West takes Internet freedom for granted: Google boss

DAVOS, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - The Internet proved the only true form of free communication during the Arab Spring and yet the West has come to take the freedom it confers for granted, Google boss Eric Schmidt said Friday.

In a stout defence of Internet freedoms at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Schmidt also said that rather than be seen as contributing to job losses, the web was a great opportunity for businesses to grow.

Schmidt told delegates he had just returned from a visit to Libya after the revolution that toppled Moamer Kadhafi, a trip which had underlined the value of the Internet in societies where phones are tapped and media is state-run.

"The thing I learnt most about the Arab Spring is that we take the Internet for granted here," said Schmidt, Google's executive chairman.

"When you live in country where censorship is the norm ... the Internet is your only communications mechanism."

The role of the Internet in the Arab Spring was memorably illustrated by Wael Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, who administered the Facebook page that helped spark Egypt's revolution.

Schmidt said an uncensored Internet could ensure the new generation of Arab leaders does not repeat the same pattern of corruption of the old regimes.

He proposed it becomes mandatory for politicans running for office to dislcose their assets on the Internet.

Schmidt, whose own firm employs some 30,000 people, also said the Internet should not be blamed for problems in the labour market, arguing that: "It's important not to fear technological innovation and revolution."

He said that governments had to address what he called "a huge labour shortgage for highly educated people" in manufacturing.

"There are plenty of countries, (the) United States and other countries that I have visited, that are very short of skilled people," he said.

He said the web worked to the benefit of small business as "there's no better tool" to find customers, adding: "A reasonable expectation is that the access to the Internet will produce a very large number of smaller companies."

Facebook may file for IPO next week: WSJ

NEW YORK, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Facebook may file papers for an initial public offering next week that would value the social network at up to $100 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter, said Facebook could file IPO papers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as Wednesday but the "timing is still being discussed."

"Executives are also considering filing a few weeks later," it said.

The Journal said the Menlo Park, California-based social networking giant is looking at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion and is close to picking Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter for the stock offering.

It said Goldman Sachs is also expected to "play a significant role in the deal."

The Journal quoted its sources as saying that Facebook's IPO could raise as much as $10 billion, making it one of the largest ever.

With a deal size of $10 billion, Facebook would slip into sixth place on the list of largest US IPOs between AT&T Wireless Group ($10.62 billion) and Kraft Foods ($8.68 billion), according to Renaissance Capital.

It would be the largest IPO ever by a US Internet company, eclipsing that of Google in 2004 which raised $1.9 billion and valued the Web search giant at $23 billion.

A market capitalization of $100 billion would put Facebook on a par with McDonald's ($101 billion), well ahead of Boeing ($56 billion) but behind Apple ($415 billion) and Google ($186 billion).

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has deflected IPO talk for years, saying he is focused on building the company and not on going public.

But Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room nine years ago and has seen it grow to more than 800 million members, recently seemed to bow to the inevitability of selling stock to the public.

In an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS television, Zuckerberg said an IPO was "not something I spend a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about."

But, he added, "a big part of being a technology company is getting the best engineers and designers and talented people around the world.

"And one of the ways that you can do that is you compensate people with equity or options," Zuckerberg said. "At some point we're going to make that equity worth something publicly and liquidly."

Facebook's current annual revenue, mostly from online advertising, is estimated to be around $5 billion.

Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff recently told AFP that a Facebook IPO would be "the biggest financial event in the tech industry for 2012."

Several other Internet companies went public in 2011.

Career-oriented social network LinkedIn was undervalued while online daily deals site Groupon and social games titan Zynga have both been trading at or below their list price.

Twitter faces censorship charges, blackout call

WASHINGTON, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Twitter, championed as a tool of free expression during the Arab Spring, was facing censorship charges on Friday after announcing it can now block tweets on a country-by-country basis if legally required to do so.

San Francisco-based Twitter stressed the move in no way compromised its commitment to free speech, but the backlash was immediate with critics taking to the service by the thousands to tweet disappointment and outrage.

"This is very bad news," said Mahmoud Salem, the Egyptian pro-democracy activist and blogger who tweets using the handle @sandmonkey. "Is it safe to say that #Twitter is selling us out?"

"Yet another low for free speech," said Jannis Leidel, or @jezdez.

Some Twitters users called for a boycott of the service on Saturday, punctuating their tweets with the hashtag #TwitterBlackout.

Others questioned whether Twitter's move was related to a $300 million investment in December by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, a country with strong Internet censorship.

Olivier Basille, director of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), expressed "deep concern" in a letter to Jack Dorsey, executive chairman and co-founder of Twitter, which has over 100 million active users.

"By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization," Basille said.

"Are you going to block the accounts of Syrian cyberdissidents if the Syrian authorities tell you to do so?" he asked.

Basille questioned whether Twitter's move was motivated by a desire to enter China, where the service is currently blocked.

"Is it possible that one day there will be a sanitized Chinese version of Twitter that has been rid of any reference to the Chinese Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo?" he asked.

In its blog post, Twitter said the ability to block tweets by specific country would allow the rest of the world to continue to see them.

Twitter pledged to be transparent and said it would post details of any removal of content to ChillingEffects.org, a public database of takedown requests.

"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," Twitter said. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there.

"Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content," Twitter said.

Technology bloggers said Twitter, by giving itself the ability to block content selectively for legal reasons, was falling in line with practices already followed by other Web giants such as Google, Facebook and eBay.

Danny Sullivan, chief editor of MarketingLand.com, said "these types of censorship demands have long been placed against search engines like Google or anyone who hosts content.

"Twitter is preparing for potential demands in the way that Google already does, by alerting its users to when content has been withheld and providing information about why," he said on MarketingLand.com.

Twitter has already been removing content to comply with copyright complaints, Sullivan noted.

"What's new is that eventually, Twitter may expand to having staff based in other countries," he said. "That makes the company more liable to legal actions in those countries, so it needs a way to comply with those legal demands.

"Overall, there doesn't seem to be a particular reason to hit the panic button here," Sullivan said.

Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina and a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said that far from promoting censorship, Twitter's move was a "model policy."

"Twitter's latest policy is purposefully designed to allow Twitter to exist as a platform as broadly as possible while making it as hard as possible for governments to censor content, either tweet by tweet or more, all the while giving free-speech advocates a lot of tools to fight censorship," Tufekci said.

"The idea that Twitter can just ignore court orders everywhere is not only unrealistic, it would result in more countries (trying) to block Twitter completely," she said on her blog. "The Internet is not a 'virtual' space, and cyberspace is not a planet which can float above all jurisdictions forever."

She said the plan to publicize where tweets have been blocked is a "level of transparency (that) should be the model for all Internet companies" and also a powerful tool for free-speech advocates.

US military reaches further into Asia

WASHINGTON, January 28, 2012 (AFP) - The United States is forging ahead with plans to expand its military power in Asia, with the Philippines and other allies welcoming troops and the Pentagon devoting funds to design cutting-edge weapons.

Despite pressure to curb spending, President Barack Obama has made clear that he will put a top priority on maintaining the US military's dominant role in East Asia at a time when China is rapidly building its own armed forces.

After two days of talks, senior officials from the United States and the Philippines pledged Friday to enhance security cooperation. The former US colony is locked in increasingly acrimonious disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

In Manila, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines was looking to doing more joint exercises with the United States as well as having a greater number of US troops rotate through the Southeast Asian country.

The offer comes two months after Obama, on a visit to Australia, announced that the United States would post up to 2,500 Marines in the northern city of Darwin by 2016-17.

