Forget Episode VII, watch 'JJ Abrams Star Wars - The Musical'

Are you a late-model "Star Trek" fan with issues about your guy J.J. Abrams jumping ship in order to direct the next "Star Wars" film? Or maybe a "Star Wars" devotee filled with dread at having your favorite franchise be under the control of someone who's directed two "Star Trek" films?

If so, there's a musical for you. "JJ Abrams Star Wars -- The Musical," to be precise.

Picture Darth Vader and Abrams singing at each other on a pier. Picture Vader shaming Abrams -- well, a very poor look-alike at least -- with a line like, "So you think // you can walk right in // You who joined with the other side // You now betray every 'Star Trek' fan // You have crushed their pride." And then Abrams' rejoinder, "It is true // That I have jumped ship // I was always a Star (Trek) Wars guy // I cannot pass on this perfect chance // Let's see eye to eye."

This is YouTube silliness at its best. It's topical, it's funny (sort of), and it's camp of the highest order. What's not to love?

George Lucas and new 'Star Wars Episode VII' director J.J. Abrams.

(Credit:
Joi Ito)

Abrams, of course, was recently named the director of the "Star Wars Episode VII" after already directing 2009's "Star Trek," and the forthcoming "Star Trek Into Darkness."

Some, of course, wonder whether someone with such a "Star Trek" pedigree can switch sides.

But as our musical's fictional Abrams notes to the incredulous Vader, he will return the "Star Wars" franchise to its glory days, starting with what every real fan's obvious first step: killing off Jar Jar.

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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US Mom Missing in Turkey Took Side Trips

Sarai Sierra, the New York mother who disappeared in Turkey while on a solo trip, took several side excursions out of the country, but stayed in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Turkish media reported today that police were trying to establish why Sierra visited Amsterdam and Munich. Police were also trying to establish the identity of a man Sierra, 33, was chatting with on the Internet, according to local media.

Rachel Norman, a family friend, said the man was a group tour guide from the Netherlands and said Sierra stayed in regular touch with her family in New York.

Steven Sierra, Sarai's husband, and David Jimenez, her brother, arrived in Istanbul today to aid in the search.

The men have been in contact with officials from the U.S. consulate in the country and plan to meet with them as soon as they open on Tuesday, Norman said.

After that, she said Sierra and Jimenez would meet with Turkish officials to discuss plans and search efforts.

Family of Sarai Sierra|AP Photo

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Sarai Sierra was supposed to fly back to the United States on Jan. 22, but she never showed up for her flight home.

Her two boys, ages 11 and 9, have not been told their mother is missing.

Sierra, an avid photographer, left New York on Jan. 7. It was her first overseas trip, and she decided to go ahead after a friend had to cancel, her family said.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul.

But when it came time to pick her up from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Sierra wasn't on board her scheduled flight.

Steven Sierra called United Airlines and was told his wife had never boarded the flight home.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey, he said.

The family is suspicious and said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the Turkish National Police are involved in the investigation, WABC-TV reported.

"They've been keeping us posted, from my understanding they've been looking into hospitals and sending out word to police stations over there," Steven Sierra said. "Maybe she's, you know, locked up, so they are doing what they can."

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Anger over delay in govt's decision on new Indian state

INDIA: Protests are simmering on the streets of the Andhra Pradesh state capital, Hyderabad, in India. Anger is growing as the federal government deferred a decision on the formation of a new state.

In December, the central government had said it would decide within a month, on a proposal to form a separate Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh.

It now says more time is needed for consultations on the issue.

Congress leader Nabi Azad said: "It's not the time. But we will invite them, as I said Chief Minister and PCC President, and senior leaders of Andhra Pradesh as early as possible."

Pro-Telangana activists launched a 36-hour protest on Sunday to mount pressure on the government to concede to their demand.

A university in the state capital saw violent protests and police used tear gas to disperse the students demanding a separate state.

"The governor of the state is doing nothing. Students are protesting for a separate state but he is not doing anything," said Karate Raju, a pro-Telangana protester.

