Arab League: Syria must transition to elections

CAIRO?? Arab foreign ministers agreed Sunday on a new political roadmap for Syria that sees President Bashar Assad delegating power to a deputy and setting up a unity government as a prelude to early parliamentary and presidential elections.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that the Arab League would take its initiative to the U.N. Security Council and ask for its endorsement.

Earlier Sunday, the ministers extended a much-criticized monitoring mission to Syria for a month, but Saudi Arabia said it was withdrawing its observers.

"My country will withdraw its monitors because the Syrian government did not execute any of the elements of the Arab resolution plan," Prince Saud al-Faisal told fellow Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

"We are calling on the international community to bear its responsibility, and that includes our brothers in Islamic states and our friends in Russia, China, Europe and the United States," Saud said, calling for "all possible pressure" to push Syria to adhere to the Arab peace plan.

Saudi Arabia has been one of the harshest Arab critics of the crackdown, It recalled its ambassador from Damascus last year in protest.

Also Sunday, Syrian forces and army defectors clashed in a suburb of the tightly held capital of Damascus ? a sign that citizen protests against President Bashar Assad might turn into civil war.

The observer mission is supposed to be the first step toward implementing an Arab League plan to end the Syria crisis. Other points are pulling heavy Syrian weapons out of cities, stopping attacks on protesters, opening talks with the opposition and allowing foreign human rights workers and journalists in.

"There is partial progress in the implementation of the promises," Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said in Cairo about Syria's implementation of the plan. Syria "did not carry out all its promises, although there are some implementation of pledges."

He added that the use of "extreme force" by Syrian forces have led to a reaction by the opposition "in what could lead to civil war."

So far the observer mission has not gone well. Though some credit it with tamping down violence in some places, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said Sunday that 976 people, including 54 children and 28 women, have been killed since the observers began their mission last month.

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The U.N. estimates some 5,400 have been killed since it began in March.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Arab League to "maximize" the effectiveness of the mission of the observers in Syria "to stop the killings."

"The deployment of the observers, has been disappointing ... Assad played games with observers," by moving around forces instead of removing them from cities, while the killing continues, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The Arab League faced three options Sunday: ending the mission and giving up its initiative, extending it, or turning the crisis over to the U.N. Security Council, as some opposition groups have urged. There, however, it would face a possible stalemate because of disagreements among permanent members over how far to go in forcing Assad's hand.

Story: Rights group: West hasn't embraced Arab Spring

The mission's one-month mandate technically expired on Thursday.

The pullout of Assad's security forces from the Damascus suburb of Douma marked the second time in a week that troops have redeployed from an area near the tightly-controlled Syrian capital, an indication that Assad might be losing some control.

Diplomacy has taken on urgency as opponents of Assad's regime and soldiers who switched sides increasingly take up arms and fight back against government forces.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' head Rami Abdul-Rahman said government troops had pulled back early Sunday to a provincial headquarters and a security agency building in the Damascus suburb of Douma after hours of clashes, although they still controlled the entrances. The clashes broke out after Syrian troops opened fire at a funeral on Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, the battles resumed between the defectors and troops loyal to Assad, according to the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group. The LCC said that heavy machine gun fire was used in the clashes, and five people were killed.

Abdul-Rahman had no information on casualties from the clashes but said security forces at an entrance checkpoint shot dead one man who was passing by on Sunday. He added that one person was shot dead in a nearby town of Rankous as well as another person in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The LCC said 12 people were killed in Syria Sunday. The LCC and the Observatory reported intense gunfire in the central city of Homs that left at least one person dead.

State-run news agency SANA said gunmen opened fire at the car of an army brigadier general, killing him and another army officers who was in the vehicle.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso confirmed that security forces had abandoned Douma.

A video posted by activists on social media showed five masked gunmen, one of them in uniform, who read a statement saying, "the city of Douma has been liberated from Assad's gangs." He warned Syrian troops not to try enter Douma or defectors would "fire rockets at the presidential palace" in Damascus and execute five prisoners they are holding.

The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the video.

Also Sunday, state-run SANA, said an estimated 5,255 Syrian prisoners have been released over the past week under an amnesty, raising the total freed since November to more than 9,000. Opposition groups say thousands are still being held.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syria as the bloodshed escalates. The U.S. has long called for Assad to step down, and officials say his regime's demise is inevitable.