The United States also plans to forward-deploy littoral combat ships in Singapore, a longtime US partner with a strategic position.

Such moves are in line with the strategy of US military planners, who want forces to be more agile and closer to potential trouble zones without the costs -- both financial and political -- of permanent bases.

Admiral Robert Willard, the chief of the US Pacific Command, said that the United States was not looking for more bases in the region beyond those for the more than 85,000 troops in Japan and South Korea.

"There is no desire nor view right now that the US is seeking basing options anywhere in the Asia-Pacific theater," he told a news conference in Washington.

"Initiatives such as Australia offered or such as Singapore offered to allow us to rotate forces from locations that are closer and more adjacent to Southeast Asia afford Pacific Command the opportunity to more conveniently have its presence there and felt," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby said: "We're going to rebalance our focus more to the Asia-Pacific, which is going to require a much more robust partnering program than we've had in the past with many nations in that region."

The Pentagon, under pressure to cut spending, unveiled a plan Thursday that would take some 100,000 troops off active duty, although the total would remain above the level before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The plan -- which will likely be the subject of intense debate on Capitol Hill -- would withdraw two brigades from Europe and slow down or retire cargo jets, cruisers and the latest Ohio nuclear submarine.

But the proposal funds research on a number of projects considered key to any potential conflict with China, including a next-generation super-stealth bomber that could penetrate deep past enemy defenses.

The Pentagon also wants to fund upgrades to air and ship radar systems and to design the fast-attacking Virginia-class submarine to be able to fire more cruise missiles.

China's territorial disputes with countries including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam have grown rockier in recent years, with the Asian neighbors accusing Beijing of aggressive behavior.

China has insisted that its growth is natural and that it does not pose a threat to any other nation. Beijing has repeatedly warned the United States to be careful and not aggravate conflicts.

US officials are careful in public not to describe China as a threat. They argue that Washington's hefty defense investment in post-World War II Asia has benefited China by allowing it to concentrate on domestic growth instead of external threats.

"The interest by Pacific Command and the interest from the United States is that this be a secure and stable and prosperous region of the world," Willard said.

While the focus on Asia enjoys broad support in Washington, some liberal members of Obama's Democratic Party have called for greater cuts by the Pentagon.

Four House Democrats -- Barney Frank, Rush Holt, Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey -- saw no need to expand to Australia and called for savings by closing the unpopular Futenma base in Okinawa that has long plagued ties with Japan.

"It is time to bring our defense spending in line with the actual threats we face, and invest the savings in nation-building at home," they wrote in a letter to Obama.

Twitter's block move 'collaborating with censors': RSF

PARIS, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Media rights group Reporters Without Borders on Friday slammed Twitter's announcement that it could now block tweets from appearing in a specific country as "collaborating with the censors".

RSF's head of social media, Lucie Morillon, said the organisation was "very concerned about the decision," which is "bad news for online freedom of expression".

Twitter on Thursday announced in a blog post that it now had "the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world."

The San Francisco-based company said it was entering "countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression".

Morillon said the move "doesn't just mean cultural adaptation but it means that Twitter will collaborate with the censors, and help them prevent the publication of criticism of the government or denunciations of corruption."

She noted that it remained to be seen how Twitter would implement the censorship.

"Will it wait for a court order? Will a mere phone call from the local police chief be enough to delete a message, as has long been the case in China? Will it work with keywords?"

"China has for years made foreign businesses who want to operate on its soil sign self-censorship agreements, so now Twitter is also submitting itself to this pact," Morillon said.

Twitter said it had not yet used its new ability but "if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld."

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey recently described China's blanket block on the website as "unfortunate and disappointing".

Five Japan committees keep no disaster records

TOKYO, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Five government teams dealing with Japan's tsunami and nuclear catastrophes kept no detailed records, an official said Friday, adding to a growing picture of chaos in Tokyo's disaster response.

Earlier this week the government said the nuclear disaster task force that ordered tens of thousands of evacuations had no written record of its decision-making process -- an essential component of disaster management.

Now the government has admitted having no minutes from a further four emergency committees, an admission likely to worsen the view of Tokyo's response to the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The five emergency bodies include the main disaster headquarters and the disaster victims assistance team, as well as the nuclear disaster task force, which was headed by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan and included all of his ministers.

These three committees failed to keep even brief summaries of their meetings, while two other task forces have only partial summaries.

Such records are usually thought of as essential for careful and coherent planning to mitigate the impact of future disasters.

Several other emergency committees kept only summaries of their meetings, leaving blanks in the record of how top officials addressed the aftermath of the tsunami and the atomic accident it spawned at Fukushima as reactors went into meltdown, spewing radiation over a wide area.

Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada has instructed ministers to create summaries of the meetings by the end of February, an official at the Cabinet Office said.

Okada plans to hold a press conference later Friday to explain how the government failed to keep the records, the official said.

Kazuhiro Hayakawa, associate professor of administrative law at Omiya Law School said the lack of a written record was "ridiculous" and almost certainly a contravention of the legal requirement to keep minutes.

"No matter how much of an emergency it was, it is absurd that they did not keep records of the meetings, which were no doubt subject to the Archive Management Law" requiring a written record, he said.

"I doubt it was intentional on the part of the government. But I suspect government officials lacked a clear chain of command to order the creation of the records.

"This failure has deprived us of the possibility of studying what exactly happened" immediately after the disaster, he said.

Opposition parties leapt on the admission, calling it an example of the inexperience of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

"This is symbolic of the recklessness of the government," said Hirofumi Nakasone of the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

Japan telecom bosses take pay cuts for system woes

TOKYO, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - The president and five other top executives of Japan's biggest mobile phone operator will take pay cuts to apologise for a series of network troubles, NTT DoCoMo said Friday.

The firm admitted that it has struggled to deal with growing data traffic as smartphones boom in popularity, and pledged fresh investment to tackle the issue.

President Ryuji Yamada will have his remuneration reduced by 20 percent for three months while the other executives will take a 10 percent trim over the same period, NTT DoCoMo said in a statement.

The cuts were "a clear means of taking responsibility for causing the series of network malfunctions, and leakage of personal information," it said.

NTT DoCoMo's most recent network problem came on Wednesday after the company renewed equipment to boost data processing capability, leaving 2.52 million subscribers offline for several hours.

In December, it suffered disruptions to its smartphone e-mail service, leading to a system glitch in which e-mail senders' addresses were replaced by those of other users.

The firm plans to invest 164 billion yen ($2.1 billion) by March 2015 to beef up its network and try to stabilise operations "in line with the rapid increase in the number of smartphone users," it said.

NTT DoCoMo is trying to grab a bigger slice of Japan's expanding smartphone market, but faces stiff competition from rivals Softbank and KDDI, both of which offer Apple's hugely popular iPhone, which it does not.

The firm, which is part of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group, separately said its net profit for the nine months to December fell 11.1 percent from a year earlier to 394.6 billion yen.

Operating profit fell 1.9 percent to 743.8 billion yen for the period on revenue of 3.17 trillion yen, down 1.1 percent.

NTT DoCoMo slightly downgraded its full-year net profit forecast from 514 billion yen to 474 billion yen due to corporate taxation changes.

Unrest in China's Tibetan areas gathering pace: group

CHENGDU, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Protests in China's Tibetan-inhabited regions appear to be gathering pace this year, a rights group said Friday, with at least seven demonstrations occurring in January -- two of them deadly.