The final decision on a new state lies with the Indian parliament. But the state assembly must also pass a resolution approving its creation.

K Tarakrama Rao, a pro-Telangana leader said: "It's extremely irresponsible. It's an insult to the democratic institution called parliament. It's an insult to Telangana as well."

The call for a separate Telangana state has been going on for some 40 years.

In December 2009, the government in the centre promised that Telangana would be formed.

With a population of 40 million, the proposed state comprises of 10 of Andhra Pradesh's 23 districts, including Hyderabad, India's sixth biggest city.

Anti-Telangana people fear that if a new state is carved out, India's IT hub of Hyderabad could become Telangana's new capital.

- CNA/xq

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Meet the man who would make BlackBerry apps cool

The fate of Research in Motion rests on the success or failure of BlackBerry 10.

(Credit:
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

LAS VEGAS--Alec Saunders needed a little bait.

Soon after Saunders took over the developer relations team, he asked Research In Motion's then co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in October 2011 for 25,000 BlackBerry PlayBook
tablets. When Lazaridis asked why, Saunders said he intended to give them away.

"His jaw just dropped to the floor," Saunders told CNET. "He stood there flabbergasted."

Lazaridis ultimately agreed, and Saunders began giving PlayBooks out to developers. He followed that up by giving away more than 8,000 units of RIM's Dev Alpha devices, which ran an early version of BlackBerry 10.

Saunders knew he needed to get the long-ignored BlackBerry developer base excited again. In 48 out of the last 52 weeks, he has been on a plane circling the globe in an effort to drum up interest in every corner. Combine the mileage he and his team of nearly 100 evangelists have logged for RIM, and there would be enough to travel to the moon and back five times over, or 2.5 million miles.

"I took December off and took the time to get to know my wife," he quipped.

Saunders has embraced a concept that RIM had long ignored: that developers and a healthy app "ecosystem" can make or break an operating system. He's tried to make it more accommodating and responsive to developers. It's the touchy feely stuff RIM execs never thought was important.

"Development sentiment is crucial," he said. "Developer interest is a leading indicator of success for any platform."

There's a lot riding on BlackBerry 10, which after a series of delays is expected to be unveiled on Wednesday in New York. Having had no significant new product in more than a year, RIM needs a hit. Badly. Simply put, the BlackBerry operating system is in free fall. In the third quarter, the BlackBerry OS accounted for 5.3 percent of the market, a tick above Samsung Electronics' homegrown Bada OS (little more than a glorified experiment for the Korean handset giant), and less than half the 11 percent share it held a year ago, according to a Gartner study. In the same period,
Android's market share surged to 72.4 percent from 52.5 percent a year ago.

Now RIM has has to win back consumers who have long abandoned their BlackBerrys for iPhones and Android devices. It's planning a media blitz, complete with Super Bowl commercial. At the same time, BlackBerry has to compete against another upstart mobile operating system, Windows Phone by Microsoft, which is also seeking to be the No. 3 platform behind Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

Indeed, RIM has a long, tough road ahead of it, but credit Saunders for connecting with the developer community. When the operating system is unveiled, it will have 70,000 applications, which the company boasts is the most apps for a mobile platform at launch. Android had a little more than 50 apps at launch, but that was before the explosion of app development.

"I can't describe what (Saunders) achieved in one and a half years," CEO Thorsten Heins said in a recent interview. "I can't speak highly enough of him."

Of course, RIM will be going up against two ecosystems with an entrenched following. Apple, for instance, boasts of more than three-quarters of a million apps for iOS, while Android has more than 700,000 apps in the market. The Windows Phone Store has 125,000 apps, having doubled in size after the launch of Windows Phone 8 late last year.

Fresh start

I sat with Saunders earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show to talk about his efforts to convince skeptical developers to give BlackBerry another chance. I had arranged to meet with with him in the Rojo lounge of the Palms Place hotel, an extension of the Palms Casino Resort.

Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations.

(Credit:
RIM)

Rojo is a small, dark, and smoke-filled bar awash in red-neon accent lighting. A downed air-conditioning system meant a stiflingly hot environment, despite the windy and cold weather outside. It looked like hell, and that night, it felt like it too.

