Tomorrow's Newspapers Online 09-02-2013 | Sc

Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, made the announcement in a corporate blog post which complained of the government's "continued unwillingness" to let it publish information about Fisa requests.

Each company filed a suit in June arguing that they should be allowed to state the details under the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and in the process defend corporate reputations battered by Edward Snowden's revelations. Critics accused the companies of collaborating in the snooping.

"On six occasions in recent weeks we agreed with the department of justice to extend the government's deadline to reply to these lawsuits. We hoped that these discussions would lead to an agreement acceptable to all," Smith wrote.

The negotiations failed, he wrote, so Google and Microsoft were going to court. He did not specify when, or to which court.

"With the failure of our recent negotiations, we will move forward with litigation in the hope that the courts will uphold our right to speak more freely. And with a growing discussion on Capitol Hill, we hope Congress will continue to press for the right of technology companies to disclose relevant information in an appropriate way."

Snowden, a former NSA whistleblower, gave documents to the Guardian and Washington Post revealing NSA claims about access to technology firms' data via its Prism system.

The companies denied the NSA had "direct access" to their systems but said they were legally unable to disclose how many times they have been asked to provide information on users.

Fisa requests are granted by a special court that sits in secret and can grant the NSA permission to collect data stored by any company about a named person. In 2012, the court granted 1,856 requests and turned none down.

"We believe we have a clear right under the US constitution to share more information with the public," said Smith's post. "The purpose of our litigation is to uphold this right so that we can disclose additional data."

The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information.

The law also requires foreign internet companies to keep their local servers inside Vietnam.

It has been criticised by internet companies and human rights groups, as well as the US government.

Vietnam is a one-party communist state and the authorities maintain a tight grip on the media.

Dozens of activists, including bloggers, have been convicted for anti-state activity in the country this year.

The new law specifies that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook should only be used "to provide and exchange personal information".

It also prohibits the online publication of material that "opposes" the Vietnamese government or "harms national security".

Last month the US embassy in Hanoi said it was "deeply concerned by the decree's provisions", arguing that "fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline".

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group that campaigns for press freedom worldwide, has said the decree will leave Vietnamese people "permanently deprived of the independent and outspoken information that normally circulates in blogs and forums".

Mandela, 95, had spent 87 days in a Pretoria hospital after he was rushed there in early June suffering from a recurring infection of the lungs, a legacy of the nearly three decades he spent in jail under apartheid.

"Madiba's condition remains critical and is at times unstable. Nevertheless, his team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria," South Africa's presidency said in a statement. It referred to Mandela by the traditional clan name by which he is affectionately known.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate's latest hospitalization in June had attracted a wave of attention and sympathy at home and across the world.

His home in Johannesburg's Houghton suburb had been "reconfigured" to allow him to receive special care there, the presidency added. Police blocked off a section of the street in the upscale neighborhood, where a crowd of reporters and camera crews had gathered.

"The health care personnel providing care at his home are the very same who provided care to him in hospital. If there are health conditions that warrant another admission to hospital in future, this will be done," the presidency added.

"It is a day of celebration for us, that he is finally back home with us," Mandela's grandson and heir Mandla said in a statement, acknowledging that he was "not a young man anymore".

Mandla said his grandfather's discharge from hospital disproved claims that Mandela was in a "vegetative" state "waiting for his (life) support machines to be switched off, in effect declaring him dead".

Thousands of well-wishers had visited the Pretoria medical facility during his stay there to leave flowers, cards and gifts.

Mandela made his last public appearance waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the Soccer World Cup final in Johannesburg in 2010. In April state broadcaster aired a clip of the thin and frail statesman being visited by President Jacob Zuma and top officials from the African National Congress.

The ruling party said he was "in good shape" but the footage showed a weak old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

"Dictatorships like Iran and North Korea are watching closely to see how the free world responds to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people," the Syrian opposition coalition said in a statement issued in Istanbul.

"If the free world fails to respond to such an outrageous breach of international norms, dictators around the world will be encouraged in their efforts to follow the example set by Assad," it said.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday he would seek congressional consent before taking action against Damascus for its apparent use of chemical weapons, a move likely to delay an attack for at least 10 days.

The opposition said international inaction over the conflict in Syria, now in its third year, had emboldened Assad and allowed the violence to escalate.