The west of Sichuan province, which has a large population of ethnic Tibetans -- many of whom complain of repression -- was earlier this week hit by some of the worst unrest since huge protests against Chinese rule in 2008.

Security forces fired into two separate crowds of protesters in Luhuo and Seda towns on Monday and Tuesday in the remote, rugged prefecture of Ganzi, which borders Tibet.

Advocacy groups say at least three people were killed in the clashes but maintain the protests were peaceful until police opened fire. China says two died -- one in each incident -- and acknowledged police shootings only in Seda.

The unrest comes as tensions rise in Tibetan-inhabited areas, where at least 16 people have set themselves ablaze in less than a year -- including four this month alone -- over religious repression.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday said the clashes in Luhuo and Seda were not isolated cases and other incidences of unrest occurred this month.

These included two protests in Guoluo prefecture in the northwestern province of Qinghai, which also borders Tibet, the first on January 18 and the second several days later over the self-immolation of a senior monk, it said.

Local government offices in Guoluo and Banma county, where the protests happened, were unavailable for comment.

Other demonstrations took place in Seda county and Aba prefecture in Sichuan this month. Tibetans also held several vigils and prayer processions, the group said.

Advocacy groups say the unrest stems from growing grievance among Tibetans on issues such as religious repression, a lack of freedom, and a feeling that their culture is being eroded by an influx of majority Han Chinese.

But Beijing insists that Tibetans enjoy freedom of religious belief and says their lives have been made better by huge ongoing investment into Tibetan-inhabited areas.

HRW on Friday urged the Chinese government to "immediately investigate" this week's shootings, open affected areas to outside observers and address local "grievances and growing violence."

Radiation fears slow Japan tsunami clear-up

TOKYO, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Giant piles of debris from Japan's earthquake and tsunami scar the country's once picturesque northeast coast -- and the clear-up is hamstrung by fears the rubbish may be contaminated by radiation.

Decades-worth of waste was left behind when the waters receded in March last year after claiming more than 19,000 lives.

The survivors are desperate to rebuild, but must first get rid of more than 22 million tonnes of rubbish -- far too much for the disaster-struck region to deal with alone.

But despite appeals to national solidarity, worries over nuclear contamination from the crippled Fukushima power plant mean virtually no one elsewhere in Japan wants the debris processed near them.

"We hope everything will be taken away as quickly as possible so we can go back to normal life," said one man from the devastated town of Onagawa.

According to Environment Minister Goshi Hosono facilities across the entire country will have to be brought into play to deal with the 16 million tonnes of debris from Miyagi prefecture and 4.42 million tonnes from Iwate -- amounts that dwarf the annual average waste generated by both areas.

Hosono, who is also responsible for handling the atomic crisis, agrees the 2.28 million tonnes of waste in Fukushima will have to be treated on site as radioactive elements have been released into the environment in the prefecture.

When the disaster struck a national outpouring of empathy brought with it offers of help from all over the country.

But these have since dried up and now there are few volunteers for taking waste from Miyagi and Iwate, amid fears it could be contaminated and would be dangerous to burn despite the use of filters in incinerators.

"We want to finish (the clean-up) in three years, but if things continue at the current rate that seems difficult, so we must accelerate," said Hosono.

"We are taking additional measures, such as constructing temporary incineration sites, but even that will not be enough" without other municipalities playing a part, he said.

The city of Tokyo has already agreed to take some of the debris, "but other localities have not decided anything," he complained.

The government has sought to reassure opponents with a dedicated website aiming to explain exactly how the waste is dealt with.

It says the incinerators have fine enough filters to prevent radiation being released, and only waste below specific radiation levels will be burned in conventional facilities.

Hosono says ash produced by the incineration is safe.

"The radioactivity measured in the ash is 133 becquerels per kilogramme, which is lower than the temporary level set for food, so there is no danger and no need to worry," he said.

According to his ministry, radiation limits have been set for clear-up workers at one millisievert per year, the same as that allowed for the general public under normal circumstances. Incineration plants are not allowed to expose local residents to more than 0.01 millisieverts per year.

The Tokyo authority's own website also details the precautions being taken there, and explains how many times radiation is measured to ensure that nothing dangerous makes it to the capital from Miyagi and Iwate.

Even so that has not been enough to assuage the fears of some people living in the megacity.

"We received some 4,000 letters of complaint (about this)," Masami Imai, director of the city's waste department, told AFP.

"In more than 85 percent of them, citizens say they are worried about radioactivity or even say that we should refuse to import this debris.

"They worry about their children, they are afraid that radiation levels are too high."

Radiation experts agree that children are at greatest risk from cancers and genetic defects because they are still growing, are more prone to thyroid cancers, and because they will have more time to develop health defects.

But Yoshiaki Suda, mayor of Onagawa, appealed for sympathy.

"We want to rebuild at all costs," he said. "To do that we have to clear the rubble as soon as possible.

"I wish people in Tokyo and other areas would understand the situation we are in."

WikiLeaks scandal sparks US intelligence reform

WASHINGTON, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - The WikiLeaks document dump, which saw hundreds of thousands of classified US files leaked, rattled US intelligence officials, forcing them to implement reforms to prevent another such breach.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said changes were being put in place over the next five years that would create a new security "architecture," making it infinitely harder to disclose America's secrets.

The "terrible event," which saw sensitive US diplomatic and military cables exposed for public scrutiny, "caused us to make some changes," Clapper told a Washington think-tank, acknowledging the "challenge" ahead.

"We have to do more to protect data and ensure that the information we are giving is actually going to an authorized recipient," he said.

Chief among the changes are improvements in "labeling," and digital "tagging" of diplomatic cables, Clapper said during remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

At the same time, he said, US officials are eager to ensure information that is intended to be shared can be disseminated without major additional hurdles.

Clapper added that the effort aims to protect US secrets not only from outside enemies, but from actors with the system who do not have specific authorization to distribute sensitive US cables and files.

"Frankly we always had responsibility for detecting insider threats. What    WikiLeaks has obviously done is heighten our sensitivity about that," he said.

The controversial anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website began releasing US military documents in July 2010. It dumped the entire archive of diplomatic documents in September 2011, causing huge embarrassment to Washington.

A US military tribunal's investigating officer earlier this month recommended that army private Bradley Manning be court-martialed for allegedly funneling hundreds of thousands of classified US documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning, a specialist in US intelligence systems, served in Iraq from November 2009 until his arrest the following May.

He is accused of turning over to WikiLeaks a massive trove of US military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, some 260,000 classified State Department cables, Guantanamo detainee assessments and videos of US air strikes.

The fact that an Army private could have had access to so much sensitive information has posed a challenge for the intelligence community, amid accusations that data-sharing went too far after the September 11 attacks.

At that time, the community was accused of holding back information that could have been used to prevent the strikes on New York and Washington. After 9/11, inter-agency sharing of classified data increased.

The September 11 attacks "emphasized the need to share" information, said Eric Velez-Villar, deputy assistant director of the FBI, saying that proper information-sharing "can save lives."

Clapper added: "The goal, of course, is to find that nirvana between the responsibility to share and the need for protection."

Corin Stone, an assistant director of national intelligence for policy and strategy, said, "Basically, we seek to restore confidence."

The WikiLeaks scandal has "fundamentally broken trust" in the intelligence community, Stone said. "To restore confidence, we must strengthen security in sharing information."

David Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said intelligence services are trying to manage a "tsunami of data" that forces them to ask themselves how to "process that enormous data flow."

Paul Kshemendra, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 to head the federal program on intelligence sharing, agreed that the "ocean" of data is growing.