Two U.S. Senators plan to introduce a bill to stiffen the sanctions.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York would require President Barack Obama to identify violators of human rights in Syria, call for reform and offer protection to pro-democracy demonstrators. It would also block financial aid and property transactions in the United States involving Syrian leaders involved in the crackdown.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46091558/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Five tips to maximize your mobile gaming experience - iPhone app ...

With thousands upon thousands of games in the iTunes App Store, there is no lack of great gameplay experiences. This is true whether you are a hardcore gamer or just looking to casually kill some time.

But the gaming experience on your iOS devices can be made a whole lot better with just a few simple tips. Maximizing battery life to keep your games going longer, providing yourself with the right hardware to make games more enjoyable, and taking advantage of all your iOS device has to offer is just a matter of knowing what?s available. Our five tips below will help you get the most out of gaming on your iPhone, iPad or iPad Touch.

1. Maximize your battery life

With a quick trip to your iPhone or iPad?s settings menu, you can make a few adjustments that will allow you to get maximum playtime out of your games in between phone recharges. Open the Settings app and find the option for brightness. There, you can adjust the brightness of your screen to a comfortable level; the lower the brightness, the more life you can get out of a single battery charge. Shutting down apps running in the background by double-clicking your device?s home button is also a good way to make sure you?re getting the most out of your battery. When you?re gaming on a battery budget, it?s best to keep your device from having to deal with any other functions or tasks so it can put all its power and battery life into playing.

2. Go for Wi-Fi

Another good way to save battery on your iPhone is to switch off your phone?s 3G data connectivity when you know you don?t need it. Games that support OpenFeint or Game Center will still function as normal in offline mode ? which means you can still snag achievements and store your scores locally ? without needing to waste battery or your data plan staying connected to the network. You?ll also get a much better experience in online and multiplayer games if you can find a Wi-Fi connection over a 3G one. Wi-Fi is ideal, but if you don?t have access to it and depending on the game, a 3G connection might be better than nothing.

3. Find some quality controls

Touchscreen controls can be a massive pain in some games. While plenty of App Store titles use the iPhone or iPad?s internal hardware like the accelerometer or gyroscope to make for some interesting motion-based controls, there are many more games that are much more traditional. They put virtual buttons on the screen, and those buttons control your characters? movements and abilities, just like any video game. Touchscreen controls are often fickle and tough to play with because of the lack of a tactile response that you would get from a physical button. But there are ways to add physical buttons to your play experience. We saw tons of interesting Bluetooth gamepads that can be added to iPhones at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas this month. As well, other alternatives like the iPad arcade cabinet iCade or the Fling Joystick line for the iPhone and iPadallow you to add real controls to your device. For many gamers, the right controls can mean becoming a better player.

4. Sound matters

Though the built-in speakers on the iPhone and iPad aren?t the greatest, sound design in iOS games can often be very, very good. Titles such as Dark Meadow, Dead Space and N.O.V.A. 2 use sound to make the experience more immersive, the game spookier, and the combat more intense. Some games have console video game-caliber audio design and create a stereo experience that will have you turning left and right in the game to look for the sources of sounds. Just understand that you lose that sense of depth and immersion when you don?t have the right equipment. The ear buds that come with your iPhone or iPad will do in a pinch, but it?s recommended you get ahold of a comfortable, better-quality pair of headphones to really allow games like Groove Coaster or the Tap Tap Revenge titles reach their full potential.

5. Make some friends

Game Center, OpenFeint and other services make it possible for iOS gamers to enjoy the kinds of online communities that make console games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 so popular. You can actually make friends online to game with, and the iOS gaming experience is a lot better for it. A good way to start: Pick your favorite Game Center titles and try to place on their leaderboards. Cruise the boards for players near your rank and shoot them a message and a challenge, because just about every game is a lot more fun when you have a little competition. There are also games that support online cooperative play, titles that let you team up with a buddy and take on other players, and plenty of games in which you can just go straight-up head-to-head with a Wi-Fi or 3G connection. Another handy way to build your friends list is to use games that integrate with Facebook. Words With Friends can get you playing against your Facebook friends on your iPhone, which is a good jumping-off point for other multiplayer games, be they casual or hardcore.

Source: http://www.appolicious.com/games/articles/10828-five-tips-to-maximize-your-mobile-gaming-experience

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Serena Williams into 4th round at Australian Open (AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia ? Serena Williams was so dominant in her 6-1, 6-1 third-round win over Greta Arn at the Australian Open that there's probably only one shot she'll remember more than most.