"During the past two and half years, the democratic world has offered only condolences and promises while Assad's regime, supported by its allies in Iran and Russia, has been busy killing Syria's democratic hopes," the statement said.

Kerry made the disclosure in a series of television interviews a day after President Barack Obama delayed imminent military action in Syria to seek approval first from the U.S. Congress - a decision that puts any strike on hold for at least nine days.

"This is squarely now in the hands of Congress," Kerry told CNN, saying he had confidence "they will do what is right because they understand the stakes."

Kerry declined to say whether Obama would go ahead with military action if Congress rejects the president's request. But echoing Obama's comments in the White House Rose Garden on Saturday, he insisted that the president had the right to act on his own if he chooses that course.

Obama is taking a gamble by putting the brakes on a military assault that he has made clear is essential to maintain U.S. credibility regarding enforcement of a "red line" he set against the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

But the move reflects a desire to make sure Congress shares any responsibility for intervening in Syrian's civil war at a time when Americans are weary of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With lawmakers due to be briefed by Obama's national security team on the administration's rationale for military action, Kerry used a round of television appearances to provide further evidence backing its accusations against the Syrian government.

"I can share with you today that blood and hair samples that have come to us through an appropriate chain of custody, from east Damascus, from first responders, it has tested positive for signatures of sarin," Kerry told CNN's "State of the Union."

It was the first time the administration has pinpointed what kind of chemical was used in the attack on a rebel-held area, which U.S. intelligence agencies said killed more than 1,400 people, many of them children.

"So this case is building and this case will build," Kerry told NBC's "Face the Nation."

Backing from Congress is by no means assured, with many Democrats and Republicans uneasy about intervening in a distant civil war in which 100,000 people have been killed over the past 2 1/2 years.

The U.S. president's dilemma over a military response to an alleged poison gas attack in Syria means Obama is the one who is under more pressure going into a G20 summit in St Petersburg on Thursday and Friday.

Obama stepped back from the brink on Saturday, delaying any imminent strike to seek approval from the U.S. Congress.

Yet at a G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June, Putin was isolated over his backing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and scowled his way through talks with Obama, who later likened him to a "bored kid in the back of the classroom".

Putin has ignored the jibe and stood his ground over Assad, dismissing Obama's allegations that Syrian government forces carried out a chemical weapons attack on August 21.

Buoyed by growing pressure on the U.S., French and British leaders over Syria, the former KGB spy has also now hit back in comments referring ironically to Obama as a Nobel Peace laureate and portraying U.S. global policy as a failure.

"We need to remember what's happened in the last decade, the number of times the United States has initiated armed conflicts in various parts of the world. Has it solved a single problem?" Putin asked reporters on Saturday in the city of Vladivostok.

"Afghanistan, as I said, Iraq ... After all, there is no peace there, no democracy, which our partners allegedly sought," he said during a tour of Russia's far east.

Denying as "utter nonsense" the idea that Assad's forces would use chemical weapons when they were winning the civil war, Putin looked steely and confident.

After months of pressure to abandon Assad, he is sending a message to the West that he is ready to do battle over Syria in St Petersburg and sees an opportunity to portray the United States as the bad boy on the block.

"Of course the G20 is not a formal legal authority. It's not a substitute for the U.N. Security Council, it can't take decisions on the use of force. But it's a good platform to discuss the problem. Why not take advantage of this?" he said.

"Is it in the United States' interests once again to destroy the international security system, the fundamentals of international law? Will it strengthen the United States' international standing? Hardly," he said.

PUTIN'S GRANDSTANDING

The secretary of state assumes the role of the Vatican's head of government and is considered the most important figure in the Vatican after the pope. "I feel very strongly the grace of this call, which is yet another and the latest of God's surprises in my life," Parolin said in a statement quoted by Vatican Radio.

"Above all, I feel the full weight of the responsibility placed upon me: this call entrusts to me a difficult and challenging mission, before which my powers are weak and my abilities poor." CNN's Vatican correspondent John Allen, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, described Parolin as a "veteran Vatican diplomat," who "has been on the front lines of shaping the Vatican's response to virtually every geopolitical challenge of the past two decades."

Parolin has been on many people's shortlists for the job since Francis became pope in March and signaled that he would shake things up, said Allen. The cleric has more than a quarter-century's experience in the Vatican's diplomatic service and is seen as one of the brightest of his generation.