"You need to put a signal in that ocean of noise," he said.

New AU headquarters marks strong China-Africa ties

ADDIS ABABA, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - Towering above the Ethiopian capital, cloaked in urban smog, the new Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a bold symbol of China's rapidly changing role in Africa.

Once seen as strictly interested in extracting raw resources and investing in infrastructure, China has interests on the continent that are increasingly shifting to investing in institutions and governments, experts say.

"China has always been seen as less good at dealing with regions and continental bodies," said Alex Vines, Africa director of Britain's international affairs think-tank Chatham House.

"The building of the AU secretariat offsets that in a very dramatic fashion," he added.

Construction of the 99.9 metre-tall building was wholly funded by the Chinese government at a cost of $200 million. Even the furnishings were paid for by the Asian powerhouse, and most of the construction material was imported from China.

The sleek edifice -- Addis Ababa's tallest -- will host the African Union summit which gathers African heads of state this week.

The centre is set to be inaugurated on Saturday by Jia Qinglin, chairman of China's political advisory body the People's Political Consultative Conference.

The building symbolizes China's major stake in Africa -- bilateral trade between the Asian nation and the continent reached over $120 billion in 2011, a jump from less than $20 billion a decade earlier.

Beijing's involvement in Africa dates back 60 years, when Chinese workers arrived to lay railways tracks and roads.

But there has been a surge in investment in the past 15 years. Until recently, it focused mainly on bilateral relations. The new building suggests a push to foment multilateral links.

According to Vines, it is in China's best business interest to push for stability, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring which saw a collapse of governments across North Africa.

"It's a recalibration of how China sees Africa. I think the Arab Spring, in particular Libya, wasn't anticipated by China," he told AFP from London.

It is also a strategic move on the part of the AU to look outside of Africa and Europe for partnerships.

The death of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has meant the loss of major funding for the often short-staffed pan-African bloc.

And China's investment in the AU stretches beyond the construction of the glimmering new AU building. Last December, China pledged $4.5 million to the AU's mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to fight Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents.

China is also a major contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Burundi and Sudan according to UK-based civil society group Saferworld.

China's ambassador to Ethiopia and the AU, Xie Xiaoyan, recently said his government's relationship with the AU serves as a central part of the China-Africa strategic partnership.

That partnership was formalized in 2001 with the launch of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which convenes every three years. At the last gathering in 2009, China pledged $10 billion in loans to Africa.

But China views the AU as relatively toothless, according to political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University Jean-Pierre Cabestan.

"China has very good relations with the African Union but ... it knows that the African Union is relatively powerless and finds it difficult to make decisions," he told AFP in Beijing.

Construction of the new headquarters kicked off in January 2009, and a team of up to 1,200 Chinese and Ethiopian workers laboured around the clock in two or three shifts to finish it on schedule.

The site boasts three conference centres, a helipad and office space for 700 people. A bronze statue of pan-African leader Kwame Nkrumah, former president of Ghana, is slated to be unveiled this week.

Project coordinator Fantalun Michael said the new building allows the AU to host major international events and represents Africa's modernizing image. It also signifies China's growing friendship with Africa, he said.

"It's a testimony that this relationship will continue in the future," he said.

But that bond will depend largely on diplomatic relations between China and Africa, not simply on Chinese-built infrastructure, according to Vines.

"In 10 year's time, will there be a fuzzy warm feeling that China built this building? I'm not sure. It will be more about up-to-date relationships and Chinese diplomacy in Addis," he said.

Android grabs more tablet market share: survey

WASHINGTON, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Tablet computers powered by Google's Android software are increasing their global market share but Apple's iPad still dominates the category, a research firm said Thursday.

Strategy Analytics said Android tablets increased their share of the market to 39 percent in the fourth quarter of the year from 29 percent a year earlier.

The iPad accounted for 58 percent of the tablet market in the quarter, down from 68 percent a year earlier, the Boston-based company said.

Strategy Analytics director Peter King said global tablet shipments hit a record 26.8 million units in the fourth quarter, up 150 percent from the same period a year ago.

Apple sold 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter while there were 10.5 million Android tablets shipped.

"Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter," King said.

Tablets powered by Microsoft's Windows software grabbed 1.5 percent of the tablet market in the fourth quarter, Strategy Analytics said.

"The upcoming release of Windows 8 this year cannot come quickly enough for Microsoft, so its hardware partners can start competing more effectively in the tablet space," it said.

Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston said Android is "so far proving relatively popular with tablet manufacturers despite nagging concerns about fragmentation of Android's operating system, user-interface and app store ecosystem."

Global tablet shipments hit 66.9 million units last year, up 260 percent from 18.6 million in 2010, according to Strategy Analytics.

"Consumers are increasingly buying tablets in preference to netbooks and even entry-level notebooks or desktops," it said.

Singapore PM Lee does not see children joining politics

DAVOS, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, said Thursday that he does not think that his children will enter politics.

"They will have to decide but if you ask me now I think the odds are not on it," he told the Davos meeting of business and political elite.
"It's a different generation, it's a new world, there are so many opportunities in Singapore," said Lee.

Lee, who has four children, took office as the island state's third prime minister in 2004.

His father led Singapore to political independence and economic prosperity during a 31-year run until 1990 as prime minister, and remained in cabinet under his son until last year.

Asked what it was like living under his father's shadow, Lee said: "Well, I don't know. I've never not had it. It's tough enough, but you have to live with it."

Lee said his illustrious father "had expectations, but he left me to do my own thing. He did not push me into this, and neither would it have worked had he done so."

The elder Lee announced his departure from cabinet shortly after the ruling People's Action Party polled its worst results in the 2011 elections.

The party lost an unprecedented six seats out of the 87 at stake and its share of the vote fell to an all-time low of 60 percent from nearly 67 percent in the previous election in 2006.

Google+ opens up to teenagers

SAN FRANCISCO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Google on Thursday opened up Google+ to teenagers, just days after loosening the rules about using real names on the social network.

The age limit had previously been 18, but Google vice president for product management Bradley Horowitz announced on Google+ that users could now be as young as 13.

Facebook, the world's leading social network with more than 800 million members, also has an age limit of 13.

Horowitz said Google+ is implementing several safety features aimed specifically at teens.

"With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online," he said in a post on his Google+ account. "We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression."

Google+ organizes online connections into circles such as friends and family and one of the safety features is a reminder to a teen whether they really want share a post publicly outside of their circles.

Horowitz said Google+ is also giving teen users "control over who can contact them online.

"By default, only those in teens' circles can say hello, and blocking someone is always just a click or two away," he said.

"Between strong user protections and teen-focused content, it's our hope that young adults will feel at home (and have some fun) on Google+," Horowitz said.

On Tuesday, Google+, which had been insisting that users go by their legal names, began allowing users to use nicknames or established pseudonyms such as Madonna.

"Over the next week, we'll be adding support for alternate names -- be they nicknames, birth names, or names in another script -- alongside your common name," Horowitz said.

He described the move as a "small step towards improving the ways in which you can communicate your identity on Google+."

Google+, which launched last year, has attracted more than 90 million users, Google chief executive Larry Page said last week.

Twitter able to now selectively block tweets

SAN FRANCISCO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Twitter said Thursday that it now has the ability to block tweets from appearing in a specific country if legally required to do so.

"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," Twitter said in a blog post.

"Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there," the San Francisco-based company said.

"Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content," Twitter said.

Twitter said that previously, if it was required to remove messages, it could only remove them globally.

"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world," Twitter said.

