Tomorrow's Newspapers Online 11-05-2013 | Sc

The previous range was $17 to $20 per share.

Twitter also said it has received a letter from International Business Machines Corp alleging Twitter infringed at least three U.S. patents held by IBM.

With Twitter selling 70 million shares in the offering, Twitter would be valued at more than $13 billion under the new price range.

Twitter's IPO is fully subscribed, meaning it has attracted more than enough investor interest, according to a source familiar with the offering.

"This is not a surprise," said Kim Forrest, senior analyst Fort Pitt Capital Group, which manages $1.5 billion in assets. "The people underwriting the IPO have a responsibility to the company selling these shares to extract the highest price it can. It has to walk a fine line to make it attractive to investors."

Twitter management has been traveling the country over the last week, speaking with potential investors.

Twitter's IPO is set to price on Wednesday, with shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Shares of BlackBerry dropped 16.3 percent to $6.50 in premarket trading. The company said it would raise the money with a private placement of convertible debentures.

John Chen will be appointed executive chairman and will be interim CEO while the company looks for a new leader. He is the former CEO of Sybase, a database software company that SAP AG acquired in 2010.

Chen joined private equity group Silver Lake as senior adviser last year.

BlackBerry grew from a small technology startup into a multibillion-dollar company by pioneering on-the-go email, but it has lost much of its market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices that run Google Inc's Android software.

BlackBerry's largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, will buy $250 million of the debentures. BlackBerry said the subordinated debentures would be convertible into common shares at $10 and have a seven-year term.

The Janken robot - named after the game's Japanese name - is a faster version of one unveiled by University of Tokyo researchers in June 2012.

Version two completes its chosen hand shape almost at the same time as the human hand.

It uses high-speed recognition and reaction, rather than prediction.

Technically, the robot cheats because it reacts extremely quickly to what the human hand is doing rather than making a premeditated simultaneous action as the rules state.

Taking just one millisecond (ms) - a thousandth of a second - to recognise what shape the human hand is making, it then chooses a winning move and reacts at high speed.

Version one completed its shape 20ms after the human hand; version two finishes almost simultaneously.

The scientists at the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory, part of the University of Tokyo, specialise in a range of technologies, including "sensor fusion", which aims to replicate and improve upon the human senses using high-speed intelligent robots.

The Janken robot is so fast the human eye does not realise its is cheating But Sethu Vijayakumar, professor of robotics at Edinburgh University, told the BBC: "These robots are really fast at reaction, but there are scenarios where even a millisecond's delay is not acceptable, such as accident avoidance or virtual stock markets.

It was from NBC, which said that Obama had overpromised when he said Americans who liked their insurance could keep it, and that the president knew that many people would see their coverage change.

White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports.

Josh Earnest, the principal deputy press secretary to Obama, began the assault with a series of tweets that said the healthcare law did protect Americans against changes in their coverage - unless insurers altered such coverage.

"NBC 'scoop' cites normal turnover in the indiv insurance market," Earnest tweeted to his 9,500 followers on Twitter.

The message was retweeted 166 times, potentially reaching another 164,000 people, according to Twitonomy, a Twitter analytics tool.

During the next hour, White House staffers would tweet and retweet messages about the story more than a dozen times, including tweets directly to the NBC reporter.

The debate continues over whether Obama has been misleading about the healthcare law. But it's clear that in many ways, Twitter has become as important in the West Wing's communications arsenal as daily press briefings. Twitter's 140-character messages are faster than a press release, with broader and more direct reach than appearances on cable television.

Under a strategy championed by Obama's senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, the White House has doubled its footprint on Twitter since July, giving official accounts on the social media web site to more than a dozen additional communications staffers.

The White House's Twitter army is the lead player in an intense war of messaging on social media in Washington, a conflict that also involves a range of lawmakers, bureaucrats, conservatives and liberals.

Virtually every day, the White House is the focus of Twitter barbs from conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, online personalities such as Erick Erickson of RedState.com and Republican staffers such as Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

But the White House operation stands alone in its aggressiveness, analysts say.

The unmanned SR-72 will use an engine that combines a turbine and a ramjet to reach its top speed of Mach 6 - about 3,600mph (5,800km/h).

Like its predecessor, the SR-72 will be designed for high-altitude surveillance but might also be fitted with weapons to strike targets.

Lockheed said the aircraft should be operational by 2030.

Jet engines The SR-72 is being developed at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works R&D centre in California that designed and built the original Blackbird.

That aircraft first flew in 1964 and was a mainstay of US Air Force spying and surveillance work until 1998. It typically flew at altitudes of 24,000m (80,000ft) and could reach speeds of Mach 3.

In a blogpost about the SR-72, Lockheed Martin said the aircraft would operate at similar altitudes but would fly far faster. At Mach 6 the plane could travel the 3,500 miles (5,500km) from New York to London in less than an hour.

While spy satellites can photograph enemy territory, the relatively long time it takes for them to be moved to a new orbit so they pass over a target can limit their usefulness.

By contrast, wrote Lockheed Martin, the SR-72 "would be so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide".