"By naming a consummate insider, Francis appears to want to 'reboot' the Vatican's operating system back to a point when it was perceived to operate efficiently, rather than scrapping it entirely," said Allen.

"The pick has been keenly anticipated, given that frustration with perceived breakdowns in governance under Bertone was part of what led the cardinals in March to elect a Latin American outsider to the papacy, handing him a clear reform mandate. Parolin now profiles as a key figure in that effort."

The Giant Lime Green stick insect, which feeds mainly on eucalyptus leaves, is being studied at the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich.

In the laboratory it has shown resistance to toxins and infections it could never have encountered before.

This indicates a general mechanism at work and understanding this could lead to new drugs, JIC scientists believe.

Scientists at JIC are confident studying natural processes will reveal new antibiotics.

The pressure is on to make discoveries because every year more drugs are made ineffective by microbe resistance.

Ants carry antibiotic

Professor Tony Maxwell, head of biological chemistry, said: "We have discovered the microbe in the stick insect's gut is resistant to toxins and infections it could never have been exposed to. "This indicates that there is a general mechanism at work.

"If we can unravel that then it opens the way to understanding antibiotic resistance and this will enable us to build a chemical strategy against it.

"It will also help us build into new antibiotics a mechanism to counter any resistance."

BBC Inside Out discovered researchers were also looking for new antibiotics in the soil.

Professor Mervyn Bibb's laboratory at JIC has produced an antibiotic candidate which may now undergo clinical trials.

About half of the antibiotics used today originated in soil bacteria which is why scientists continue to study them.

One early breakthrough in the search for new antibiotic strains came with the discovery that leafcutter ants in tropical forests carried a substance on their bodies that protected the integrity of a fungus food source.

The ants mulched leaves to allow a fungus to develop.

Government initiative planned

To protect this food source from unwanted microbes and parasites and to regulate the growth of the fungus the ants carry a highly effective wide spectrum antibiotic on their bodies. The antibiotic's properties are similar to antifungal agents used in modern medicine.

Project leader Dr Matt Hutchings from the University of East Anglia hopes studying leafcutter ants will uncover completely new antibiotics.

Government health officials have issued a fresh warning about the urgent need to find new antibiotics.

The UK's deputy chief medical officer, Professor David Walker, said: "If we don't take action now, antibiotic resistance could mean that widely used treatments for diseases including cancer and common operations such as hip replacements could become impossible.

"If we don't take action now we could face a situation when some common infections become untreatable."

Kerry said it was essential not to let Syria get away with the attack, partly as a sign to those who might consider using chemical weapons in the future, and said the United States was joined by allies including France, "our oldest ally," in its determination to act.

"It matters here if nothing is done," Kerry said in a statement delivered at the State Department. "It matters if the world speaks out in condemnation and then nothing happens."

Kerry laid out a raft of evidence he said showed Assad's forces were behind the attack, and the U.S. Government released an unclassified intelligence report at the same time including many of the details.

The report said the August 21 attack killed 1,429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children.

The intelligence gathered for the U.S. report included an intercepted communication by a senior official intimately familiar with the August 21 attack as well as other intelligence from people's accounts and intercepted messages, the four-page report said.

France said on Friday it still backed military action to punish Assad's government for the attack despite a British parliamentary vote against a military strike.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close Assad ally, seized on Thursday's British "no" vote which set back U.S.-led efforts to intervene against Assad, saying it reflected wider European worries about the dangers of a military response.

Any military strike looks unlikely at least until U.N. investigators report back after they leave Syria on Saturday.

The timing of any strikes may be complicated by Obama's departure late on Tuesday for Sweden and a G20 summit in Russia. He was not expected to order the strikes while in Sweden or Russia.

French President Francois Hollande told the daily Le Monde he still supported taking "firm" punitive action over an attack he said had caused "irreparable" harm to the Syrian people, adding that he would work closely with France's allies.

Britain has traditionally been the United States' most reliable military ally. However, the defeat of a the government motion authorizing a military response in principle underscored misgivings dating from how the country decided to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Russia, Assad's most powerful diplomatic ally, opposes any military intervention in Syria, saying an attack would increase tension and undermine the chances of ending the civil war.