"We haven't yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld," it said.

Twitter said it would post details of any incidents involving the removal of content to ChillingEffects.org, a public database of takedown requests.

"One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user's voice," Twitter said. "We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't."

China, notably, blocks Twitter, a situation which Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey described recently as "unfortunate and disappointing."

FBI seeking social media monitoring tool

WASHINGTON, January 27, 2012 (AFP) - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking for a tool to mine social media for intelligence tips.

The US domestic law enforcement agency is asking information technology contractors about the feasibility of building a tool that would "enhance its techniques for collecting and sharing 'open source' actionable intelligence."

The January 19 open request was published on a website offering federal business opportunities and was first reported by New Scientist magazine.

The FBI said it is seeking an "open source and social media alert, mapping and analysis application solution" for its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC).

"Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations," the FBI request said.

"Intelligence analysts will often use social media to receive the first tip-off that a crisis has occurred," it said.

The FBI said the tool "must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identity, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats."

It would need to be able to "instantly search and monitor key words and strings in all 'publicly available' tweets across the Twitter site and any other 'publicly available' social networking sites/forums."

It would also need the ability to "search the data across a myriad of parameters and view terrorist activities by location, terrorist group, and type of attack and see trends and analytics."

In addition, it would have to be able "to immediately translate into English, tweets and any other open forum publically available social media captured in a foreign language."

Interested parties have until February 10 to respond to the FBI request.

China's reality lost in translation, Davos told

DAVOS, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - The West has a skewed view of China which Beijing has to fix if it wants a better reception when it goes shopping abroad, business and political leaders said at the Davos forum Thursday.

"The problem in non-Chinese public opinion is that there's a Chinese official behind every Chinese business person," said World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy.

"That's the perception -- that China is grabbing resources, that's what they are trying to do in new colonial something, that they're after technology, stealing.

"All these extremely negative views which overall translates into: this is a country that doesn't play by the rules," he added.

In addition, China is sending images of its rockets, brand-new high speed trains and its well-oiled organisation of the Olympic games to the world, giving the impression that it was fast becoming, if it is not already, as advanced as any other developed nation.

As a result, the country is getting a cool reception when it attempts to spend some of massive savings abroad on companies as local populations find it hard to believe that job losses at home are not somewhat linked to the Chinese raiders.

Chinese moves to acquire overseas assets have not always been welcomed. US automaker General Motors blocked the sale of Saab to two Chinese firms, leading to the Swedish marque's demise.

But the reality of China is far from its commonly held image, panelists at the Davos forum said.

John Zhao, chief executive officer of the private equity firm Hony Capital, noted that vast swathes of China still live below the poverty line.

In addition, Beijing is "not an active investor for the purpose of grabbing resources."

"They're simply saying 'let's make sure that those hard-earned monies don't depreciate," he said.

If Chinese companies are buying up their foreign counterparts, it is to produce goods to satisfy domestic demand that could help in rebalancing the country's current export-led economy, he said.

Zhao also pointed out that many Chinese companies were learning the rules as they go along, as "many are coming abroad for the first time to do business."

"There is a large percentage of Chinese companies, with their best efforts they just don't produce the best reports because they are still learning the rules," he said.

Robert Greifeld, Nasdaq chief executive officer, also noted that contrary to the United States, where the introduction of Sarbannes and Oxley rules were "met with general derision by the corporate class... in China, they seem to have an insatiable appetite to learn good governance standard."

However, "when you have 9 percent unemployment in the US and the goods are coming in 'made in China,' there's a common reaction we have to deal with," he said.

China needs to improve its communications with the rest of the world urgently as its ventures abroad will only grow in coming years, said Lamy.

"What remains true is that the flow of Chinese money to the rest of the world will increase whether it's private or public money or semi-public money.

"This will happen with the sort of political turbulences it will create.

"I anticipate this problem, in my view it's going to come and it's still time to try and frame in such a way that it does not degenerate," he said.

At the same time, China is not the only one with a communication problem.

"For the rest of the world, political leaders have to stop ceding to these denigrating stereotypes that are antagonising people, instead showing benefits of cooperation, this is all the more necessary in the times of tough, hard economic crisis," Lamy said.

Symantec urges users to disable pcAnywhere

WASHINGTON, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Symantec is recommending that users of its pcAnywhere software disable the product following the theft of source code from the US computer security firm.

"At this time, Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks," the Mountain View, California-based company said.

Symantec, in a technical white paper posted on the firm's website, said the vulnerability to pcAnywhere, which allows for remote PC to PC connections, is the result of a 2006 theft of source code by hackers.

"We believe that source code for the 2006-era versions of the following products was exposed: Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition; Norton Internet Security; Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack); and pcAnywhere," Symantec said.

The only identified threat, however, is to pcAnywhere and not any of the Norton products.

"With this incident pcAnywhere customers have increased risk," Symantec said. "Malicious users with access to the source code have an increased ability to identify vulnerabilities and build new exploits."

'No radiation fears' in Fukushima for Louvre works

TOKYO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - A Fukushima museum official on Thursday played down concerns in France about the possible contamination of artworks soon to be loaned to the nuclear hit region by the Louvre.

The Paris museum plans to send 24 pieces to Japan, including to Fukushima prefecture, home to the stricken nuclear plant, in a show of solidarity with the disaster-hit country.

The touring exhibition will run from April 27 to September 17 in Japan's Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, a Louvre official told a joint news conference with Japanese museum officials at the French embassy in Tokyo.

The artworks -- paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works from different eras and civilizations -- will arrive on July 28 at the Fukushima prefectural Museum of Art some 60 kilometres (37 miles) away from the tsunami-hit nuclear power plant.

Tetsuo Sakai, head of the Fukushima museum, said radiation levels inside the exhibition room averaged 0.05 microsieverts per hour -- a long way below government-mandated evacuation levels.

However, he acknowledged radiation levels outside the facility have been much higher, still hovering at around 1.0 microsievert per hour.

Museum officials are now removing a contaminated lawn as part of their efforts to reduce levels of radioactivity ahead of the exhibition, he added.

"With these efforts, radiation levels will decline further and further," Sakai told the news conference.

The show was organised as a gesture of solidarity with the Japanese, after last year's massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast of Japan, sparking the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Louvre official said.

"The proposed project is going to encourage Fukushima people, telling them, 'You are not alone'," the Fukushima museum chief said.

Taiwan set for first free trade area

TAIPEI, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou said a free trade area would be set up soon in the south, as the government begins moves to joining a trans-Pacific free trade alliance.

"In order to follow the trend of regional economic integration, the government has been pushing hard for free trade in the hope that Taiwan can join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 10 years," Ma said Wednesday while visiting southern Kaohsiung city.

Ma, who was re-elected earlier this month, was referring to a new regional trade pact within the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

He said some free trade areas -- which allow the tax-free flow of capital and goods -- had to be set up on the island before the long-term goal of joining the TPP can be reached.

"The first of such a free trade area will be established in Kaohsiung," he said in a statement released by the Presidential Office.

The TPP is currently being negotiated by the United States as well as Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

And at the November APEC summit Canada, Japan and Mexico said they were also interested in joining.

China had also said it would "earnestly study" whether to seek membership in the TPP.

Loss-making NEC to cut 10,000 jobs

TOKYO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Loss-making Japanese electronics giant NEC on Thursday announced 10,000 job cuts in its operations around the world.

In a presentation accompanying its third-quarter results it said it was projecting a loss of 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) for the financial year ending in March 2012 and would not be paying a dividend.