When I finally met up with Saunders and his entourage, which included a few public relations representatives and another developer evangelist, Tom Anderson, the heat in the bar forced us out to the minimalist and slate-dominated lobby for our sit-down chat.

Saunders wore a black suit jacket, button-down shirt, and blue jeans, and had just come in from a flight from Ottawa, Canada.

Saunders, a family man who leads a scout troop in his off hours, can't help but to come off as a nice, normal guy. He spoke in a calm and even tone with a slight Canadian accent. But his jovial and seemingly laid-back manner gave way to enthusiasm when talking about RIM's developer efforts.

"We're building a good head of steam behind us," he said. "Good things are happening."

Saunders had roots at RIM even before he joined the company in June 2011. He had previously worked at QNX before leaving to run his own start-up, a Web conferencing provider called iotum. QNX was eventually bought by RIM in April 2010, and its software forms the foundation for BlackBerry 10.

So it was a homecoming of sorts for Saunders when he joined RIM, right about when its market share started to collapse.

"It seemed like a good challenge to me," he said.

He made it clear he was a different sort of RIM exec. At one of his first public outings as vice president of developer relations, Saunders made the highly unusual move of posting his e-mail address while on stage at one of the company's many developer conferences.

"That was huge," said Jeremy Wall, a part-time BlackBerry developer who was in attendance at that conference and dabbled with the platform for the past decade. He, like everyone else in attendance, immediately grabbed his phone to update his contact list.

The result: a flood of e-mail that occupies a good chunk of Saunders' time. He received 14,793 e-mails -- in the last quarter alone. More recently, he's also taken to Twitter to answer questions, where he tweets under the user name @asaunders.

"My wife wasn't too happy with me," he joked during an interview with CNET shortly after that conference.

Fixing a broken system

The old RIM wasn't exactly friendly to developers. From complications signing up to fragmentation in the different versions of the BlackBerry operating system, creating an app for the platform could be a nightmare. One developer politely called it "rough," and said the company previously had the tendency to drop or ignore questions or concerns.

At the same time, iOS was beginning to generate interest from app developers. RIM executives, meanwhile, clung to the idea that e-mail and security were more important to users.

"Sometimes a good (butt)-whoopin' is what you need," said Michael Nowlin, who works for a cable set-top box manufacturing company but is an enthusiast and part-time developer known as "BlackBerry Hank."

"We're building a good head of steam behind us. Good things are happening.""
--Alec Saunders.

When Saunders joined, he knew RIM had big problems. So he made his pitch to the most loyal BlackBerry developers first before expanding to a broader audience.

Saunders laid out a model of responsiveness for which developers have expressed appreciation. When Wall, a part-time developer who also works at a manufacturer of weather stations, was setting up a local meet-up between BlackBerry developers and a RIM executive, he had hit a wall with the usual company contacts. When he e-mailed Saunders, he got a response back in 10 minutes and had an executive on his way to the meetup.

"I'll sing the praises of Alec Saunders all day for that," Wall said.

That new-found enthusiasm also attracted Nowlin, who is a relative newcomer to the BlackBerry ecosystem. He hopped on the bandwagon after seeing the kinds of tools and support available to him during a developer conference in June.

He likewise praised Saunders for his responsiveness and willingness to listen.

"He made me feel like he really cared, and he showed it," said Nowlin, a San Antonio native who works support for a set-top box manufacturer and develops BlackBerry 10 apps on the side.

The BlackBerry PlayBook wasn't exactly a hot seller.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

While relations between developers and RIM improved, it was largely moot. With the older BlackBerry platform showing its age and the company moving to an unproven next-generation operating system, developers weren't too keen to take a chance, especially with the exploding potential coming from iOS and Android.

It was Saunders' idea of the PlayBook giveaway that got developers taking a more serious looking at RIM again.

Looking back, the PlayBook was ultimately more valuable as a relationship-building tool than a product. The much-hyped tablet launched in early 2011 with a thud, with only modest sales coming after heavy discounts and several software updates. To be fair, the PlayBook continues to sell, and the company shipped 255,000 units in the last reported quarter.