This may sound like a scene from 1960s sci-fi cartoon The Jetsons, but the kitchens in coming decades may not be so far off those envisioned by futurologists.

Today, a number of significant developments in culinary tech are happening in the field of robotics. CNN's Blueprint team caught up with a group of design students in Poland who recently programmed an industrial robot -- usually tasked with building cars -- to cook. "Our project is called 'Let's cook the future' and we try to cook with robots -- we had a robot that initially was made just to be in factories and make cars and we tried to treat it as a human and put it in the kitchen." Says Barbara Dzaman, one of the students involved in the project.

The 'Let's cook the future' robot "prints" cookies three-dimensionally, building them up layer by layer in almost any shape you could imagine.

Dorota Kabala, an industrial designer working alongside the students says that the project looks towards a future where people can make dishes that are only limited by their imagination. "The problem we are addressing in this project is the need for personalization of production ... at the moment we can observe that people need more personalization, more customization of products than before and now it's possible."

Marek Cecula, a respected Polish designer, ceramicist and visiting professor at the Royal College of Art, London, says that he was "amazed" by the students' robot chef but felt that "we simply don't know where this is going ... How will we relate to objects made completely by a machine? How will these objects relate to our emotions? Where will the relationship between person and object be when the object is made by a machine?"

The introduction of robots into the home is not new, of course. Many of us already live with electronics that have robotic components, such as self-cleaning ovens, single-touch microwaves that automatically adjust to the food you have put in them, and fridges that scan used-by dates.

The trend for robots to perform unskilled restaurant jobs has also led to robotic noodle slicers and mechanical waiters, though so far many are mere gimmicks rather than genuine technological solutions.

The Syrian Electronic Army, which supports President Bashar al-Assad, added it had "many surprises" to come.

Interviewed via email following the UK Parliament's vote against military intervention on Thursday, a spokesman told BBC News: "It's the right thing."

He added: "Military intervention in Syria has many consequences and will affect the whole world.

"Our main mission is to spread truth about Syria and what is really happening."

The SEA has targeted various media companies, including the BBC, CNN and the Guardian.

Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter, wrote that clues discovered when the SEA's own website was hacked earlier in the year pointed towards at least one member of the group being based in neighbouring country Turkey.

But the SEA's spokesman dismissed these claims, saying that "they keep publishing names so they can get attention".

"All the media outlets that we targeted were publishing false/fabricated news about the situation in Syria," he told the BBC.

"Our work doesn't need funds. It just needs a computer and internet connection."

Explosion tweet

Until this week's attacks, the SEA's efforts had largely focused on "phishing" social media accounts, tricking users into handing over log-in details.

In one particularly effective attack, the Twitter account of the Associated Press was compromised, and the group posted a tweet saying US President Barack Obama had been hurt in an explosion.

The New York Times attack was more damaging, however, as the hackers were able to redirect people trying to visit the newspaper to the SEA's website instead, albeit briefly.

"Our goal was to deliver our anti-war message on NY Times website - but our server couldn't last for three minutes," the group said.

"The Twitter attack was because of the suspension of our accounts on Twitter by its management.

The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the Times, but never did, one of the sources said.

On Friday, in a public statement, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, said his newspaper, which had faced threats of possible legal action from British authorities, on July 20 had destroyed copies of leaked documents which it had received from Snowden.

Rusbridger said that two days later, on July 22, the Guardian informed British authorities that materials related to GCHQ had made their way to the New York Times and the independent investigative journalism group ProPublica.

Rusbridger said in his statement that it then took British authorities "more than three weeks before anyone from the British government contacted the New York Times.

"We understand the British Embassy in Washington met with the New York Times in mid-August - over three weeks after the Guardian's material was destroyed in London. To date, no-one has contacted ProPublica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the New York Times from the government," Rusbridger said.

Rusbridger added that, "This five week period in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims made" by the British government in a witness statement it submitted on Friday to a London court hearing regarding an investigation by British authorities into whether the handling of Snowden's leaks violated British anti-terrorism and official secrets laws.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington told Reuters: "We are not going to get into the specifics about our efforts but it should come as no surprise if we approach a person who is in possession of some or all of this material."

The spokesman added: "We have presented a witness statement to the court in Britain which explains why we are trying to secure copies of over 58,000 stolen intelligence documents - to protect public safety and our national security."