It said it would reduce headcount by 7,000 in Japan and 3,000 overseas.

Japan doctor jailed for buying kidney from mob

TOKYO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - A Japanese court on Wednesday jailed a doctor who paid mobsters $100,000 for a kidney for himself that had been taken from a man who reportedly owed money to an organised crime gang.

Toshinobu Horiuchi, 56, paid eight million yen ($100,000) for the organ, which he needed after his own kidney failed, Tokyo District Court heard.

Jailing the doctor for three years, judge Atsuo Wakazono said buying a kidney "severely undermined the principle of fairness" in organ transplantation.

"It was a self-centred crime committed by a physician using the power of money. There is no room for clemency," he said.

Six other people, including Horiuchi's 48-year-old wife Noriko, have also been convicted for their parts in the plot to buy the organ, which came from a 21-year-old man.

The court heard the successful transplant only came after Horiuchi's earlier failed attempt to buy a kidney for 10 million yen.

That deal fell through and he lost his cash when he and the mobster he was dealing with could not agree on terms.

Japanese law bans payment for body parts and medical guidelines permit live organ transplants only among family members.

Some 13,000 people are waiting for transplants in Japan, where only about 300 operations are conducted annually, in part due to strict regulations and because of low public awareness about the issue.

Two Megaupload accused granted bail in New Zealand

WELLINGTON, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Two of Kim Dotcom's co-accused were granted bail in New Zealand Thursday, a day after the Megaupload boss was ordered to remain behind bars pending US attempts to extradite him for copyright piracy.

Judge David McNaughton, who denied Dotcom bail after deeming the Internet tycoon a serious flight risk, said he was prepared to release co-accused Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk subject to strict conditions.

He reserved until Friday a decision on bail for Mathias Ortmann, a fourth Megaupload executive arrested last week in a raid on the sprawling "Dotcom Mansion" in Auckland.

McNaughton said Dutchman van der Kolk, Megaupload's chief programmer, was in a different position to Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz and has numerous bank accounts.

"There is no issue in Mr. van der Kolk's case of multiple identity or multiple passports, no connection to any firearms and... (no evidence) of access to any other funds," he said in a written decision.

The judge said the evidence suggested Batato, a German national, was "a man of good character" who was unlikely to attempt to flee New Zealand.

Lawyers for Dotcom, who vigorously denies any wrongdoing, have said they will appeal this week's decision to keep him in custody while US authorities seek his extradition for "massive worldwide online piracy".

The US Justice Department and FBI last week alleged Megaupload and associated sites generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners $500 million-plus by offering pirated content.

Tibetans in restive area fiercely independent: experts

BEIJING, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - Tibetans living in China's Ganzi and Aba prefectures -- rocked by violent clashes this week -- are renowned for their strong sense of identity and political activism, academics and activists said.

The rugged areas in the southwestern province of Sichuan are part of what used to be the Tibetan region of Kham, which for centuries was ruled separately from much of the neighbouring area now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Tibetans living there are famous for their sense of independence from any regime -- be it Beijing now or Lhasa before that -- and for their willingness to fight despite their strong Buddhist beliefs, experts said.

"The area has historically been restive. These are areas that have always promoted and bravely shown their sense of Tibetan identity," Stephanie Brigden, director of the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet, told AFP.

Police shot dead protesters and fired tear gas to disperse crowds in three separate incidents this week, according to rights groups, in some of the worst unrest in Tibetan-inhabited areas since huge demonstrations against Chinese rule in 2008.

Advocacy groups say at least three people were killed in two clashes in Seda and Luhuo towns, but maintain the protests were peaceful until police fired into the crowds.

The Chinese government says two died -- one in each incident -- and acknowledged police shootings only in Seda, saying they had to use lethal force against violent protesters.

The unrest comes at a time of increasing tensions in Tibetan-inhabited areas, where at least 16 people have set themselves ablaze in less than a year -- mostly in Aba prefecture -- in protest against religious repression.

Aba and Ganzi cover more than 230,000 square kilometres (88,800 square miles), an area almost the size of the United Kingdom, and experts say the vast majority of the population is Tibetan.

An estimated 54 percent of all Tibetans now live outside the TAR -- which was formally established by the ruling Communist Party in 1965 -- with many in the neighbouring provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as Gansu.

Barry Sautman, an expert on the issue from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said Kham Tibetans were renowned for being "more willing to fight than other Tibetans."

He added the remoteness of the area had made it more difficult for Chinese security forces to control.

"These are frontier areas between areas of almost complete Tibetan concentration in the Tibet Autonomous Region and areas which are completely or almost completely Han (Chinese) on the edge of the Tibetan plateau," he said.

"This has had some effect in terms of maintaining a continuity of nationalistic thought."

Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the US-based International Campaign for Tibet, said Tibetans in Ganzi had been more politically active than in most other Tibetan-inhabited areas of China.

She said they had expressed this in recent years "through demonstrations, prayer vigils, and solitary protests, in order to convey their loyalty to the Dalai Lama and their anguish" at repression.

The large number of monasteries scattered across Ganzi and Aba may also have contributed to the spate of unrest in recent years as monks -- resentful of propaganda campaigns aimed at making them renounce the Dalai Lama -- retaliate.

"If they have grievances, people in the area hear about those grievances and they -- the Kham people -- see it as their duty to protect the monks," Sautman said.

Beijing blames the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, of fomenting unrest in a bid to split Tibet from the rest of China, which the Buddhist spiritual leader denies.

It insists that Tibetans enjoy freedom of religious belief and says their lives have been made better by huge ongoing investment into Tibetan-inhabited areas.

But many Tibetans reject this, saying they suffer religious repression and government surveillance, adding their culture is gradually being eroded by an influx of Han Chinese into the areas they live in.

These tensions erupted into violence in March 2008 when deadly riots erupted in Lhasa, the capital of the TAR, and unrest spread to other Tibetan-inhabited areas including Aba and Ganzi.

Robert Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University, said the latest violence appeared to be a continuation of the 2008 unrest.

"The grievances expressed in about 150 protests then were dismissed by the authorities as the result of outside agitation or of uncivilised behaviour, and so people's concerns about Chinese policies were not listened to," he said.

US ex-diplomat pulls no punches on Japan

WASHINGTON, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - US diplomats typically are unfailingly polite and reverential towards their countries of expertise and, upon retirement, go away quietly into research or business.

Not so with Kevin Maher.

Since he was unceremoniously removed from his position last year, the veteran US diplomat on Japan has gone on the offensive with biting criticism on issues from Tokyo's political paralysis to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

To his own surprise, he has found an eager audience. A book he wrote in Japanese, "The Japan That Can't Decide," has sold more than 100,000 copies and for weeks topped the country's best-seller list for non-fiction paperbacks.

Maher's main thesis is that Japan -- which has had six new prime ministers since 2006 -- has been crippled by a failure of its politicians to accept responsibility and, hence, to make hard decisions.

Maher pointed to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was devastated by the March 11 tsunami, and dismissed the government's declaration last month that it had stabilized the leaking reactors.

"It's not stable," Maher said recently at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "Tokyo is safe, but Fukushima Daiichi is in really bad shape."

The State Department sacked Maher as its Japan desk chief just a day before the historic 9.0-magnitude earthquake but he stayed on for another month to coordinate the US disaster response.

Maher said that the US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis. He accused Japan's then prime minister, Naoto Kan, of evading responsibility and trying to pass the problem over to the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

"I remember sitting on a task force many a time thinking, 'Who the hell is in control in Japan?' The government's not doing anything. Kan made one trip and flew up and got in the way and came back," Maher said.