For the SR-72, Lockheed Martin is drawing on work done on the Falcon HTV-2 hypersonic technology vehicle. This is a test-bed for the futuristic technologies needed to support safe hypersonic flight and cope with the extreme conditions encountered by any object flying at such a speed.

For instance, on one test flight of the HTV-2, the aircraft hit a top speed of Mach 20 and its flight surfaces reached 1,927C (3,500F).

To reach Mach 6, the SR-72 will use an engine that acts like a normal jet turbine until speeds of Mach 3 are reached but which then operates like a ramjet to accelerate beyond that.

Mursi, an Islamist who was toppled by the army in July after mass protests against him, appeared angry and interrupted the session repeatedly, prompting a judge eventually to adjourn the trial, which barely got underway, to January 8.

Opponents of Egypt's army-backed government say the trial is part of a campaign to crush Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement and revive a police state reminiscent of Hosni Mubarak's three- decades of autocratic rule that ended in a 2011 popular revolt.

Mursi, 62, who spent time in Mubarak's jails before becoming Egypt's first freely elected president after the country's "Arab Spring" revolution, found himself behind bars again this year facing charges of inciting violence that could carry the death penalty.

It is the second time in just over two years that an overthrown president has been in court in Egypt. The trial is taking place in the same venue where Mubarak has also been facing a retrial for complicity in killing protesters.

State television aired brief footage of Mursi, the first public sighting of the president since his overthrow.

After stepping out of a white van and buttoning his jacket, he appeared in a cage in a court set up in a sprawling police academy beside other Islamist defendants, who were in white prison garb. They applauded when Mursi arrived, gave the Brotherhood's four-fingered salute, and at times turned their backs on the court.

"This trial is illegitimate," said Mursi, who was dressed in a dark suit and who state media said had refused to wear prison clothes. "This is a criminal military coup."

Mursi had travelled to the heavily guarded courthouse from an undisclosed location by helicopter.

Hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the court building. One sign read "The will of the people has been raped", a reference to the army takeover.

The now-banned Muslim Brotherhood has said it will not abandon the street protests it has staged to pressure the army to reinstate Mursi.

SECURITY PRESENCE

But a heavy security presence across the country served as a reminder of a crackdown earlier this year in which hundreds of Mursi supporters were killed and thousands more rounded up.

A year after China's President Xi Jinping took over the helm of the country's ruling Communist Party, senior U.S. officials say they see increased cooperation on a range of issues from climate change to North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions. They also regard greater bilateral military contacts as an important safety valve if there are any potential flare-ups.

On the economic front, Washington is focused on China's November 9-12 Communist Party conclave where Xi's blueprint for making the world's second-largest economy more open is expected to be unveiled.

Xi's administration already has spawned optimism with an agreement to reopen bilateral investment treaty talks and a pilot free trade zone in Shanghai that augurs well for deeper reforms to address Chinese investment and trade barriers. Both could help dent the $300 billion annual U.S. trade deficit with China.

Not all is rosy. Serious fault lines remain over issues that have long vexed the Sino-U.S. relationship, such as human rights. Western experts and Chinese activists are concerned that China's record on human rights may be worsening under Xi, who became China's president in March, given there have been crackdowns on lawyers, activists and Internet opinion leaders.

Potential discord also lurks in China's recent increasing recourse to what its critics call gunboat diplomacy in maritime territorial disputes with Asian neighbors, including U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines.

But officials from both countries say they are committed to what China calls a "new model of major country relations" - a Xi mantra that aims to minimize Sino-U.S. rivalry as China's global power grows.

To Washington, the concept means "there is room on planet Earth for a rising, strong, stable, prosperous China and a United States that continues to serve as the champion of a liberal, democratic, free-market and rules-based system," said Daniel Russel, the State Department's top Asia diplomat.

Washington and Beijing intend to "avoid a mechanistic dynamic in which a rising power and an enduring power were inevitably destined for conflict," he added.

The long-delayed talks - known as Geneva 2 - are meant to bring Syria's warring sides to the negotiating table, but have been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between world powers, divisions among the opposition and irreconcilable positions of Assad and the rebels.

Syrian National Coalition President Ahmad Jarba said the opposition would not attend unless there was a clear timeframe for President Bashar al-Assad to leave power. He also said they could not accept the presence of Iran.

"We have decided not to enter Geneva talks unless it is with dignity, and unless there is a successful transfer of power with a specific timeframe, and without the occupier Iran at the negotiating table," Jarba told an Arab League emergency meeting of foreign minister in Cairo.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy for Syria, has said he hoped the conference could still be held in the next few weeks despite obstacles.

Though he had in the past said he thought Assad would not be part of a transitional government that Geneva 2 would attempt to install, he said on Friday that his opinions had no bearing on the parameters for the conference.

There is also discord among world powers over whether Iran should be invited to the talks. Tehran has said it is ready to come and Brahimi says the U.N. preferred that Iran attend but there had been no agreement on that yet.

