News Online. 07-02-2013 | ScienceTechnology Bits

A test-run for next year's much larger event, the eight-team tournament served as the backdrop for a wave of protests, the likes of which had not been seen in Latin America's largest country for over 20 years. The unrest largely overshadowed some memorable soccer, prompting many Brazilians to dub this year's event the "Demonstrations Cup."

After a two-year run of mediocrity by the Brazilian national team, few expected the host nation to dazzle on the field. Brazilian officials were more focused on using the Confederations Cup to showcase Brazil as a stable, up-and-coming economic power.

Almost nothing turned out as expected. On the field, Brazil restored its reputation as a soccer superpower by crushing reigning world champion Spain in the final. Off the field, however, the event was a public relations disaster that spotlighted Brazil's still vast social inequalities and economic imbalances.

The unrest also raised serious doubts about next year's World Cup. While the protests have diminished in size and frequency, some Brazilians are setting their sights on the much higher-profile World Cup, seen by many as a symbol of corruption and government waste in light of Brazil's woefully poor public health and education systems.

"I'll do without the Cup, what I want is more money for health care and education!" and "There will be no Cup!" were among the slogans heard at a small but violent protest outside the Confederations Cup final in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.

Brazilians had used the soccer tournament as a stage from which to vent their grievances at the government, which range from corruption and poor public services to high bus fares. Clashes often took place outside stadiums as fans made their way to the games, the smell of tear gas hanging in the air.

One fan notably missing from Brazil's victory celebration was President Dilma Rousseff. Booed at the opening match, the tournament became a political liability for Rousseff, who saw her popularity plunge in the wake of protests that drew over a million people in more than 100 cities at their peak last month.

Director Paolo Cipriani and deputy-director Massimo Tulli stepped down three days after the Vatican was rocked by the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who is accused of plotting with two other people to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland.

Ernst von Freyberg, a German who earlier this year became president of the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), will assume the role of bank director until a permanent replacement is appointed.

The bank has also established a new position of chief risk officer who will be charged with improving compliance with financial regulations at a bank which has long been a byword for secrecy and lack of transparency.

The Vatican bank, which has had more than its share of scandals in the past few decades.

Scarano, 61, who worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican's financial administration, was arrested along with an Italian secret service agent and a financial intermediary.

According to transcripts from a judge's report, Scarano, who is under two separate investigations by Italian magistrates in Rome and Milan, mentioned the director in phone conversations tapped by police investigators.

The judge's report, obtained by Reuters, says Scarano controlled vast amounts of money and felt he could act with impunity because of his connections to the Vatican bank.

Only last Wednesday, two days before the arrests, Pope Francis set up a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank, which has been hit by a number of scandals in the past decades.

Scarano was for years a senior accountant for a Vatican department known as APSA, whose official title is the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.

SUSPENDED

Magistrates have said there is no indication so far that the Vatican bank was directly involved in the attempt to bring the money into Italy, but that the investigation was continuing and more searches were under way.

Scarano was suspended from his duties several weeks ago when he was placed under investigation by magistrates in Salerno.

In that investigation, his lawyer Silverio Sica said wealthy friends had donated money to Scarano in order for him to build a home for the terminally ill.

A dramatic military statement broadcast on state television declared the nation was in danger after millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Sunday to demand that Mursi quit and the headquarters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood were ransacked.

Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak more than two years ago as the Arab Spring revolutions took hold, the Arab world's most populous nation has remained in turmoil, arousing concern amongst allies in the West and in neighboring Israel, with which Egypt has had a peace treaty since 1979.

Mursi's backers were furious at the military statement: "The age of military coups is over," said Yasser Hamza of the Brotherhood parliamentary wing.

But it provoked delight among liberal leaders and crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square, who cheered when a flight of military helicopters swooped overhead trailing national flags. Silhouetted against the sunset, it was a powerful illustration of the military's desire to be seen in tune with the people.

"If the demands of the people are not realized within the defined period, it will be incumbent upon (the armed forces) ... to announce a road map for the future," chief-of-staff General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in the statement, which was followed by patriotic music.

The people had expressed their will with unprecedented clarity in the mass demonstrations, he said, and wasting more time would only increase the danger of division and strife.

The army said it would oversee the implementation of the roadmap it sought "with the participation of all factions and national parties, including young people", but it would not get directly involved in politics or government.