Early in the giveaway, RIM wasn't terribly choosy when handing over the PlayBooks -- a move Saunders said bought a lot of goodwill. But more recently, the company raised its standards and sought out developers with a genuine interest in the platform. At the last SXSW conference, developers were pitching RIM execs with half-finished apps before they were rewarded with a PlayBook to complete their work.

"RIM has done an astonishing job of getting developers to back a company which many people have completely written off," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis.

Time and money

While both the iOS and Android platforms can boast of massive user bases, RIM could only point to the PlayBook, a few thousand developer units and some fleeting glimpses of actual BlackBerry 10 products, which have faced multiple, frustrating delays.

As a result, there are still legions of developers who still veer away from RIM, considering it a risky bet next to the larger platforms. According to a June report by market analytic firm VisionMobile, the BlackBerry platform (old and new) is "very close to becoming an endangered species," with 41 percent of developers surveyed saying they were dumping the platform.

So Saunders and his team have shifted the conversation to address two other key concerns for developers: time and money.

A peek at BlackBerry 10 software on the pre-release developer device.

(Credit:
Lynn La/CNET)

RIM promised a much easier development process with BlackBerry 10. Regardless of the code or platform, it could easily be moved over to BlackBerry.

"Bring your code, and we'll find a way to make it happen," Saunders said.

RIM evangelist Anderson said he had gotten use to getting greeted with looks of skepticism when he went to talk to developers about BlackBerry. Now, he said he can turn them around after just a few minutes by showing them the simplified process of development and porting.

Equally important was the potential monetary return on a BlackBerry app. RIM executives told developers at a conference in May that it would guarantee that an app would generate $10,000 in revenue in their first year, or the company would make up the difference. (The fine print is that the app would have to be certified and generate at least $1,000 from downloads).

RIM has argued that its platform is a deceptively lucrative place for developers -- if you exercise a little math. If you remove the top 5 percent of highest-grossing apps, then BlackBerry's platform actually generates the most revenue, Saunders said. So for little-known developers without big brands, BlackBerry may prove to be a better home, he argued.

While fairly negative on BlackBerry's prospects, the VisionMobile report did note that a BlackBerry developer made an average of nearly $4,000 a month, or 4 percent better than the next best performing platform, iOS.

"The developer community that's behind them now is organic. They built it."
--George McKinney, an independent app developer.

Beyond those factors, Saunders and his team has tried to directly talk to as many developers as possible. Since June, it has held 44 developer-focused BlackBerry Jam World Tour events and 11 Enterprise Jam events in more than 40 countries, hosting a total of nearly 10,000 developers. In addition to the launch on Wednesday, Saunders is preparing for BlackBerry Jam Europe next week.

There's little choice: These developers are essentially working on blind faith, with no actual products to work from and no proof that consumers will even buy them. Saunders and his team has had to apply a personal touch.

At least among its hardcore devotees, it's working.

"The developer community that's behind them now is organic," said George McKinney, an independent app developer based in Los Angeles. "They built it."

McKinney, who employs three people in a small development shop, primarily does work on iOS and Android apps, but said he works on BlackBerry 10 apps "because we have a lot of fun with it."

Singing a different tune

Saunders and fellow executives Chris Smith, vice president of application platform & tools, and Martyn Mallick, vice president of global alliances and business, were certainly having fun when they shot a music video set to REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You."

When it was released on YouTube, the video -- and RIM -- became the target of ridicule from the press, who called it "awful" and feared it was a desperate and awkward attempt to woo developers.

Saunders' eyes lit up when I asked him about it, and it was clearly a labor of love. He said the developers enjoyed the video, and were captivated when it aired during its conferences. He said it was an attempt to break away from the usual "stupid energy clip" that precedes speeches and demos.

"We had a lot of fun with it," he said, teasing that one more music video was in the works.

Less light-heartedly, in the past few weeks, RIM has started to contact developers through e-mails and blog posts, pushing them to step up and get their apps ready in time for the launch this week.