Maher said that he watched in horror as he saw television footage of a sole helicopter dropping water on the stricken plant.

"Is that the best Japan can do?" Maher said. "Frankly what happened is the US government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don't know what's going to happen."

Maher said that the United States was even looking at whether it would have to evacuate some 100,000 Americans, although it soon became clear that Tokyo was not in harm's way.

Maher's earlier strident critiques led to his downfall. While in office, he spoke to students about Okinawa -- home to half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan -- and accused local leaders of playing on mainland Japanese guilt to "extort" concessions. Japanese media accounts of his remarks stirred outrage.

Maher, 57, who has worked on Japan for three decades and has a Japanese wife, called the controversy "water under the bridge" and said he was making a good living as a consultant.

Nonetheless, he criticized the two officials he said were behind his dismissal -- then deputy secretary of state Jim Steinberg and Ambassador to Japan John Roos.

"They just wanted to get this out of the press and decided that the best thing was not to address whether these press reports were actually true or not but just to remove me from my position," Maher said.

Despite his criticism, Maher -- like current US officials -- sees bright spots in Japan's latest prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, who is pushing forward controversial plans to raise taxes and join talks on a US-backed trade pact.

Maher said he has received little backlash over his book. He believed he won over potentially hostile readers with a message that Japan worked well in the past and needed to return to its traditions.

"We used to have an image back in the '80s, if a Japanese corporation had a problem, you were worried that the chairman would go to commit seppuku," he said, referring to ritual suicide.

"He would take responsibility even if it was not a mistake that he made. But now it's reversed in Japan," he said.

Maher said he was surprised when he visited Okinawa to promote his book.

"There were four demonstrators. When I was consul general in Okinawa, I could always get 40."

Japan man fakes own death with brother's corpse

TOKYO, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - A Japanese man faked his own death by claiming his late brother's body was his own, police and media said Thursday.

Even while Tsukasa Oizumi's older sibling was alive, he used to use his driving licence to get around the fact that his own had been revoked for repeated traffic offences, the Mainichi daily said.

When the brother fell ill and died aged 56 in 2008 Oizumi decided to take over his identity completely.

He told authorities that the corpse was his own, and even the doctor who dealt with the brother's demise did not suspect anything, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The body was cremated, as is normal in Japan.

Oizumi, now 58, went on to claim social security benefits in his brother's name for caring for their elderly mother at home, it added.

But he turned himself in to a local welfare office last June because of "a guilty conscience," the Asahi said.

Police -- who took months to establish the truth of Oizumi's confession --  arrested him Wednesday "for allegedly disguising himself as his dead brother and registering incorrect data for official certificates", a spokesman said.

Graphic details emerge of Tibetan unrest in China

LUDING, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - A Tibetan-inhabited region of China appeared to be under lockdown Thursday after it was rocked by deadly clashes, as exile groups gave grisly details of how the unrest unfolded.

The west of Sichuan province, which has big populations of ethnic Tibetans, many of whom complain of repression, was earlier this week hit by some of the worst unrest since huge protests against Chinese rule in 2008.

Security forces fired into two separate crowds of protesters on Monday and Tuesday in the remote prefecture of Ganzi, which borders Tibet, killing at least two people and wounding several others.

By Thursday, affected areas in Ganzi appeared to be under lockdown. Phone calls would not go through, the Internet was cut off and people's movements restricted as police poured into the region, locals and advocacy groups said.

But the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), which has local and exiled contacts, was still able to glean details from sources of what happened in Seda town -- the scene of a deadly shooting on Tuesday.

The official Xinhua news agency, citing local authorities, said one "rioter" was killed and another injured and that police had to resort to lethal force after a violent mob attacked them with knives, gasoline bottles and guns.

ICT, however, had a different version of events. It said hundreds of Tibetans had gathered peacefully on the town square and that after some time, armed police fired tear gas and started shooting into the crowd.

"Tibetans were running everywhere to escape... Some couldn't run away because they were too seriously injured," the group quoted an exile source with contacts in the area as saying.

Other sources said the square was "covered in blood" with tear gas canisters scattered in the street after the shooting.

The incident came a day after police shot at a crowd of Tibetans protesting against religious repression in the nearby town of Luhuo, killing at least two and wounding more than 30, locals and rights groups said.

China's foreign ministry, however, said the Luhuo protesters were also violent. On Tuesday, spokesman Hong Lei accused "overseas secessionist groups" of trying to discredit the government by hyping accounts of what happened.

The unrest comes at a time of rising tensions in Tibetan-inhabited areas, where at least 16 people have set themselves ablaze in less than a year -- including four this month alone -- prompting an increase in security.

On Thursday, dozens of police cars and buses were seen winding their way up the snowy, mountainous road towards Luhuo and Seda from the provincial capital of Chengdu, AFP reporters witnessed.

"They had come down to Chengdu to celebrate the new year, but have to go back before the end of the holiday due to the unrest," said Zhou Ming, a driver who often takes the same route.

Zhou said he was unable to call any of his friends in the affected areas on their mobiles or on their fixed lines.

Contacts in Luhuo such as monks at Drakgo Monastery -- located just one kilometre (half a mile) away from the scene of Monday's protest -- were also unavailable on Thursday.

Calls made to 19 different hotels, restaurants, book shops, companies and shops in Luhuo were met with a rapid beeping tone, suggesting phone lines in the town may have been disabled.

In Seda, calls to 15 hotels and restaurants were also met with the same ring tone.

Advocacy groups said Tibetans were not allowed to move freely in Seda, adding the area was now completely locked down, with some sources reporting at least 40 military trucks arriving in the town.

IMF applauds Myanmar reforms, urges more, quickly

WASHINGTON, January 25, 2012 (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday published its analysis of Myanmar for the first time since 1999, applauding recent reforms but stressing the need to move further to stabilize the economy.

It said Myanmar's economy, coming out a long period of stifled activity under an autocratic military regime, would grow about 5.5 percent this fiscal year, ending in March, and 6.0 percent the next.

But it said reforming the "complex" exchange rate system is a top priority, and that will need to come with other broad adjustments and management reforms to maintain macroeconomic stability.

"The new government is facing a historic opportunity to jump-start the development process and lift living standards," the head of the IMF mission to Myanmar said in a statement.

Long a pariah in Western eyes, the country formerly call Burma has taken strides toward democracy since a nominally civilian government took over last March from a military junta year that had ruled the country for half a century.

"Myanmar has a high growth potential and could become the next economic frontier in Asia," said IMF mission chief Meral Karasulu, whose team conducted an evaluation of the economy earlier in the month.

"If it can turn its rich natural resources, young labor force, and proximity to some of the most dynamic economies in the world, into its advantage," she said.

The IMF in particular called on the authorities to step up reforms to enhance the business and investment climate, modernize the financial sector, and further liberalize trade and foreign direct investment.

It stressed the need for a sweeping change in foreign exchange and currency management as the country opens up.

It said the rapid appreciation of the kyat currency is "primarily due to large foreign inflows into the economy, which cannot find an outlet due to exchange restrictions on current international payments and transfers."

HP to make webOS software public by September

SAN FRANCISCO, January 25, 2012 (AFP) - Hewlett-Packard said Wednesday it will make its webOS mobile operating system available to the open source community by September.

HP announced in December that it was planning to make webOS open source, meaning that developers anywhere can tinker with it as they wish and it will be available for anyone to use free of charge.