Mursi's office later said the president met Sisi and Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, releasing a picture of them seated together smiling, but did not respond to the military statement.

"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations."

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger "said if the accusations were true it was reminiscent of the Cold War," ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said, adding that the minister "has asked for an immediate explanation from the United States."

Citing information from secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday that several U.S. spying operations targeted European Union leaders.

Der Spiegel said it had "in part seen" documents from Snowden that describe how the National Security Agency bugged EU officials' Washington and New York offices and conducted an "electronic eavsdropping operation" that tapped into a EU building in Brussels, Belgium.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said he had not seen the report and "would not comment on unauthorized disclosures of intelligence programs. The intelligence community would be the most appropriate to do that."

Rhodes added that "those are some of our closest intelligence partners, so it's worth noting that the Europeans work very closely with us. We have very close intelligence relationships with them."

U.S. intelligence officials have not responded immediately to the report. Michael Hayden, a former director of the NSA and CIA, told "Face the Nation" on CBS on Sunday morning that he didn't know whether the report was true.

This Saturday, the international design community will celebrate World Industrial Design Day. To mark the event, CNN spoke to Gianfranco Zaccai, CEO of global design and innovation consultancy Continuum. Zaccai and his team have been behind some of the most well-known products of the last three decades -- including the iconic Reebok Pump -- and have worked with brands including American Express, PepsiCo and Samsung.

CNN asked the celebrated innovator about his views on what constitutes good design at the turn of the millennium. What do you think are the most iconic designs from the last 100 years? Let us know in the comments section below.

CNN: What are the three most important principles of good product design? Gianfranco Zaccai (GZ): I think these three principles apply to not just product design, but good design in general:

1. Empathy: empathy is a realization that you are not designing for yourself but for others. You have to get into the lives of the people who will use it.

2. Pragmatism: realize there are some things you have to deal with to fulfill this type of product or service. It has to fulfill the performance requirement, it has to be cost effective and it has to be producible -- all things you can quantify.

3. Passion: if you just stop at what you can quantify and measure you haven't gone far enough. Think about a great meal you have had. It's not just the ingredients that make it great, but the creativity and sensitivity of cook that makes it special.

CNN: How do you keep the spirit of innovation in your company alive?

GZ: First and foremost it's about hiring really good, talented people who think holistically about understanding people's lives and then solving problems in a rational and emotional way. It's about surrounding yourself with people with different skill sets and sensibilities where they stimulate and inform each other.

The figure was better than the $518m loss for the same period last year, but much worse than analysts' forecasts.

The company, based in Ontario, Canada, also said it would post an operating loss for the next quarter running to September.

Blackberry shares closed down 28% in New York.

Shipments of new smartphones increased, but Blackberry, which used to be called Research In Motion, did not release how many new handsets running the BB10 operating system were sold in the quarter. Chief executive Thorstein Heins said the company was continuing to focus on the global roll-out of BB10 and was confident it would be a hit with customers.

"We are still in the early stages of this launch, but already, the Blackberry 10 platform and Blackberry Enterprise Service 10 are proving themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions," he said in a statement.

He added that the group would be increasing investments to support the roll-out of new products and services over the next three quarters.

'Doesn't bode well'

Revenue rose to $3.1bn in the quarter from $2.8bn a year earlier.

Analysts had been particularly keen to see the numbers for the new Z10 handset, as it was the first full quarter that the model had been on sale in the United States.

Blackberry launched two all-new smartphones this year, the touchscreen Z10 device, followed by the Q10, with a mini keyboard favoured by many Blackberry users.

Blackberry said that it had shipped 6.8 million phones overall in its first quarter versus 7.8 million in the same three-month period last year.

"It doesn't bode well for the initial Blackberry 10 launch, particularly the Z10. But even the outlook for a second-quarter loss doesn't bode well for the Q10 either," said Brian Colello, an analyst with Morningstar.

Blackberry has been battling stiff competition in the smartphone sector, and has struggled to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Daniel Ernst from Hudson Square Research said the company fell between two camps. "They're not the high-end provider any more, they're not Apple. They're not the low-end provider, they're not Nokia. So they are in the middle and they do relatively low volumes," he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that patients start taking medication at a much earlier stage of the disease.

The WHO says the guidelines, which are bein