At 5-0 and a point from winning the first set, Williams lined up in the ideal position for overhead but then completely shanked it, spraying the ball wide. She screamed and put a hand over her face.

The 92nd-ranked Arn saved another set point before holding serve for the first time. Williams responded by winning the next five games before Arn held again. The match ended in 59 minutes Saturday, on consecutive double-faults by the Hungarian.

"I'm nowhere near where I want to be," said Williams, who has won her last 17 matches at Melbourne Park. "I'm just trying to play through it. A little rusty ? just trying to play through my rust."

Williams has won the Australian Open five times, including back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010. She didn't get to defend her title last year due to injury.

She badly sprained her left ankle in a warmup tournament at Brisbane two weeks ago, casting doubt again on her participation at Melbourne, but the 13-time major winner has shown no signs of being restricted in her first three matches ? she has only conceded 11 games.

Next up she faces Ekaterina Makarova, who beat fellow Russian and seventh-seeded Vera Zvonareva earlier Saturday.

Williams is the only American left in the singles at the Australian Open after Vania King lost earlier to former French Open winner Ana Ivanovic ? the last U.S. man exited the tournament Friday when John Isner lost in five sets to Spaniard Feliciano Lopez.

Novak Djokovic won the last Australian title at the beginning of a 41-match unbeaten run and finished 2011 with the No. 1-ranking after winning three of the four major titles.

Against a Frenchman with a reputation for playing long matches, Djokovic wasn't exactly generous with his time.

Djokovic ensured Nicolas Mahut had a 30th birthday he won't quickly forget, routing him 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 in 1 hour, 14 minutes. Mahut lost the longest match in Grand Slam history over 11 hours, 5 minutes against Isner at Wimbledon in 2010.

Mahut was slowed by a left leg injury, but continued the match because the previous matches on Rod Laver Arena were over so quickly.

Djokovic commended him: "I wish him happy birthday and hopefully tonight he can enjoy it."

Djokovic has won 24 straight sets at the Australian Open, and has lost 10 games in his first three matches this time.

"I always played well in Australia. This is the only Grand Slam I won twice," he said. "The conditions are great. They're very suitable to my style of the game, day and night. I'm really looking forward to next week."

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who lost the 2008 final here to Djokovic, beat Frederico Gil of Portugal 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

Like Djokovic, No. 4-ranked Andy Murray was also up against a French opponent and had no trouble advancing in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 over Michael Llodra.

In all six Frenchmen reached the third round, but only two of them advanced. Tsonga wasted hardly any time becoming the first of them to move into the round of 16 and will next play Kei Nishikori of Japan.

Nishikori became the first Japanese man to reach the fourth round in Melbourne in the Open era with a 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-3 win over unseeded Frenchman Julien Benneteau.

Richard Gasquet, the fourth highest-ranked Frenchman at No. 18, knocked out ninth-seeded Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. He will play fifth-seeded David Ferrer, who lost the first four games against Juan Ignacio Chela before recovering to win 7-5, 6-2, 6-1.

In the biggest upset of the day, No. 92-ranked Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan held off an ailing Gael Monfils, seeded 14th, 6-2, 7-5, 5-7, 1-6, 6-4.

On the women's side, two Wimbledon winners ? Petra Kvitova and Maria Sharapova ? advanced, but two top 10 players went out.

Zvonareva was beaten 7-6 (7), 6-1 by Makerova and No. 9 Marion Bartoli lost 6-3, 6-3 to Zheng Jie of China, a former Australian Open semifinalist.

Fourth-seeded Sharapova routed Germany's Angelique Kerber 6-1, 6-2 to continue her fantastic start to the tournament. The 2008 Australian champion has only dropped five games in three rounds and next plays No. 14 Sabine Lisicki, who beat two-time major winner Svetlana Kuznetsova 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Sharapova and Petra Kvitova are among the four women who can claim the No. 1 ranking at the end of the tournament. They could play each other in the semifinals, although Kvitova insisted she hasn't looked that far ahead.

"I don't know who lost and who win," the Wimbledon champion said. "No, really, for me doesn't care."

Kvitova reached the round of 16 when Maria Kirilenko retired with a left thigh injury while trailing 6-0, 1-0 after 38 minutes.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_sp_te_ga_su/ten_australian_open

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Mitt Romney's Stance On Dream Act Threatens To Turn Off Hispanic Voters In Florida

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI--Mitt Romney's promise to veto a measure that would create a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants threatens to turn off some Hispanic voters, whose support could be critical in a general election match-up against President Barack Obama.

