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Eco-labels have multiplied in recent years in response to rising consumer demand for more information about products and increased attention to animal and farmworker welfare, personal health, and the effects of conventional farming on the environment.

"Credible labels can be very helpful in helping people get to what they want to get to and pay more for something they really care about," said Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety at Consumer Reports. "The labels are a way to bring the bottom up and force whole industries to improve their practices."

The problem, Rangan and other said, is that few standards, little oversight and a lot of misinformation exist for the growing array of labels.

Some labels, such as the USDA organic certification, have standards set by the federal government to which third party certifiers must adhere. Some involve non-government standards and third-party certification, and may include site visits from independent auditors who evaluate whether a given farm or company has earned the label.

But other labels have little or no standards, or are certified by unknown organizations or by self-interested industry groups. Many labels lack any oversight.

And the problem is global, because California's products get sold overseas and fruits and vegetables from Europe or Mexico with their own eco-labels make it onto U.S. plates.

The sheer number of labels and the lack of oversight create a credibility problem and risk rendering all labels meaningless and diluting demand for sustainably produced goods, Rangan said.

Daniel Mourad of Fresno, a young professional who likes to cook and often shops for groceries at Whole Foods, said he tends to be wary of judging products just by the labels — though sustainable practices are important to him.

"Labels have really confused the public. Some have good intentions, but I don't know if they're really helpful," Mourad said. "Organic may come from Chile, but what does it mean if it's coming from 6,000 miles away? Some local farmers may not be able to afford a label."

In California, voters this week rejected a ballot measure that would have required labels on foods containing genetically modified ingredients.

Farmers like Gena Nonini in Fresno County say labels distinguish them from the competition. Nonini's 100-acre Marian Farms, which grows grapes, almonds, citrus and vegetables, is certified biodynamic and organic, and her raisins are certified kosher.

"For me, the certification is one way of educating people," Nonini said. "It opens a venue to tell a story and to set yourself apart from other farmers out there."

But other farmers say they are reluctant to spend money on yet another certification process or to clutter their product with too much packaging and information.

"I think if we keep adding all these new labels, it tends to be a pile of confusion," said Tom Willey of TD Willey Farms in Madera, Calif. His 75-acre farm, which grows more than 40 different vegetable crops, carries USDA organic certification, but no other labels.

The proliferation of labels, Willey said, is a poor substitute for "people being intimate with the farmers who grow their food." Instead of seeking out more labels, he said, consumers should visit a farmers' market or a farm, and talk directly to the grower.

Since that's still impossible for many urbanites, Consumer Reports has developed a rating system, a database and a web site for evaluating environmental and food labels — one of several such guides that have popped up recently to help consumers.

The guides show that labels such as "natural" and "free range" carry little meaning, because they lack clear standards or a verification system.

Despite this, consumers are willing to pay more for "free range" eggs and poultry, and studies show they value "natural" over "organic," which is governed by lengthy federal regulations.

But some consumers and watchdog groups are becoming more vigilant.

In October, the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against Petaluma, Calif., organic egg producer of Judy's Eggs over "free range" claims. The company's packaging depicts a hen ranging on green grass, and the inside reads "these hens are raised in wide open spaces in Sonoma Valley..."

Aerial photos of the farm suggest the chickens actually live in factory-style sheds, according to the lawsuit. Judy and Steve Mahrt, owners of Petaluma Farms, said in a statement that the suit is "frivolous, unfair and untrue," but they did not comment on the specific allegations.

Meanwhile, new labels are popping up rapidly. The Food Justice label, certified via third party audits, guarantees a farm's commitment to fair living wages and adequate living and working conditions for farmworkers. And Wildlife Friendly, another third-party audited program, certifies farmers and ranchers who peacefully co-exist with wolves, coyotes, foxes and other predators.

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Follow Gosia Wozniacka at http://twitter.com/GosiaWozniacka

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Strong quake strikes Myanmar; at least 5 killed

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A strong earthquake struck northern Myanmar on Sunday, with local media reporting that five people were killed. Scattered damage and injuries also were reported in areas close to the quake's epicenter.