In a last-minute scramble, Saunders earlier this month helped run an online "Portathon" that netted the submission of 15,000 apps for BlackBerry 10 after more than a day and a half.

"Well, there you have it...Feel like I've run a marathon," Saunders tweeted after the event.

For Saunders and the rest of RIM, the marathon to get the company back on track has just begun.

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Doomed Dolphin Speaks to New York's Vibrant Wildlife

By the time New Yorkers spied a dolphin swimming through the superfund sludge of the Gowanus Canal last Friday, it was too late. The marine mammal didn't even survive long enough for a rescue plan to come together. First sighted on Friday afternoon, the dolphin perished at 6:00 p.m.

The reason the marine mammal died, and why the dolphin swam up the polluted waterway in the first place, is as yet unknown. But the sad story of the wayward creature highlights the strange nature of New York City, the global epitome of urbanity. Hidden within Gotham are native carnivores, marine mammals, and even species that have scarcely been seen before.

Marine mammals are arguably the most high-profile of New York City's wild residents and visitors. The Gowanus Canal dolphin was only the latest to venture within city limits. Just a month ago, a 60-foot-long finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) became stranded in the Rockaway Inlet of Queens. The emaciated animal died the day after it was discovered.

There seems to be no singular reason explaining why marine mammals such as the Gowanus dolphin and Queens' finback whale wander up the city's rivers or strand on beaches. Each case is unique. But not all the city's marine mammal visitors suffer terrible fates.

In 2006, a hefty manatee (Trichechus spp.) took a long jaunt from its Florida home up the East Coast, including a detour down New York's Hudson River. The sirenian survived the trip, continuing on to Cape Cod before reportedly turning back south to a destination unknown. Hopefully the manatee didn't encounter any great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on the return journey, a marine predator we know patrols the waters off New York.

Of course, New York City's whales, seals, and occasional manatee can only skirt the city along its shores and canals. You likely won't see a seal caterpillaring its way along Broadway.

Yet the city's interior also hosts a strange accumulation of wildlife, including native animals that are carving out spaces for themselves in the concrete corridors and exotic species that we have introduced to city life.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) may be the cleverest of New York City's hidden wildlife. Thanks to camera traps, and the occasional police chase through Lower Manhattan, researchers are keeping track of the wily canids and studying how they are so successfully taking up residence in many of the nation's cities. "Most small, urban parks will likely hold a pair and their offspring at most—coyotes are very territorial," said Cornell University ecologist Paul Curtis.

The secretive carnivorans bring a welcome element to urban neighborhoods—an appetite for rodents—and are experts at cracking open new niches alongside people.

Black bears (Ursus americanus) may be next. The bears have proliferated in northern New Jersey in recent years, and in 2010, a black bear came within three miles of the George Washington Bridge, a major thoroughfare between New Jersey and Manhattan. The bear obviously would have eschewed rush hour traffic and the tolls, but the local population is so bountiful that it's not unreasonable to think some enterprising bear might eventually wander into the big city.

Strangely, you may actually be more likely to run into a crocodylian predator in New York City than a black bear. New Yorkers have a nagging habit of importing—and losing-alligator—like caimans and other reptiles within the city.

In 2010, an 18-inch long caiman took refuge under a parked Datsun in Astoria, Queens. No one knows how the reptile wound up on the street, but given the trend of owners buying cute crocodylians and later dumping them, someone may have abandoned the poor little caiman.

This would hardly be the first time. In 2006, another little caiman was found in the leaf litter behind Brooklyn's Spring Creek Towers, while "Damon the Caiman" swam around a Central Park lake in the summer of 2001. These caimans are only some of the most famous—according to a New York Times report, the Brooklyn-based Animal Care and Control deals with about ten caimans each year.

Many other unusual and exotic animals have romped through New York. Under some of their most notable animal celebrities, the city's Parks and Recreation department lists guinea pigs, boa snakes, and even a tiger that escaped from a circus in 2004 and ran down Jackie Robinson Parkway before his owners were able to get him back.