The issue is gaining prominence as the GOP front-runner heads toward the Jan. 31 primary in Florida, even though most of the state's Hispanics are Puerto Rican or Cuban-American and, thus, aren't affected by U.S. immigration law, nor view it as a priority. Still, it's a state where 13 percent of registered voters are Hispanic, where the nation's largest Spanish-language TV networks are based, and where the nation's third-largest number of undocumented immigrants live--intensifying the focus on Romney's position.

"Latino voters, like all voters in this country, are interested in America being an opportunity nation," Romney said Monday night during a debate in South Carolina, when asked if his promise to veto the so-called Dream Act was alienating voters. "In my view, as long as we communicate to the people of all backgrounds in this country that it can be better, and that America is a land of opportunity, we will get those votes."

Maybe not.

His veto promise ? first made in the days before the Iowa caucuses--has hit a nerve with prominent Hispanics, and some Republicans worry that the position will turn off the growing number of Latino voters in swing-voting states, particularly in the west, who are now on the fence after backing Obama in 2008. These Republicans suggest that Romney was trying to curry favor with hardline Republican primary voters at the expense of Hispanics whose support he would need come the fall.

"If Romney's the nominee, he's going to have to come to the center and make some decisions about how to resolve that issue," said Republican Herman Echevarria, a Cuban-American who is the CEO of a Miami-based bilingual advertising agency and a longtime local political player. "He's trying to be a conservative candidate. And if you don't become a conservative candidate, you cannot be the candidate of the Republicans. But you cannot be elected president just as a conservative candidate."

Already, there are signs of backlash.

For Colombia native Ana Rodriguez, a Miami-based graphic designer who received political asylum and will become a U.S. citizen this year, Romney's comments are precisely what motivated her to vote--against him. "Because of what I went through," Rodriguez said, "I want more people (elected) who are interested in supporting immigrants and want a more equal and fair system of immigration."

Florida Dream Act activists, who have been among the most visible in the nation, also are promising to keep the heat on Romney as his campaign comes to the state.

And last week, at El Tropical restaurant in Miami, Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who has endorsed Romney, told a group of mostly Cuban-American GOP primary voters that the former Massachusetts governor was the only candidate who could fix the economy and protect U.S. security interests. Then, a young Colombian immigrant stepped forward and asked Diaz-Balart, who has championed immigrants' rights including the Dream Act, how the congressman could support Romney.

"You have been such a friend to us, I just don't understand," said Juan Rodriguez, a student at Florida International University who was among a half-dozen students who walked from Miami to Washington in the winter to raise awareness of the legislation.

The exchange was caught on tape by several Spanish-language media outlets that reach viewers around the world.

Romney has arguably the toughest immigration position of any of the Republican candidates. Newt Gingrich would give legal status to undocumented immigrants who have deep roots in the U.S. and lived otherwise lawfully.

Conversely, Romney has been adamantly opposed to any type of amnesty for undocumented immigrants since his first White House run in 2008. Previously, he called reasonable a bipartisan proposal to allow immigrants to seek green cards in exchange for certain penalties, though he says he never officially supported such legislation.

Last year, Romney objected to the Dream Act. But he went further in the days before the Iowa caucuses when asked if he would veto the measure.

"The answer is yes," Romney told voters then.

While he said he does not oppose creating a path for those who serve in the U.S. military to become permanent residents, he also said he doesn't believe such individuals should be able to adjust their status by attending school, nor should they receive in-state tuition.

Since narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses, Romney has been sending Hispanics mixed messages.

He's working to woo Hispanics and convince them he's sincere in fighting their causes, recently launching TV commercials in Florida featuring Cuban-Americans Diaz-Balart and fellow U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as well as his son Craig speaking in Spanish.

But, in South Carolina, he's also been campaigning with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the leading architect behind the tough Arizona-style immigration laws. Even many Latinos who support tougher immigration laws worry such measures will lead to racial profiling because they give broad leeway to law enforcement to stop anyone whom they suspect of being in the country without documents.

"This is all about his primary right now," said Benjamin Bishin, a University of California, Riverside political science professor who has long studied Cuban-American and other Latino political attitudes.