According to news reports, the most significant damage appeared to be the collapsing of bridge under construction across the Irrawaddy River in the town of Shwebo, the location of the quake's epicenter. The website of Weekly Eleven magazine said five people were killed when the bridge, which was 80 percent built, collapsed.

"This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life," said Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident.

According to Soe Soe, the huge concrete gate of a monastery collapsed and several sculptures from another pagoda were damaged in the town.

Other damage was reported in Mogok, a major gem-mining area just east of the quake's epicenter. Temples were damaged there, as were some abandoned ruby mines hit by landslides, Sein Win, a resident, said by phone.

A resident in the capital, Naypyitaw, said several window panes of the parliament building had broken.

An official from the Meteorological Department in Naypyitaw said the magnitude-6.8 quake struck at 7:42 a.m. local time. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to the media.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake's magnitude as 6.6 with a depth of just 10 kilometers (6 miles).

There were no reports of casualties or major damage in Myanmar's second-largest city, Mandalay, which is about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the epicenter and the region's only major population center.

Mandalay residents contacted by phone said the quake was strong enough to send people dashing out of their homes for safety, as water splashed out of jars and tanks. They said they saw no major structural damage in their immediate neighborhoods, but added that it did cause cracks in some walls.

The epicenter of the quake is in a region frequently hit by small temblors that usually cause little damage.

The quake was felt in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand. It comes just a week ahead of a scheduled visit to Myanmar by President Barack Obama. He will be the first U.S. president to visit the one-time pariah nation, which is emerging from decades of military rule.

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Ohio teen gets prison for life in Craigslist murders

AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) – Seventeen-year-old Brogan Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for his role in the killing of three men, two of whom were lured by a Craigslist ad promising work on an Ohio farm.

Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011, but was tried as an adult. He was convicted late last month in the murders of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.

Rafferty also got 10 years for the attempted murder of Scott Davis, who was shot in the arm while escaping after meeting Rafferty and alleged triggerman Richard Beasley.

Prosecutors called the teen an apt pupil to Beasley, 53, who is also charged in the murders.

Rafferty testified that he was terrified of the man he had considered a father figure and spiritual adviser after he saw Beasley shoot Geiger in the head execution-style.

Beasley allegedly enticed Geiger with the offer of a non-existent caretaker job, killed him, stole his identity, and then drew other victims by posting the bogus job on Craigslist.

Rafferty, wearing prison stripes with hands clasped in front of him, told the court Friday that Beasley an “evil, deceitful cruel murderer,” but admitted the he bore some responsibility.

“I was involved, I didn’t like it, and now I see there were many options I couldn’t see then that I see now, but I can’t make anything better and I’m sorry,” he said.

Judge Lynn Callahan called Rafferty’s case “heartbreaking” but said she did not accept that he had no way out of his situation.

“You embraced the evil, you studied it,” she said. She said Rafferty had been dealt “a lousy hand in life,” but she found nothing in the case that could be chalked up to the recklessness of youth.

“You could have been so much more; you are so intelligent,” the judge told Rafferty.

During the trial, jurors heard testimony that the teen helped dig graves for some of the men and was found in possession of guns and knives stolen from them after Beasley shot them.

Beasley’s trial is scheduled in the same courtroom for January 7. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Both Rafferty’s and Beasley’s attorneys are under a gag order and are not permitted to talk to the media.

Under Ohio law, juveniles older than 15 who are charged with a serious offense and crimes that involve a firearm are sent to adult court for trial.

Last summer, a U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down mandatory life sentences for juveniles. The high court found that judges and juries passing sentence on juvenile murders must weigh mitigating circumstances, including the youth’s role and family background.

A 2005 Supreme Court decision made it unconstitutional to execute anyone under the age of 18.

Rafferty’s attorney Jill Flagg objected to his sentence and will appeal.

In other incidents involving Craigslist and other social media, people advertising goods for sale or responding to ads have been attacked and killed.