The Big Apple even contains species that have never been documented before. No, not the ballyhooed "Montauk Monster"—actually a rotted raccoon—but a distinct species of leopard frog. Described early this year, the cryptic amphibian was given away by its unique mating call.

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'Barrier of Bodies' Trapped Nightclub Fire Victims

The bodies of the young college students were found piled up just inside the entrance of the Kiss nightclub, among more than 230 people who died in a cloud of toxic smoke after a blaze enveloped the crowded locale within seconds and set off a panic.

Hours later, the horrific chaos had transformed into a scene of tragic order, with row upon row of polished caskets of the dead lined up in the community gymnasium in the university city of Santa Maria. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.

As the city in southern Brazil prepared to bury the 233 people killed in the conflagration caused by a band's pyrotechnic display, an early investigation into the tragedy revealed that security guards briefly prevented partygoers from leaving through the sole exit. And the bodies later heaped inside that doorway slowed firefighters trying to get in.

"It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said police inspector Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."

Survivors and another police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video

"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.

Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble entering the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.

Police inspectors said they think the source of the blaze was a band's small pyrotechnics show. The fire broke out sometime before 3 a.m. Sunday and the fast-moving fire and toxic smoke created by burning foam sound insulation material on the ceiling engulfed the club within seconds.

Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.

Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," she said.

Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns. Many of the dead, about equally split between young men and women, were also found in the club's two bathrooms, where they fled apparently because the blinding smoke caused them to believe the doors were exits.

There were questions about the club's operating license. Police said it was in the process of being renewed, but it was not clear if it was illegal for the business to be open. A single entrance area about the size of five door spaces was used both as an entrance and an exit.

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Weird high-energy flare made by spitting black hole

GLOBS of plasma spat out by black holes can trigger the brightest flashes of light in the universe.

Gamma-ray bursts are high-energy flares that mostly originate billions of light years away, making it hard to see how they are created. In November 2011, NASA's Fermi satellite saw a gamma-ray burst coming from the galaxy 4C +71.07, which sits about 10.5 billion light years away. The galaxy was also being watched by the Very Long Baseline Array, a radio telescope network that can see small features at a distance.

The supermassive black hole at the galaxy's centre is feeding on surrounding matter, causing it to fire high-speed jets of particles. The radio array showed that, around the same time as the flare, the black hole spat out a knot of plasma that travelled up the jet at near the speed of light.

Electrons in the knot probably collided with and energised light from a slower-moving part of the jet, producing the gamma rays, says Alan Marscher of Boston University, who presented the work at a recent astronomy meeting in California. It's still a mystery, though, what made the black hole erupt.

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France destroys Mali rebel leader's house

BAMAKO: French air strikes destroyed the home of the leader of an Al-Qaeda-linked group in northern Mali as French-led forces advanced on Sunday on the Islamist stronghold of Timbuktu.

The overnight strikes in Kidal came 24 hours after French-led troops seized Gao, the most populated town in Mali's Islamist-controlled arid north, which is roughly the size of Texas. Gao is home to about 60,000 people.

"There were air raids on Islamist bases in Kidal," 1,500 kilometres (940 miles) north of the capital Bamako, a Malian security source said, adding that the home of Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) chief Iyad Ag Ghaly was destroyed.

A local official and residents gave similar accounts.

Kidal has been a bastion of Ansar Dine, whose leader Iyad Ag Ghaly is a former soldier and a Tuareg ex-rebel, who formed the group last year.

In April last year after a coup in Bamako, an alliance of Tuareg rebels seeking an independent homeland in the north joined forces with several Islamist groups, seizing Kidal first and then the northern towns of Gao and Timbuktu.

The Islamists quickly sidelined the Tuaregs, imposing a harsh version of sharia law in the region.

France launched a military offensive on January 11 after Islamists captured a central town and pushed deeper into government territory towards the capital Bamako.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the troops, having captured Gao, were advancing on Timbuktu, another key town held by Al Qaeda-linked rebels and a centre of Islamic learning for centuries.

Washington meanwhile decided to step up its role in the conflict by helping refuel French warplanes.