Jennifer Korn of the center-right group the Hispanic Leadership Network, which is co-hosting a GOP primary debate and Latino conference this month in Florida, said Romney took a risk in alienating Hispanic voters. But, she added, he's also made clear he wants to fix the broader immigration system.

"If he explains it correctly, he definitely has a chance to have the Hispanic community listen to what he has to say," she said.

He seemed to try to do just that during recent debates, saying: "I love legal immigration," but that "to protect our legal immigration system we have got to protect our borders and stop the flood of illegal immigration."

That appeared to be enough for Peter Gonzalez, a Cuban-American commercial attorney and fiscally conservative Democrat.

"It's nice to hear a guy who the media has said is taking a harsh turn to the right on immigration say they love legal immigration," he said.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/mitt-romney-dream-act_n_1220624.html

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Dissolvable Tobacco Products Under FDA Scrutiny (LiveScience.com)

The Food and Drug Administration will meet this week to discuss the public health impact of tobacco products known as dissolvable tobacco, which some say resemble candy, including their use by children.

Dissolvable tobacco products, which include Camel Orbs, Camel Strips and Camel Sticks, made by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., are relatively new. The company introduced these products in 2009, promoting them as a way to enjoy tobacco in areas where smoking is not allowed. They all contain nicotine and dissolve in the mouth. They are not intended to help people quit smoking.

Because they produce no second-hand smoke or cigarette litter, "they are more in line with societal expectations about tobacco product use today," according to a 2010 statement from R.J. Reynolds.

However, doctors have expressed concernthat these products may appeal to youth and lead to nicotine addiction at a young age.Camel Orbs are round, come in mint and cinnamon flavors, and resemble Tic Tacs or M&Ms, noted the authors of a 2010 paper in the journal Pediatrics.

"It's deceptive," Dan Jacobsen, a nurse-practitioner at the Center for Tobacco Control, part of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, N.Y., said of the products. To a child, "it doesn?t look dangerous; it doesn?t look like something they're going to become addicted to," Jacobsen said.

Trying the flavored products may start kids down a path of addiction that's hard to get off of, said Jacobsen, a former smoker. "I think it is definitely a threat to children," he said.

The company Star Scientific, Inc., also makes two tobacco products designed to dissolve in the mouth.

Nicotine overdose

One concern is that young children may mistake dissolvable tobacco for candy, and experience a nicotine overdose.

In children, nicotine can cause symptoms ranging from nausea and vomiting to seizures and death. Just one milligram of nicotine can cause vomiting in a child, Jacobsen said.

Camel's dissolvable tobacco products contain between 0.6 mg and 3.1 mg of nicotine, and even one high-nicotine dose Orb or Stick could lead to a severe reaction in a small child, Jacobsen said.

A concern for older children is that they could consume these products unbeknownst to adults, Jacobsen said, because the product is concealed in the mouth.

Because the dissolvable tobacco products are so new, the long-term health effects (other than nicotine addiction) are unclear.

However, studies on the composition of the products show that they appear to contain "some of the same chemicals associated with cancer risk in other tobacco products," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.

"Given their close association with products known to cause egregious harm, the precautionary principle requires that we consider these products dangerous until proven safe, rather than the other way around," Katz said.

A 2008 study found that users of other smokeless tobacco products, including spit tobacco and snuff, had an 80 percent higher risk of oral cancer compared with non-users, Jacobsen said.

Change in marketing

The sale of dissolvable tobacco products is age-restricted, the packaging comes with the same health warnings as other tobacco products, and the packaging ischild resistant, the 2010 R.J. Reynolds statement said.

However, even precautions such as child-resistant packaging are usually not enough to stop kids from consuming dangerous products, Jacobsen said.

The company should do away with the slick imagery on the dissolvable tobacco products and replace it with strong visual warnings of the health impacts of tobacco, Jacobsen said.

The products' flavorings should also be restricted, Jacobsen said.

"If you have something that is chocolate flavored or cherry flavored, who is that really marketing to?" Jacobsen said. "A middle-age man whose been smoking cigarettes his whole life? No, it's not."

Pass it on: Dissolvable tobacco products may pose a particular threat to children because their shape and flavors may make them appear to be candy, experts say.

This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner. Like us on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20120119/sc_livescience/dissolvabletobaccoproductsunderfdascrutiny

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Could the Internet Ever Be Destroyed?