The Palo Alto, California-based HP acquired the webOS software as part of its $1.2 billion purchase of Palm in 2010 but later abandoned plans to make smartphones and tablet computers using the platform.

"By contributing webOS to the open source community, HP unleashes the creativity of hardware and software developers to build a new generation of applications and devices," HP said in a statement.

The computer maker said it would make the webOS source code available under an open source license "in its entirety by September."

"This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform's development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of Web applications," said Bill Veghte, HP executive vice president and chief strategy officer.

HP also said it is releasing version 2.0 of webOS developer tool Enyo, which allows developers to write a single application that works across mobile devices and desktop Web browsers.

Citing disappointing sales, HP announced on August 18 it was discontinuing the TouchPad, a tablet computer powered by webOS, just seven weeks after it hit the market.

Google's open source Android mobile software is widely used by handset makers but it has been pounded with patent lawsuits from rivals Apple and Microsoft.

Daily Mail making run at NY Times Web crown

WASHINGTON, January 25, 2012 (AFP) - The New York Times has long been the most-visited newspaper site on the Web, but Britain's Daily Mail is making a run at its crown.

According to figures from tracking firm comScore, the Mail Online surpassed the Times in unique visitors in December -- 45.35 million for the Mail to 44.8 million for the Times.

Not so fast, said the Times.

It noted that the Mail figure includes visitors not only to the newspaper site -- dailymail.co.uk -- but also to those of an affiliated personal finance site -- thisismoney.co.uk.

ComScore said dailymail.co.uk attracted 44.5 million unique visitors in December -- slightly less than the Times's 44.8 million.
Thisismoney.co.uk drew 1.03 million.

"The New York Times remains the number one individual newspaper site worldwide," Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said.

"In any case, a quick review of our site versus the Daily Mail should indicate quite clearly that they are not in our competitive set," she said.

Rounding out comScore's top five list of most-visited newspaper websites were USA Today with 37.17 million unique visitors in December, Tribune Newspapers with 32.83 million and Britain's Guardian with 29.15 million.

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Martin Clarke, the editor of the Mail's online properties, said growth of the site has been driven by US traffic.
"We just do news that people want to read," in an "entertaining, engaging way," Clarke said.

Thousands protest across Poland against anti-piracy pact

WARSAW, January 25, 2012 (AFP) - Thousands of young Poles hit city streets across the country Wednesday in a mounting wave of off-and-online protest against a government decision to sign an international anti-online piracy accord.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which Poland's centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk has vowed to endorse, aims to create international standards for intellectual property protection.

However, Internet groups including global hacker collective Anonymous oppose it as limiting online freedoms.

Poland, an ex-communist state which joined the European Union in 2004, has committed to signing ACTA on Thursday.

A protest by thousands organised largely via Facebook in the central Polish city of Kielce on Wednesday turned violent when some protesters trashed cars and attacked police, the commercial TVN24 news channel reported.

Protesters also turned out for anti-ACTA rallies in Wroclaw, Szczecin, Olsztyn and Bialystok.

Online protest pages on Facebook have attracted more than 300,000 supporters, while an anti-ACTA online petition had drawn about 130,000 signatures by Wednesday evening.

Protesters are upset Tusk's government pushed ahead with ACTA after meetings with record companies and commercial media, but held no public consultations with online rights groups.

Thousands of people rallied in Warsaw on Tuesday and over 100 Polish websites shrouded their pages in black to protest Poland's endorsement of ACTA.

Weekend anti-ACTA cyber attacks by Anonymous and another hacker group called Polish Underground took down the official websites of Poland's president, prime minister, parliament and foreign and culture ministers.

The prime minister's website came back online Wednesday morning. Tusk's chancellery also admitted Wednesday it had deleted over 5,000 ACTA-related comments on its Facebook page and had blocked some of their authors, Poland's RMF24 news radio reported.

Social media activists on Wednesday were planning more anti-ACTA street protests for later this week.

Netflix gains subscribers, shares surge

SAN FRANCISCO, January 25, 2012 (AFP) - Netflix shares surged in after-hours trading Wednesday after the US video service announced earnings better than expected by analysts and that it gained subscribers in the fourth quarter.

The Los Gatos, California-based company posted a quarterly net profit of $41 million and earnings per share of 73 cents, well above the 55 cents per share forecast by Wall Street analysts.

Revenue rose 47 percent to $876 million, higher than the $859 million expected by analysts.

Netflix also said it had 24.4 million US subscribers at the end of December, up from 23.8 million at the end of the previous quarter.
Netflix shares were up 13.64 percent at $108 in after-hours trading.

Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings and chief financial officer David Wells said they expected a loss of between $9 million and $27 million in the current quarter due to increased international investment.

They said declining profits from the DVD-by-mail service and international and technology and development costs would likely result in a loss for the full year.

"As a result, we expect modest quarterly losses, as well as losses for the calendar year," they said.

Netfix has expanded to Britain, Canada and Latin America over the past two years, but Hastings and Wells said further international expansion was being put on hold for the time being.

"Until we achieve our goal of returning to global profitability, we do not intend to launch additional international markets," they said.

Netflix shares hit a high of $304.79 on July 13.

But the company suffered a backlash from members in September when it announced a price hike for customers who receive both its online video streaming service and its DVD-by-mail service.

In addition to raising prices, Netflix announced it would separate the two services, with the DVD rental service rechristened "Qwikster."

After customers voiced outrage and began quitting en masse, the company quickly backpedaled on the separation plan, but not the higher prices.

Davos call for global action against cybercrime

DAVOS, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - International action to snuff out cybercrime is desperately needed, officials and business leaders said here, warning that criminals move at Internet speed while countries drag their feet.

Many hackers are no longer just mischievous individuals.

Instead well-funded organisations do it for profit, along with spies and terrorists, but many governments are struggling to fight it.

"Many countries don't have laws to criminalise cyber crime, they don't have means and tools to investigate, to share information," said Yury Fedotov, who heads the United Nations office on drugs and crime.

Cybercrime is "interconnected in terms of crime, but not interconnected in collaboration" against it, he added, noting that there is not even an agreement on what constitutes cybercrime.

Fedotov said his greatest wish would be "to get a clear definition of cybercrime -- to be clear about what should be rejected by member states and what should be allowed."

"Criminals move at the speed of Internet and countries move at speed of democracy -- that's the discrepancy," warned Moises Naim, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In one of the major recent attacks in January, a hacker brought down the websites of Israel's national carrier El Al and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

It marked the latest incident in a series of attacks only days into 2012, which saw details of tens of thousands of Israeli credit cards posted online and websites defaced by hackers claiming to be from Saudi Arabia or Gaza.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas rulers, has hailed the action, describing it as "a sign of the Arab youth's creativity in inventing new forms of Arab and Islamic resistance against the Israeli occupation."

The Israeli market was not the only one subject to such attacks.

US exchange Nasdaq's general counsellor Edward Knight told delegates in Davos that the world's largest exchange company is also "subject to constant attacks, a million or more ... intrusions into our systems."

He complained that there is no clarity on "where is public responsibility and where is private responsibility" on clamping down on such crime.

Unlike real world attacks, the private sector is required to provide its own defence system, even if virtual attacks are coming from foreign governments.

Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer at the US-based Internet infrastructure provider Juniper Networks, urged state authorities to work with private organisations to clamp down on such crime.

"The challenge is that the Internet is a global resource but there are no geographic boundaries on the Internet, yet laws are established by nation states, they are establised by geography," he said.

"One recommendation is any solution... is going to require a much higher degree of public, private partnership," Johnson stressed.