Washington's decision to agree to France's request for air refuelling facilities came after two weeks of deliberation. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta gave the news to his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian in a telephone conversation on Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman said.

They also discussed plans for the Americans to transport troops from African nations, including Chad and Togo, to facilitate the international effort in Mali.

The US military has an unparalleled fleet of more than 400 tankers equipped to refuel fighters and other warplanes in mid-air. France has about 14 such tankers.

French-led forces took Gao from the Al-Qaeda-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), one of the Islamist groups that for 10 months have controlled northern Mali.

France said troops from Niger and Chad "will pick up the baton" and that the mayor of Gao, Sadou Diallo, was due to return from the capital Bamako, 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) to the southwest.

"A first contingent of Malian, Chadian and Niger troops are presently in Gao to help secure it," a Malian security source told AFP Saturday by telephone from the town. They had been flown in from Niamey, capital of neighbouring Niger.

Other soldiers from Chad and Niger meanwhile were moving toward the Malian border from the Niger town of Ouallam, which lies about 100 kilometres southeast of Gao.

Mali was expected to be top of the agenda at the African Union (AU) summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa opening on Sunday.

On Saturday, West African defence chiefs meeting in Ivory Coast agreed to boost the their troop pledges for the force to 5,700 from the previous 4,500.

Chad, which neighbours Mali but is not a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) raising the force, has promised an additional 2,000 soldiers.

So far however, only a fraction of the African troops have arrived in Bamako, the Malian capital in the south of the country. French and Malian forces have done all the fighting to date.

The AU last week agreed to seek help from the United Nations with transport, medicine and field hospitals for the African-led force in Mali, or AFISMA.

France has already deployed 2,500 troops to Mali and its defence ministry says 1,900 African soldiers are on the ground there and in Niger.

Aid agencies have shown concern about the growing food crisis for civilians in the vast semi-arid north of Mali and the drought-stricken Sahel as a whole.

- AFP/xq

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The ultimate gall of a heartless iPhone thief

An object of desire?

(Credit:
CNET)

One should never expect justice in life.

The best one can hope for is poetry.

And yet, just once or twice, both manage to collide with a deliciousness that moves the soul.

Here is the tale of a teenage girl who had her iPhone stolen.

As The New York Times composes it, the girl had her
iPhone 4S ripped from her by a teenage boy in Brooklyn's notoriously difficult Prospect Park.

iPhone theft is rather popular in New York. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg recently suggested that it's responsible for an increase in crime in the city.

Anyway, the iPhone-less girl collared a couple of policemen, but the miscreant was not to be found.

However, the thief then decided that he'd try to get some money for the phone. So he met a man on a Flatbush street -- as you do.

The man asked to take a look at the phone. Perhaps he wanted to see whether Siri was still inside.

Then, he ran off with it.

Yes, this is slightly poetic. But we've only just begun.

You see, the boy thief was not very happy. After all, he'd had his recently acquired property stolen. So he went off in search of a policeman to report the crime.

I pause for your sound effects.

Thank you.

More Technically Incorrect

The police reacted with unusual efficiency. They corralled both the boy and the man who had taken Siri from him. But they still assumed the boy was the victim.

Are you ready for verse three?

The phone rang. It was the girl trying to do a deal to get her phone back. The police realized something might be amiss here. This seemed to be a miss who actually owned the phone.

So they waited for her to arrive in Flatbush. She recognized the boy's sneakers. They were pink.

I pause for your further sound effects.

The police decided it was time to play Solomon. They would slice the phone in two if one party didn't renounce their claim to the phone.

No, wait. They asked both the girl and the pink-sneakered boy to unlock the phone with the PIN code.

You're already there, aren't you? Both the actual thieves were brought to justice -- the actual kind. And the girl got her phone back.

There are several morals to this story.

One, don't steal iPhones if you're wearing pink sneakers.

Two, if someone does unto you as you have done unto someone else, take it onto the chin. It will help you understand the feelings of others.

Three, if you're the kind of New Yorker who thinks they can always get away with it, well, you can't. Not always.

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