Partial map of the Internet based on the January 15, 2005 data found on opte.org. Each line is drawn between two nodes, representing two IP addresses. The length of the lines are indicative of the delay between those two nodes. View full size image Image: Creative Commons | The Opte Project

The raging battle over SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy laws, is looking more and more likely to end in favor of Internet freedom ? but it won't be the last battle of its kind. Although, ethereal as it is, the Internet seems destined to survive in some form or another, experts warn that there are many threats to its status quo existence, and there is much about it that could be ruined or lost.

Physical destruction
A vast behemoth that can route around outages and self-heal, the Internet has grown physically invulnerable to destruction by bombs, fires or natural disasters ? within countries, at least. It's "very richly interconnected," said David Clark, a computer scientist at MIT who was a leader in the development of the Internet during the 1970s. "You would have to work real hard to find a small number of places where you could seriously disrupt connectivity." On 9/11, for example, the destruction of the major switching center in south Manhattan disrupted service locally. But service was restored about 15 minutes later when the center "healed" as the built-in protocols routed users and information around the outage.

However, while it's essentially impossible to cripple connectivity internally in a country, Clark said it is conceivable that one country could block another's access to its share of the Internet cloud; this could be done by severing the actual cables that carry Internet data between the two countries. Thousands of miles of undersea fiber-optic cables that convey data from continent to continent rise out of the ocean in only a few dozen locations, branching out from those hubs to connect to millions of computers. But if someone were to blow up one of these hubs ? the station in Miami, for example, which handles some 90 percent of the Internet traffic between North America and Latin America ? the Internet connection between the two would be severely hampered until the infrastructure was repaired.

Such a move would be "an act of cyberwar," Clark told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

Content cache
Even an extreme disruption of international connectivity would not seriously threaten the survival of Web content itself. A "hard" copy of most data is stored in nonvolatile memory, which sticks around with or without power, and whether you have Internet access to it or not. Furthermore, according to William Lehr, an MIT economist who studies the economics and regulatory policy of the Internet-infrastructure industries, the corporate data centers that harbor Web content ? everything from your emails to this article ? have sophisticated ways to back up and diversely store the data, including simply storing copies in multiple locations.

Google even stores cached copies of all Wikipedia pages; these were accessible on Jan. 18 when Wikipedia took its own versions of the pages offline in protest of SOPA and PIPA.

This diversified storage plan keeps the content itself safe, but it also offers some protection against loss of access to any one copy of the data in the event of a cyberwar. For example, if power were cut to a server, you may be unable to reach a website on its home server, but you mayfind a cached version of the content stored on another, accessible server. Or, "If you wanted data that was not available from a server in country X, you may be able to get substantively the same data from a server in country Y," Lehr said.

Internet arms race
The redundancy of so much online content and of connectivity routes makes the Internet resilient to physical attacks, but a much more serious threat to its status quo existence is government regulation or censorship. In the early days of Egypt's Arab Spring uprising, the government of Hosni Mubarak attempted to shut down the country's Internet in order to cripple protesters' ability to organize; it did this by ordering the state-controlled Internet Service Provider (ISP), which grants Internet access to customers, to cut service.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=3723b979a22b777edbfd647dc0143495

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Wikipedia, Google protest US antipiracy proposals (AP)

NEW YORK ? January 18 is a date that will live in ignorance, as Wikipedia started a 24-hour blackout of its English-language articles, joining other sites in a protest of pending U.S. legislation aimed at shutting down sites that share pirated movies and other content.

Reddit.com shut down its social news service for 12 hours. Other sites made their views clear without cutting off surfers. Google blacked out the logo on its home page, directing surfers to a page where they could add their names to a petition against the bills.

Local listings site Craiglist took a middle route, changing its local home pages to a black screen directing users to an anti-legislation page. After 10 seconds, a link to the main site appears on the home page, but some surfers missed that and were fooled into thinking the whole site was blacked out.

The Internet companies are concerned that the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate, if passed, could be used to target legitimate sites where users share content.

The 24-hour Wikipedia blackout is an unprecedented move for the online encyclopedia. The decision was reached after polling the community of contributors, but dissenters say political advocacy undermines the site's mission as a neutral source.

However, it's not complete: the block can be bypassed by changing browser settings to disable JavaScript, or by using the version of the site designed for cellphone screens.

There's also a "mirror" or copy, of Wikipedia called The Free Dictionary, but it's not up to date.

___

Online:

Wikipedia for mobiles: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/

"Mirror" site of Wikipedia: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_internet_protest

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