A senior State Department official, speaking ahead of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Cairo and Riyadh, said the top U.S. diplomat would make clear to the Saudis that Iran would not be welcome to attend the Syria peace talks unless it endorsed a past agreement that would see Assad give up power.

"Iran has not done that, and without that even we couldn't consider the possibility of their participating," the official added, stressing: "It is a question of just making sure they understand the details of how firm our position is."

CALL FOR WEAPONS

In Cairo, an Arab League draft communiqué called on the Syrian opposition to attend the conference.

"It (Arab League) decided to call on all sides of the Syrian opposition under the leadership of the Syrian National Coalition ... to accelerate the formation of the negotiating delegation".

In an emailed statement, an IBM India spokeswoman confirmed the company had received a tax notice, but declined to comment on the amount of tax liability or the nature of the notice.

India's Income Tax office issued the company a notice for under-reporting revenue for fiscal 2009 by the Indian unit, the Business Standard newspaper said, citing a tax official.

"IBM does not agree with the tax department's claims and will aggressively defend itself through the appropriate judicial process," the IBM India spokeswoman said.

IBM has been locked in a tax dispute with authorities related to its 2009 reporting year income, media have reported previously.

Officials at India's income tax office were not available for comment on Saturday.

In its latest 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), IBM said it had recorded $394 million in prepaid income tax in India "at" September 30, 2013. IBM said a "significant portion" of that amount was paid in order to reserve its right to appeal previous tax assessments in India, which it said it expects to win in appeal.

The tax office notice was a draft assessment order which can be challenged by IBM before the appellate authorities, the Business Standard said

Anonymous Indonesia tweeted a list of more than 100 Australian sites it had hacked on Sunday, saying the action was in response to reports of spying by Australia.

The websites, defaced with a message reading "Stop Spying on Indonesia", are mainly owned by small Australian businesses and seemed to have been chosen at random.

News of Australia's role in a US-led surveillance network could damage relations with Indonesia, Australia's nearest Asian neighbour and an important strategic ally.

Reports that the Australian embassy in Jakarta was being used for spying prompted Indonesia to summon the Australian ambassador on Friday.

The newspaper said its reporters found a range of items on the site over the past week, including what was presented by the vendor as a complete Auschwitz uniform worn by a Polish baker who perished in the Nazi death camp.

The Mail on Sunday said it had alerted eBay and that the online auctioneer had removed 30 items from sale and offered to make a donation of 25,000 pounds ($40,000) to a suitable charity.

In a statement, eBay said: "We are very sorry these items have been listed on eBay and we are removing them. We don't allow listings of this nature, and dedicate thousands of staff to policing our site and use the latest technology to detect items that shouldn't be for sale.

"We very much regret that we didn't live up to our own standards. We have made a donation to charity to reflect our concern," said the company, which receives a commission on items sold and charges vendors a listing fee.

The Mail on Sunday said eBay had been unable to say how long such items may have been for sale on its website.

The paper said the purported Auschwitz uniform had been priced at 11,300 sterling by the vendor, a Ukrainian man based in Canada, who had sold another batch of clothing purporting to be linked to Auschwitz for $18,000 last year.

The report quoted the vendor, named as Viktor Kempf, as saying he had been criticized in the past for selling such items, but did so to "document" them and to fund history book projects.

"I don't want people to think I'm just doing it for the money. These periods in history are horrific, nobody should ever forget them," Kempf was quoted as saying.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments will help shield Rouhani, who has sought to thaw relations with the West since his surprise election in June, from accusations of being soft on the United States, often characterized in the Islamic Republic as the "Great Satan".

Iran will resume negotiations with six world powers, including the United States, in Geneva on Thursday, talks aimed at ending a standoff over its nuclear work that Tehran denies is weapons-related.

Rouhani hopes a deal there will mean an end to sanctions that have cut the OPEC country's oil exports and hurt the wider economy, but any concession that looks like Iran is compromising on what it sees as its sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology will be strongly resisted by conservatives.

"No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers," Khamenei said in a speech, a day before the November 4 anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a pivotal event in U.S.-Iranian relations, the ISNA news agency reported.

"They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work," said Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran's dual clerical-republic system, including over the nuclear program.

ENEMY WHO SMILES

Hardline factions, who oppose any thaw in relations with the United States, have criticized Rouhani's negotiating team for not releasing details of the proposal they made to world powers at a previous round of talks in Geneva last month.

They have also resisted calls from moderate Iranian newspapers and prominent figures including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to drop the "Death to America" chant, often heard at Friday prayers throughout Iran.

Khamenei reiterated previous statements that he is not optimistic about the outcome of nuclear talks but said he saw no downside to holding the negotiations.

"With God's permission, we will not be harmed by these negotiations ... if the negotiations reach a conclusion then all the better, but if they don't it will mean that the country must stand on its own feet," Khamenei said.

He also criticized the United States for continuing to impose sanctions and threatening possible military action. Both Washington and its ally Israel say the military option to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons is something they do not rule out.

"We should not trust an enemy who smiles," Khamenei said. "From one side the Americans smile and express a desire to negotiate, and from another side they immediately say all options are on the table."