In 2009, a former medical student was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist. In February, two men in Tennessee were accused of killing a man and a woman for “unfriending” the daughter of one of the suspects on Facebook.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Eric Walsh)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants

LONDON (AP) — An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.

That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.

Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine's protection levels as "unacceptably low." She was not linked to the study.

Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.

In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.

In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn't get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.

Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.

"Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children," said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.

Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.

"The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later," said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease — which are both effective and cheap.

"If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale," said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.

Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. "We're all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine," she said. "The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it."

Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $300 million in it so far.

WHO said it couldn't comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.

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FBI probe of Petraeus began with 'suspicious emails'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of CIA Director David Petraeus' affair with author Paula Broadwell was sparked by "suspicious emails" that initially did not contain any connection to Petraeus, U.S. law enforcement and security officials told Reuters on Saturday.

But the CIA director's name unexpectedly turned up in the course of the investigation, two officials and two other sources briefed on the matter said.

It was "an issue with two women and they stumbled across the affair with Petraeus," a U.S. government security source said.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the FBI probe was triggered when Broadwell sent threatening emails to an unidentified woman close to the CIA director.

The woman went to the FBI, which traced the threats to Broadwell and then uncovered explicit emails between Petraeus and Broadwell, the Post said.

Attempts by Reuters and other news media to reach Broadwell, an Army reserve offer and author of a biography of Petraeus, have not been successful.

The FBI and CIA declined comment on Saturday.

Many questions in the case remain unanswered publicly, including the identity of the second woman; the precise nature of the emails that launched the FBI investigation; and whether U.S. security was compromised in any way.

Nor is it clear why the FBI waited until Election Day to tell U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who oversees the CIA and other intelligence agencies, about its investigation involving Petraeus.

The CIA director announced his resignation suddenly on Friday, acknowledging an extramarital affair and saying he showed "extremely poor judgment.

The developments likely ended the public career of one of the United States' most highly regarded generals, who was credited with helping pull Iraq out of civil war and led U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, new details emerged on Saturday about developments in the final days leading to Petraeus' departure from atop the CIA.

Clapper was notified by the FBI on Tuesday evening about 5 p.m. - just as returns in the U.S. presidential election were about to come in - about "the situation involving Director Petraeus," a senior intelligence official said. Clapper and Petraeus then spoke that evening and the following morning.

WHITE HOUSE NOTIFIED WEDNESDAY

"Director Clapper, as a friend and a colleague and a fellow general officer, advised Director Petraeus that he should do the right thing and he should step down," the official said.

Clapper is a retired Air Force lieutenant general; Petraeus served nearly four decades in the U.S. Army.

On Wednesday, Clapper notified the National Security Council at the White House that Petraeus was considering resigning and President Barack Obama should be informed, the official said.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials agreed to discuss the Petraeus matter only on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity and because it is the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

Once Petraeus' name turned up in the investigation, the importance of the FBI inquiry was immediately escalated, as investigators became concerned the CIA chief somehow might have been compromised, the law enforcement official said.

However, the official and two sources briefed on the matter said no evidence has turned up suggesting Petraeus had become vulnerable to espionage or blackmail. At this point, it appears unlikely that anyone will be charged with a crime as a result of the investigation, the official said.

The FBI investigation began fairly recently - months ago rather than years ago, when Petraeus would still have been in uniform as one of the U.S. Army's top field commanders, the official said.

Representative Peter King, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC the FBI was "investigating or monitoring ... the director of the CIA for four or five months."

Several officials briefed on the matter said senior officials at the Pentagon, CIA and Congress knew nothing of the FBI's investigation of Petraeus until Thursday afternoon at the earliest, and some key officials were not briefed on the details until Friday.

There is no evidence at this time that anyone at the White House had knowledge of the situation involving Petraeus prior to the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, which saw Obama elected to a second four-year term.

Another U.S. government security source said it was not until Friday afternoon that some members of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees were notified about Petraeus' resignation by Clapper's office.

The congressional committees were told that it was a personal issue that Petraeus had to discuss with his wife. When pressed, a representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it involved another woman.

(Writing by Warren Strobel; Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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